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What’s New Faster Pussycat
Interview with Faster Pussycat guitarist Brent Muscat
By Thomas S. Orwat, Jr.
7/3/2003
Brent Muscat may be one of the most ambitious rockers ever. So far this year, he has played in three different bands, Fast er Pussycat, L.A. Guns and Suki Jones and he is also working diligently on a tell all autobiography to be titled “Babble On.” In addition, he is working on songs for the new Faster Pussycat CD and writing a weekly tour diary for Metal-Sludge. Brent truly is a non stop, extremely motivated Rock N’ Roll machine.
Brent’s began his career very early, when at the age of 18 he joined the L.A. glam/gutter band Faster Pussycat. This band consisted of Muscat on guitar with Taime Downe/vocals, Greg Steele/guitar, Eric Stacy/bass and Mark Michals/drums .The bands debut record was released in 1987 on the same day as rival L.A. bands Guns N’ Roses “Appetite for Destruction.” Soon after the album was released, Faster Pussycat embarked on major tours with Alice Cooper, Ace Frehley, David Lee Roth and Kiss. As a result of their great performances, the band won over legions of fans worldwide. They hit their peak in popularity in 1990, when their single “House of Pain,” became one of the most played singles on rock radio.
When alternative and grunge became the flavor of the day during the early to mid 90’s, Faster Pussycat’s popularity started to fade away. Upset with the lukewarm response to their 1992 release “Whipped,” the band decided to break up. Their last show was in Japan on July 6, 1993. After selling millions of records, Brent was band-less and had to pick up odd jobs such as working at a Starbucks in Hollywood, a job that he said he enjoyed. But, that did not last long. In 1998, Brent hooked up with Phil Lewis who has just left L.A. Guns. Together they formed The Liberators and toured the L.A. circuit, wrote a few songs and most importantly forged a lasting friendship. In 2000, Lewis rejoined L.A.Guns and after guitarist Mick Cripps left the gunners Lewis brought in Brent. However, Brent and L.A. Guns leader/guitarist Traci Guns had a bit of difficulty getting along, s o after only one summer tour, Brent left the band.
In 2001, Taime Downe reformed Faster Pussycat with Brent and members of Downe’s other band The Newlydeads. The reunited and reinvented Faster Pussycat received national attention when they played on Poison’s “Hollyweird Tour” during the summer of 2002. Faster Pussycat is currently headlining the Metal Sludge Xtraganza tour this summer with plans of releasing a live DVD and new CD.
On July 3, 2003 I had the opportunity to hang out with Brent. During that time he gave me an exclusive interview. What follows is part one of my two part interview with Brent Muscat, and this cat doesn’t hold anything back. You can also check out more on Brent on his site www.brentmuscat.com
Let’s get right to the point, when is Faster Pussycat going to put out a new CD?
Well, yeah. We’ve recorded five or six new songs, we want to do a new album so hopefully we’ll finish something this year and put it out in time. We also want to do a live DVD. I’m also trying to finish my book as well. So if we are lucky, we’ll have all three come out this winter.
Those are some pretty ambitious goals. What does the new Faster Pussycat material sound like? It’s it more like the older style Faster Pussycat or more like Taime’s band The Newlydeads?
Well, I think it’s a bit of both. You hear the new stuff and it’s very similar to the first album, but then at the same time it has a little bit of a new element to it. We tune down on a couple of the songs and it’s a little heavier. We use some weird sounds. The band basically now is the Newlydeads rhythm section. So, it has a little of that sound, but it has the signature Faster Pussycat sound as well.
What’s the writing process in the band like now with the new members?
Right now it’s a little weird. I’ve been really busy and we’ve toured so much that when we go home we don’t see much of each other. What’s been written for the new CD has been mostly stuff by Taime. So I’d like to get back home and add my touch to it and bring in my songs. But, we’ll see how that shapes up. It’s more difficult now with us not on a major label and we don’t have management, to get motivated when we have no deadlines or big budget.
So are you going to try to shop your new CD or DVD to a major label or do you plan on just releasing it independently?
With the CD we will most likely just make it on our own and put it out on our own and while we were doing that, shop it as well. And see what comes about. With the DVD, we are thinking of doing it on our own, but we are also talking to Cleopatra about putting it out. As far as my book, I’m actually working a little bit with a publisher and talking very seriously about this company publishing my book.
