GUITARIST GEORGE LYNCH EXPLAINS WHY DITCHED ELECTRIC FREEDOM AND RETURNED TO THE LYNCH MOB NAME, “NOBODY REALLY LIKED IT”
Iconic guitarist George Lynch explains why he has decided to go back to using the Lynch Mob moniker versus the interim name, Electric Freedom.
He tells Full In Bloom, as per blabbermouth.net, “[Lynch Mob is] just a brand I’d established for decades, obviously — over three decades. Nothing’s perfect, and I’ve gotta just live with the fact that it has some negative connotations that I probably have to continue explaining for the rest of my life, and I don’t mind doing that. But it is a brand that I built, and I’m just gonna stick with it. As far as a marketing thing and a brand thing and a business thing and a working thing, and it keeps my band guys working and it keeps the fans happy, it makes sense.”
“I really felt, when I adopted Electric Freedom, that I was really going against the grain more than keeping the old name,” he laughed. “I really felt a lot more resistance than I’d ever felt having Lynch Mob; that was actually the reality of it. Nobody really liked it. And I didn’t like living with that; it was just kind of uncomfortable. It’s, like, ‘Okay, well, we’ve just gotta put up with George’s decision here to do this, but nobody agrees with it. We’re not comfortable with it.’ It has a sort of disingenuous ring to it. As much as my motives were pure — I felt honest — it just never caught on, on all kinds of levels.”
Asked if he had gotten any negative comments from fans over the Lynch Mob name, he said, “I may have had a few in the 35 years it’s been around, but I’d say probably the most negative criticism I’ve had of it came from me. So I was my own worst critic with the name, especially in later years. I got a lot more criticism with Electric Freedom.”
“It’s a brand,” Lynch explained. “I mean, nobody wants Coke to change their recipe. Just stay the same, and that’s what you built over the years. Why would you…? ‘Why would you change it’ is a rhetorical question. Why I’m probably not more successful in some ways in my career is because I followed my aspirations musically rather than sometimes be smart about just sticking to the plan. [Laughs].”
In August 2021, the band celebrated the 30th anniversary of Wicked Sensation with a special limited print/deluxe edition of the album. Wicked Sensation Reimagined featuring re-worked and re-recorded versions of the LP’s classic songs, and was made available via Rat Pak Records.
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