Reloaded Gun Club Takes Aim Again

Sitting at the coffee table at his mother’s West Hollywood apartment, Jeffrey Lee Pierce keeps jumping up to change records. Sly & the Family Stone’s “You Can Make It If You Try,” Iggy & the Stooges’ “Raw Power,” falsetto maestro Donnie Elbert doing Diana Ross’ thing, the Ikettes doing the best Motown imitation, Jerry Butler, Buster Brown. . . .

He finally settles back to relax and enjoy the wax as Abbey Lincoln’s “The Blues Album” plays softly in the background.

Yes, the vocalist/guitarist who founded mutant swamp/blues/country/soul/punk/rock group the Gun Club right here in Los Angeles about eight years back is eclectic. At least that’s what all his press clippings say. They also invariably mention that, like Jerry Lewis, the man is a god in France.

Suppressing a giggle, Pierce says, “That’s not true. They hate me in France now. ‘Cause I didn’t die. When I was drinking and taking all these drugs and doing really terrible shows, they thought I was great. But I didn’t die, so that makes me a poseur. Pretentious. So now they don’t like me anymore.”

Gun Club guitarist Kid Congo Powers, currently on his second tour of duty with the group, interrupts. “Pretentious? He’s from El Monte and I’m from La Puente. How pretentious could we get?”

After the laughter, Pierce turns serious again. “If you listen to that song ‘Yellow Eyes’ on our new album (“Mother Juno,” an import on England’s Red Rhino label), you’ll hear a slow soul groove like these guys that used to practice in a garage down the street from me in Inglewood used to play. Me and (Circle Jerks leader) Keith Morris would hear ‘em just playing this one riff over and over for hours. We’d go to the liquor store, come back, and they’d still be playing it!”

“That’s what’s funny,” adds Powers. “Jeffrey’s been living in London for the last three years and I’ve been living in London and now Berlin, but when we make a record, we’re still thinking of Inglewood.

“The main reason we’re living in Europe is that there’s room to be a band our size and be successful. You can play to 1,500 people a night and make money.”

“Here in the States,” Pierce observes, “you’re either way underground or you’re getting played on college radio--which is still real specialized--or you’re Whitesnake. You can just knock yourself out with a lot of senseless touring, playing everything from the Drumstick in Nebraska to pizza parlors in Indianapolis, trying to promote your record. And we did. For two years.

“But all we got out of it was sick of playing the same songs. Talk about your zombie rock. That was us. All the thrill of watching real half-dead people.

“We’d be so bored, tired, drunk or whatever, half the time we didn’t even know what country we were in. After a while, we didn’t care and the shows got really sloppy--falling down, breaking things, being really obnoxious. That’s why I don’t do half that stuff I used to do on stage anymore. Besides, my girlfriend would punch me out!”

The way Pierce tells it, this combination of boredom and road-weariness caused the Gun Club to disband in ’84. Powers went on to tour behind noted Australian roots-rock twister Nick Cave (a gig he continues to hold) and cut a solo EP. Bassist Patricia Morrison joined forces with British doomster Andrew Eldritch to form the revised Sisters of Mercy, who are a big pop act in England nowadays. Pierce kept busy with a solo album and an EP before deciding to put the Gun Club back together again.

Once Powers had been re-enlisted and a new rhythm section (young English drummer Nick Sanderson and Japanese bassist Romi Mori) recruited, Pierce promptly hustled a record deal and the band went off to Germany for the 14 days it took to cut their latest LP.

Produced by Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins fame, the new Gun Club album contains, in Pierce’s words, “a lot of parts of everything we’ve done before--ballads, Stooges-type stuff, folk-rock, a lot of blues--all the songs are really different from each other. There’s no one overriding influence this time.

“The other thing that’s different,” Pierce continues, “is that it’s much more musical. I mean, we now have a rhythm section where the bassist actually plays with the drummer! Romi added a lot of counter melodies that I didn’t think of. She’s really good.”

“She’s a real musician,” Powers snickers. “At least to the point that she used to run around the studio and tune us all the time.”

Live, the band will doubtless try to replicate the record’s multi-layered textures through sheer, ear-splitting volume. The Gun Club plays its homecoming shows this week: Thursday at the Bacchanal in San Diego, Friday at the Variety Arts Center and Saturday at Night Moves.

Summarizes Pierce: “If we’ve learned anything over the last eight years--besides how to play our instruments--it’s been to work with people that we trust. That and not to overindulge. Musically or chemically.”

Powers manages a dry chuckle. “Managers, agents, record deals, we’ve seen it all happen. If anyone comes to me for advice, I tell ‘em ‘Do it!’ That’s all we did. We just held our noses and jumped in.”