Band Members Are in the Chips in Las Vegas : Rock ‘n’ roll: Performers in Slaughter live in a fast city, have enjoyed fast success--and eat a lot of fast food.

Mark Slaughter just bought a house in Las Vegas. So did the three other members of his hard rock band, Slaughter.

All four homes are near one another. But being neighbors was not their only priority; a Taco Bell nearby was crucial.

“That’s the place where we eat,” said Slaughter. “All four of us live in Las Vegas, and we all bought houses within a mile of each other, and the big thing was that a Taco Bell was in the neighborhood.

“It’s amazing that four men could get so excited about something so simple as a Taco Bell being put in their neighborhood.”

If mere fast food makes the singer so happy, imagine what he thinks of the success of his band’s debut album, “Stick It To Ya.”

It has sold nearly 2 million copies, and videos for the anthem “Up All Night” and the ballad “Fly to the Angels” have consistently been on MTV’s most requested list.

Neither he nor bassist Dana Strum, who co-write the group’s songs, has let any of this go to their heads. They share a favorite saying that keeps them humble. “We sit on the same throne as everybody else,” Slaughter said. “There’s no bathrooms that say ‘men,’ ‘women,’ ‘successful men,’ ‘successful women.’ It’s the same thing.”

Despite their similar modes of thought, the two bandmates are “two distinctly different animals,” Strum said. Strum is more aggressive and upfront; Slaughter somewhat shy and reserved. But Strum thinks their distinct personalities are an asset.

“He (Slaughter) came from Las Vegas. I came from a lot of corruption,” Strum said. “It all kind of gelled pretty well because he doesn’t really enjoy the corrupt side of it, and I thrive on it.

“He’s definitely not toned me down at all, and I definitely try to jump him up, but I don’t try to do it in ways that I think would change him. There’s those that are daring and adventurous, and I for sure would be more for the daring and adventurous than for the tame and timid.”

Also in the band are guitarist Tim Kelly and drummer Blas Elias.

The group has just released a live album, “Stick It Live,” but, ironically, they had not even performed live as a unit before recording their debut album.

Their first gig was in front of 10,000 people last May 4 in Lubbock, Tex., as an opening act for Kiss. After the show, the band was awarded a gold record, signifying 500,000 copies sold for the first album. Some debut.

“We couldn’t play clubs because it would (have) cost too much money. . . . We never played live together, only in the studio,” Slaughter said, so the first show “was kind of a double whammy for us.”

Slaughter said the band released the live album to prove they could duplicate their sound onstage, because some people had doubted their ability to do so.

“We just did it for the fans and for people to hear that it is a legitimate rock ‘n’ roll band,” Slaughter said.

The group canceled its Europe tour recently after receiving bomb threats in Germany.

The four got together when Slaughter and Strum left the Vinnie Vincent Invasion to strike out on their own. The band wasn’t idle for long.

“We just threw it together in about 2 1/2 weeks,” Slaughter said of their debut album. “I wrote all the lyrics in the studio. I’d say it took about an hour a song to write the lyrics, sometimes less than that.

“When we did it, we wanted to keep it real spontaneous. (We wanted) something that felt good, like when you’d go to a party, you’d want to turn it on, or you’d want to have a good time to it, like the records that we like.”