"I always thought a guitar was a great way to make a loud noise"
Gilby Clarke was born in Cleveland, Ohio on August 17, 1962. When he was 16 he moved to Los Angeles. At this point he got more interested in music and he started a band together with two friends. In 1981 he joined the pop band Candy. They did pretty well and they got signed with Polygram. In 1985 they released an album called "Whatever Happened to Fun?". After a tour as opening act for Rick Springfield they dissolved.
Gilby then started making plans of a new band. He wanted a more prominent role and formed Kill For Thrills. They released one EP called "Commercial Suicide" (World of Hurt Records) and a full-length album "Dynamite From Nightmareland" (MCA Records).
Gilby joined Guns N' Roses in 1991 after Izzy Stradlin left the band. It was only a few short weeks before the band launched into their 2.5 years of arena and stadium touring.
"I had like two weeks, two weeks! To learn about 40+ songs. So it's like I hadn't time to think of anything else."
In 1994, after the ending of the UYI tours, Gilby got into the studio with a couple of his friends, among others Axl, Duff & Slash. The album came out later that year and was called "Pawnshop Guitars" (Virgin Records). He toured a year and a half after the release, playing headlining gigs and opening for bands like Aerosmith.
Gilby was a member of Slash’s Snakepit.
In October 1994 was he fired from Guns. Axl wanted to change the musical direction and didn't think Gilby was needed to do that.
When the tour with Slash's Snakepit was done in 1995 Gilby took some time off before he started working on his second solo-album, called "The Hangover". It was released on September 23, 1997, on the Paradigm label. After that he went back out on the road.
In January 1998 did Gilby start the work with a third album. The title would be "Rubber." It contained 12 new songs and was recorded at the Redrum Recording Studios, California. Gilby produced, mixed and engineered the whole album by himself. Some of the artists that appeared on "Rubber" were Brian Tichy, James Lorenzo, Ryan Roxie and Teddy Andreadis. The album was released on September 29 that year and Gilby did a tour to promote it.
"Rubber" didn't do very well but Gilby kept on playing small clubs and a live album was released in 1999.
Gilby has got a daughter named Franceska.