Has the footage for the DVD been shot yet or is it something that’s going to be shot in the near future?
We are trying to shot some stuff ourselves at each of these shows. It’s also going to have some old footage and interviews. It’s not only going to be live, it’s going to have a lot of other things. It will also have bonus stuff and interactive stuff too like old photos, lyrics, maybe an interview with me and Taime, links to websites, and maybe even previously unavailable tracks as well.
With all the exposure from the current tour that you’re on, have you heard from your old record label Elektra about re-issuing and re-mastering your first three CD’s?
Well, I know that the first and second CD’s are still in print. Warner Brothers also put out a "Greatest Hits" for Faster. So, I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see. I thing we are keeping the Faster Pussycat name alive and in the public eye and stuff. You know music always goes in cycles. I think Rock came back for a while, but this kind of rock may go a way for a few years again. But I think their will always be an underground following for it. We are the underground now. We are the cool, the alternative to what’s popular. But, back to our first three CD’s, I would really like to get the rights back to them and put them back out ourselves. Actually, I’m going to try to talk to someone about doing that because you now sell stuff off your website and if you do it properly you can make more money than you ever would of back in the day. People have a misconception that we’re rich or something. Back when we were selling a lot of records there were so many hands in the jar, our managers and others. So, we still have to go out and tour and make a living that way.
One of the interesting things about Faster Pussycat is that when you guys got back together in 2001, you decide to completely re-invent the band and not try to re-live the past. You had a whole new image, direction and sound. What led to this?
Well, we all played in other bands prior to reuniting Faster Pussycat. We have all evolved and we really couldn’t go back to our past. For bands that do that, it’s lame and purely nostalgia and to look the same, that’s pretty depressing. I guess it would be great if we could all look exactly the same as we did 17 years ago. It’s funny when fans come to see us 20 years later and say ‘You don’t look the same.’ I say, do you look the same as you did in 1986? It’s just funny how some people expect the rock guys to look exactly the same. It’s been 17 years, c’mon cut me some slack.
At one point this year, you were active in three different bands, Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns and Suki Jones. What did you have to eliminate in your brain in order to remember all those songs?
A lot of stupid stuff like, my favorite actor’s names and things like that, thinks I used to know but could no longer remember. I do believe that your brain throws out unimportant stuff, even though it’s in there somewhere. I‘ve forgot a lot of songs too like some of the songs that I played in L.A. Guns in 2000. So it’s pretty interesting how that all works.
You are currently working on a tell all autobiography, what is the one thing that people will find the most interesting about your first stint in L.A. Guns?
I think that when we toured in 2000, the relationship between me, Tracii and Phil was rather interesting. There was a lot of weird tension there, almost like a love hate relationship. It was stupid stuff, like high school stuff. There was a lot of jealously and it made that whole thing rather interesting.
I heard that you quit the band because Tracii wouldn’t allow you to play any solos.
That’s not necessarily true, because when I joined L.A. Guns I knew that I wasn’t going to be playing solos, I was the rhythm guitar player. But, I think that the attitude of Tracii where he was the solo guy and you can’t be in front of this and you can’t jump around and don’t do this and don’t do that. That stuff is very insecure I think. I’ve always been the type of person where if you want to do solos, go for it. If you’re not as good as me it doesn’t matter. To tell the truth, Tracii Guns is way be tter that Keith Richards, but if Keith Richards is in your band, and I’m not trying to say that I’m Keith Richards, you’re not going to tell Keith he can’t do solos. But, it was Tracii’s band and I went along with it. I talk a little about that in the book, but that’s not exactly why we didn’t get along. It was more the stupid high school type stuff that I get a lot more into in the book. But one thing Phil told me was that Tracii was jealous of mine and Phil’s relationship. Me and Phil are best friends and we hang out all the time and I think that Tracii was a little envious of that. I’m a lot younger that those guys and I kind of looked up to Phil, not saying kissed his butt, but I would say ‘Hey Phil, Let’s hang out,’ and looked at him with respect.
When you re-joined L.A. Guns in 2002 did you then play solos in the band?
