Giuliano ‘Jools’ Gizzi nonetheless recalls Gun’s first time on Best Of The Pops. It used to be August 1989, and their debut unmarried Higher Days had charted. Younger Glaswegian upstarts in ripped denim and biker jackets, Gun had been in 7th heaven – particularly when assembly former Prince & The Revolution stars Wendy & Lisa, who had been at the display with their solo hit Pleasure. “I mentioned to Wendy: ‘Can I shake the hand that’s touched Prince?’” Jools remembers, smiling. “She mentioned: ‘Positive. You’ll be able to shake the hand that’s slapped him a couple of occasions as neatly!’”
There used to be a marginally of happenstance about this Prince-themed change, for Gun’s Higher Days had if truth be told been impressed through him. “Yeah, we’d been taking note of Prince so much,” says singer Dante Gizzi, Jools’s more youthful brother through 8 years. “The verse of Higher Days owes so much to Mountains, off his album Parade.”
“It’s completely a heavier model of that,” Jools says in settlement. “Plus we attempted to make the refrain slightly like Why Can’t This Be Love through Van Halen. Our control had drilled the significance of robust songs into us. We seemed to the most productive for inspiration.”
Prince-meets-Van Halen? Strategy to move. And if Wendy & Lisa clocked Mountains’ palpable affect on Gun’s first hit, they didn’t let on.
In the meantime, again in Glasgow, a undeniable Mrs Gizzi had advised part the neighbourhood to song in to Best Of The Pops that evening. “I believe that used to be when mum in spite of everything realised we weren’t losing our time,” says Jools.
Lately, Vintage Rock is with the Gizzi brothers at Gun HQ, particularly their very own Morsecode Studios in Hillington Park, Glasgow. With the discharge of a high quality new album, Hombres, extra of which later, they’re in a position to inform their complete tale. In 1989, Dante Gizzi used to be Gun’s teenage bassist. Lately he’s their frontman, having changed unique singer Mark Rankin for 2012’s Spoil The Silence. Gun’s tale is certainly one of heady highs and crushing lows, of hits, mega-tours and line-up adjustments. In the long run it’s the story of ways two Scots-Italian brothers realized to develop into (in large part) self-sufficient – and the way they did it the laborious means.
“We’ve were given a actually nice bond with the opposite guys within the band at the moment,” Jools stresses, “however the songwriting identification of Gun is me and Dante. We nonetheless write within the room that used to be his at our folks’ area,” he provides, pointing at his child brother. “There’s a circle of relatives historical past there that we will be able to really feel. That room’s our sanctuary.”
Jools and Dante Gizzi had been born in Glasgow’s Calton district, on the subject of mythical song venue Barrowland. Their transplanted Italian circle of relatives had emigrated from Lazio, between Rome and Naples, two generations previous, and now mum used to be a cleaner at Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary whilst dad labored at a biscuit manufacturing facility.
As a young person Jools nearly joined notorious native gang The Tongs. “I assumed I used to be gallus [Scots slang for tough, cock-sure], and stupidly I sought after to be like them,” he says. Thankfully different obsessions quickly took over. “I will nonetheless image Jools wheeling his amp to rehearsals in a Effective Fare trolley on a freezing Sunday morning in January,” says Dante. “Now that’s willpower! However he used to be slightly of a ned,” the more youthful Gizzi provides, giggling. “Jools even bullied a child in class into giving him guitar classes.”
Gun’s early promise blossomed on the tail finish of the 80s, simply after the growth that noticed file firms flock to Scotland to signal pop-rock acts corresponding to Deacon Blue, Texas and Hipsway. Thatcherism bit laborious in Glasgow’s East Finish, and unemployment and poverty had been rife. However when you labored laborious and were given that little little bit of success, it gave the impression there used to be some way out. “Ok, we had been a difficult rock band,” says Jools. “However we’d noticed our buddies Heavy Pettin’ get signed to Polydor, and Sharleen Spiteri [of Texas] used to be our singer Mark’s cousin, so we knew it may well be performed.”
Native control duo Gerry McElhone and Rab Andrews had sorted Altered Pictures and had been now dealing with Texas. Conscious in their town’s love of laborious rock, additionally they sought a heavier act so as to add to their roster. After Gun stuck their eye at a gig in Kirkintilloch, a exhibit spot on the Midas pub on Glasgow’s St Vincent Boulevard used to be duly organized. “We had been Bon Jovi-ed out of our heads,” remembers Jools, smiling. “The lengthy coats, the large hair, the scarves…”
To begin with, GR control couldn’t make their thoughts up about Gun. They might see nice attainable, however they felt the band weren’t reasonably in a position. “I consider me, Mark [Rankin] and my female friend Lesley, who’s now my spouse, went for a Chinese language after the Midas gig,” says Jools. “It used to be like: ‘Ok, almost definitely time to pack it in. We’ve spent such a lot cash on demos and PA apparatus.”
