Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses emerged from the thicket of the hair metal jungle on Hollywood's Sunset Strip in the mid-80s and single-handedly reinvented rock and roll with righteous riffs and a real and present element of danger. The band became notorious as members dabbled with drugs, booze and other forms of debauchery. Thanks to arena-ready anthems that enraptured teens and enraged parents, Guns N’ Roses, led by vocalist Axl Rose, quickly rose up in the charts. But, as the band’s music was climbing, their relationship was crumbling. Hear the true story of this band of rock and roll outlaws.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
They were the baddest band on the planet. Profane and powerful,
Guns and Roses rescued rock and roll with a unique
sound built by life on the edge. Led by mesmerizing
frontman Axl Rose, Guns and Roses could inspire religious devotion,
a riot, or both, but from day one, the guns

(00:25):
greatest danger was to themselves. Fueled by NonStop drug abuse
and outrageous egos, it took just a few years for
the group to turn their guns on each other. This
is Guns and Roses, the story behind the music. It's

(00:56):
August two thousand two. In seven years after the lotion
of the world's most dangerous band, the reclusive Axel Rose
finally emerges with Guns and Roses at the MTV Video
Music Awards. The man's name was familiar, but the faces
were not. A lot of people think it's almost sacrilege,
you know, to do it that way, But he isn't.

(01:17):
Given hot axles. Hired guns bore no resemblance to the
rock and roll outlaws that had enraged parents and enraptured
fans in the nineteen eighties. Their menacing sound fueled by
lies of extreme decadence, endanger and we're drinking at least
a half down a Dare and Jack Daniels a day,
just trying to start of keep themselves, you know, like

(01:40):
on an even killing they lived in and that's why
you know they were one knots above everybody else. They
were the real deal. But Guns would ultimately choke on
their own excess less than a decade after shocking the
rock world with their seminal debut Appetite for destruction, drugs,

(02:00):
booze and runaway egos toward the band apart. Everything was
falling apart. Everything was strong that was gone on there.
It was trouble, APT trouble, APT trouble. You know, it
didn't stop. You didn't know from one minute if it
was going to end because of the drug overdose, because
of a riot, because of it's just imploding. But at

(02:22):
the same time you didn't know it's that same day
you were going to see the greatest musical performance of
all time. Guns and Roses Rebellious Routes were planted on
the grimy streets of Hollywood with two local misfits named
Steven ad Learned Saul Hudson a k A. Slash again
amping up their hard rock dreams. Stephens started playing drums

(02:44):
and I started playing guitar and we started a band.
That's where guns starts for me. In late eighty four,
the struggling musicians checked out a band called Hollywood Rose
at an l A gig. The group was fronted by Jeffrey,
Isabelle and Bill Bailey, Indiana transplants who had rename themselves
Izzy Stradlin and w Axel Rose to Slash and Stephen

(03:08):
Axel's hypnotic performance was nothing short of magic. After the show,
I introduced Axel to Slash and he knew that that
was like history in the making, But that was the
first time Slash Axel I said that sad we get
that sing a guitar player wherever kick Ass band. By

(03:32):
March of eighty five, Stephen and Slash adjoined forces with
Axel Rose and Izzie Stradling. That same month, basist Michael
Duff mccagan cemented the lineup. They called themselves Guns and Roses.
We were a game. That's how we thought was so
well play rocking room Muther to keep your ass. Guns
were finally cocked and loaded, and their combustible on stage

(03:56):
chemistry quickly offered a dangerous alternative to make up metal groups.
Like Enderella and Poison, all these other bands. We only
had all the fan backs and makeup and for app them,
and we did. We just went out there and very
rock and roll. They looked like outlaw stuff. Number one.
The music was to me like nothing I had ever heard.
We just didn't really give it about anything else going

(04:17):
all around us. We just had this edge, this sort
of unpredictable, scary thing about what it was that we
did and that there was no hold part. And from
the beginning, guns hunger for success was matched only by
their rappetite for excess. Quite often it was twenty for
our day party, Tupper Worse look ok in literally Tupper

(04:40):
wars Um. Everybody was completely start out and using ecstasy.
Nobody drank as much as Slash, and nobody has found
as much as Slash. We were just following and the
steps of all the guys that we grew up that
you know, we're our heroes growing up, and then we
just took it that one step further. Virtually homeless and

(05:02):
constantly migrating from one squalid crash pad to another, Guns
were single minded in their pursuit of just two things,
partying and rock and roll. These guys were living off
of biscuits gravy from Denny's. You know, for friends, there's
usually at least a few bodies on the floor. You

(05:23):
had just definitely locked in. There was always a song
written on a pizza box and empty liquor bottles everywhere.
We were always strunging to find a place to practice,
finding place to crash and in. Back in those days,
the best people to know were strippers, because they're the
ones that were empathetic to your needs. Once on stage,

