“The power goes out it’s so loud." Jacob Bunton is describing the volume Motley Crue’s Mick Mars plays guitar at in the recording studio. Bunton continues. “It’s louder than anything you’ve ever heard in your life. Louder than a jet engine - I’m not exaggerating. He runs through so many (speaker) cabinets and (amplifier) heads and everything it is insane, but his tone is just the most incredible thing you’ve heard.”

Bunton is lead singer on Mars’ highly anticipated debut solo album. Although former Crue replacement singer John Corabi spent some time in the studio with Mars a few years back, Bunton, who lives in Chelsea, Alabama near Birmingham, is the sole lead vocalist on the as-yet untitled album. The album is tentatively planned for summer release.

With Motley Crue, Mars unleashed many of rock’s most enduring and successful songs from the last 40 years. Mars solos are just as memorable as the hooks on leather smashes like “Kickstart My Heart,” “Dr. Feelgood,” “Home Sweet Home,” “Girls Girls Girls” and “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” among others. Mars’ guitar is an underappreciated reason why Motley Crue is selling-out stadiums for their upcoming tour with fellow ’80s stallions Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett.

If a guitarist with some of the most singable licks ever wants you to do the singing on his first ever solo album, that’s a pretty nice tip of the top-hat. Mars isn’t the first Sunset Strip deity to tab Bunton’s talents. He sang on the solid 2012 album by Adler, led by classic-era Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler. Bunton has co-written songs for mainstream metal pioneers Quite Riot and been a member, for 24 hours at least, of sex-rockers deluxe L.A. Guns. More on that last thing in a bit.

Slash, left, Jacob Bunton, left, and Steven Adler. (Courtesy Jacob Bunton)

Early in his career, Bunton gained notoriety with Mars Electric, a Birmingham band with gnarlier guitars than most radio alt-rockers of the time. He dug into darker, crunchier sounds with Lynam, another Birmingham combo. (Check out “Enemy,” their cowbell-clanging collabo with Cinderella frontman Tom Keifer.) Behind the scenes, Bunton’s built impressive main gigs in songwriting, for the likes Mariah Carey, Smokey Robinson and Steven Tyler, and composing music for film, TV and videogames, including “X-Men: Dark Phoenix,” “Sons of Anarchy,” Californication" and “EA Sports MMA.” On a recent afternoon, Bunton was in Los Angeles working on music for a new Coca-Cola commercial. He checked in for the below phone interview. Mars understandably wishes to keep much about his solo album under wraps for now, but Bunton was able to relate a few intriguing details. Edited excerpts are below.

Jacob, I know there's some stuff you're not at liberty yet to tell us about the Mick Mars album. What can you tell us?

I can tell you that I’m involved and the past several months we wrote and recorded a record and Michael Wagener produced it. The great Michael Wagener from (mixing 1986 Metallica album) “Master of Puppets” and all that kind of stuff. He worked with Motley Crue on their very first record “Too Fast For Love,” when they did it themselves they recorded the record and then Michael Wagener mixed, and then when they got the record deal with Elektra, (Queen producer) Roy Thomas Baker ended up going back and remixing it. But on all of their self-released copies it’s Michael. But to make a long story short, Michael’s producing the record because that was the first producer Mick worked with in Motley Crue so he wanted to do his solo album so it’s been really cool. We’ve been recording it in Nashville and we’re almost done.

You've been piling up this awesome rock & roll resume. What's the most bands you've been in at one time?

Two, because I was in Adler and Lynam at the same time. So, the thing is being in a rock & roll fan, I grew up with all of these bands. You know that movie “Rock Star” with Marky Mark? It’s kind of like that. All these people were hanging on my walls and watching their videos and stuff like that, and never in a million years did I think one day I would work with them. But I’ve been extremely and blessed with that.

That's so cool Steven Adler was on board with that.

Yeah, Steven’s like the sweetest guy in the world, he’s awesome. We’re still extremely close and talk all the time and go to dinner and all that stuff. He’s just a sweetheart of a guy.

Do you live in West Hollywood these days?

