TRIXTER’s MARK ‘GUS’ SCOTT Fires Back At STEVE BROWN Over ‘Adequate Drummer’ Comment, Rumored Trademark Dispute

In a new interview with Artists On Record Starring ADIKA Live!, TRIXTER drummer Mark “Gus” Scott was asked to respond to TRIXTER guitarist Steve Brown‘s recent comment that the band will never reunite with him and that he was “an adequate drummer at best”. Mark said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I have no response. It’s, like, come on. Go to YouTube and take a fucking look, tough guy. I played in front of millions of people,

“When they put that [interview with Steve] out, I responded by putting out an article more recently, a show we did [in 2016] opening for Bret Michaels at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. And it was a very favorable review highlighting me out of anybody in the band. Now I never really bumped it with a trumpet to that regard because that’s not really my thing, but I felt it was appropriate at that time to just shed a little light on what was really up. And it stemmed from — I don’t know — a bad taste in somebody’s mouth. And it was probably a quick little out-of-the-mouth comment that ended up becoming a big thing. And I know how it kind of works. But what prompted it…”

He continued: “It’s kind of funny, I quit the band again at the end of the summer 2017, and nobody heard a word about anything until like 2020, ’21. So it’s, like, wait a minute. What happened? I didn’t talk to those guys at all during that time. So something flared within them. And it certainly wasn’t propagated by me. Maybe some old festering shit. So when you bring up the word ‘jealousy’, I wonder if that plays into it more recently of some things that I’ve been doing that has nothing to do with them. But they take it as a weird… I don’t know. The fact that I have to be brought up in the conversation I find very interesting, being I’m not associated with any other rock act at this point. I’m not even in the industry anymore. ‘But they keep pulling me back in.’ [Laughs] And that’s the truth of it. Literally nothing was said for a three-year period. I did a remake of ‘Give It To Me Good’ in celebration of the 30th anniversary, and those guys did fucking nothing. And by the way, my version sonically came out sounding pretty fucking good. I got a lot of attention also press-wise. So I don’t know if that may be… I didn’t do it to strike at them. I did it just because no one else fucking did anything. How fucking stupid was that? So, I just did my own version. I went to a studio and fucking cut it with a buddy of mine, who did a great fucking job. And I’ll be honest with you, I also wanted to explore the idea of expanding the demographic footprint of the song. It really had a country feel to it.”

Asked by host Stefan Adika if he owns the TRIXTER trademark now, Mark said: “I do not. I don’t own it, no. That’s the truth.” Pressed about whether there is any truth to the rumor that Brown let the trademark lapse a few years ago and that Scott “went and got it,” the drummer responded: “Well, now, that’s a different question. [Laughs] It’s kind of weird. I never wanted to really exploit the truth of what was up because it makes the band look bad. It makes everybody look bad, and it’s not good for the brand. And that’s a problem. But maybe that’s something we can talk about in the future.”

He continued: “But yeah, it’s kind of funny when somebody acts as if they’re sitting on the throne, but they realize they have a cardboard chair they’re sitting in. I think you have to be careful when you adopt that attitude. And I think if you run a show that way, it should be understood that that’s the show you’re running. But you should legitimately own the throne if you’re gonna attempt to sit on it. And I think that was the problem that started a rift at some point. But the idea of maintaining silence about it for three years and then just arbitrarily one day saying, ‘Hey, that guy’s an asshole’ … [Laughs] It’s, like, where the fuck did that come from? Particularly, again, since TRIXTER, I really haven’t been active in music aside from putting out my own solo shit, which has been well received and got me some attention. And, again, I hate to say it — I find it surprising that no one else did anything for the 30-year anniversary. And I felt that that was unacceptable. So I had to do something.”

This past September, Brown was asked in an interview with Robert Miguel of Uvalde Radio Rocks about the possibility of him and other members of the band’s classic lineup reuniting to play their first shows since 2017. He said: “Pete‘s [Loran, TRIXTER singer] a brother. We talk all the time and everything’s cool there. I just think that Pete‘s — look, he’s always welcome. He can come out whenever he wants. He’s always welcome to come on stage and play with [me and TRIXTER bassist P.J. Farley]. And we’ve gotten offers over the past couple years, and we’ve presented it, ‘Hey, we want the band,’ and it just doesn’t work out. And there’s nothing I can say more about it, other than the fact that, with the drummer [Mark ‘Gus’ Scott], sadly that’s a problem that’ll never be repaired in my mind. So that you’re never gonna see the original TRIXTER back with the drummer again. But you might see Pete fronting us with a different drummer, which is fine, ’cause that guy was an adequate drummer at best anyway.”

