PROPHETS OF ADDICTION – Taking The High Road

West Coast based glam punk n’ rollers, Prophets Of Addiction, have been kicking around since 2010, led by tenacious frontman and former Pretty Boy Floyd / Phil Lewis bassist, Lesli Sanders. Following a few fits and starts, late 2024 saw the release of the band’s fourth album, Face The Music, via BraveWords Records, serving up their trademark brand of street-level grit that has earned them a small but loyal following. No question that Prophets Of Addiction remain under the radar to the world at large, but Sanders is determined to put the band on the map slowly but surely.

At this point, Sanders is focused on getting the word out while avoiding the sometimes questionable “requirements” of today’s music industry when it comes to promotion.

“We’ve played shows, done some tours, but we’re still trying to get people to hear the thing,” says Sanders. “How we’re going to do that, I’m still not sure. We’re trying to get attention, sure, but I’m not sure of the exposure we’re getting now is any better than when we started. I’m kinda clueless as to how to go about getting attention nowadays. I’m not going to sit around making TikTok videos acting stupid, even if it would sell more records. I know there’s a focus on social media for promotion, but I’m not gonna do that sort of thing. I’m 56 years old; I’m not gonna dance around in my front yard or stick my tongue out and make metal signs…”

Face The Music is reminiscent of The Quireboys, very early Guns N’ Roses, with a hint of The Beatles thrown in for good measure. And, of course, Pretty Boy Floyd, seeing as how Sanders co-wrote, co-produced and played on the band’s third album, Size Really Does Matter (2004). The new Prophets Of Addiction album is warm and dirty, loaded with hooks, and there’s plenty of space within the songs to hear what’s going on. It sounds like it was recorded live off the floor, which is a very good thing.

“In a perfect world that would have been the best way to do it,” Sanders says, “but because everyone has lives, we had to get the drums down first, then one guitar player would record his parts and fly home, the other guitar player would fly in, which made sense because otherwise the guys would be sitting around for three days waiting for their turn. We’re scattered across the States, but we did meet up to record the album. We didn’t send files back and forth. We met up in Las Vegas and we worked on the songs I had; we arranged and practiced the songs while we were there. We recorded the album in the traditional way, starting with drums and bass, then putting everything on top of that. If I do another album, I think I’ll try to do it more live off the floor just to capture more of that real time energy.”

“I had the songs already,” Sanders continues, “and the first job was arranging them with our drummer (Wayne Stokely). I met up with Phil (Soussan / bass), and every once-in-a-while he would make suggestions. Sometimes we had more than we needed and he would point out that we really didn’t need the extra material. These days, when I start writing songs, it’s very simple. It might start out as something basic, like a Ramones song, and then we add things to the music from there. We use a lot of cleaner tones, so you can actually hear that there’s actually quite a bit going on in the songs. It’s extremely well mixed, so if you listen to the album with headphones you’ll probably pick out things you didn’t notice the first few times.”

Asked if any of the aforementioned name-dropped artists had an influence on Face The Music – and Prophets Of Addiction in general – Sanders admits he just focused on the music in his head rather than trying to mimic somebody else’s sound.

“I was with Pretty Boy Floyd for four or five years. I don’t think that had any real influence on me doing Prophets Of Addiction because the bands I had before Pretty Boy Floyd were more glam / punk kinda stuff. And if you go back and listen to the music from those bands, I was very young, but the musically it’s pretty much the same as what I’m doing now (laughs). I just wanted to make a good rock record. At the end of the day, the most important thing for me are the actual song lyrics. There are a lot of songs out there that, when you really listen to the words, they really aren’t very good in my opinion. There’s nothing clever about them, there’s nothing tricky or thought provoking where you go, ‘Whoa! That’s what that means!’ I’ve always enjoyed using double meanings in my lyrics, and trying to be clever in the way it’s crafted. A song can have a hook and be catchy, but it might not be as good as it could because the lyrics are uninspired. A lot of music these days seems to be like that.”

With such a strong focus on lyrics, does Sanders consider himself a storyteller?

“I never really thought about it,” he admits. “I’ve been writing songs for years so I just kind of do it. On some days everything works and I’ll be done in five minutes; other days things just won’t come together no matter how hard I try. In some cases, I don’t even write anything down at first; it’s just all in my head and I write the lyrics down afterwards so I don’t forget them (laughs). Some of the best songs are written in a matter of minutes.”

“‘Last One At The Bar’ was one of those songs where I just started strumming an acoustic guitar. I wrote that song years ago, when there was a lot of alcohol and drugs involved. It was my ‘cry for help’ song. That’s one where it was never actually written, so to speak. I started playing and those were the words that came out of my mouth.”

Face The Music is a rock record that is molded on musicality rather than trying to bash you over the head with intensity. Interestingly, it’s the punk-ish cover of the Rod Stewart classic “Maggie May” which happens to be one of the heaviest songs on the album.

“I was screwing around with that idea many years ago,” Sanders says of choosing to cover the iconic song. “I knew it would take some really good players to play that song properly. Obviously, I’m not able to sing like Rod Stewart, so we did our own version and it’s very good musically. I’ve never really done cover tunes, so I figured it was about time to do one and see what happens.”

With regards to his – some might say limited – vocals, Sanders admits he “just wanted to be the bass player and sing harmonies,” but he ended up being front and center out of necessity.

“After having other bands, getting to a certain point of success and being ready to take the next step, and then having problems with other people in the band, I just decided that if I sing the songs I can just keep going if something goes sideways. As important as the drums and guitars and everyone else is in a band, at the end of the day if you replace them people aren’t really going to notice that there are different players. When you change the singer, suddenly the band sounds completely different.”

“I’ve had some people comment on my voice, saying ‘His range is only a note…’ (laughs), but I’m also singing all the backing vocals, and they’re all higher than the lead vocals. My range is way more than people might think. I just don’t think singing lead vocals in a higher range with this kind of music works.”

Purchase/stream Face The Music here.