Bulletboys emerged from Los Angeles, California as part of the last wave of hair metal, which
occurred in the late 1980’s to early 90’s.
Although they’d show promise during this time, their success would be brief, while
continued bad blood and an ill-fated reunion would cause the original lineup to implode.
Today, let’s explore the history of Bulletboys.
In 1987, Bulletboys would materialize when several members of the band King Kobra, a
splinter outfit of drummer Carmine Apeace, opted for a fresh start.
Mick Sweda, who’d put together Bulletboys as their lead guitarist, discussed the state
of King Kobra at the time, telling the publication Full In Bloom,
“The band was kind of in trouble and trying to keep its head above the water, and Carmine
was willing to do anything to secure some kind of deal and keep it going.
He ended up getting in touch with Gene …and we ended up recording some songs that he and
Paul had written.”
“At the time, he was planning on signing us to Simmons Records, nothing really came
of that, so I’d form the band shortly after that.”
Alongside Sweda came frontman Marq Torien, second guitarist David Michael-Phillips, and
bassist Lonnie Vencent.
David would be the first to leave this new configuration.
Meanwhile, the three members proceeded to play several shows with a temporary drummer,
but the group would keep Torien’s long-time friend Jimmy D’Anda in mind, after he impressed
them during a rendition of the song Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin.
Once the drummer’s seat was vacant again, Torien encouraged D’Anda to audition.
Initially, D’Anda would express having reservations, as he was committed to his own band Nasty
Habit, telling Vinyl Writer Music: “Honestly, I didn’t wanna, because I thought
I had [something].
[My idea] ended up being what Rage Against the Machine was.
“ “When I listened to [their first album],
I was like, “Holy shit!
This is kinda what I had!”
You know, big guitar, but a guy who raps and has a scream.
I was like, “Oh my God.”
But of course, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that thought of putting that peanut butter
and jelly together.
That’s why I hesitated to join BulletBoys because I thought I had a really good idea.”
But after D’Anda’s hesitance caused bassist Lonnie Vencent to storm out of the room, the
band’s manager, Dave Kaplan, ultimately convinced him to join, with D’Anda recalling,
“I remember I walked outside.
The manager had already talked to Lonnie, and then he pulled me aside and said, “Jimmy,
can I talk to you for a few minutes?”
I said, “Sure.”
And after we talked, he goes, “How would you like to have free drums and free cymbals?”
I go, “I would love that.”
He said, “Join the band, you’ll get ‘em.”
And I go, “I’m in.”
That’s how simple I was,” he’d say.
As fate would have it, D’Anda would be the right fit for the Bulletboys, since they’d
play only about a handful of shows before commanding the attention of major labels.
But they’d be especially lucky, considering that most of their energy went toward rehearsing
and songwriting rather than playing gigs.
The band eventually settled on Warner Brothers, and were signed to the label in 1988 by Ted
Templeman, who’d also step in as their producer.
Guitarist Mick Sweda would recall the experience of when they got signed, while also elaborating
on their circumstances, saying, “I remember our manager bringing out the
advance check, looking at it, taking pictures with it and everything.”
“You have to understand that when we started this band, none of us had jobs; we didn’t
have any money coming in.
In fact, I was driving, picking up Lonnie in my old 65 mustang and maxing out a gas
card that I had no idea how I was gonna pay off.
We’d just…spend 6, 8, 10 hours a day rehearsing and writing songs.”
Sweda would go on to mention that despite their advance being six figures, each member
couldn’t really afford to spend any money outside of the band, adding,
“At that point, I had enough to buy a little Nissan pickup truck, but you have to [stash]
a lot of that money away just to keep things going.
We were given pretty meager salaries, and it wasn’t a ‘go-out-and by-your-mom-a-house’
kind of moment,” The same year, Bulletboys headed to One To
One studios in Hollywood, and spent two months recording their self-titled debut album.
Ted Templeman, who would be best known for his production work with Van Halen would produce
One of the album’s highlights would be a cover of the O’ Jays song “For the Love
Of Money,” and Sweda would note Templeman’s intuition, recalling to SleazeRoxx,
“I made a demo of it and had it laying around.
