Post Description

GUN

Gun is a hard rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. They are best known for the song "Better Days" as well as their cover of Cameo's "Word Up!".

Originally called Blind Allez, then for a short time 'Phobia', GUN were formed in 1987 by Giuliano Gizzi (guitar) and Cami Morlotti (bass), with Mark Rankin (vocals), Alan Thornton (drums) and David Aitken (guitar). 
Signed in 1988 by A&M Records the band line-up changed after Thornton, Morlotti and Aitken parted company with them and new recruits Dante Gizzi, Scott Shields and Baby Stafford joined. 
In the studio, Jim McDermott (Kevin McDermott Orchestra, Simple Minds and The Silencers), provided drums on the albums Taking On the World and Gallus. 
Debut album Taking On the World was also released this year.Rankin's cousin Sharleen Spiteri, of fellow Scottish band Texas and ex drummer Thornton contributed backing vocals to several songs on the album. 
The single "Better Days" from the album made the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart. Gun toured the US and supported The Rolling Stones on their European Urban Jungle Tour of 1990. 
Tours with Bon Jovi and Def Leppard followed shortly after.[citation needed]


After the band had signed to A&M records in 1988, they began recording Taking On the World, the credited lineup being Mark Rankin on vocals, Guliano Gizzi on guitar, Stephen "Baby" Stafford on guitar, "Dante Gizzi" on bass, and Scott Shields on drums. The album was released on 5 July 1989 to warm reception. The album featured the single "Better Days" which was a hit in England, landing them the first of many appearances on the British Television show Top Of The Pops. Videos were subsequently made for the songs "Inside Out", "Money (Everybody Loves Her", "Taking On The World" and "Shame On You", as well as the aforementioned "Better Days". All of the videos were compiled onto a commercially released video tape entitled "Taking On the World : THE VIDEOS". In late 89, it was announced that GUN was to support The Rolling Stones on their 1990 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour through Europe.

Alex Dickson replaced Stafford before GUN departed to support The Rolling Stones on their 1990 European tour, supporting their Steel Wheels album. In 1991, after the tour for Taking On the World had concluded, GUN entered the studio with producer Kenny MacDonald (who produced the band's debut album) to record their second record entitled Gallus (album), of which the single "Steal Your Fire" was a minor hit. Spiteri and Thornton again contributed backing vocals to the album.

Both Dickson and Shields left before the release of Swagger (Gun album), Dickson still being featured on the Swagger record albeit an uncredited appearance throughout the album, recorded before leaving to join Bruce Dickinson's solo band in 1994, leaving Giuliano to end up taking over all guitar duties. Mark Kerr (brother of Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds who coincidentally were on A&M in North America) replaced Scott Shields on drums. Swagger was easily their most successful album, propelled by the success of their version of "Word Up!" The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart, charted well in many other territories and won an MTV award for best cover version. 
"Don't Say It's Over" was also fairly successful, but not to the extent of "Word Up!".

Decline and split

The band took a break and returned three years later with yet another new drummer, Stuart Kerr (formerly of Texas), a keyboard player, Irvin Duguid, a revised name (G.U.N. – the reason given at the time, was to distance the band's name from the Dunblane shooting incident and to show some sensitivity to those involved, as Rankin explained in an interview for the website dotmusic.com) and a new album 0141 632 6326 produced by INXS keyboard player Andrew Farriss. However, the album sold poorly in comparison to Swagger, peaking at No. 32 in the UK Albums Chart. Many fans and even some of the band blame the overproduction of Farriss for the failure of the album .[citation needed] Demos of some of the songs exist such as "Crazy You" and "My Sweet Jane" that show how the album was intended to sound before Andrew Farriss took over the production helm, showcasing a continuation of sorts of the "Swagger" era sound.[citation needed]

The band split in 1997 and aside from a few one-off reunion gigs in 1998 (Paradise Garage, Lisbon, Portugal) and 1999 (Scotland Rocks for Kosovo charity event), had not been active as a unit before reforming, with Toby Jepson as guest vocalist, for a Rockradio charity gig in January 2008. Two Gun CDs were released (The Collection and The River Sessions – a two CD set featuring various live performances including some acoustic tracks and a 3 song set of cover songs from Bowie, Rage Against The Machine, and T-Rex) during their hiatus, and all the previous individual members went on to other projects within the music industry. An official fan site[3] was set up, in agreement with the band, with previous and current members of the band participating in live web chats and contributing to the forums from time to time.

Taking On the World (1989)
Gallus (1992)
Swagger (1994)
0141 632 6326 (1997)
The Collection (2003)
The River Sessions (2005)
Popkiller (2009)[1]
Break the Silence (2012)
Frantic (2015)

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