Alabama is home but I bounce back and forth, I have to for work reasons. I love Alabama and Alabama’s always going to be home. To this day, when people are like, “Where do you live? Where are you from?” it’s like, “Alabama.” I’m very proud of that, but I do have to come out here for work because it’s hard to write a Mick Mars record or write an Adler record or Quiet Riot record in Alabama when everybody’s here. [Laughs]

One of the things rock fans love about “Appetite for Destruction” is the swing in Steven Adler’s drumming on that album. What’s it like singing over some Steven Adler swing? I really liked the songs “Waterfall” and “Your Diamonds” on that Adler album.

Like you said he’s got his own swing, his own sound, that’s why if you go and watch Guns N’ Roses now the guy that they’ve got (Frank Ferrer) is absolutely fantastic, phenomenal drummer, but it doesn’t sound the same, because just the swing. And that’s not saying he’s better or worse or whatever to Steven. It’s just different. It’s like there are certain levels of guitar players. Once you to get to the point where you’re Eddie Van Halen or Steve Vai you can’t say who’s better, it’s just different, you know? Everybody’s got their own opinions.

But singing over that, it just felt real, it just felt like the songs did on the record. But to take that even further when we went to Japan, to do our tour there Duff (McKagan, “Appetite” era GN’R bassist) played bass, so I was onstage with Duff and Steven singing some of the songs, which was insane. [Laughs] When we were making the record, Slash played on the record, he did the solo for “Just Don’t Ask,” and it’s one of those moments where you’re like, “Wow, playing with three of the original members of Guns N’ Roses. Pretty freaking surreal.” [Laughs]

On that Japanese tour with Adler, which Guns song did you guys crush the best?

The way that Adler would work is, when we first started, all the tour dates we would play our whole record in entirety and for the encore we would do two Gun N’ Roses songs. And they would be different each night. We’d just pick two songs off of “Appetite for Destruction,” sometimes it might be “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle,” other times it might be “Nightrain” and “Rocket Queen” or just whatever.

I always felt like we did our own version of those songs and crushed them the best that we could. The one thing about if you’re a guitar player or lead singer playing with anybody from Guns N’ Roses, it’s impossible to make all the purists of whatever happy because they’re going to judge every nuance. [Laughs] Everybody’s like, “That’s not Axl!” Or, “That’s not Slash!” But I always liked doing “Rocket Queen,” that was a lot of fun, and that was Steven’s favorite song on the record.

That’s Steven’s masterwork on “Appetite,” “Rocket Queen.” Earlier you mentioned Quiet Riot. That was the first metal band a lot of tertiary market kids like me heard in 1983 or whatever. What were you going for musically when you wrote with them?

Well, Frankie (Banali, Quiet Riot drummer) contacted me originally a few years ago about singing for Quiet Riot, and I was unable to, to go on the road and travel, because I was right in the middle of a movie project and some other things. And I couldn’t commit. But he said he was a fan of my writing and would, when their next album came around, want to write together. He was like, “Hey man, we just want to go back to the roots and make a rock record with our sound, kind of like (1983 QR album) ‘Metal Health’ or something like that.” I was like, “Man, I got this.” [Laughs] And so that’s what we tried to do.

But with the Quiet Riot project what’s interesting is it’s not like we sat down and wrote a song. Me and Frankie Banali have never met in person. Ever. He would send me ideas that him and his songwriting partner would do and they would basically be finished music ideas, so there was no room to change a chord here or make it longer or shorter or anything like that. He would just send me the music, and then wanted me to write lyrics and melodies over it. So, I would do that. And that’s not necessarily the way I write because I like to sit down with a guitar or piano and write, and let the lyrics and melody dictate the music and not the other way around. But it was an interesting process. And it was pretty cool.

You get all these gigs because you’re a talented singer but I’ve read you’re also an amazing guitarist. What was the musician, album or song that made you play guitar? Really play guitar.

My favorite two bands growing up were Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses, so I would sit there and learn those riffs and solos, and as far as guitar-shredder type guy it was Steve Vai. I saw the movie “Crossroads” where at the end he plays The Devil’s guitarist and I saw the videos he did with David Lee Roth. He’s just so animated and makes some of the most complicated stuff look effortless. I would pretty much just lock myself along and play along with anything that I could find of his. And I guess the way I got my pop sensibility is I would just listen to the radio in Alabama and just play along with whatever. Just have my guitar, and all genres would try to pick out the songs that were on the radio.

