On the road or stage, a band has a bond like a family, and will defend its unity and purpose. The last song on the Brides of Destruction's debut CD, "Here Comes The Brides," called "Natural Born Killers" is about that bond. Band members are natural born musicians but when threatened, the struggle to survive as one comes through.
"You have to be willing to kill for each other," said guitarist Tracii Guns. "It's like your own little police force."
It's a bond between heavy metal fans as well.
"When you play aggressive music, you get aggressive people," Guns said.
It's that atmosphere that breeds songs like "I Don't Care," "I Got a Gun," and "Shut the F**k Up." The music is not of the Donny and Marie genre. But putting a label on it as heavy metal, punk or hard rock isn't easy either, Guns said. Their music features heavy riffs and poppy chords.
"We kind of sound like who we sound like. We're as much country as we are punk," Guns said.
"Here Comes the Brides" is the debut CD of a band that fell together in 2002 with no musical genre in mind. Led by Nikki Sixx and Tracii Guns, both noted musicians in the head-banging world, the singer London LeGrand entered the scene with shock appeal and drummer Scot Coogan relied on experience. Sixx was a founder of Motley Crue and Guns was a founder of Guns n' Roses and later a front runner in LA Guns, and Coogan did stints with Pete Yorn, Otep and Sinead O'Connor. LeGrand was the only no-name, who showed up for the band's first performance with his body painted like a decaying, dead tree adorned with angel wings and barbed wire. The Los Angeles rock world didn't think anything of it, but Sixx and Guns were a little worried at that first show. Now Guns laughs about it.
"He had his body painted like a tree, we were concerned," but after LeGrand started singing, "he shocked us," said Guns.
Chipster promotions took on the band, following a road less traveled with the Brides.
"Nikki and Tracy put it together," said Bret Adams of Chipster. "It's kind of an aggressive, punk sound."
On the "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," the Brides jammed with a toned down version of "Shut the F**k Up."
"They played sort of revised version on the Leno show," Adams said.
Sixx writes all the songs, drawing from his own experiences. Although the music sounds violent and death-like, it's not insisted Guns.
"Adults and rock stars live R or X rated lives," said Guns, "A lot of it is saying 'no' to authority."
Both Sixx and Guns were members of touring rock bands in which being slightly left of the law was the norm.
"We spent a lot of time running from authority," Guns said.