Gilby Clarke

Biography

Gilby Clarke is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio on August 17, 1962. He has been a guitarist for various bands, most famously as the rhythm guitarist for Guns N' Roses. In the early 80's, Gilby was a member of the pop band Candy which recorded the album "Whatever Happened To Fun." He left the band sometime in the mid 80's to form the metal band Kill For Thrills as lead singer and rhythm guitarist, while the rest of Candy went on to tu...

Gilby Clarke is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio on August 17, 1962. He has been a guitarist for various bands, most famously as the rhythm guitarist for Guns N' Roses.

In the early 80's, Gilby was a member of the pop band Candy which recorded the album "Whatever Happened To Fun." He left the band sometime in the mid 80's to form the metal band Kill For Thrills as lead singer and rhythm guitarist, while the rest of Candy went on to turn into Electric Angels. Kill For Thrills recorded an EP ("Commercial Suicide") and LP ("Nightmare In Dynamiteland") before Gilby got the call to replace Izzy Stradlin as rhythm guitarist in Guns N' Roses in November of 1991.

Gilby finished the huge Use Your Illusion tour with Guns N' Roses as well as recording the covers album "The Spaghetti Incident?" with the band. In 1994, Gilby released his first solo album "Pawnshop Guitars," which featured guest appearances from every member of Guns N' Roses at the time. Right before Guns N' Roses went in to record a cover of the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil," Axl Rose fired Clarke from the band, replacing him with Paul Tobias.

Gilby joined Slash's side project Slash's Snakepit and recorded the album "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" with them in 1995, as well as touring in support for them. Gilby Clarke went on to release three more solo albums 1997's "The Hangover," 1998's "Rubber," and 2002's "Swag," as well as a live album in 1999 called "99 Live."

Gilby has also produced for various bands, including producing the only Jizzy Pearl led L.A. Guns record, "Shrinking Violet." He also remixed five demo HollyWood Rose demo tracks for 2005's "The Roots of GN'R" with Tracii Guns laying down lead guitars on the track. He also produced the next Crash Kelly record.

Gilby was in The Starf*ckers and played with the reformed MC5 on their 2005 European tour. Also, Gilby was a member of the band Rock Star Supernova, along with Tommy Lee (Mötley Crüe), Jason Newsted (Metallica), and singer Lukas Rossi. They only released an eponymous album in 2006. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.