Yes, which is kind of funny, because when I re-joined the band, Tracii was no longer in the band. So I was like, now I’m going to do solos and not only I’m I going to do solos but, I’m also going to get Keri Kelly in the band and we are going to trade off solos. We are going to play harmony solos. Because that’s the way L.A. Guns should be. Tracii knew that too, but he would never let that happen. I was at some point thinking that LA Guns was now better because it’s now a two guitar band like it was on the albums, it was recorded that way. My favorite band is Aerosmith and a lot of the bands I like have that dueling guitar in it. So with me and Keri it added another dimension to L.A. Guns that they only previously had on records, they now had live. I think it’s a sign of insecurity to not let somebody else shine. My theory is that if you have a band, it’s good to let everyone have their shining moment and go up and get in the spotlight every once and a while. But, like I said, I think it’s more of an insecure part that Tracii can’t allow that to happen. Not to say that he’s a bad guy, but it’s just that he’s been used to doing that. But, I’m telling you, L.A. Guns with two guitarists is the best way to go.
When you were with L.A. Guns, did you do any writing with them?
Well, the funny thing is that the song “Beautiful” was originally a Liberators song. Phil and I wrote it and somewhere down the line on some website he states that he wrote that song with me. But, when it came out on the L.A. Guns CD “Man on the Moon,” I didn’t get credit. As far as my writing part of it, it was small maybe 5%, maybe more of an arrangement thing. I’ll talk more about this in my book, but it’s little stuff like that. I mean, I’m not going to sue them over it, but c’mon.
Editor’s note: The interview was interrupted at this point by a phone call. After a few minutes Brent returned to inform me that he just received a call from L.A. Guns front man Phil Lewis. Lewis had asked Brent to rejoin L.A. Guns for their upcoming tour of Japan, which is scheduled to start in October. Brent agreed to do it.
Part two of this interview follows below.
That was my friend Phil Lewis who just called, he asked me if I wanted to tour Japan with L.A. Guns this October.
Wow, what did you tell him?
I said I would do it.
That’s great, Congratulations.
Thank you.
Is that going to interfere with any plans that you have with Faster Pussycat?
When I make commitments, I make sure that it’s not going to interfere with anything else that I may be involved in.
After Faster Pussycat broke up in 1993, you fell out of the limelight for a while. It really wasn’t until the late 90’s that you re-surfaced again, this time with Phil Lewis. What do you do in that time period?
Well, this one of the most interesting parts in the book. I went from hero to zero in a matter of a week. I had just bought a house and my life in Faster Pussycat was over. I was no longer Brent Muscat from Faster Pussycat. I was just regular old Brent Muscat. I was like, what I’m I going to do. I don’t want to lose my house, I kind of panicked for a little while. So, I ended up doing a lot of things. The first thing I did was I worked for CEMA a major record distribution company. I had to go into record stores and count records and see how many sold and if they need to be restocked. I’d go in there with a hat and my sunglasses on so no one would recognize me. One time in Hollywood, some Japanese fans recognized me and asked what I was doing, I told them, just record shopping. I also worked at Starbucks for a while. I liked that job, I fixed a lot of their machines and loved their coffee. That will be mentioned in the book too in greater detail.
On the tour that you’re currently on, MSX 2003, you seem to be constantly traveling without many breaks. Is this tour turning out to be one big test of endurance for everyone?
Yes, this tour sets a record for the most shows that we’ve done in a row. At this point it’s about 28 shows in a row, it’s going to wind up being about 30 shows in a row. We also play our own shows on the off dates. Some times they are secret shows unannounced. So yeah, it’s beating us up. I’m pretty wrecked.
How do you built up your enthusiasm to play so many shows?
Well, one night I couldn’t move on stage. I could play my guitar, but that was it, I couldn’t move. I just sat there. I was just dead. It’s hard especially with the lifestyle that we lead, with how late we stay and how much booze is flowing. I try to not drink and that stuff, as much as I can. I try to eat healthy, get some shrimp every now and then. That’s all you can really do.
Where do you do most of your sleeping, on the tour bus or in hotel rooms?
Well, we really haven’t got too many rooms on this tour. We get showers when we can get them. You do what you can.
Do you  have any interesting or unique things on your tour rider?
No, nothing unusual, some Jack Daniels, some vodka, sodas, pizza after the show. I’m sick of pizza already. I would be happy if I never had to eat pizza again for the rest of my life. I’ve actually gained weight on this tour.
On the tour you’re currently on, you have three bands who have quite the reputation for being hell raisers. So who’s causing most of the trouble so far?