Pop singer you haven't written for yet you'd love to work with?

Hmmm. That is so tough. [Laughs] I actually think it would be cool to do something with Janet Jackson, like the way that she had “Black Cat,” which was the rock song off of “Rhythm Nation.” Do something like that. I have to go backwards on that. Dolly Parton that’s who I’d love to work with that I haven’t.

What do you dig about Mick Mars’ guitar playing? Maybe a couple of your favorite Mick guitar moments. I helped write a “greatest guitar players from Los Angeles” list for LA Weekly a few years ago and made sure Mick was on that list. He’s so underrated.

Yeah he sure is. My favorite Motley riff is there’s a song on “Shout at the Devil” called “Bastard” that’s pretty freaking amazing. The riff to “Girls Girls Girls” is really, really cool. And he played me the original version of that and it was so different. It was literally just barre chords. It sounded like “Fox on the Run” or something like that. And so it went from just barre chords to him doing a whole riff out of it, which is just so cool. Yeah, and anything on the “Dr. Feelgood” record. It’s just a freaking amazing record.

The Birmingham band Mars Electric. Jacob Bunton is second from left. (Courtesy Jacob Bunton)

“Dr. Feelgood” is supersonic, that whole thing. I always loved the bluesy thing Mick brought to Motley, it really stands on the “Girls” record. So, going back a bit, Mars Electric signs with Atlanta Records in 1997, dropped before your record came out. In 1999, you signed with John Kalodner and Columbia Records, the legendary A&R guy with Aerosmith and Whitesnake and all that. Got an interesting memory from working Kalodner? I got to interview him once, but he rarely does interviews. He’s a mysterious guy.

You are right, he’s an interesting guy. [Laughs] So the funny thing about Mars Electric is yeah we got out deal with Atlantic and our A&R guy was Kim Stevens and he’s the guy that signed Matchbox 20 and Collective Soul and Seven Mary Three and all those bands. We did our record for Atlantic and turned it in, and the head of the label just didn’t care for it and we got dropped. And we were like, “Argh, crushing.!” [Laughs] But it’s a funny story about Randy Jackson from “American Idol” before he was on “American Idol” he was senior vice-president of A&R for Columbia Records.

It’s a really long story and I will tell you the whole story another time because it would probably take an hour, so I’ll just answer your question about Kalodner. He’s the most opinionated person that you’ll ever meet. And he will take your songs and basically destroy your babies or whatever, you’ll think that. But the thing is he’s always right. When he tells you need to change this or this, you’re married to your song and you’re like, “No, that song is perfect the way that it is.” But the next thing you know, some time passes and you realize, alright the dude was right.

Jacob Bunton, left, and "American Idol" host Randy Jackson. (Courtesy photo)

But to the point, we would go to eat at Japanese restaurants or whatever, this is a funny story, and he’ll order for the entire table. They’ll put down menus and he’ll just say, “We don’t need those.” And it could be a group of eight people or whatever and everybody’s like, “OK.” And he orders for each person. And he tells you what you’ll like, whether he knows you or not, like if me, you and he went to dinner and this is your first time meeting it doesn’t matter. I like a lot of sauce on stuff, and one of the Japanese places that we ate in New York, I have a vivid memory of it, it was kind of dry and I asked them if they had some sauce and started pouring soy sauce on it. And he slapped my hand and was like, “You’re going to ruin the flavor!” [Laughs] Yeah, he was a trip. More than anything, with guys like that I love listening to their stories. I could just sit and listen to them talk forever.

The Birmingham band Lynam. Jacob Bunton is second from left. (Courtesy photo)

Your band Lynam played the Motley Cruise in 2008. What’s the single wildest thing witnessed on that cruise. Motley frontman Vince Neil, Skid Row and Slaughter were some of the other acts there.

It was actually something a passenger did and not something any of the bands did. There was this guy that was just so drunk and messed up, just partying, doing tons of drugs and all that type thing and this loud dude. And we went to Mexico on that cruise and when he was walking back on the ship from Mexico he slipped and fell into the water as he was just about to go through the customs people to get back on the boat and he goes, "Oh no! All my cocaine just got wet!" And he pulled cocaine out of his pocket right in front of the agents, so they kept him. [Laughs] It's like, how stupid are you?

