History Part I

When reading interviews and articles about the early history of Guns N' Roses, one is very likely to be at least a little confused... What's certain is that Axl, Izzy, Duff, Slash and Steven all struggled on the Los Angeles club scene for a couple of years in the beginning of the eighties, before ending up as Guns N' Roses in the summer of 1985. There had been variations of this line up in several bands, including LA Guns and Hollywood Rose, which actually was the Guns N' Roses foundation. Axl and Izzy had that band together with Tracii Guns, and in early 1985 they changed their name to Guns N' Roses.
Tracii and the drummer left the band when they were about to embark on their first tour up the US West Coast to Duff's hometown Seattle. They were replaced with Slash and Steven. This tour has sometimes been called the Hell tour. In some ways the beginning of this tour would turn out to be significant of the all the years after this. After driving 100 miles out of Los Angeles their car broke down, and they had to hitch-hike the rest of the way.
Back in Hollywood, they lived together in an apartment without a shower, and built a loft to sleep on above their instruments. They played extensively on the club scene and soon got a reputation. Tom Zutaut, A&R man for Geffen Records, who would be the one to sign the band, told New York Times in 1991 about the band at that time: "By the second song, I was completely blown away. /../ I'd been to really loud shows, and nothing had ever been too loud for my ears. But this was the loudest, rawest sound I'd ever experienced. It was actually painful. Everyone had talked about finding the next Jim Morrison. I'd heard these stories for years. But in my mind, this was as close as anyone had come. Axl Rose was the most

charismatic performer I'd ever seen. The musicians were amazing. Slash was the best guitar player I'd seen. The two of them were like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Everything about the band was right."¹
In March 1986 Guns N' Roses was signed to Geffen. Slash: "And so all the record companies at one time all of a sudden decided to see who this band was. And we had pretty much every major record company down there, and Geffen was the only one that had Tom Zutaut in it, which is the guy that actually signed us, who was cool enough for us to actually relate to. Everyone else was like, signing the band because we had a crowd, and people were interested."²

Various problems delayed the recordings of the debut album, and to fill out the time Guns recorded the independent EP "Live ?!@* Like A Suicide" that was released in December of 1986. Eventually the debut "Appetite For Destruction" saw the light of day in the summer of 1987. Record sales were slow in the beginning, radio didn't play the singles, MTV didn't play the videos, and the record was banned from some stores due to the cover painting by Robert Williams. Guns continued touring, opening up for bands like The Cult, Mötley Crue, Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden. These tours had their share of problems... Steven breaking his hand (he was replaced by Cinderella's Fred Coury) and Duff getting married in the middle of the Iron Maiden tour (ex-Cult bassist Haggis stepped in).
Then in the summer of 1988

everything started happening at once. Guns had gotten an opening slot on the Aerosmith tour, and "Sweet Child O' Mine" went to number one, dragging the album along to the same spot on the album chart.

1988 was finished with a tour in Japan and Australia, and the release of another "filler", "GN'R Lies". This EP was made up of the songs from "Live ?!@* Like A Suicide", plus four semi-acoustic songs. They were really popular now, and "Lies" joined "Appetite" in the top 5 of the album chart. But it was also now the real controversy around the band begun... Sure they had been criticised for the album cover and their lyrics, but that was nothing compared to what followed the inclusion of Axl's "One In A Million" on GN'R Lies. Dealing with bad experiences Axl had had with gays and black people, the lyrics was, to say the least, pretty controversial. Axl had to defend himself in every interview he did. ³

What then followed was the "black year" of 1989. Everyone in the band entered a period of huge personal problems. Whereas Axl had problems of more psychological kind, the rest drifted into heavy drug use. The outcome would be different for each member. Izzy was arrested for urinating in an aisle and was after this subjected to random urine tests for drugs.⁴ This surely helped his decision to give up drugs. Slash, Duff and Steven never managed to do that. The whole situation's peak was the four gigs as opening act for the Rolling Stones gigs of October 1989. On the first night Axl threatened to split the band unless certain members "quit dancing with Mr. goddamn Brownstone."⁵
Slash and Duff then cleaned up enough to be able to record again. Steven never did that. Slash talked to Q magazine in 1991 about what happened: "He's always been the child of the band, the one that was always just the happy-go-lucky, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and that's it. He couldn't understand why the drugs were so separated from rock'n'roll all of a sudden; why he couldn't be a junkie and be in a rock'n'roll band, because the twain are supposed to meet on the same ground."⁶

