Gun biography
Gun are a rock band from Glasgow, Scotland, best known for their cover of Cameo's "Word Up!".
History
Early career
Originally called Blind Allez then for a short time, 'Phobia', GUN were formed in 1987 by Giuliano Gizzi (guitar) and Cami Morlotti (bass), with Mark Rankin (vocals), Alan Thornton (drums) and David Aitken (guitar). Signed in 1989 by A&M Records the band line-up changed after Thornton, Morlotti and Aitken parted company with them and new recruits Dante Gizzi, Scott Shields and Baby Stafford joined. In the studio, Jim McDermott (Kevin McDermott Orchestra, Simple Minds and The Silencers), provided drums on the albums
Taking on the World and
Gallus. Debut album
Taking on the World was also released this year. Rankin's cousin Sharleen Spiteri, of fellow Scottish band Texas and ex drummer Thornton contributed backing vocals to several songs on the album. The single "Better Days" from the album made the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart.
Gun toured the US and supported The Rolling Stones on their European Urban Jungle Tour of 1990. Tours with Bon Jovi and Def Leppard followed shortly after.
Mainstream success
Alex Dickson replaced Stafford before the release of their second album
Gallus, of which the single "Steal Your Fire" was a minor hit. Spiteri and Thornton again contributed backing vocals to the album.
Both Dickson and Shields left before the release of Swagger, Giuliano taking over all guitar duties. Mark Kerr (brother of Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds who coincidentally were on A&M in North America) replaced Scott Shields on drums. Swagger was easily their most successful album, propelled by the success of their version of "Word Up!" The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart, charted well in many other territories and won an MTV award for best cover version.
Decline and split
The band took a break and returned three years later with yet another new drummer, Stuart Kerr (formerly of Texas), a keyboard player, Irvin Duguid, a revised name (G.U.N. - the reason given at the time, was to distance the band's name from the Dunblane shooting incident and to show some sensitivety to those involved, as Rankin explained in an interview for the website dotmusic.com) and a new album
0141 632 6326 produced by INXS keyboard player Andrew Farriss. However, the album sold poorly in comparison to
Swagger, peaking at #32 in the UK Albums Chart.
The band split in 1997 and aside from a few one-off reunion gigs in 1998 (Paradise Garage, Lisbon, Portugal) and 1999 (Scotland Rocks for Kosovo charity event), had not been active as a unit before reforming, with Toby Jepson as guest vocalist, for a Rockradio charity gig in January 2008. Two new Gun CDs were released (The Collection and The River Sessions - a double live CD) during their hiatus, and all the previous individual members went on to other projects within the music industry. An official fan site was set up, in agreement with the band, with previous and current members of the band participating in live web chats and contributing to the forums from time to time.
Biography from 
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