Trixter Talks Tour Life, KISS Memories, and Rock ‘N Roll Brotherhood
I recently sat down with Steve Brown and P.J. Farley from Trixter to talk about their tour, memories from the road, and their 40-year journey in rock music. You can see them when they bring their Spirit of 1989 tour to The Token Lounge with Enuff Z’Nuff, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Band Inc.
It was great to catch up with the guys, who I’ve gotten to know over the past decade or so.
I met them for the first time in 1991 when they were touring with Don Dokken. P.J. responded to that “Oh man, the Don Dokken tour was something. That was our second tour. We’d done a few headlining gigs and a run with Stryper before going out with Don, who was touring his solo record after all the Dokken success. He always had words of wisdom and some gold stories.” Steve piped in “We still call him Uncle Don. He’d put his arm around us and give us speeches. I always joke that it was the first time I saw someone tell the sound guy what frequency to cut from their vocals during a soundcheck. PJ and I still joke about that to this day. Don had a killer band, with Mickey Dee from Motörhead and Peter Baltes from Accept on bass, and we had a blast with them.”
Watch The Conversation With Steve And P.J. From Trixter
They also toured with KISS in the early 90s as well. Steve Brown said that tour was wild. “We were part of their Kiss Alive III recording at The Palace of Auburn Hills. That was an incredible moment for us—being in the remote truck with Eddie Kramer, listening to the recordings. I remember him asking, “Steve, listen to Gene’s solo bass!” It was surreal.”
Speaking of KISS, Steve was a huge help on Ace Frehley’s last solo album. “We’ve been friends with Ace for decades, since around 1992. A few years ago, I had this other band, Tokyo Motor Fist, and we opened a couple of shows for Ace. His team thought we should work together, and it was a perfect match. We came up with some ideas, and it became an incredible collaboration. PJ even played bass on three of the songs on Ace’s record 10,000 Volts. We had Anton Figg on drums, and it was a dream come true. As a lifelong KISS fan, working with Ace is beyond anything I could have imagined.” To me, that would’ve been a lot of pressure working with him to make a record the KISS fans would enjoy. Steve explained ” Definitely. But from day one, my goal was to make a record the fans would love. Ace and I didn’t make it for ourselves—we made it for the KISS fans. We wanted to tick all the boxes, and I think we did that with 10,000 Volts. If this ends up being Ace’s last original album, it’s a solid way to close out his career.”
As far as new Trixter music is concerned, they’re working on some stuff. “P.J. and I are always working on music. We’ve got some new Trixter material brewing, but it has to be the right time. The band has changed a bit—Pete isn’t playing live anymore, so I’ve taken on the lead vocals, and we’ve added our friend Ben Hands on drums. The three of us are doing something special, playing at our highest level without any backing tracks, just raw rock ‘n’ roll.
P.J. chimed in “Releasing new music takes a lot of effort, and we want to make sure we have the right platform to get it out there. We’re working on it, but it’ll come when the time is right.”
Great to talk with the guys. I’ll see you at the show on Sunday night at the Token Lounge!
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