The dossier about the most dangerous group in the world

Guns N'Roses
Illusion & Self-Destruction

     The release of "Live Era '87-'93" album was just a pro-form motive for music media all over the world to put the name of GUNS'N'ROSES into their headlines, because it was anxiously expected which direction (Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy) the beast would show up from. The same beast we saw the first time in 1986.

     "Double live album was something we wanted to give to the audience, something like a goodbye to the previous era"- Axl Rose, the only original G'N'R member declared for MTV. The last hope of faithful fans for the possible reunion of the "old team" was dug under ground exactly with those words. Today it's unnecessary to discuss "whose fault it was" for disbanding of the winning combination that held the throne of popularity at the beginning of the 90s. Still, we can use the phrase of one of the RAMONES brothers "I won't tell you who was guilty for the breakdown of G'N'R (Ramones) 'cause I don't wanna take the dirty underwear out, but it all started with Axl (Joey)"

Reckless life & scandals

     When we get back to the far 1985, Jeff Isbell, later known as Izzy Stradlin who wanted to make the best band on the planet founded this group. He wanted his long time friend, William Bailey, to sing the vocals. This friend changed his name into Axl Rose when he found out the last name of his real father. The rest of the band were bunch of local faces such as: Tracii Guns (guitar), Rob Gardner (drums) and Michael "Duff" McKagan (bas). Such Motley crew didn't hold on for long, played without any rehearsing under different names (ROSE, HOLLYWOOD ROSE...). Gardner and Tracii soon left the band (right after the departure, Tracii formed the band LA GUNS). But Duff found the replacement for Tracii in ROAD CREW, one of the million local LA bands he played with: Steven Adler (drums) and Saul "Slash" Hudson (guitar). And that's how GUNS'N'ROSES were born. Axl stole his first styling from the walls of Izzy's room where were posters of Michael Monroe and HANOI ROCKS, which indirectly influenced their sound: glam rock sounded (and looked) quite good. A big publishing house "Geffen" saw in G'N'R the glam/sleaze comebacks and was ready to offer a contract worth $75,000 in March 1986. But they did not know G'N'R would spend the whole sum for debts and inevitable drugs. The same year a self-produced EP "Live?! Like A Suicide" was published in the limited edition (10,000 copies) for the small label, Uzi Suicide Records. Album sales were beating all predecessors. EP had two covers: AEROSMITH "Mama Kin" and "Nice Boys", a song from Australian group ROSE TATOO. It also contained two original songs: "Reckless Life" and "Move To The City" which described a chaotic state all members were in. A couple of years after a little deceit was discovered concerning this edition - all 4 songs were recorded in the studio and later on they added the roar of the audience in order to have a "concert atmosphere."

     Reputation of G'N'R was growing rapidly, still the success was quite far from them. The last day of July 1987 "Appetite For Destruction" comes out and admit it or not, it was on the list of Top10 ever recorded! 13 years after, this EP doesn't reveal any mistake, any wrong/excessive tone; everything is unmistakable - from skeptical "Welcome To the Jungle" to manic "Rocket Queen". Rock'n'roll riffs fly across one dimension to another, lyrics is drowned in the cheap Nightrain wine, strained battle for Mr. Brownstone who they didn't know how to run away from. Paranoia and love, glam & heavy, finally all that was in the same place, simple & perfect. Despite its potential, this album at first didn't mark much of a sale. "I didn't give a shit about success", recalls Slash, "And when it happened, it surprised me. We were touring during the whole year, we knew album was selling high number of copies and all of a sudden, the mass started coming to our concerts. The publishing house would call us and tell us on which position we were on the Top list and how many copies we sold, but I didn't appreciate it until at the end of one tour, in the free shop on the airport, somebody asked me to give him my autograme". It took a whole year for "Appetite..." to get on the first place of the U.S. Billboard Chart and finally started selling it. And what a year... The first scandal headed right after the release of the album: vinyl version that usually shows up first had a "rude" envelope. It was an illustration "Appetite for Destruction" by Robert Williams from 1978 where the scene of raping was shown. But since the year 1987 was the year of Tripper Gore (the wife of senator Al Gore) who was against "violent lyrics and explicit covers" of rock albums, very soon stores withdrew sales of this record. Unsold copies were taken back to the publishing house, which changed envelopes of vinyl and both cassette and CD edition - it was the cross Guns'N'Roses on the black background. It was the time of carefreeness in SFRJ (ex-Yugoslavia) and Yugoslav vinyl edition (Jugoton) was never replaced with "more polite" cover.

