Quotes | Influences | Images 

Richard Fortus was born November 17, 1966 in St. Louis. He began exploring music at a young age, and at age four, he picked up the violin. By age five, Richard was also playing drums. Richard was also a member of the St. Louis Youth Symphony in his early teens.

At age 13, Richard started playing guitar. Influenced by bands and artists like The Beatles, Stones, Bowie, The Police, The Clash, The The Psychadelic Furs and Jeff Beck, Richard put together a rock-band with drummer Greg Miller. "We’d do long, extended songs, just instrumentals, where we’d play for 20 minutes. After a while, we realized we weren’t going to get anywhere, and that we’d better get a singer. It just so happened that Richard knew Michael (Schaerer) from school, and that was the beginning of the band,” Greg recalls. Schaerer was asked to join the band, which was later named The Eyes.

"Our initial success happened very quickly," Richard said. "We opened up for a couple bands, and all of a sudden it was a happening thing. Within a year, we were the top of the pops in St. Louis, and we were also playing the midwest college towns, where we did really well."

The debut album, "Freedom In A Cage" was released in 1989, gaining the band good reviews and a good reputation. They were said to be the best thing from St. Louis since Chuck Berry, and the album sold out pretty fast. However, the band decided not to print more cds, to avoid oversaturation the market until they had a "real" album out.

The next year several record companies tried signing The Eyes, but Atlantic Records got the deal. The name was changed to The Pale Divine, and Simon Rogers was hired to produce the band. Pale Divine headed to Hollywood to record their real debut album, "Straight To Goodbye", which was released in 1991.

Pale Divine toured USA as an opener for one of Fortus' favourite bands, The Psychadelic Furs, supporting their debut album. During the tour, Fortus started joining the Furs on stage playing violin one some songs.

After the tour was done, Richard Fortus went back to St. Louis with Pale Divine to start writing their second album. However, the album never happened, since Psychadelic Furs' singer Richard Butler (who had then recently left the Furs) called Richard Fortus and asked if he would be interested in joining him to help him out on a solo album. "Richard said to me that he wanted to put something new together and would I be interested. Well I said sure and so we did hook up. This call was so completely out of the blue. I had gotten to know Richard a little bit while playing violin on a few songs during the tour for A World Outside. It was not like we were real close or anything. But, we started working right away after the end of the last Furs tour." The two teamed up with drummer Frank Ferrer. Richard Butler's brother, Tim later joined them to do the bass on the album. With contributions from all members (and especially Fortus), Butler decided it was unfair to call it a solo project, and the name of the band was rather set to be Love Spit Love.

The selftitled debut, co-produced by Richard Fortus, was released in 1994. The album featured five song co-written by Fortus. The album was well recieved by the press. After the release, the band went on tour. Chris Wilson replaced Tim and handled the bass lines live.

In 1997, Richard Fortus formed the band Honky Toast, with Love Spit Love drummer Frank Ferrer. The band was on Epic, and they were ready to record their debut album in the spring of 1998, but unfortunately, it never happened.

During the next years, Fortus worked more as a session player, and he did work for artists like Britney Spears, Billy Idol, Puff Daddy, N'Sync and Ben Folds. Richard Fortus also joined BT on tour during these years, and he was close to join Guns N' Roses, but they first went for Buckethead instead of him.

When the Psychadelic Furs reunited in early 2000, Richard Fortus was asked to play with them. He joined their live band, playing both guitar and cello. Around this time, Fortus also auditioned for Guns N' Roses, but he didn't join the band. However, while preparing for the start of the Chinese Democracy World Tour, Richard was brought in to replace Paul Tobias who wasn't supposed to play with the band on the tour. In the meantime, Richard had been writing material with Tommy Stinson, and he had also toured with Enrique Iglesias.

Richard Fortus made his debut with GnR in Hong Kong, August 14, 2002. This was the first date of the Chinese Democracy tour. He continued playing the short European/Asian tour as well as the failed North-American tour later that year. After the tour ended, Fortus went back in studio with GnR. With his duties being finished, Fortus went on to work both on soundtracks, games and with other artists. In 2005, Richard toured with Nena - perhaps most known for the 80s classic "99 Luftballons".

In 2006, Fortus went on tour with Guns N' Roses yet again. This time Europe was the location. With him on the tour he got his old band mate, Frank Ferrer, to fill in for Brain for some shows, while Brain was home with his pregnant wife.  

(Updated January 15, 2006)


Richard Fortus

Artist Name: Richard Fortus
Real Name: Richard Fortus
Born: November 17, 1966, in St. Louis.
Instruments: Guitars, Cello, Mandolin, Violin, Bass, Drums
Other Bands: The Eyes, Love Spit Love, Pale Devine
Worked with: Ben Folds, Ozy Osbourne, Tommy Stinson, Nena, Puff Daddy, Billy Idol, Cindy Lauper, Psychadelic Furs a.o.

Parents: Unknown
Siblings: Unknown
Influences

Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Leigh,
Snakefinger, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bowie, The Police, The Clash, The Psychadelic Furs,  Chomsky, Robert Fripp, John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck and Wes Montgomery
Quotes

"I don't read the fan forums."

"It's a pretty unbelievable band!"

"I didn't grow up a Guns N' Roses fan"

"As for Axl, if it was strictly business, none of us would have stuck around for as long as we have. I consider him family. He's a beautiful human, not at all like how he is perceived. You have to realize that he CHOOSES not to defend himself in the press. He believes that all that matters is the music. I respect that so much."

"I truly believe that this is the greatest band in the world right now and our best work is yet to come."

"I think that everyone is fairly confidant that there will be no problems using the Gn'R name. The other members quit, and therefor forfeited their rights to the name. I hope that we can live up to the level of the name."

"It's a pretty good band live."

"When I go back and listen to "Appetite for Destruction" and the other early stuff, there are definitely three guitar parts there. There's Slash's rhythm parts and Izzy's rhythm parts, and then there's Slash's wanking over the top in between vocals. That's what we're trying to do live. And I think that's why Axl wanted to go with three guitars, because that was always missing from the live sound."