In recent months, Brown and Farley have been performing acoustic TRIXTER shows backed by Ben Hans on percussion.

This past June, Loran told the “Rimshots With Sean” podcast that he was still “cordial” with Brown and Farley. “I actually just saw P.J. about three weeks ago,” he said. “He was out here [near my home in Arizona] — he’s out with Chris Jericho‘s FOZZY, and they were doing UFEST here in Phoenix with GODSMACK. And he had called me up and said, ‘Let’s get together. Let’s grab some lunch.’ And I hadn’t seen him since probably 2017. And it was needed. For me, it was needed. We had really kind of talked past what had happened. So we’re great. It was really good for me. Gus, on the other hand, with those guys, not so much… And they’ve all done interviews and really talked some shit about each other, which — I get it, I guess.

“I think if you got all four of us in a room, within a short, reasonable amount of time, everyone would be hugging each other [and saying] ‘I’m sorry’ or whatever,” Pete continued. “As far as doing a gig, I don’t know about that. But it would be nice if that could happen, though — at least that part… And I’d like that to happen. I don’t know if they’d like that to happen, but it would be good. The possibility of doing shows? I don’t know if that ever happens again. But those guys [P.J. and Steve] are very busy, number one; they always have been. But they’re also doing like a TRIXTER acoustic thing. And if they ever roll through Phoenix, I’ll probably jump up there and do a couple of songs. I don’t see why not.”

Pete went on to lament the fact that Gus, Steve and P.J. have been unable to mend their differences. “These are guys that have known each other since junior high, grew up in the same town, started a band together,” he noted. “Gang mentality — us against them. ‘We’re getting a record deal. Now we’re gonna open up for the SCORPIONS in front of 18 thousand people, and we’re gonna have to kick them in the teeth because we want them to accept us.’ And all the accolades and whatnot throughout the years. It would be kind of sad to let that just all get kicked to the side because of something stupid. My opinion.”

Both Brown and Farley have been critical of Scott in recent interviews, with Steve saying that the drummer is on “the shit list beyond belief” with the rest of the group, while P.J. compared being in a band with Mark to owning a disobedient dog. “Sometimes you let the dog off a leash and he just goes running to the middle of the street — no good,” he said.

Since reuniting in 2008, TRIXTER has released two studio albums via Frontiers Music Srl — 2012’s “New Audio Machine” and 2015’s “Human Era”.

TRIXTER toured extensively in the United States, Canada and Japan in support of its five major label releases. They have performed live in arenas and amphitheaters with crowds up to 35,000 people, appearing with such rock superstars as KISS, SCORPIONS, POISON, TED NUGENT, NIGHT RANGER, CINDERELLA, TWISTED SISTER, DOKKEN, WARRANT, GREAT WHITE and FIREHOUSE.

In a January 2022 interview with “The Bay Ragni Show”, Gus stated about his relationship with his bandmates: “I haven’t spoken to P.J. or Steve at all. There has been no activity as far as putting the band successfully back together at all. And to be honest with you, although my skirmish with those guys may be more well known, there’s more layers to the problem between us, unfortunately. It involves the whole band, as far as seriousness to play and things like that or where they prioritize that thing. But that’s neither here nor there. I think overall there’s no deep-hearted desire on some people’s part to really put it back together. And that’s the biggest shame of all. And I think that’s also the biggest obstacle to me to as far as even having a desire to reach out. Which sounds terrible. Honestly, as a friend, that’s something that I wrestled with myself. Whether he pissed me off or I pissed him off is somewhat immaterial. Those sorts of things ought to take a secondary seat to anything else that we’ve accomplished together, and that should always be a priority. So at one point I’ve gotta believe I’m gonna break down and give a shout at least and say hey. It’s stupid that it’s gone this far, and I’m myself to blame equally as well. But no, as far as making any progress, unfortunately, no — there’s been none. I think the biggest problem is there are some people that really just do not care or just do not want to do it to the level that it takes to wanna put it back together. And that’s the biggest shame for everybody, I think. That’s ultimately what bothers me the most, I think.”