Chaos and more scandals

     Tours were the right way of promoting their record, but the band was constantly in the state of chaos, deeply into problems with alcohol, drugs, and women, always on the verge of existence. It's hard to say who actually played with the band during the tours - beside the usual line-up, we should mention Weat Arkeen and Del James; there were also members of bands as MOTLEY CRUE (Slash and Adler saw heroin overdosed Nikki Sixx), Fred Coury (CINDERELLA) played drums for some time (Steven injured his arm ?), IRON MAIDEN, Alice Cooper, ZODIAC MINDWARP and THE LOVE REFLECTION; the bass played legendary Kid Chaos (ex-ZODIAC MINDWARP, CULT, THE FOUR HORSEMEN) 'cause Duff decided to go on the honey moon.(?!) etc...Yet, event that filled tabloids all over the planet was the accident on the Monster of Rock Festival on Castle of Donnington in Britain, when 2 fans got killed in the crowd. Who got the chance to listen to the bootleg from that concert has surely heard the effort of Axl Rose to calm the audience down, but nothing helped - the press found the scapegoat. "The press is the press" says Slash "They take some event and turn it into something that would sell the papers". Swamp with scandalous articles, with good concert promotion and couple of video-clips rotating on the leading music television, G'N'R were slowly getting into the spotlight - album that was on the first place of the Billboard Chart was one year late.

     Naturally for some excesses they weren't guilty at all, which we couldn't say for the controversial song "One In A Million" (Album "G'N'R Lies - the Sex, the Drugs, the Violence, the Shocking Truth") published in the last month of 1988. Axl attacked black population (calling them pejoratively "niggers") with lyrics "get out of my way", as well as immigrants and homosexuals accusing them that "immigrants and fagets/they make no sense to me/they come to our country/ and think they'll do as they please/like start some mini Iran/or spread some fucking disease." It's not known how the immigrants reacted (Serbian community didn't say a word), but homosexuals manage to cancel G'N'R show for the anti AIDS charity concert in New York. But the lyrics about "niggers" made tension within the band. Slash's mother is black. "I'll say only I wasn't for that song at all, and I refuse to play it on the shows" says Slash. These events didn't affect the album sales and G'N'R had become the first band after a decade and a half whose 2 albums got on the Top5 list. The rest of "Lies" contained 3 new acoustic songs and all 4 songs from their first EP.

Dance with Mr. Brownstone

     The next year (1989) caught the group in total chaos - Izzy, Slash and Adler fought their drug crisis and finally 4 shows (October '89) as a support band to ROLLING STONES got them on the move again. Neither the audience was deprived of band's disputes - on the first concert Axl announced that the group would stop working unless some members "stop dancing to Mr. Brownstone". The only one who wasn't able to stop that dance was Steven Adler, who was replaced with Matt Sorum (ex-CULT) in August 1990. Even though the band was in the top form, with key-board (Dizzy Reed) back-up and disappearance of drugs from their daily grocery list, the relations between members started complicating a lot. Later on the interview will show that Axl's egoism was the basic problem. Izzy decided to leave the band first and it happened just before the release of 2 multi-printed albums "Use Your Illusion 1&2" and that was officially revealed a few months after the album was on sale. It's unusual that Axl's vanity towards his (ex) good friend so far that all sections that Izzy recorded on the first two albums were "slowed down" and a bit changed. These two "twins" had a bit softer sound of G'N'R, epic ballads as "Don't Cry", "Estranged", "November Rain", smartly embedded between nowadays classics such as "You Could Be Mine", "Bad Obsession", "Back Off Bitch". We couldn't say anything to deny the album and it went straight to the top of the most wanted records. G'N'R became the most popular band in the world, but strangely, exactly there was the beginning of their end. A giant tour headed after, G'N'R were the headline band at every concert, on every festival, their video-clips were on top of all most-wanted programs, money was coming in from all sides - but still, in the band members weren't satisfied.

     The real curiosity in the world music industry is seeking the replacement for Stradlin - in fact 2 guitarists (?) refused to take place of the rhythm guitar in, at that time, most popular band. The first guitarist was Peter Wells from the (above mentioned) band ROSE TATTOO, who said, according to press gossips "I'm not interested in what you're doing right now". On the other side, David Navarro (ex-JANE'S ADDICTION) asked more than $2,000,000 previously offered! Ex-guitarist of KILLS FOR THRILLS, Gilby Clarke, took Izzy's position succeeding to play entire G'N'R opus in a few days. The whole rock'n'roll epopee could be written about world's success of that particular tour. But behind curtains, Slash sneaked out couple of times to jam with local bands in pubs, Duff was making his solo debut in his hotel room, and Axl, as a classical prototype of a "fresh superstar" started being pretty annoying that he even jumped into the crowd (concert in the St.Lewis) and beat up the photographer. "The Spaghetti Incident" is a cover album, which Duff originally wanted to make a tribute dedicated to punk groups. But that idea evolved to a complete album where, by plain hazard, NAZARETH and THE SKYLINERS and even a song by wicked murderer Charles Manson (which, you're guessing, also made a scandal), found their place. We should mention that all covers were made at the UYI making era and that Stradlin's sections were, by Axl's demand, completely erased and played once again.

