Pretty Boy Floyd

An interview with vocalist Steve Summers
by Michael McCarthy

In 1989, MCA Records released Leather Boyz with Electric Toyz, the debut album of Southern California’s Pretty Boy Floyd. Along with the catchy tunes came a whole lot of attitude, make up and controversy. If ever there was a love ’em or hate ’em band, it was Pretty Boy Floyd. The fact that nearly ten years have passed and they still haven’t released another album has done little to diminish the band’s knack for getting attention. In fact, the band’s sold out shows last year garnered the biggest crowds “the Hollywood strip” has seen since, well, the so-called grunge era killed so-called heavy metal. Of course, Pretty Boy Floyd’s music was always more anthemic glam pop than anything, so maybe that’s why folks like the cool cats here at Lollipop are still interested.

So, why hasn’t there been a second Pretty Boy Floyd album yet, and will there ever be one? Why did the Leather Boyz album not list songwriting credits, and who wrote the songs anyway? I recently spoke with vocalist Steve “Sex” Summers and ex-guitarist Aeriel Stiles in an attempt to shed some light on these and other matters that have arisen during Pretty Boy Floyd’s decade of decadence. I ended up with a bit of a headache, but, like a good rock concert, I can’t say it wasn’t fun.

When did you decide to get Pretty Boy Floyd going again? You’d split up for a while, right?
I never said, “Ah, fuck, we’re done.” I just said this ain’t working out and let everything go its ways. I was always looking for other guys. It never officially stopped. The lineup we had in the beginning was, to me, always an awesome band. I think we put out one of the best glam records ever. We had a lot of problems with this and that. And drugs. So, it took a while to get it back. And it’s cool. We’re happy as ever with the lineup we have now. Good things take a while and we’re glad we didn’t reform with some half-assed band a few years ago and put out shit. ‘Cause there’s a lot of bands out there that put out great records – platinum records – in ’90, ’92, and now they put their bands back together and it’s just shit.

What is the current lineup?
Right now, it’s me and the original drummer, Kari Kane, and we’ve got Kristy [Majors, guitar] back in the band, and we have Keri Kelli [guitar], who used to be in Big Bang Babies. We’ve been rotating bass players, just trying to find that right guy. We played with this bass player from England at our last show in Phoenix, and it was cool, but he wasn’t ready to get back on the road and do all that shit. Now we’re rehearsing with this guy from Tuff. I think his name’s Jamie. He plays in a band in L.A. called The Mistakes. But he loves Pretty Boy Floyd and he’s dying to do this.

How long has the band officially been active again?
We played our first show, I believe, July 12. At one point, two and a half years ago, it was me, Kari, Kristy and Vinnie [Chas] sitting in a room going, “OK, let’s do it.” But that didn’t work out with Vinnie due to – he’s just changed. Doesn’t want to do the road and record. He’s more of a normal guy now. That’s cool, but that’s not what we’re into.

Then Vinnie is the only person from the Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz album who’s missing?
Yeah. And we’ve got one of the best guitar players in our vein of music in Keri Kelli.

When Big Bang Babies were selling demos years ago, a lot of people thought they were hacks. I remember pen pals saying one of their songs was a rip-off of “Big Talk” by Warrant. Was there any skepticism on your part? Like, you know, maybe this guy might get us in trouble?
I honestly didn’t follow their music. I didn’t follow a lot of bands. I mean, they played with us a few shows. They opened. I liked his playing. I liked his attitude. When we hooked up with him, I’d never even heard Big Bang stuff. Some of the first songs I’d heard were songs he was doing outside of Big Bang. Once we started to get to know each other, he sent me the Big Bang CD and it was, pretty much, different. Our first record is old Mötley Crüe, that type of stuff. His was more pop. And we’re not doing any of that. We’ve written some songs together, so it’s all new and fresh. I’ve heard thousands of songs that sound a little like this or a little like that. I mean, some of Warrant’s songs sound like old Black and Blue songs. So that happens all the time.

I’ve heard you’re going on tour with Enuff Z’Nuff.
We’re gonna do the whole East Coast for like a month. We’ve got some good people working with us now. Our manager is Andrew Scott. He’s got 2 Live Crew, The Bay City Rollers. We’re doing like 15-20 shows. We’re going to a lot of places we’ve never hit. They’re paying us pretty well. We’re starting to get into the magazines again. We’re not doing the big tour bus and all that – we don’t have that kind of budget – but that’s the way it goes. So, we fly out to the East Coast, we rent a little van and we get paid our $1500-$2000 a night and do it. All the shows aren’t with Enuff Z’Nuff, actually. Maybe half of them.