“Plus we’d had grief from my ma about getting a right kind activity,” Dante provides. However Rab Andrews wasn’t performed with Gun but, and he satisfied his trade spouse to take a punt. Certainly it used to be McElhone who invited Gun to use GR’s studio and practice session rooms for free.
“He mentioned: ‘I will no doubt get file firms as much as see you, however the songs should be proper,” remembers Jools. “So me and Mark labored as laborious as shall we. We stopped gigging and focused on songwriting. In the end there used to be a bidding struggle between Mercury, Phonogram, Polydor and A&M. We’d toughened up our symbol through that time as neatly.”
Launched on A&M in July 1989, Taking On The International, Gun’s debut album, used to be a daring remark of intent from its identify down. Jools: “Gerry mentioned: ‘That is the place the actual paintings begins – now you’re competing with the large boys’.”
But for all Gun’s obvious entrance, they obviously had a snatch at the quiet desperation of many operating magnificence other folks’s lives. Higher Days and the album’s anthemic identify observe had been hopeful songs, sure, however their lyrics mirrored harsh realities. The album’s moody black-and-white quilt, in the meantime, used to be very Glaswegian. A bleak learn about in Scottish stoicism, it depicted Jools, Dante, Mark Rankin 2nd guitarist Stephen ‘Child’ Stafford and drummer Scott Shields striding forth. “It used to be shot on the subject of an previous granary construction, and the again quilt has the cranes at the Clyde shipyards,” notes Jools. “You’re having a look at a river that 1000’s of Scottish other folks sailed on to check out and make higher lives for themselves, and that used to be us atmosphere out too.”
If Gun had been on the lookout for a display of religion, they temporarily were given one. Whilst traveling the United States in 1990, a fax got here thru from the Rolling Stones organisation. Astoundingly, they had been providing Gun a give a boost to slot at the Ecu leg in their Metal Wheels excursion, from Would possibly to August. There used to be only one snag: Gun had been dedicated to 2 presentations on the Whisky A Cross Cross in Los Angeles at the Friday and Saturday, and would wish to fly to Rotterdam on Saturday in the event that they had been to open for the Stones there on Sunday.
“The man at the United States file corporate mentioned: ‘You’ll be able to’t pull out, those dates are set in stone!” says Jools. “However in any case we did each presentations at the Friday, then hot-tailed it to Rotterdam. We were given reasonably numerous US press out if it, if truth be told. : ‘Scotch [sic] band flees LA to sign up for Stones…’”
Jet-lagged however firing on adrenalin, Gun now partook of the Stones’ rock’n’roll circus. They performed to huge enviornment audiences, and jammed Muddy Waters songs with Keith and Ronnie whilst partying into the wee small hours. After the 2 bands performed Munich’s Olympic Stadium, Dante discovered himself at the back of the velvet rope at some hip membership, him and Mick Jagger propping up the bar.
“I mentioned: ‘Mick, do you thoughts me asking why you selected our band?’ He mentioned: ‘Since you jogged my memory people once we began out.’ I mentioned: ‘Wow, that’s actually touching. Can I purchase you a pint? ‘He mentioned: ‘Don’t be foolish, Dante, it’s a loose bar!’”
Gun’s subsequent two albums – 1992’s Gallus and 1994’s Swagger – mirrored their rising self assurance. They’d already ridden out a lot of line-up adjustments, Gallus’s rip-roaring first unmarried Thieve Your Fireplace reached No.24 in the United Kingdom, and the fame endorsements saved coming. Gallus used to be right away a company favorite of Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris, and it used to be at his insistence that, in September 1992, Gun was the not going fourth act taking part in Spain’s four-date Monsters Of Rock competition along steel heavyweights Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Pantera. Gallus had depicted Scottish boxing legend Benny Lynch on its quilt, however he used to be a flyweight. Ominous? Only a tad.
“We had been no doubt slightly of a mismatch,” confirms Dante. “Folks chucked pesetas at us, bottles, you title it. Jools were given annoyed and threw his guitar stand at this man who had twatted him with a flying bocadillo [baguette-style sandwich]. Subsequent morning we’re again on the resort, and the fellow from the Spanish label used to be like: ‘Guys! Come and notice this!’ It used to be us, at the entrance quilt of [major Spanish newspaper] El País. We had been like: ‘What does the headline say?’ He is going: ‘Gun Open Fireplace On Crowd’.”
