By Martin Popoff
Right down to the cover art, Waking The Dead means mean, mean business. "Wow, yeah," reflects Tracii on the classy metalized wrapping to the band's heaviest album yet. "I don't remember what the original thing was anymore, but I didn't like it. I was like, 'No man, this is a metal record and it's got to have a metal cover. I want Satan on the cover!' I want the shit to be right. I want to get it right for once. I want the artwork to look like the record sounds. I want to be proud of it, you know I mean? I want the dude to get the record to go 'f**k, this is great!' So when our manager, Obi sent me a copy of the artwork that Maxine had finished on the computer, I opened it up... katching! Woah. It looks awesome. I just wonder if some places are going to say uh-uh with the naked kind of girl lying there."
I had to ask Tracii if there was any friction working with Andy Johns, given his daunting reputation. "No, not at all! He was like our dad. He's the L.A. Guns father now. He just told us he was doing our album, no matter what. And we were like (surprised look) 'All right... We can't pay you.' And he's like, 'I don't care. You're the best band and blah blah blah and I'm going to make the best record of my life, and it's going to be your best record.' So we ended up going in there and he was... man, he never left that studio for like two and a half months. It was his f**king goal to make a great rock record, and he did. We love it, we really do. I listen to this new record so much and it's like my favourite record right now. If promoted right, we can really have a great time this year. But I almost don't even count on selling records. If you don't have radio, forget it. But it's a shame, because especially with a record like this, I know that every rock fan EVER, will love this record, and if they don't get turned on to it, they'll miss out."
