Joey Allen says that he and his WARRANT bandmates tried to do as much as they could for Jani Lane before the singer’s final exit from the group.
Lane recorded several albums with WARRANT in late 1980s and early 1990s but left the group several times. The band’s seventh studio LP, “Born Again”, was released in 2006 and featured Jaime St. James as the lead singer. In 2008, Lane returned to WARRANT temporarily and toured with the group. In September that year, WARRANT announced that Jani had left again. The band replaced him with Robert Mason and released its eighth studio album, “Rockaholic”, in 2011.
Speaking to “That Jamieson Show” about how Jani‘s last split from WARRANT came about, Allen said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We tried the reunion for about a year, which started off great and just crashed and burned. And it was unfortunate. We all tried to do as much as you can for a guy that’s having a hard time with substance, and at some point, there’s not a lot you can do, and you’ve gotta hope that they have the strength in them to pull it off. But it was a wicked ride for him. And it’s just tragic. It’s not any better today than it was when it happened.”
He continued: “I miss the guy like a brother. We spent a lot of years together, on and off the road, making some beautiful music, as well as having some fun with family and friends. So it’s unfortunate, for sure. But at least we’ve got the music to remember him by and we go out, when we can — not in the last year [due to the pandemic] — and play those tunes in remembrance of him and what he meant for us.”
Lane died in August 2011 at age 47. Paramedics found his body in a Comfort Inn motel room in Woodland Hills, California, which is near Los Angeles. Lane had battled alcohol abuse for years.
Mason recently told Waste Some Time With Jason Green about how he found out about Jani‘s death: “I think it was us and the SLAUGHTER guys, we were all having dinner at a steak joint somewhere in the middle of the country doing a gig, and everybody’s phone just buzzed — it seemed [like it happened] all at once. It was kind of rare for us — all band and crew; everybody — after flying in, we were all sitting around the table, with appetizers, waiting for entrees to show up, and all of sudden, everybody’s phones just blew up. And it was that horrible look. I remember somebody looking and going [opens his eyes wide]. And I know they thought to themselves, ‘This is what this is,’ and they were dead right. We all picked up the phone, and we were, like, ‘Did you just hear…?’ ‘Yeah, I just got a text from so-and-so.’ ‘I just missed a phone call from six people.'”
WARRANT‘s latest album, “Louder Harder Faster”, was released in 2017 via Frontiers Music Srl. The disc was recorded with producer Jeff Pilson — a veteran bassist who has played with DIO, FOREIGNER and DOKKEN, among others — and was mixed by Pat Regan, except for the song “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink”, which was mixed by Chris “The Wizard” Collier (FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, PRONG, LAST IN LINE).
