Tracii Guns And Steve Riley’s Legal Battle For The Name L.A. Guns Is Now Settled Because One Of Them Is Broke

During a recent interview with Dawn Osborne, L.A. Guns co-founder Tracii Guns talked about the lawsuit that he filed against the band’s former drummer Steve Riley over usage of the band’s name in early 2020, and revealed why he decided to settle it earlier than he wanted.

As you may recall, back in 2016, L.A. Guns co-founder and guitarist Tracii Guns and the band’s former drummer Riley had made it to the headlines of rock world news as they had re-formed two competing versions of L.A. Guns carrying the same name. One of them was led by Tracii Guns and Phil Lewis, and the other by Steve Riley and the classic-era L.A. Guns guitarist Scotty Griffin, bassist Kelly Nickels, and vocalist Kurt Frohlich.

Both Tracii Guns and Steve Riley had proposed valid arguments about why they believed that their version was better. While Guns used the co-founder card, Riley had said during an interview that he just wanted to continue the L.A. Guns legacy as when Guns and Lewis decided to reunite, Riley knew ‘they were going to do shows as Tracii and Phil, not as L.A. Guns.’

In his recent interview, Guns announced that they settled the lawsuit and said ‘nobody can just be L.A. Guns except me forever.’ He went on to say that he was planning on pushing even more but apparently Riley ‘has no money.’ Tracii Guns said that this has been going on for 15 years and that he needed to put an end to it because although he wants everybody to succeed, it’s important to remember that ‘you can’t let people take advantage of you.’

Here’s what Tracii Guns said during the interview:

“We just settled this lawsuit a couple of days ago and I’ll let the press release explain how it’s gonna work from here on out. But nobody can just be L.A. Guns except me forever. And it worked out. I would have liked to have taken it further, but that motherfucker has no money.

All this thing has been for 15 years is a complete negative waste of time and energy. But I ended up in a position where I could go after the guy. And it was the right thing to do. You can’t let people take advantage of you. And that’s kind of classic in my life. I’m really generous with people, and I wanna see everybody succeed. But if you take advantage of me, man… Sometimes I wish there were no laws. Because some people are so selfish.”

Click here for the source and you can watch the whole interview below.