Not Asking Axl, Asking Alice.
 by Ashley Underwood

It’s all covers with Pete Blackbone. The songs he plays are not his own, his tattoos are merely stamp-ons, and his rock star hairdo is just a wig. This is all a part of Pete’s Tuesday night gig at The Cat Club though, or is it?  He’s the front man for a Guns n Roses cover band called Asking Alice, but it doesn’t seem to end there.  I first met Pete walking down the Sunset Strip and he handed me a flyer for his show. He was the complete embodiment of his stage character, Axl Rose. He was wearing a plaid kilt, an untamed fur vest, a red bandana tied around his head with built-in braids, aviator sunglasses, and walked in an exaggerated swaying motion the way Axl moves on stage.  Amidst all the punk hair-dos, black fingernails, body piercings and tattoos, he stood out with a style  not entirely his own, but a style that made everyone else look like background scenery. His copycat look challenged the enthusiasm of the average music fan.  Although his wardrobe and music are indeed Axl-inspired, Pete always manages to add in a small flare of his own. If you stick around his show long enough, you may get to hear a few original songs, and once he smiles, the rockstar façade comes crashing down. Pete is certainly an intriguing character whose eccentricities demand our attention.  With this in mind, I stopped by to see the Axl imposter one Sunday afternoon to take a peek inside his head…and in his closet.

Like two bright-eyed, kindergartners at “Show and Tell”, it was a day where Pete got to play rock star and I got to play rock journalist (they don’t call it LA LA land for nothing). Following Mr. Rose’s legacy of poor punctuality, Pete is running about 10 minutes late.  The stench of fertilizer outside his apartment is growing stronger and just when the sprinkler system comes on and I have to make a quick dive for cover, I see Pete and his girlfriend Sara, rounding the corner in a 1959 midnight blue Cadillac convertible.   I had forgotten how important “making an entrance” is to someone like Pete.  Cruising at a speed that plants grow, the neighbors can even catch a glimpse of the less obvious features, such as the skull and crossbones on Pete’s cowboy hat.  Together, the couple looks like they took a wrong turn on their way to a Halloween parade.  Of course, the fantasy and make-believe elements of Pete’s world make me want to jump in and come along for the ride.

An animated Pete begins recounting the band history to me. Asking Alice has been together and writing GNR influenced originals since 1989. Pete’s latest Asking Alice project is a Guns N’ Roses tribute band, which has been playing Hollywood for the last eight months.  The history of this rock n roll “wannabe” begins with the strict constraints of a northeastern prep school and the Boys Glee Club Choir.  He first discovered the pleasures of rock n roll when he enrolled at The University of Arizona in Tucson. Pete bought a guitar and started to play on the university lawn to the occasional passerby. What began as a gathering turned into a following, and soon, Asking Alice was formed.  After eight years living it up in Tucson, he decided to make use of his music and his studies in jacuzziing, boozing, babing, and motorcycles.  He eventually made his way to Los Angeles to become a chef by day and a “rock star” by night.

Pete says his music and fashion are based on his idea of what rock n roll should be, “You’ve got to have lead guitars with good screaming lead guitar solos.  You’ve got to have vocals that aren’t just all shouted out without any melody. I also think rock n roll should have a bit of glam to it. You know, I don’t agree with the Poison look, but I do agree with the silver, and the boots, and the leather pants…” Hanging above his bathroom mirror, is a sign that was given to him by a friend who admired Pete’s effort but doubted his potential for a career in music.  It reads, “Morrison’s turning in his grave.  Revelations :31 You can’t record looks Motherfu*ker”  Meanwhile, Pete is turning heads with his outrageous clothes and he doesn’t entirely have the wrong idea.  His philosophy  seems to be that if you make a big enough spectacle of yourself, people will take notice.  Unlike other Guns n Roses cover bands, Pete has something original to show if people do take notice.  Asking Alice has about 12 songs, written by Pete, that you can find on their website www.askingalice.com or on their cd.  He is also making a music video of the band, but was reluctant to give any details.  So, when we scratch the surface of this “cover boy”, he has a few surprises in store for us.

