The Story of Beautiful Creatures
Hellstar and the birth of Beautiful Creatures
Hard rock outfit Beautiful Creatures was formed in 1999 by Bang Tango vocalist Joe Leste and guitarist DJ Ashba, whom we know today as a former member of Guns N’ Roses but also one of the main links and practically a founder of the group Sixx AM. On the other hand, Joe Leste began his musical journey back in the late eighties during the surge of bands from the Los Angeles Sunset Strip scene. Actually, Bang Tango belongs to group of bands from that time with great potential, who nevertheless failed to leave a deeper mark on the world music scene. The band also belongs to the category of bands who flirted with different musical directions like funk, which in a way set them apart from other monotonous musical attempts.
Oversaturation by similar new bands, combined with their rapid MTV-driven success, led the music industry to dismiss the whole genre and shut many of those bands out, causing the collapse of both weaker groups and promising ones. If we add that at the beginning of the 90s there were certain musical upheavals and the emergence of grunge, the situation was irreversibly becoming worse and worse for the Bang Tango and similar groups. The urban legend of the Los Angeles Sunset Strip scene says that only 3% of the bands from that time managed to leave a noticeable musical mark and achieve any kind of success.
But that’s still a topic for some other more detailed story. We fast forward and go ten years later, specifically to 1999, when however, the situation in the world of rock music had once again totally changed compared to everything that had happened in the previous decade. Hard rock of the 80s and grunge were now both in the garbage bin.
As for Beautiful Creatures, besides the mentioned duo,Anthony Focx joins the group as drummer, but he soon switches to rhythm guitar due to the arrival of one of the more famous studio musicians and drummers Glen Sobel (Alice Cooper, formerly of Sixx AM). More precisely, Focx becomes rhythm guitarist at the moment when Brent Muscat from the legendaryFaster Pussycat, who was in circulation with Beautiful Creatures during 1999, decided to continue his career in another direction. The lineup is completed by bassist Kenny Kweens from the group Shake the Faith and laterLA Guns. That original lineup of the band will be remembered as both the best and the most prominent in terms of names, due to the frequent changes that occurred later.
After establishing the first lineup the band begins with live performances despite the fact that at that moment they didn’t possess any original material. The first gig happened in July 2000 under the name Hellstar. However, soon after that the band returned to its original idea and name – Beautiful Creatures. Three months later they also release their first demo recording.
That things started well for the guys from Beautiful Creatures is clear from the fact that, right at the very beginning, even without any substantial original material, they were noticed by representatives of Warner Bros. The band signs a contract with that house and begins recording their debut self-titled album which will be released during 2001.. On top of all that, Beautiful Creatures also get a notable spot at the then very strong and famous Ozzfest festival. The band was in full swing, eager for success, ready to conquer the hearts of fans around the world, but…..
At the end of 2001, things began to change abruptly. What happened was something that affected almost everyone on the active music scene at the time. It was also something that had nothing to do with the band itself. At the turn of 2001 to 2002, major upheavals occur in the centers of the music industry. The new millennium brings new rules, literally overnight erasing the firmly established postulates on which the music industry as the world had known it for the last fifty years rested.
The publishing house Warner Bros, just one among many, was forced to merge with the much larger corporation AOL. In all that disturbance, a large number of groups were left without decent promotion and even without contracts themselves. More precisely without anything, if we’re being honest (almost the same as sleaze/glam bands in 1992). That kind of hurricane did not bypass the newly rising Beautiful Creatures either, so their debut album received almost no media promotion. All of this happened in a time that was “light years” away from today in terms of social networks and the opportunities they offer for self-promotion, which inevitably led to the breakup of the original lineup.
The first to abandon ship was DJ Ashba, directing himself toward working on his own music. Later it would turn out that this was perhaps, for him personally – somehow a good decision. He skipped Nikki Sixx’s offer to play in the hard/sleaze/punk superg-roup of that time Brides of Destruction, shoulder to shoulder with the legendary Tracii Guns. The second opportunity, however, he didn’t miss. This refers to the moment when Sixx AM was formed, and somewhere in the meantime Axl Rose also started noticing him.
In his place as lead guitarist of Beautiful Creatures in 2002 comes Michael Thomas (Tuff, Brand New Machine, Adler). Soon after Ashba’s departure, drummer Glen Sobel also left the band and was replaced by Matt Starr, who now plays in Black Swan nowadays. However brief it was, this period would prove to be the band’s most successful. Despite all the difficulties that affected this supergroup, and despite the potential they clearly had, they still managed to leave a mark on the scene.
2003-2006 Deuce Era
After the great crash caused by the aforementioned changes in the world of the music industry, Beautiful Creatures return and begin working on a new album. However, personnel changes won’t bypass the band this time either. During 2003, Michael Thomas leaves the group and begins collaboration with Suki Jones, the first version of something that will later become Adler’s Appetite. In his place comes Alex Grossi (Jani Lane, Quiet Riot, Bang Tango…). The new line-up including: Leste, Kweens, Focx, Grossi and Starr thus begin practically from scratch working on a new album that comes out in 2004 exclusively on the Japanese market.