Downfall and new Guns'N'Roses

     Duff published a good solo album in 1993 (called "Believe In Me"), Stradlin enjoyed working with his side band (Izzy and) THE JU JU HOUNDS and in 1992 they published an excellent altogether album. In the meantime, Slash played with whoever called him (Lenny Kravitz, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Michael Jackson, Michael Monroe, Duff...) and there wasn't any news about G'N'R. In such atmosphere, the publishers started forcing the band to come back - there was exactly one place left for "Interview with the Vampire" soundtrack (1994). "Sympathy for the Devil" (THE ROLLING STONES' cover) is the last track recorded in the, partly, old line-up: Instead of Gilby, who left the band 'cause he couldn't stand the pressure, Axl (without any announcement) came up with the new guitarist, Paul Tobias (PAUL HUGE). It's hard to say exactly when the band broke down - Rose, again without anyone's acceptance, kicked out Matt Sorum; Slash found out in the papers he wasn't in the band any more, Duff didn't want to play songs after he had listened to Axl's demo tape, and only Axl stayed in the group. In the court, Axl got the permission to use the name of Guns'N'Roses. In spite of logic in this situation, only fans got most of the profit: Duff and Sorum played together with Steve Jones (ex-SEX PISTOLS) and John Taylor (ex-DURAN DURAN) and made a great offside project - NEUROTIC OUTSIDERS. Sorum even initiated the reunion of CULT last year. Izzy Stradlin made a wonderful record "117 degrees", Slash stayed faithful to hard-rock sound with his new band Slash's Snakepit and Gilby Clarke made a couple of good solo albums.

     From the official union of G'N'R, in 1994-1999 period, didn't arrive much of information, but by pirate channels, the news about Rose's negotiation with Zakk Wilde (ex-Ozzy Osbourne) as a possible replacement for Slash leaked out. At the end nothing turned out to be true. The line -up which has possibly been working with Axl in the last 2 years looks like this: Robin Finck (ex-NIN, lead guitar), Paul Huge (guitar), Tommy Stinson (ex-REPLACEMENTS, bass), Josh Freese (ex-VANDALS, drums), Dizzy Reed (keyboard). And according to Rose's story, 70 new songs have been written and 16 or 17 of them should be on the new album. If you want to know how it might sound like, you can listen to "End of Days" soundtrack that showed up on sale at the end of last year. And there, after 8 years, you're able to hear an original tune sung by G'N'R. "Oh My God" presents Axl in one heavy-industrial manner, somewhere between Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson who mix "My World" with UYI 2. Speaking about new album. Axl says: "I wanted to make a traditional record or to get back on Appetite for Destruction, but I failed. Slash is the reason. Simply, because no one who could possibly replace him in the right way didn't show up on my radar". The new style demanded a careful rearrangement of rich G'N'R heritage, so Axl &Co. recorded almost entire "Appetite Foe Destruction" album during last year, as well as "You Could Be Mine", "Patience" which would, with those rearrangements, be performed on concerts. The new album should appear in stores a bit later than it was planned to, 'cause Robin Finck left Rose brigade and got back with NIN again (He was replaced with Dave Navarro) and Brian May (ex-QUEEN) accepted to play on the album.

Resume?

     Appetite for destruction (it's not a phrase!) destroyed G'N'R from the very beginning, from one year to another, until only one original member left. Stardlin has been telling later on about that destructive instinct as one of the reasons he quit, aware that he refused fame&fortune. When he got back to replace injured Gilby, he recognized all what he ran away from. With bigger popularity, chaos, spontaneity, somewhat sincerity of what they did just disappeared. The wild beast got into the cage, but with its claws it could only reach the confusion of people around, or more often - itself. Publishing two albums filled with music at the same time (two and a half hours!) was the reason of creative artistic blank period/freedom during which they might have got back in the track - such a killing move was a good lesson to METALLICA in 1996 not to do the same mistake (see the parallel: they publish: "Load" instead of double album and then a year after they publish "Reload" and after that headed the cover record and finally - live album => the band still exists and kicks ass!) The thing that was leading them was an illusion which has turned to a nightmare. "On this live album", says Axl "When I heard some live tunes from UYI tour...ah...I hear as the band dies". And that was the end.

     The resume is simple: G'N'R was a damn good band. Albums like Slash's Snakepit ("Ain't Life Grant"), Duff's ("Beautiful Disease"), Izzy Stradlin's ("Ride On") or Axl's ("Chinese Democracy") can't change our judgement toward what G'N'R left behind them. And it is wild, dangerous, good.

Petar Jovanovic
copyright Rock Express