I could never get Marq to come and sing on it.
For whatever reason, he was too busy or he was doing something else at the time.
So, that demo just sat on my 4-track and when we were recording the first record, Ted pulled
me aside and said, “Mick do you have any other songs?
We need to maximize our efforts here.”
I pulled out this cassette.
So I’m scanning through the demos and then, that song comes up, I tried to hit the pause
button!”
“I wasn’t quick enough and Ted says, “Whoa!
Whoa, wait!
What is that?”
So I explained it was “For The Love Of Money.
I thought that Marq would blow that out of the water, but I didn’t think the guys wanted
to do covers.
Ted immediately replied, “We’re going to do that tonight,”
Even with the general camaraderie in the studio, there was some contention with Templeman’s
involvement at the time, with Sweda recalling, “Ted was often absent from the studio, and
as a superstar producer, he had other priorities, so if he didn’t feel like coming in for
a week, then he didn’t have to, but [because of that], [the album] ended up being way more
expensive than it needed to be, and kind of put us behind the eight ball before we started.”
Despite Bulletboys’ financial setback, their self-titled debut album was released on September
20th, 1988, to critical acclaim, and things would continue to look up.
By December, the band opened for Cheap Trick, and the album produced a moderate hit with
“Smooth Up In Ya.”
The next year, their cover of the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” would be released
as the follow-up single, and they’d land an opening slot for Cinderella on their Long
Cold Winter tour.
Both singles would chart decently on the US Mainstream Rock Chart, and they’d receive
regular rotation on MTV, where the band would perform both songs on one of the network’s
live call-in shows called Mouth To Mouth.
Eventually, the album would peak at #34 on the Billboard Hot 200 Chart, and achieve gold
status, signifying that 500 thousand copies were sold in America.
By 1990, the Bulletboys completed their touring cycle for their first album, and began working
on their sophomore album, Freakshow.
At this point the band opted for a blues-oriented sound, and D’Anda would recall this period
as being more hands-on, saying, “It was really all of us, and it was nice,
because it really felt like I was collaborating with Mick and Lonnie at different times, and
then we all got together in a room.”
Conversely, the long time spent touring took its toll on Marq Torien, who’d begun losing
his singing voice, and was largely absent from these writing sessions.
On top of having surgery to remove nodules from his throat, he’d also be in rehab for
drug addiction, and would contribute vocals on his own time, once he was better.
Freakshow was released on March 12th, 1991.
Of the three singles released for the album, two of them would be covers, with Bulletboys’
rendition of “Hang On St. Christopher” by Tom Waits peaking as high as number 22
on the US Mainstream Rock chart.
From there, the band embarked on another national tour, including various club and theater shows,
including the New York punk club CBGB’s.
By the end of the tour in late August, though, the album would only reach number 69 on the
Billboard Hot 200 chart, and was both a critical and commercial failure.
Their follow up album Za-Za, released in 1993, wouldn’t fare any better, despite having
a sound more in line with alternative rock.
In fact, it’d be their last album on Warner Bros. Mick Sweda would recall the moment that
made him snap, telling Full In Bloom, “We did a show in Dallas, and I remember
that he was late…as usual.
When he finally gets there, he starts going off and berating all these other successful
bands like Warrant and Skid Row.
That was our soundcheck; just him bitching, basically.”
“I gathered everyone [else] upstairs and said, ‘This is it; I’m done.
I’ll see this record through, promote it, and see if it’ll do well, but I’m not
making any more records with this guy.’
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Sweda would go on to say that Torien made a call to Warner Brothers to terminate the
promotion for Za-Za altogether, but he’d also note the singer’s control on the band
early on, adding, “From day one of [Bulletboys] until that
day, that stuff went on almost endlessly.”
“It was basically damage control from day one,”
Both Sweda and D’Anda quit the band that year, which signaled the end of the original
lineup for the time being.
By 1995, Torien and Vencent retained the Bulletboys moniker and assembled a new incarnation of
the band,going in a more alternative rock direction, releasing their fourth album, Acid
Monkey on indie label Swordholio.
