After twenty months of non paid musical-furlough Scottish rockers GUN are finally back in their natural habitat, on stage. Gun has had to overcome a few massive hurdles just to get the band ready and here for their Stonedead festival early evening performance. Originalrock’s Guy Shankland sat down with Dante Gizzi and Giuliano ‘Jools’ Gizzi backstage at the Stonedead Festival in Newark for warts ‘n all catch up including…The last eighteen months, new albums, future plans, the record industry circa 2021 and the best/worst festival memories. Open, honest and always entertaining ladies gentlemen Gun.
OR. It’s thirty-two years since ‘Taking On The World’ was released, so now, how does 2021 find Gun?
Dante Gizzi. “(laughing) Aged! I mean, it’s a fantastic career, but the last year and a half have been a bit of a sickener. Not just us, but for everybody in this industry and all industries within the arts. It feels like there’s a ray of light by being able to do this again, and it’s a great feeling, and we’re really looking forward to playing the festival today.”
Jools Gizzi. “Everything that Dante said. Just to be playing a show after all this time and we’ve good reports about here (Stonedead), so really looking forward to it.”
OR. “Is this your first gig back then?
JG. ‘First gig for eighteen, no twenty months there’s a bit of nerves in there somewhere.”
OR. So loads of practising then?
DG. “That’s the thing, Guy, in the last few days, we found out our drummer has suspected Covid. So he’s not with us, and we’ve had to get a young guy who’s been working around the studio, and he can play the drums; he’s a fantastic drummer. He’s only nineteen, so we’ve been doing some intense rehearsals with him. And you know what, it’s been going great. I think he’s managed to capture, within a twenty-four hour period, the essence of the songs. It’s also more of a case that we just wanted to get back out there and play. We knew there was a lot of carry on with this festival with bands not pulling out but just unable to do it and The Treatment (had to pull out) today as well. I just thought by hook or by crook we are playing this festival! And more to do with the fact that WE need to play this festival, for us and for the fans as well.”
JG. “Plus, our bass players wife took ill with appendicitis, so he couldn’t rehearse! Talk about being up against it.”
DG. “I played bass in rehearsal, but the first time Andy (Carr) will have played with the new drummer will be on stage at a festival…It’ll be fun.”
OR. How do you see the record industry in 2021 because you’ve been there for big record contracts to small record contracts to someone saying I’m going to give your music away for free?
DG. “We feel so lucky to have come out at the time when you were signing record deals for like a five-album contract. That’s what it was, and bands don’t get that opportunity now unless you’ve got a good social media.”
JG. “I just think now it’s so difficult for bands now. Yes, there are more avenues for more people to hear your music with all the Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, but it’s just not as healthy when it comes to selling proper vinyl, CDs and stuff like that. I just think there was more money involved then. If a record company got behind a band, they really promote and spend the money, make a good video for MTV. It’s just so difficult now, and to be honest, I wouldn’t like to be a band trying to get a deal now. I don’t mean (pausing)…Good luck to them, every band in getting a deal.”
OR. Not just in the last eighteen months, but have you seen a shift towards live shows, merch and selling to the fans direct?
DG. “You have to do that. That’s probably the only helpful technique with being online and social media; you can do more merch and let people hear the music. The thing is not only with the whole streaming thing and people listening to your music. The only thing that was guaranteed to make some living was playing live, and that was taken away from us. As I said, Guy, it’s not just us. Everybody’s been involved in the situation and it’s tough. Hopefully, we’re seeing the end and ray of light there.”
OR. A hundred fifty thousand Youtube hits won’t fix the clutch on the van.
JG. “Exactly! Or a million plays on Spotify; they just stream your music, the fuckers, but that what it is and where we are. We all knew this was coming, and we thought labels would have been smart enough to be able to deal with this. Touring isn’t any cheaper it still costs big money to tour.”