With American and European publishers there are various misunderstandings and enormous delays, so the album named Deuce comes out in 2005 on the American and even in 2006 on the European market. And in between, the album was new but the old habits weren’t. Alex Grossi and Matt Starr leave the band and are replaced by guitarist Mark Simpson (Flotsam and Jetsam) and Bang Tango drummer Jimmy Russel. After that the band schedules a tour to promote the album, including a tour of Europe with Stephen Pearcy from RATT. It seems that at that moment things are finally falling into place, however….
Regarding the Deuce album period, it’s worth mentioning the fact that during 2003 vocalist Joe Leste again began working with his original band Bang Tango. Bang Tango even releases an album in 2004 Ready To Go. How much that parallel engagement affected work in Beautiful Creatures would show itself in the following years. From this perspective it seems that Joe Leste gave greater priority to his original band.
2007- ? and post Beautiful Creatures
In the period between 2007-2009 Beautiful Creatures continued with sporadic performances around the world. Joe Leste announced the beginning of work on a new album, however this hasn’t been realized to this day. The pivotal year, or rather the moment from which Beautiful Creatures practically no longer exists, was 2009 and Joe Leste’s serious health problems, i.e. his collapse on stage during a Bang Tango concert and hospitalization.
Rumors began to circulate in the media about how the vocalist was literally on his “deathbed” due to the turbulent lifestyle he led. It would turn out that instead of Leste, it was the band Beautiful Creatures itself that was in such a position. There were (of course) further personnel changes in 2009 itself, but all that was no longer important. Joe Leste continued to lead Bang Tango which exists today (more or less) and with which he has released two more albums in the meantime. As for the other two permanent members, Kenny Kweens has been the bassist of LA Guns for a long time but he left the band before the Tracii and Phil Lewis reunion in 2016. Anthony Focx devoted himself to producing.
There are several key reasons why Beautiful Creatures never reached the level they realistically deserved based on what was shown. First of all, it’s about timing. At the beginning of the 2000s when the band was formed, the already mentioned upheavals occurred in the music industry itself. BC were then left “empty-handed” regarding the promotion and support of their debut album. In this way BC were actually damaged from the very beginning and this drastically reduced their possibility of further breakthrough.
By the time the Deuce album era arrived, the musical climate had become much more favorable. The reformed Mötley Crüe, the super-popular Velvet Revolver and even Guns n’ Roses with dreadlocks, were paving the way for bands like Beautiful Creatures toward a new breakthrough to world musical heights. NU-metal took its place on the other side and it seemed that the dormant (more precisely destroyed, devastated) Sunset Strip scene was waking up again. More mature, more modern and better than ever. A large number of bands again begin to work actively, various super-groups are formed, while major festivals around the world welcome them with open arms. There are also new forces like Buckcherry, Hinder, Sixx AM from across the ocean, but also a large new wave of sleaze glam scene that emerges in Europe led mainly by Swedes like Backyard Babies, CrashDiet, Hardcore Superstar and others.
However, even in what were, by all accounts, drastically better circumstances and opportunities, vocalist Joe Leste decided to revive his original band Bang Tango once again. In fact, it is hard to talk about Beautiful Creatures without mentioning Bang Tango. Instead of fully taking advantage of the opportunity with BC, Leste was at the same time putting together a kind of Bang Tango version 2.0, without that band’s original members. In practice, Bang Tango and Beautiful Creatures often functioned almost like one band, with several members moving between the two.
Of course, out of all this, Beautiful Creatures ended up drawing the short end of the stick, and another major opportunity was missed. How much more focused Joe Leste really was on Bang Tango than on BC is suggested by the fact that from 2004 to the present, that Bang Tango version has released three albums. In the 2015 documentary Attack of Life: The Bang Tango Movie, Leste even refused to comment on the period when Beautiful Creatures was formed or on anything connected to the band. It is a film worth watching for fans.
Another important point is that sometime around the mid-2010s, the whole band-versus-brand philosophy began to take shape. Older musicians were no longer especially interested in launching new and exciting projects, as Beautiful Creatures had been in the early 2000s, but instead preferred to perform under already established names from the past, as nostalgia was becoming an increasingly powerful force in this kind of music at exactly that time.
Beautiful Creatures, who can fairly be described as one of the pioneers of the revival of the old glam and sleaze rock Sunset Strip scene, or rather its reincarnation and modernization for a new era, thus remained on the margins of all that musical commotion. External factors, internal disagreements, frequent lineup changes, and bad decisions all had a deeply negative effect on the band’s fate. As a result, the band never reached the level it seemingly deserved. Still, they left behind two phenomenal albums. How much they were actually valued is shown by the fact that in 2013, fans independently created the Facebook page Beautiful Creatures Reunion, calling on the members to reunite. Whether that will ever happen remains to be seen.
And…it did happen. In 2017 the band reunited once again to deliver Deuce Deluxe album. You may remember the story of the three different versions of the Deuce album released over the span of three years. This Deluxe version corrects those past mistakes and includes a new video for Straight To Hell, plus the previously unreleased track Get You High. Four years later, the band held another ‘studio’ reunion to release a professional version of their 2003 concert at the Key Club titled.
For the possible next step, we are still waiting….
This story was written in 2016 on the old Junkyard Rock Stories. This is a translated and slightly edited version of that article.