However,it proved to be another flop, prompting the band to break up once again.
Later in the decade, Bulletboys continued touring under various temporary lineups, and
Cleopatra Records would tide fans over, releasing a best of album, Burning Cats & Amputees in
2000.
By 2003, the band started their own label, Bulletboys Records.
Their fifth album, Sophie, would be released on October 24th that year, and was their lone
release for the label.
Sophie would mark their return to a hard rock sound, and feature a guest spot by singer
Sebastian Bach, who appears on the second track, “Neighborhood.”
It’s interesting to note that the guitarist for this lineup was Jason Hook, who’d soon
go on to form Five Finger Death Punch.
A writer under the name Bakko, from the publication Decibel Geek, accurately describes this period
in Bulletboys history as “a disaster story born to keep the message boards on Metal Sludge
active.
From the ever-revolving door of members to Marq channeling Pinocchio during interviews.”
But that’s not to say that Marq Torien was always at fault.
While the release of Sophie was planned to include an accompanying tour alongside LA
Guns and Black N’ Blue, misfortune would strike the band, as their tour bus would break
down two separate times.
Making matters worse,during a stop in Detroit, there was a stabbing incident involving the
band’s bus driver and tour manager, causing the band to leave the tour after just a handful
of shows.
An archived report from the morning it happened reads,
“According to witnesses, the driver of the bus stabbed Mark A. Rojas after an argument.”
Marq Torien would recall their situation at the time, telling the publication Brave Words,
“He literally tried to kill him!
When something like that happens on the road, it's just a bad omen.”
“After the bus driver was sent to jail, we found out that he had been wanted for attempted
murder and that he had a big gun on the bus that nobody had known about.
I just didn't feel comfortable continuing after that, so we decided to pull out,”
With another tour for 2004 failing to materialize, Bulletboys would take some more time to recoup,
and began 2006 playing the Raven’s Heart benefit show alongside members of Guns N’
Roses, Queens of the Stone Age, and Dio.
It was during this time that Torien also called into the Hairball John Radio show to announce
a new album, as well as a reunion of the original lineup.
While it was true that an album was being written, Jimmy D’Anda promptly called into
the station to refute the claim about the reunion, noting Lonnie Vencent’s newfound
absence, and the fact that the rest of the original band wouldn’t participate.
Bulletboys would release four more albums over the next several years, 2009’s 10 cent
Billionaire, the covers album Rocked and Ripped in 2011, 2015’s Elefante, and their latest
album From Out of the Skies in 2018.
Each had Torien on second guitar, now as the only original band member, although critical
reception this time around would gradually turn positive.
Then, on December 12th, 2019, fans were surprised to learn that the reunion of the original
Bulletboys lineup, including guitarist Mick Sweda, bassist Lonnie Vencent, and drummer
Jimmy D’Anda, was confirmed.
The tour would comprise over 50 shows.
But the pandemic in March of 2020 brought the tour to an abrupt halt.
Unfortunately, the reunion would also stop once again in 2022, due to conflict behind
the scenes.
Jimmy D’Anda would discuss the original band’s implosion telling Vinyl Writer Music,
“Larry [Moran, manager] asked me to stay on for the last three or four shows, and I
did.
And then during that time, it just became such a fiasco and there’s so many negative
things that are happening.”
“Then I quit, and then the [show at the Whisky-A-Go-Go] rolls around and there was
more drama.
And then Larry, the manager, quit.
Then Mick called me, and he goes, “Dude, I did not sign on for this.
This is just way too much fuckin’ bullshit.”
He couldn’t deal with it, so then he quit.
I’ve only heard through the grapevine that Lonnie quit; I haven’t talked to him yet,
but I heard he was like, “Dude, there’s no way I’m going back.
Just me and Marq is not gonna happen.”
As of 2022, Marq Torien tours with a new line up consisting of him on vocals and lead guitar,
Despite the contention in Torien remaining the only original member these days, reception
to this lineup has been mostly positive.
That does it for today’s episode guys; thanks for watching.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe, and I’ll see you in the next video.
Take care.