I’ve gone on a million cruises since then, in Adler we did the Kiss Kruise, and people really, really party on those things. I’ve never done drugs and I’ve never even been drunk in my whole life, so I’m just one of those people that sits around and observes and smiles at everybody’s craziness.

What different itch does your project Neon Coven scratch for you.? You’re in that with Ace Von Johnson, a guitarist in L.A. Guns, he’s been in Faster Pussycat, probably other bands.

It’s just a straight up goth boyband. The way that came out, speaking of the cruises, we were on the Masters of Rock Cruise, Faster Pussycat was playing, L.A. Guns was playing and one of the main people of Monsters of Rock, Larry Morand, his assistant, April, she grabbed Ace, she grabbed me and she grabbed Anthony that’s the singer for Neon Coven, and Anthony was tour managing L.A. Guns at the time and we were like the youngest dudes on the cruise and kind of had a similar look, and she goes, “You guys need to start a goth boyband.” And it was something he just joked about and once the cruise was over Anthony send me a text, “Yo man when are we doing this goth boyband?” So, we literally all got together and just wrote an EP originally just to have fun and then later we did another EP. It’s not an actual band - it kind of is, not really because we don’t tour, we’ve only done one or two shows, but it’s fun. It’s just four friends getting together and having fun.

L.A. Guns played here last year in Huntsville and they were great. The songs, like “Rip & Tear,” "Ballad of Jayne, "One More Reason, “Never Enough” really hold up. And Tracii Guns (L.A. Guns guitarist) plays his ass off. What do you think was that band’s strong suit among that crowd heat of rock bands back then?

Honestly, I think it was a culmination of things. Those riffs were really cool. The songs were just straight ahead rock. There was no technicality or anything like that, it was just a sleazy rock band but more than anything (L.A. Guns singer Phil Lewis’) voice was just so freaking cool. To this day he still sounds the same as he always did and I’m such a fan of his voice.

And the L.A. Guns thing for me, the drummer Steve Riley and Traci Guns they co-own the name L.A. Guns so they’re 50/50 partners in L.A. Guns, so for years there would be two version of L.A. Guns touring. For a long time, it was Steve Riley and Phil Lewis, they had their band, and then Tracii Guns had a band with lots of different singers.

I just thought that was the way it was, so when Tracii and Phil rekindled their relationship, Steve Riley put together another version. I didn’t realize there was such bad blood between the guys. I was asked by Steve if I would come in and sing for his version of L.A. Guns at M3, the big rock fest every year in Maryland. It was like, “Yeah, that would be fun.”

He did the press release and Eddie Trunk announced it on his show that I was going to be singing for (Riley’s) version and then I talked to Ace who is in Tracii and Phil’s version of L.A. Guns and also Johnny Martin, the bass player from Adler is in that band. I called them and was like, "Hey, I’m going to be at M3 playing with Steve’s version, " and they’re like ... ugh. And I’m like, “What?” And they’re like there’s really bad blood there and there’s a lot of drama and you might want to go to the Facebook page and read some of the stuff. It’s kind of putting us in a bad spot because you’re like our brother and Tracii and Phil are going to kind of have a come-apart or whatever. And I was like, uh oh. [Laughs]

I went to the Facebook page and looked and ended up not doing the gig. So, I was in L.A. Guns for only one day and never did a rehearsal nor a gig, but Steve was the coolest dude in the world. I called him and was like, “I’m so sorry. You just made the announcements, I told you I would do this. I’m in a really weird spot because two of my closest friends are in the other version …” And he goes, “Let me stop you right there, man. Loyalty is everything. I totally get it and no hard feelings at all.” That could have gone so wrong - he could have been like, "Man! " and been so mad, but he was such a cool dude.

Anything else you can say about the Mick Mars solo album that would be insightful for fans to know?

The songs are really cool, the record is really cool. He’s such an inventive player and his riffs are insane and it’s definitely going to be what people are expecting. When they hear it … It’s really cool.

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