LA GUNS Guns frontman Phil Lewis has declared he is “not necessarily sure” that Mötley Crüe coming out of retirement “was a good thing” – while also expressing reservations about Deep Purple
In a TotalRock interview Lewis described Deep Purple’s decision to keep touring after a farewell announcement as “very noble,” but added: “I’ve recently heard some stuff that they’re doing live. And it’s disappointing.”
He stated: “I think that it’s very much a young man’s game, and I absolutely worship Ian Gillan as a vocalist.”
Lewis said Robert Plant “got the right idea” because “he toned it down, and he’s not trying to do the screaming ‘Whole Lotta Love’ bit, all the sort of fake orgasm stuff.”
He added that such an approach is “most unbecoming for a gentleman at that stage in his life” and declared “I really feel that Ian could take a lesson from that, honestly.”
Lewis said he had seen Gillan “struggling” because Deep Purple “opened the set with ‘Highway Star’, and that’s a motherfucker to sing that song, those high parts.”
“It’s legendary,” he continued, “and it breaks my heart a little bit to see him struggling through that.”
On his own critical style Lewis insisted: “I know I’ve got kind of a reputation for slagging off bands. I don’t slag ’em off. All I’m doing is saying it how I see it.”
He explained he was speaking “from a punter’s perspective more than anything” and noted: “I don’t see them as peers. They’re so, so way above me in the stratosphere.”
Lewis concluded that as a fan “I’m a bit disappointed to see that, to be honest,” while stressing he would “never gonna tour with Mötley Crüe or Deep Purple, so I don’t care what they think about it.”
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