Beautiful Creatures by Kastle photo by Greg Watermann For those who lived through the late ‘80s glam-metal era, recovery from the hangover hasnÕt been easy. The images are too vivid -- and the pictures too prevalent -- to simply forget all that hair and makeup, all that spandex, all those over-the-top parties. But if the stigma has been a liability for most, some have learned from the experience, used it as a tool in identity reinvention. Joe LeSte of the Beautiful Creatures falls into that latter category -- with his latest band and a modern spin on some old rock ÔnÕ roll tricks. Founded and fronted by LeSte, who led late-'80s rockers Bang Tango, the Creatures mine the ghosts of heavy metal's past to inject a little piss and pizzazz into today's music, and right from the start, and it proved to strike a chord of success. Within weeks of their formation in 1999, the band was asked to open a round of stadium shows for KISS; not long after that, they signed on with power manager Gloria Butler (wife of Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler and consulting partner with Sharon Osbourne), which led to a stint on this year's Ozzfest tour and, eventually, to a big-money deal with Warner Bros. The band had a promising future. However, a few months after releasing their self-titled debut in August, the band was quietly dismissed from the label. According to guitarist Anthony Focx, the band got lost in the midyear merger between Time Warner and AOL, "The label was no longer the same label we signed to. The staff that used to work for us were all let go and the new staff had different priorities, Focx says. The good news is, the result of that signing is unapologetically hard-rocking calling card. Their debut release is filled with primal, driving riffs and lyrics that speak for a band whose members have been kicked around the rock block a few times. For LeSte, Beautiful Creatures is like a second coming. As the frontman for Bang Tango, the San Diego native rode the hair-metal explosion in the late 1980s, signing with MCA at a time when record industry reps were desperately trolling the Strip for the next Mötley Crüe or Guns 'N Roses. The band released two albums, but when grunge became the flavor of the moment in the early '90s, Bang Tango was quickly discarded. LeSte stayed on the scene for awhile with a one-off project called the Vagabonds, but he quit performing altogether in the late '90s, opting instead for a day job at Cleopatra Records, where he coordinated players, including many of his former glam-metal peers, to record -- what else? -- hard-rock tribute albums. But a falling-out with Cleopatra led LeSte back to the side of the stage on which he's most comfortable -- out front. With his music-business battle scars, LeSte brings a maturity to the Beautiful Creatures that he never had with Bang Tango. Still, his lyrics and onstage presence remain charged with sexual bravado and a gutsy self-confidence. "I'm black 'n' blue from head to toe and face to street," he sings on "Ride," the fourth track off Beautiful Creatures. "I don't give a damn about who you are or what you need/You're the perfect face, with the perfect smile, plastic underneath/Well I can pluck the world like an apple/And strip it down with my teeth." Next to the angry nü-metallers and socially paranoid post-grungers in today's music scene, LeSte comes off like a girlfriend-stealing commando. "I like to drink, have sex and do it all," he says. "I'm politically incorrect and I don't give a shit what people think." But while such unabashed swagger was de rigueur when LeSte was slugging it out with Bang Tango, that attitude is what make Beautiful Creatures stand out in 2002. And though LeSte and his bandmates -- guitarists D.J. Ashba and Anthony Focx, bassist Kenny Kweens and drummer Glen Sobel -- each fit the mold of the dark, lean, tattooed rocker, the singer says he's never wanted to be part of a "cookie-cutter rock band." "I don't sit around and try to figure out what band is happening right now and how I should cut my hair so I can make it," LeSte says. Still, in today's metal scene, full of glamour-free aggro-rockers, can a group of sexually charged, pretty boys actually make a dent? Joseph Brooks, the club promoter and deejay for legendary rock nightspots from Cathouse to Makeup, says music is nothing without sex appeal. "I don't think any of [the current metal bands] can be considered rock," he says. "None of them are good-looking or glamorous or sexual or have anything that I consider to be essential ingredients of rock 'n' roll. I listened to the Beautiful Creatures album and realized how much I miss that sound. They're bringing back that whole thing," says Brooks. They're also bringing back one more thing to the world of heavy metal: Girls. Beautiful Creatures' shows are marked by the presence of a large percentage of females at the front of the stage -- girls who most likely aren't participating in mosh pits or buying Slipknot and Limp Bizkit albums. It's difficult to say if they will inspire the tide of rock back to its more fun-loving days or be just another one-night stand. Either way, LeSte's just happy to be back on stage. "The one thing about this band," he says, "is that we just rock. And that's the only reason I started doing this."