Scott also touched upon the various projects some of the other TRIXTER members are involved with, including Farley‘s current stint with FOZZY and both Brown‘s and Farley‘s collaboration with Eric Martin from MR. BIG.

“I think the biggest reason why I don’t reach out [and] why a bigger effort hasn’t been made on anybody’s part is these guys are out with all these other projects, doing all this other stuff, and they didn’t care to do TRIXTER first?” he said. “They fail to believe that there was potential to be at least… Like the idea of us going back to Japan. Oh, what a horrible idea that would be. Oh, it couldn’t possibly be successful if we did something like that. The idea of really approaching this situation with a certain mindframe, that’s the part that kills me the most. You actually don’t see the potential or have the desire for that. Even if we did not have the potential, I love the music so much, I would do it for nothing; I’d pay somebody to get on that stage. Whereas they — apparently — do not possess that desire at all. And that I find exponentially more inexcusable — maybe that’s the best way of putting it — at least to me. I think that hurts even more so. It’s, like, why would you not wanna do that? That’s what we lived for; that was what we would have killed for. So I guess that’s maybe the biggest question that’s unanswered. And that’s the kind of thing those guys never wanted to sit down and talk about, even during the good times, even when we were out there doing it. There’s an elusive quotient to the whole thing, man, because some people have not been on the level with the whole thing either. But at the end of the day, it’s desire. I think that’s the one quotient that has yet to really… That’s the biggest festering sore. And even above brotherhood and all that, that’s the part that prohibits progress.”

Back in 2021, Scott told Waste Some Time with Jason Green that “there were always two camps within [TRIXTER]. It hasn’t always been as bad as it is now. Peter and I were always very close, and P.J. and Steve were always very close. I mean, we were all collectively very, very close. We were a family, and that’s not bullcrap; that’s for real. We literally grew up together. P.J., at 15 and 16 years old, used to drive my car ’cause I wanted him to pass his driving exam. To that level, man. I’ve known these guys 35-plus years. So we’ve been through a lot, and we’ve experienced things around the world, the likes of which people will never experience. So we’ve been through very, very highs and very, very lows all together. We each know deep, dark secrets about each other. And it’s something beautiful — it really is. And, unfortunately, more recently, it has turned more ugly.”

Regarding what Brown is “mad” at him for, Scott said: “What it stems from is something, I think, that started a long time ago. And it was unresolved crap that got worse and worse, and then got out of control. It started small in a sense that there were two ideologies within the band on how to run the band. When we had opportunities like we did the second time around… When we first came out [after our comeback], we did three shows in one year; I think the next year we did five. When you have 52 weekends and [you’re plotting] a big comeback and the press is favorable and people are throwing record deals at you and you’re hitting No. 56 on iTunes, the idea of playing 20 shows in one year, to me, it just seemed like an opportunity to strike that no one else really wanted to share the idea. That’s where I think things started, and nobody wanted to talk about it. That’s a problem — in any business.

“It got to a point where I took some action, and I was somewhat of a dick about it,” he admitted. “But my actions were certainly prompted — to take action. And it kind of caught him in the backside a bit, and he got really angry at me.’

Scott told Waste Some Time with Jason Green that he was “hesitant to give the full details” of his disagreement with Brown, but claimed that “there was a dictatorial attitude that [Steve] had, and he wasn’t exactly sitting on the throne. And I think he took offense to the idea that I took a strike at his position, and it caught him a little short-sighted.”

Asked if he acknowledges that he may have done something to rub Brown the wrong way, Scott said: “I’ll go so far as to say a hundred percent. I pissed him off big-time, but it certainly wasn’t without prompting. I didn’t just one day wake up and say, ‘You know what? Fuck him. And this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take an ax and chop up his car.’ No. It [had built up] over a long period of time. Everybody avoided the idea of having a conversation about it. I mean, if you’re gonna run a bubblegum stand, you’ve gotta all agree upon how much bubblegum you’re gonna sell, what you’re gonna sell it for, and how often you’re gonna sell it. And to have four guys that own one bubblegum stand and can’t agree on the price of bubblegum and how often they’re gonna sell it, they’re pretty substantial problems.”

Scott celebrated the 30th anniversary of TRIXTER‘s biggest MTV hit, “Give It To Me Good”, by releasing the aforementioned solo version of the song in May 2020.