GILBY CLARKE - N.I.R.

"I make records that I would enjoy listening to."

INFORMATION / DISCOGRAPHY
TOUR DATES / LYRICS / LINKS

Gilby's musical career started taking off when he joined Candy in 1981. They did pretty well and got signed with Polygram. An album called "Whatever Happened to Fun?" was released in 1985, but after a tour as opening act for Rick Springfield they dissolved. Gilby then went on to form Kill For Thrills, in which he had a much more prominent role, singing and writing the material as well as playing the guitar. This was during the big Guns N' Roses breakthrough, and the record companies were "starved to get another big rock band from California"¹, so it didn't take long before they got a deal with MCA Records. According to Gilby they weren't ready for it, so the breakdown had already started when their debut album "Dynamite From Nightmareland" was released.²
   In 1991 Gilby joined Guns N' Roses as replacement for Izzy Stradlin, and did the Use Your Illusion world tour. He recorded with them on "The Spaghetti Incident?", but that was all there was for Gilby in GN'R. In 1994 Axl wanted to change the direction of the band, and he felt Gilby didn't fit in, and so he was more or less fired in the fall that year.
   Like Slash, Gilby liked to keep himself busy and while still being in GN'R, he recorded his first solo album "Pawnshop Guitars". He also worked together with Slash and Matt Sorum on the rejected GN'R material that in February 1995 was released as Slash's Snakepit's "It's Five O' Clock Somewhere." Gilby stayed with Snakepit throughout their world tour the first half of 1995.³
   After some time off, Gilby went into the studio and recorded another solo album, "The Hangover." It was released on the Paradigm label on September 27, 1997. After a short tour he was back in the studio again, and almost exactly a year after "The Hangover", his third solo effort "Rubber" came out. Gilby has always been focused on playing live and during the late 1990's and early 2000's he's been touring a lot. In 1999 his live work was captured on the album "99 Live".
   1999 was also the year that Gilby's "super group" The Starfuckers was born. It grew out of Tuesday night jams at the Baked Potato in Los Angeles, CA. Teddy Andreadis, Slim Jim Phantom and Muddy Stardust were the other members. Just like the Neurotic Outsiders a couple of years before, they only played for fun, but their reputation grew and with that came the record company people. They signed with Icon Records in 2001, and not very surprisingly they had to change their name... An album called "Rock 'N' Roll Music" was released under the name Col. Parker on October 23, 2001.
   In 2002 Gilby's fifth solo album "Swag" was released.

Lyrics