One of the reasons Pretty Boy Floyd made such an impression was obviously that hardcore glam image. That said, do you feel obligated to carry on that image in the band’s current incarnation?
Nah. Every band evolves. We grew up with The New York Dolls, Hanoi Rocks, all that stuff. That’s what we evolved into. We’re doing more like street, ’70s kind of glam, you know? When we first started, we were 19, 20, 21. We were into Kiss and Mötley Crüe. The leather and lipstick. We’ve already done a lot of things. I mean, shit, we were doing what Marilyn Manson was doing when we returned in ’93 to ’95 and we were managed by Bill Lecoin, who had Kiss in the beginning. We were doing all that sick shit. We evolved into just real cool glam. When Enuff Z’Nuff saw us – we did a show with them in December with Dokken – they were like, “Woah, fuck, it’s so cool you guys are still doing glam.” No one’s been disappointed.

MCA toyed with the pictures in the album anyway, didn’t they?
There was so much toying with this and that. Sure, there was airbrushing and so on. I could tell you a million things about what went right and wrong in what they did and didn’t do. But back then, I was into Kiss, I was into early Poison, I was into that whole superhero glam thing. That’s what that was.

The album cover looked like a comic book cover, with these glam rock superheroes.
At first, it was all great, but then MCA got a little scared after [MTV] wouldn’t accept our first video. But that was their fault, not ours. After that, they wanted us to tone it down, but that wasn’t us. That’s when things started going wrong.

Then MCA went through their infamous dropping bands phase and that eventually included you.
They started firing everybody and it came down to firing the guy who signed us. A guy that sounds exactly like yourself. A guy that loves Kiss, wanted to see Pretty Boy Floyd on a lunch box, you know? Once he went, it was like, goddamn. We honestly didn’t want to go through the catastrophe of the first record again anyway. They definitely wanted a Guns N’ Roses or Mötley Crüe on their label, but they didn’t have a clue. They had the money. We saw the money in the merchandise and the videos and the record and the tour bus. But you’ve got to know what the hell you’re doing. They’d only had Tom Petty and Night Ranger! That’s what I’ve told every manager we’ve had – do you know what you’re getting yourself into? Because if you don’t know how to do it, you’re gonna fuck it up. [Laughs]

How well did the Leather Boyz album end up doing? Is it officially out of print?
Worldwide, we’ve sold a few hundred thousand records to date. I mean, it still trickles in here and there. I would say it’s out of print. But I still find it places. I mean, shit, two weeks ago I found it somewhere. I bought it. [Laughs]

“Toast Of The Town” was a Mötley Crüe song that never made it onto any of their albums. Did you have their permission to do it on yours?
The only thing I know is we liked doing it. We were young, we liked them, and we wanted to cover it. From there, I don’t even remember how we did it. I know it was agreed by somebody. I know we ended up talking about it with them. It was so simple. It’s not even worth talking about. It’s like, “Hey, can we do it?” “Hey, no problem.” “Cool.” That was that. There was no fight. I’m sure if it went big or something, it would’ve been… [Laughs] But, shit, I don’t even know if all the members knew we even did it.

There weren’t any songwriting credits in the album. Who wrote the rest of the songs?
Most of the songs were written before Kristy got in the band with Aeriel [Stiles]. Me and Kristy wrote “Set The Night On Fire,” the first single. I’m sure you know “Leather Boyz” and “Wild Angels” were written pre-Pretty Boy Floyd. Those were old, old Kerry Doll songs that were re-written and updated. Of course, they kicked ass when we did them. Everything after that – some of them we wrote together. Like “Only The Young,” “Rock And Roll Outlaws” and “Your Mama Won’t Know.” And then maybe “The Last Kiss” and “I Wanna Be With You,” we did some rewriting of stuff that Aeriel had in his basket of tunes.

Aeriel had parted ways with the band before the album was recorded, obviously, but then rejoined for a while after it was released. What’s the history there?
It’s kind of… There’s still a little bit of – I don’t know what to call it – between me and him and the band. We try to keep it cool with everything, but it’s just… All I can say is, me and Kari were these young guys determined to destroy, and it seemed to me like he’d already tried to do it with some other bands. He didn’t really want to do the shit we wanted. The everyday shit. That’s the only way I could really look at it. And it came to the point where we just said, “We’ve gotta go on,” you know? I would say personal problems were slowing us down. I mean, Aeriel’s a great songwriter for that type of music, but we were trying to do – I was into bands like Poison that were doing it every day. We just had to do it every day and go on. It just didn’t work out.

There was a different version of “48 Hours” on the soundtrack to Karate Kid III with the band credited as “PBF.” What was the deal there?
It might’ve been from when we had a demo deal with MCA. I think we did “Rock And Roll Outlaws,” “Only The Young,” and “48 Hours.” Since we didn’t record the record yet and they wanted us to do the soundtrack, we were like, “Just take this.” I haven’t heard that in a long time. I know it’s kind of lame. I remember going, “Just take the demo.”