Steven was fired in the summer of 1990, around the same time Dizzy Reed on keyboards was added to the band. The recording were going nowhere until the band got a "a

shot in the arm" ⁷ in the form of Matt Sorum. Now they had a drummer that actually could focus on playing, and the result was 36 songs rehearsed in month and the basic recordings done in five weeks.⁸
The vocals to the album took a little bit longer, and eventually Axl moved into the studio in order to get the work done... "There was no heat in that room. It was a cold, lonely place, but it was the only place I could stay to keep myself in the work. It was cool looking, but it was dark, cold and weird. It got to the point that certain people could tell just by the way I was talking, the tone of my voice, that I wasn't right. A friend brought by some Christmas presents. Another flew out unannounced and stayed with me Christmas Day, because they were very worried that I wasn't going to make it through. /../ That was a nightmare."⁹

They recorded all the songs they had ever written, some even dated to the time before they even were in Guns N' Roses. In 1991 the new band debuted, playing two shows at Brazil's Rock In Rio II Festival. These were the first shows with Dizzy and Matt. The release of the albums kept being postponed, and in May Guns N' Roses launched a massive tour without having the albums out. The first leg had its share of problems. Axl damaged his leg during the warm-up club tour, few shows started on time, massive curfew fines were paid, and of course, the St. Louis riot. Slash: "We were backstage, watching cops on stretchers all bloody and shit, and it was like, "Fuck! How could this be happening?" I was so scared somebody was going to die. It was completely out of hand. This guy was shooting pictures the whole show. He'd been doing it, and probably having a good laugh. I saw Axl tell the security guard, 'Stop that fuckin' guy!' and the security's watching the band. So Axl went in, and that's when it started. We wanted to go on again. I know there's a certain amount of blame that can be put on us, because if you don't know us, you might say, 'Well, you could've done something to keep it together.' But from our point of view, it all happened so fast, we didn't know what the fuck was going on. The kids had a field day. I lost all my amps, my guitar tech got a bottle in the head, someone got knifed, our stage and video equipment and Axl's piano were trashed. I don't know. It was a fluke. It shouldn't have happened... but it did."¹⁰

After the first two legs, which took them around the US, Canada and Europe, "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II" was finally released. To some it was quite a shock to see that much material in so many varied styles. From the simple rock n' roll of "You Ain't The First" and "Yesterdays" and the beautiful ballads of "November Rain" and "Don't Cry" to monsters like "Locomotive" and "Coma".
Slash about the albums: "The fact that we completed those albums is unbelievable. You might be able to go to a store and buy it and listen to it, but you'll never be able to understand the emotional turmoil that was going on from adjusting from being some piece-of-shit club band to all of a sudden being like, quote, "The biggest band in the world" and having that attention thrown at you, and having the pressures that go along with it and all this ridiculous stuff."¹¹
During the first leg of the tour, it became clear that Izzy had gotten tired of the

situation: "After the first leg of the UYI tour, Axl wanted to make me sign a contract which meant that I was less involved and less paid. I couldn't believe it. This contract was coming from someone I grew up with for fuck's sake. We always considered GNR as a best friend band, and now Axl was telling me: "Now we are doing business." Why should I carry on? Where was the fun? That was the last drop. But other things happen before like in Donnington where two kids died during the show. What the fuck is that? Is that rock n' roll? To read in an airport newspaper that kid died during one of your gig? What the fun to play in stadium every night and to start a riot in Saint Louis because your singer is fucked up? You come to a point when none of all this is funny anymore. Axl wasn't doing his front man job anymore. As for the others, they were all stoned and wasted, I wasn't even able to make them learn covers; we could have play covers while Axl was away waiting for him to come back, entertaining the kids. No. We came up with drum solo. What's more boring than a drum solo?"¹²

So Izzy left the band, which now had to find a replacement just weeks before the start of the next leg. After some try-outs Gilby Clarke was chosen. And when the band got back out on the road it was with a lot of new people. Backup singers, horn players and another keyboard player were added. From December 1991 through February 1993 they played the US, Japan, Europe, and the US again, South America and then Asia once more. This period included

the infamous tour with Metallica. Slash: "The tour that everybody said it shouldn’t happen, just because it’s too cool. And we are great comrades with the Metallica guys. So it's like this little mini-army going against all standards. All the rules are history."¹³
In the end it didn't turn out as well as anticipated, much due to the Montreal riot. While playing "Fade To Black", Metallica singer James Hetfield burned his arm badly by onstage pyrotechnics. When Guns hit the stage, it was in front of a crowd already disappointed with not getting a full Metallica set. There were also some problems with the sound, and this turned out to the wrong night for that. Eventually Axl and the band left the stage, and before they return, a riot breaks out.
The last part of the tour, the

Skin N' Bones leg in 1993, saw the band back to the six original members, but the problems didn't stop. Before going to Europe, Gilby broke his wrist in a motorcycle accident, and had to be replaced. If the tour should go on as planned, they had to find someone who knew the songs, and do it quick. A little unexpectedly, Izzy stepped in for the first five shows before Gilby was back. It was obvious Izzy and the band didn't leave as friends, as Axl show after show dedicated "Double Talkin' Jive" to Izzy.
Guns N' Roses was finally done touring in June of 1993.

PART II