Arguably the most productive laborious rock/dance crossover since Aerosmith and Run DMC re-made Stroll This Approach, Gun’s tackle NYC funk act Cameo’s 1986 hit Phrase Up, Swagger’s first unmarried, was their largest hit, attaining No.8 in the United Kingdom in 1994. Really impressed, it gained Gun a ‘Absolute best Duvet Model’ trophy at that 12 months’s MTV Europe Tune Awards.
The band additionally filmed an X-rated promotional clip for Phrase Up – which used to be warmly won when screened on the Monsters Of Rock competition that 12 months.
“I understand that video,” says Dante. “The director is going: ‘Proper, we’re about to start out filming the X-rated model with the women, can everyone else go away the set?’ Me, Jools and Mark had been midway to the door sooner than we concept: ‘Wait a fucking minute! We’re paying for this. We’re going to stick right here and revel in it!’”
By means of now it seemed as even though Gun actually may take at the international. But it surely used to be to not be. The result of an ill-fated collaboration with INXS’s Andrew Farriss, who produced it, Gun’s 1997 album 0141 632 6326 noticed the band fall aside. Jools used to be so upset with the file’s loss of balls that he flat-out refused to put it up for sale. And is the reason why its quilt featured a solo shot of Mark Rankin somewhat than a band shot.
Gun had lengthy liked INXS albums corresponding to Concentrate Like Thieves and Kick, and at the again of Phrase Up a funkier – however, crucially, nonetheless heavy – route gave the look of an excellent concept. However they simply didn’t gel with Farriss – “a unusual cookie” summarises Dante, pronouncing he gave the impression aloof and had his personal time table. The exorbitant invoice they had been running-up at Hook Finish, a residential studio in a Sixteenth-century Elizabethan Manor in Oxfordshire, didn’t lend a hand, both.
“We was actually depressed,” says Jools. “So we break up up from Mark, and we ended up going again to Glasgow to open an Italian eating place with our brother Marco and our sister Carmine,” provides Dante.“It used to be laborious paintings, however it helped us get away the insanity.”
The brothers by no means stopped writing songs. Quickly the eating place years gave solution to El Presidente, a short-lived glam-rock act fronted through Dante, that signed to Sony. The Gizzi brothers didn’t understand it on the time, however this used to be highest coaching for Gun’s inevitable comeback, now with Dante as their singer. In the meanwhile, they’d performed a lot of charity gigs with former Little Angels singer Toby Jepson fronting the band, however the chemistry used to be by no means reasonably proper. When Gun returned with 2012’s aptly-titled Spoil The Silence, they had been older and wiser. Jools and Dante’s folks had kicked the bucket inside months of one another some years previous, mum to a unexpected center assault, dad to most cancers. Now Gun could be extra of a circle of relatives affair, brothers in fingers.
After 2015’s Frantic and 2017’s much-lauded Favorite Pleasures, the pandemic years had been checking out occasions, too. “I be afflicted by nervousness anyway,” says Jools, “so lockdown used to be even worse. Me and Dante met each day to check out and write, however it simply wasn’t taking place.” When the arena spread out once more, Gun’s path again used to be 2022’s The Calton Songs, an homage to their Glasgow birthplace, and a well timed acoustic re-working in their biggest hits.
In the long run, even though, this used to be however a get dressed practice session for the intense new Gun album Hombres. Bedding down someplace between 80s technology Billy Idol, The Cult and Primal Scream circa their unmarried Rocks, Hombres reveals Jools and Dante’s amped-up pop nous reigning best throughout stand-out tracks corresponding to Take Me Again House, Falling and All Fired Up. Backing vocalists Beverley Skeete, Sarah-Jane Skeete and Mary Pierce – who between them have labored with Chaka Khan, Tom Jones and Robbie Williams – upload some soul and gospel-flavoured firepower.
“This file actually stored us,” summarises Jools. “It’s Gun in its greatest shape.”
With a lot of songs from Hombres already positioned within the upcoming Samuel L Jackson movie Broken, the Gizzis have the bit between their tooth. With younger guitar participant Ru Moy now on board along Jools, the brand new lineup – finished through bassist Andy Carr and drummer Paul McManus – performed to a packed and exultant Barrowland simply days sooner than they spoke to Vintage Rock.
“Ru’s handiest twenty-eight”, says Jools. “He’s into Rob Zombie and Blink 182.”
“At Barrowlands I saved having a look over at him and he used to be levitating!” provides Dante.
“Afterwards we had been like: ‘What do you assume, then? You in?’ Ru is going: ‘In fact. What a silly query!” smiles Jools. “I assumed [takes a deep breath]: ‘Ok, nice! Right here we move once more…’”
Hombres is out now by the use of Cooking Vinyl.