Then there was a cover of the Quiet Riot tune “Slam Dunk” on the Switch soundtrack.
I don’t know if it was exactly a Quiet Riot song. I know Kevin DuBrow wrote the song with somebody else.

They recently released it as a bonus track on the Japanese release of their Down to the Bone album.
They did? [Laughs] Basically, that was an MCA movie and they needed some upbeat, young band to do it. They just presented the song and we were like, “Fifty grand? Sure. Bye.” [Laughs] They offered us some really good producers and they gave us Max Norman, who we loved. We went in there, learned it, and did it. We thought it was great. I mean, it was a nutty tune, but it was cool.

A Pretty Boy Floyd cover of Alice Cooper’s “Department Of Youth” was widely circulated among tape traders when I was in high school. What the hell was that from?
That was supposed to be on the Shocker soundtrack. We actually recorded it while doing the record. It sounded great. And then at the end of the Shocker soundtrack, I don’t know, Dave Mustaine spent too much money recording his song and we couldn’t get ours on. [Laughs]

What are you doing at your live shows? Old stuff? New stuff?
It’s a little bit of both, actually. It’s five or six from the record and five or six new ones.

Is it true you’re working on a live album?
Yeah. We’re trying to put that together as we speak. We’re not allowed to talk about anything we’re putting out soon, our manager and attorney people say. But we’re working on that right now. We’ve got some real cool things in the works.

There are rumors that you guys have a couple studio albums in the can, waiting to be licensed or whatever.
Let’s just say there’re a thousand tunes. Three or four records worth of stuff. But no completed things. We recorded a lot of 24 track, three song things, but nothing we ever wanted to put out. We wanted to wait for the right lineup. The right management. Do something really good. Everything we do, we will be recording new.

What do you think of bands who tried to alter their sound to fit the times, be it Warrant’s Ultraphobic or Dokken’s Shadowlife? I mean, now Don’s blaming Shadowlife‘s sound on George, and Jani’s saying he wants Warrant to go glam again and return to the original lineup.
I would never bag on those bands, because they all came from our time and a lot of them were bigger than us. That was their choice, and I’m sure they’re sitting there just like you, saying, “We fucked up.” So, let’s just say it was something I would never do. I always hated that kind of shit. Anywhere from, like, MC Hammer, who comes out like this and five years later he’s a gangsta rapper. You kind of laugh and you go, “What the fuck were they thinking?” The fans know it. We’ve had several chances to change. “If you just change a little bit, we’ll take you.” But it’s not us.

The Leather Boyz album came out in 1989, and MCA made it sound a certain way, as you’ve said in the past. And here we are, nearly 10 years later. How does your vocal style today compare to what we heard on that album?
I wouldn’t say they made it sound a certain way. If you talk to our drummer, he might think it’s a little too overproduced, but that’s just a few switches of the knobs. Back then, we did like the huge anthems. I was into Ratt and Vince Neil. Basically, shit, I’ve been seeing the same teacher for 15 years. I would say nothing has changed. I’m just getting better. I could sing several different styles. From Queensrÿche to Skid Row. I’ve played in cover bands for the fun of it. For Floyd, it’s just clean vocals. From Zander to Steve Perry.

There are bands like Warrant and Enuff Z’Nuff who never broke up. They’ve been releasing albums, touring, and just weathering the storm. Now their sales are getting more successful and we see a lot of bands like Ratt, Cinderella, Baton Rogue, Steelheart, and BulletBoys reforming. A lot of people are quick to say they’re just doing it for the money. Are you afraid that people will lump you into that category?
No. Most of those bands were platinum acts. We’ve only put out one record. We put out a couple soundtrack songs, but we’re more underground. We’re still climbing. Our next record could be gold in Japan or whatever in England. We could be outselling those bands you’re naming.

I guess if you were Ratt, you’d be guaranteed to sell out a certain number of clubs and people could wonder if you’re just in it for the money. But you still have more of a battle to fight, it’s not so easy to point the finger.
Right. We’re still real new. I mean, those bands, you already know who they are. A lot of people honestly don’t know who we are. We’ve still got a lot of open territory. All those bands that you named – people say we’ve been smoking them. We’re still young, we’ve got the best lineup, and they’re just hanging in there. I mean, we’ve seen ’em. [Laughs] There’s a lot of big, fat, bald-looking guys out there now. We’re in our prime, just kicking their ass all over the place. We’ve got nothing to be shy about. In a year or so, they could be opening for us.

Who, of your peers, would you like to see successful again?
Actually, I don’t really have any peers. [Laughs] I’ve been fighting for the Floyds for so long. Maybe back when I was 15 to 20, sure, I loved the Mötleys and this and that. But doing this for so long, it’s Pretty Boy Floyd and that’s it. There ain’t no peers.