Dante Gizzi, frontman of Glasgow rock legends Gun, is not afraid to put in the hard yards.

He's speaking to The Herald ahead of an appointment to hand-sign 1000 of his band's forthcoming album, and keen to emphasise the group are just as keen more than 30 years into their career.

Formed in 1987, Gun released three increasingly successful albums and toured with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard before splitting 10 years later.

In 2008 the band reformed, initially only playing the old hits before deciding in 2012 to release new music.

As they gear up for the release of Hombres, their first album of all new material since 2017, frontman Dante and brother Giuliano 'Jools' Gizzi will perform acoustically at a number of record stores across Scotland.

That will be followed by full band shows in Montrose, Glasgow and Dunfermline, as the group get back into the swing of things having celebrated their 30th anniversary before Covid lockdowns.

Dante tells The Herald: "I think after the Favourite Pleasures album we had a couple of years of touring and then when we were starting to write new material the pandemic happened so it took a bit of time.

“I try and look at the positives from it. It’s quite hard to be creative in that sort of environment of not knowing what’s going to happen, so it was quite difficult for us to get the creativity flowing.

“It was sporadic at times in the writing process but I think Jools and I just worked through it and went back to the songs that were working.

“We don’t want to just put out an album of filler, every song has to really work for us.

The Herald: Glasgow rock legends GunGlasgow rock legends Gun (Image: Sonic PR)

“So it did take a bit of time but we just wanted to get the right album.

"We’re still hungry, that’s the thing. We’re still hungry to let people hear new material and you want to be energetic and have the fans out there really get the music, that’s really important to us."

Gizzi only took over vocal duties for the band in 2010, following the departure of second vocalist Toby Jepson.

He'd had experience as a frontman with El Presidente, his own project while Gun were on hiatus, meaning the switch from bass to singer was far more smooth than his first shows as a singer.

He says: "El Presidente was the very first time I had been a frontman.

“That was very much like being thrown to the wolves! The first gig that I did was at King Tut’s to a backing CD, it was just me on the stage with this CD deck.

“It was at the time where you could smoke so, being El Presidente, I had a big cigar because I didn’t know what to do with my hands when it came to the solos.

“I was absolutely shitting myself, it was absolutely rammed as well because there was a bit of a buzz about the band.

“I remember someone posting a couple of days later: ‘I came all the way down from Aberdeen to see a guy perform to a CD’. I only had eight songs and I didn’t have band at the time – I was going to get round to it...

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“The management at the time sort of threw me in at the deep end, this CD’s playing and I’m just standing there in the solo section having a puff on my cigar and drinking a brandy."

Before their breakup Gun had been riding something of a wave, with second LP Gallus reaching number 14 on the UK chart and its follow-up, Swagger, cracking the top five and producing four top 40 singles.

Things came off the rails with follow-up 0141 632 6326. The title itself  - the phone number for an update line on the band - is, let's face it, naff. Furthermore, the climate wasn't exactly ripe for classic rock.

The 1990s had begun with INXS, Rush and Aerosmith dominating the rock charts but by the middle of the decade things had shifted significantly. Stateside Nirvana's Nevermind and Green Day's Dookie had made grunge and pop-punk respectively the zeitgeist, while the UK was at the height of the 'Cool Britannia' Britpop era. Classic rock was not cool.

Last but not least, the recording sessions for the album were fraught.

Gizzi says: "Oh God, that was a tough one.

“I think that was another reason why we wanted to come back with a new album, we didn’t want to leave it the way it was with that album – we hated it. Jools and I couldn’t stand it.

"Andrew Farris from INXS was producing it, and there were moments where Jools and I were like, ‘Oh God what is this?’.

“We were in The Manor, which I think was owned by Trevor Horn, it was this big residential studio in London and I remember there was a period where Jools and I were like ‘this is tough’.

“We would take things to him and he’d want to change him and it just didn’t feel right.

“We kind of fell out with Mark over it, because Mark was… not siding with Andrew Farris but maybe sitting on the fence a wee bit.

“Jools and I just felt it didn’t feel right. We wanted this big rock album, because he (Farris) was a big part of the INXS writing process so we wanted something like Listen Like Thieves or Kick.

“Jools and I were ready to go up the road one night, I remember that, because at that point the management, the record company and Mark wanted to stay with it – there had been a lot of money spent on it.

“We really know where we want to go with the material these days, we’re quite adamant about that so as to not allow anything like what happened in the past to happen again.”

Hombres is released 12th April 2024, via Cooking Vinyl. Gun will perform acoustically at record stores around the country from April 12 with full band shows in Glasgow, Dunfermline and Montrose later this month. Find more details here