DG. “And with Brexit as well, let’s not get started on that. Trying to get abroad to Europe….(shaking his head)”
JG. “I remember years ago, like back in the day. I was called a corporate whore because I was talking about what it cost to tour and what a band should, and here and now we know how it goes.”
OR. What do the next twelve months hold in store for GUN?
DG. “During the pandemic, we were struggling a wee bit writing new material just not knowing whether it was going to get released and some point and when. So we tried to turn that into a positive, so we started working on our old back catalogue and doing it acoustically. As we progressed with it we found we got so into it, it was something we got our hands on and we just really enjoyed it. It was such good fun. Obviously, I’m not the original singer, so I was panicking about being compared to, in that sense. I’ve been singing these songs for eleven years, alot longer than Mark (Rankin) ever sung, and I sang most of the demo’s so I should be alright doing this. So that album is in the mixing stages and we hope to release it at end of October November time.”
OR. So will there be an acoustic tour?
JG. “No, I think we’ll do a proper full-band tour but then again we might bring the acoustics out for one or two of the songs and see what works.”
OR. Maybe an in-store?
JG. “Well, these are the things we can do. It’s like Dante said when we were writing the new album because of the pandemic, we were so down. How can we promote how can we do in-stores or anything like so we thought the next best thing was to bring out this acoustic record.”
OR. You’re going to have a great time out there today, a big crowd, alot of people were here last night, so everyone’s in early. But can you tell me your worst festival experience because every band has got (at least) one?
JG. ‘We played, what was that one with Roxette?
DG. “Ohh (laughing) Midvins? In Denmark.
OR. There it is!
DG. “It was a huge, massive festival, it wasn’t a bad festival it just was for him (looking at Jools) for a period of time. Basically, we looked at the list of the band times and stuff and saw the lineup. Roxette ten o clock…Gun eleven O clock…We thought F… Somethings funny here something fishy and was like why is that. There’s only two or three stages, so Roxette finished and there were twenty thousand people. He was panicking going everyone’s going to disappear. Sure enough, there was about two people left Guy. He’s going “I knew it, I knew it that’s it where’s the Jack Daniels’ and he’s getting steaming drunk. Then there are ten people and a gathering by the second song there was about eight thousand and the fourth song there’s twenty thousand but he’s gone, steaming. I was going at him, you and all your stupid carry on! I looked over and he was doing step up’s playing the guitar just elated that there was twenty thousand people there. What had happened was they’d all been to see another band and then came back because the timing was delayed.”
OR that sounds like both the best and the worst.
JG “No the worst was Iron Maiden (Dante ‘Oh God…) we played a Monsters Of Rock in Spain.”
DG. ‘It was all bullrings that we played and that was bad, we got shafted on that one.”
JG. “Iron Maiden, Pantera, Megadeth and Gun! The only reason we were on it was Steve Harris was like, we want you to do it. He was a massive fan.”
DG. “We were quite popular in Spain at the time so it helped sell tickets and stuff like that.”
JG. ‘We got pelted it was like everything I ever hated (imitates the crowd and pulls an angry face while giving the finger), there was Gun fans there. So I just got my guitar stand and threw it in the crowd.”
DG. “You know the big Spanish newspaper, EL Pais. He’s on the front cover of EL Pais with the headline “Gun insult crowd” Dave Mustaine was so upset, “why the fuck are they getting all the press!” (both laughing).
And that’s that Jenny D the Stonedead press guru gives me a third and final wind it up sign and they’re off. Gun kicked out a blinding set that afternoon playing a mainly best off festival-friendly show. Anyone over a certain age will probably know way more Gun songs than just ‘Word Up’ and although the Cameo cover is well-received its cuts like ‘Shame On You’, ‘Money’ and ‘Better Days’ which all invoke the biggest and loudest crowd reaction.
**GUN have had to re-schedule their Autumn tour due to the band all getting Covid**.
For the updated dates, Merch and all the latest Gun news head over to
https://www.gunofficial.co.uk/
All photos were lifted from the Gun Facebook page.