It is the dream of every musician who joins a cover band to be lucky enough to have a chance meeting with their real life counterpart or to be frequently mistaken for their idol. Pete has been fortunate enough to experience both.  On a very small scale, Pete first let me know that years before he had any notion of forming a Guns n Roses cover band, he had a high school romance with Axl’s cousin Hanna Litner.  More recently, on one of his daily outings to distribute flyers, Pete and guitarist Dolf, dressed as Axl and Slash, caught the attention of Izzy Stradlin, “ Actually”, Pete says, “Izzy stopped Dolf and I, we were both dressed up and handing out flyers on Hollywood Boulevard.  He pulled up in the car and he’s like, ‘hey you know’, and he pointed to the tattoo on my forearm that I had stamped on, ‘that one’s me!’ pointing to the top skull on the top of the cross.  He said that he was fairly interested in starting to manage cover bands.  But he didn’t come down to the show, so what can you do?”   Izzy may not have made it to the show, but Slash and Matt Sorum, on a search for a lead singer for their new band, made it down to The Cat Club a few months ago to see Pete.  When asked how they reacted, the answer was hardly a surprise, Pete, chuckling to himself, said, “They thought I sounded too much like Axl!”  Other than being recognized by the band members themselves, Pete has also been mistakenly recognized by Axl’s fans who can’t tell the difference between Pete and the real thing.  Still laughing at the insanity of it all, Pete starts in with another story, “We were handing out flyers on Sunset, all dressed up, and there was one guy that was absolutely convinced that we were Axl and Slash and he was asking us all of these questions like, ‘what was the inspiration for Sweet Child of Mine?’ And I’m just pulling stuff out of my ass… well, I wrote it about an ex-girlfriend of mine, Erin Everly. He went on and on, he just followed every word, and I was wearing the Guns n Roses jacket that night and he’s like, ‘Wait a minute!  Show me your tattoos!! And just by chance I had the tattoos on and I pulled the jacket off and he’s like aaah it’s you! It’s really you! I can’t believe it’s you!!’ It was really funny. But it’s fun when s*** like that happens.  I was down at Barney’s Beanery one time sitting in a booth and a guy came up and he’s like, ‘I just want your autograph’ It’s so much fun!! I’ve done that several times.  They’re going to go and tell people stories about how they met Axl Rose…and that he was actually nice!!” 

In conclusion to my visit with Pete, the highlights were finding the bag of fake tattoos in his closet and learning that he was one of the naked guys in bed with Jennifer Aniston in the movie Rockstar.   This was enough to keep me interested, so I went down to the Cat Club to check out Asking Alice in action.  Pete had his girlfriend, dressed in his Axl kilt, come on stage and they opened with a foreshadowing Welcome to The Jungle…and a jungle it was. The first set had the crowd pumped up and rocking out to all of their favorite GNR tunes which Pete delivered with precision.  His Axl moves and faces were so captivating that sometimes our eyes had more to take in than our ears.  He hurled the microphone around like it was his only weapon in a ferocious battle and then he did a dance with it that looked something like a rock n roll version of the MC Hammer.  I started to wonder how he moved around in those leather pants  that must have been sticking to his legs, though he didn’t seem to be having much difficulty.  The guy sitting next to me was from a band called City Monk and evidently he shows up for every Asking Alice show.  He was head banging, and convulsively jumping up and down out of his seat like it was the electric chair.  The bassist from ex-GNR cover band, Rocket Queen, was a standing in a corner booth looking on with enthusiasm. What I haven’t noticed by this point is that the keenness of the crowd is about to take a life of its own.  By the second set, the band began to lose their “covers” and before I knew it, wigs were flying, the stage was overflowing with people who “just wanted to jam” and Pete had taken a seat in the audience to watch Asking Alice grow like a chia pet immersed in a tub of miracle grow.  “Izzy” and “Duff” jumped onto the bar with guitars in hand to avoid the rowdy stampede of once-upon-a-time listeners.  The drummer’s spot was changing like I was watching This is Spinal Tap on fast forward, and over in the corner booth, Pete was chugging a bottle of water and watching others indulge in his rock star fantasy with a puzzled look.  He later told me he enjoys these breaks because all of his guitarists refuse to learn solos, so these audience interludes give his vocal chords a break.  We sat back and listened to an almost mediocre version of Patience (and wishing we had some at this point).   Things are getting out of control now and just as two Mexicans started to play La Bamba, Pete decided to take over again.  It’s time for his original songs now.  He told me that he wants to lure in the audience with the GNR songs, but the real goal is to get them to stick around for the originals.  After he lets the crowd have “play time” they all sit down to hear a surprisingly talented Pete sing some songs that would possibly impress even Axl himself.  Take Me Back is among one of the favorites with the lyrics “take me back to my bottle and let me drink before I die”.  Just as Pete throws me a free t shirt as I make my way to the exit, he announces the next song. It’s called Bitch. Just as I reach the door I hear Pete say, “Hey, this one’s for you!”  and then he shouts, “Yooooouu Beeeeaatch!!!”  Ha ha, that’s okay though, wait until he reads this.

Visit AskingAlice.com to get more of Pete and Asking Alice!