Most likely me, with the diary that I’m writing for Metal-Sludge. And Pretty Boy Floyd. Some of the guys in Pretty Boy are a little younger and don’t have as much road experience as the other two bands. It shows, when guys go out on the road for the first time, second or third time they party 100% all the time. So they are properly more wrecked than I am.
In your tour diary, you said that two of the members of PBF have twelve shots of whiskey by noon.
Yeah, that’s a little excessive and that wasn’t an exaggeration. It was twelve shots of Jaegermeister I think.
Have the three bands been getting along?
Yeah, we are all buddies. I think that when you’re around everybody as long as we are while on tour, there is sometimes tension and fights. So that’s happened, but I think that the most important thing is that we all work together and finish the tour. Because there are a lot of people back in L.A. that would love to see this tour go down in flames. There are people calling the clubs and asking how many people showed up. There are people that should be managing other people, calling to see how this tour is doing because they want it to fail so badly. They should worry about getting work for their bands, but they’re so caught up in the gossip of this tour. As long as we can make our money, afford our tour busses, that’s all that matters. This tour is a good deal, you can see three bands, all who had a good career, had hits and is still current for $20.00 or less. I think it’s better than going to see someone like Kid Rock for $100.00. So I think our tour is a good deal and people are starting to catch on.
In your upcoming book, do you mention much about the early days of the LA strip?
I talk a lot about it. In the book I lay it out year after year. I read a lot of time about misconceptions about what happened and who did what. Like I always hear people talk about how Tracii Guns helped start Guns N’ Roses, the truth is that Tracii only played two shows with them. His involvement in that band was way over hyped. Guns N’ Roses was so huge by the time that L.A. Guns came out a year later, that they wanted to use Tracii involvement in Guns to help promote the band. I talk about a lot of things like that and it’s going to piss some people off. But I try to be truthful and lay the facts out.
Are you at all worried about the repercussions of being so up front?
Yeah, (laughs) I actually toned the book down a little bit.
So what record came out first? Guns “Appetite..” or the first Faster Pussycat record?
Faster Pussycat’s first album came out on the same day as Guns n’ Roses ‘Appetite for Destruction.’ We even went to England with them. Both of the records were neck and neck as far as sales. Each record got up to 300,000 each and Gun’s got a big tour that we didn’t get. 
Who did they get?
I think it was Motley Cure, it was a big tour that they got and we didn’t. They got the A tours and we got the B and c tours. Not to say that the Alice Cooper/Ace Frehley tour was bad, they just hooked up with bigger tours. They had a great album too. “Appetite for Destruction” is my favorite album. When the video for “Welcome to the Jungle” came out, the bands sales went sky high. But, we were part of that initial scene I think. When LA Guns came out they were trying to ride the coattails of Guns n’ Roses. So we were sort of in competition with them, we’ve had a rather interesting relationship with them. There was a point were Greg Steele our guitarist quit and Tracii Guns was in the band and did about a months worth of shows with us. But back in the day, we didn’t like L.A. Guns, because it was sort of like a competition and Tracii use to talk a lot of crap about us. But, since then I’ve became a big fan, once I started playing with Phil I’ve become a huge fan of L.A. Guns. In learning their set, I have a new appreciation for their music and in learning Tracii solo’s, I have a new appreciation for his skill and I think that he’s a very good guitar player.
Have you thought about how you plan to promote the book, are you going to do in-store signings?
I was actually thinking of putting out a CD with it, and having songs about the stories in the book. I have already wrote a couple songs, I was once a tour manager for Dee Dee Ramone of the Ramones a few years back and I have a song called “I Feel Like Dee Dee Ramone.” I have another song about Faster Pussycat’s former bass player Eric, called “User Delusions.” There's another one called “I Almost Died with Alice Cooper.” It’s about the time when we were on tour with him in 87 and we had a close call on an airplane, I was something to see someone like him scream out in fear. So I would like to release that and do a book tour and play clubs and maybe a few Barnes and Nobles. I was even thinking of having some of the members of Ski Jones to do it because Jazzy has a book, I’ll have a book and Stephen Alder may have his book out too. Packing something like that together would be pretty cool. Those are just some thoughts that I have right now about it. But, we’ll see, I think that when the book comes out it may close a few doors for me.
On the web: www.brentmuscat.com
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