(05:44):
the band served up bludgeoning riffs and actual supply. The
menacing lyrics the product of an abusive household. Rose was
an explosive frontman who used his songs to tackle his demons.
As volatile as is. All the things that you might
find complicated did are difficult about Axel is what feels
him to be such an amazing performer and such an

(06:04):
amazing songwrit it. Axel's volatility was both a blessing and
a curse. By early eighty six, Guns and Roses were
the hottest band in l A. But record labels wouldn't
touch him. Nobody wanted to signence. I mean, even though
the people that wanted to sign thisst they didn't want
to deal with us. Nobody wanted to produce as nobody
wanting to manage this um and you know the club runers,

(06:27):
you're scaredygas. Guns and Roses were a powder keg that
could blow at any moment. But in the spring of
eighty six, Geffen Records of Jack Tom Zoots out saw
the band at an l a club thought their hard
rock sound was worth almost any headache. I basically went
to David Geffen and I said, I just saw the
biggest rock and roll band in the world. They're going

(06:47):
to sell more records than any band except for maybe
led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Guns and Roses signed
a record deal with Geffen, but few believe they were
destined to redefine rock and roll, will even survive at all.
The label was worried that their explosive investment could combust
at any moment. Well, I was worried about them surviving

(07:08):
because you can't tell junkies are drug addicts to stop
taking drugs. They probably laughed when I said, guys, I
mean be careful. You know you're gonna be the biggest
rock and roll band in the world. You don't need
to destroy it. With this crap. You always kind of
thought that, you know, there would be like the explosion
and it will all be over. One of them would
die or something would happen. Very bad boys. In August

(07:35):
of eighty six, Jeffen got Guns into the studio, but
the band never allowed a rigid recording schedule to cramp
their untamed style. On any given night, terrorizing Hollywood. Every morning,
we'd have to get up and somehow managed to be
at the studio by twelve. They came in many many times,

(07:56):
well hung over, but amid all the chaos going and
Roses were about to make musical history. One of the
songs that emerged in those early sessions was a disarmingly
sensitive ballot called Sweet Child of Mine. Ironically, Slash came
up with its classic opening riff as a joke, were

(08:17):
rehearsed guitars and he started playing like a circus kind
of thing. Yeah, as a dude play that again. What
started out as a joke guitar for me turned into
a huge anthem Raxel as far as that relationship that
he was in at the time, So it was very
heartfelt moment. Is like Axel's unusually affectionate lyrics where Penna

(08:42):
is a love letter to his girlfriend Aaron Everley, with
whom he had had a tumultuous five year relationship. When
it was good, it was good, and when it was
bad it was horrible. There was a lot of turmoil
between us two. And that's all I want to say.
Aaron was a very nice girl. She was cute as

(09:02):
could be. She was just the opposite is Axel. But
it also shows a sight of Axel, sweet child of
mind that you wouldn't necessarily when you hear all these
nasty things about him. But Sweet Child was a rare
track of tenderness on an album dominated by incendiary anthems
like Welcome to the Jungle. And when Appetite for Destruction

(09:23):
was released in July of eight seven, it bombarded fans
with a brutal, sonic diary of five musicians hanging on
the edge by a thread. They were, you know, they
were living you know, hand amount, and they were just
falling off the rock and the girls and the drinks.
And that's what they saying about it. That's what they did,
and they lived it. It's a pretty much a story

(09:49):
book of everything that Axel and the band was going through,
from say at the beginning of the eighties, all the
way up until the record was finished in August of
eighty seven, Guns hit the road for a world tour
to support the album, taking their never ending Hollywood party
to inebriated extremes around the globe. It's just a bunch

(10:12):
of crazy kids that had just been given the key
to every city in the in the world. You know. Basically,
there were photo session when Slash literally was cropped up.
You know, they heat up and somebody behind him to
hold him up so he can fold down with the
photo session. Slash is very dedicated player. He would go
and throw up behind the amps, come back out and

(10:32):
keep playing stock on stage and a cigarette would dropped
down in betweenst pants and stomach and I'm sinning watching him, going,
you know, dude, you're burning up, and he says, doing
the sull on pain. The guns outrageous antics and graphic
lyrics were infuriating parents but delighting fans, and in July

(10:54):
eight Appetite for Destruction climbed to number one on the charts.
It was the right band at the right time, with
the right message, and it just happened to to hit
the use of America in a certain way that everybody
related to it, which is great, But just as the

(11:14):
band reached multi platinum heights, tragedy brought them crashing back
to earth. On August during the Guns set at the
Monsters of Rock festival in Donnington, England, two fans were
crushed and killed by the frenzied audience and so we finished.
The gig our manager didn't tell us about it, so
we met up at a pub later on and I

(11:35):
found him in the bar so crying and he told
me about that, and it's like that was when the
reality kicked in that you can get to this all
time high, something that you can't compare to anything, and
then have it go to an all time low. The
desks at Donnington added fuel to a growing critical fire
against the band and to the sentiment that g n

(11:57):
R We're headed for premature destruct ship. Next the Guns
turn on Stephen Adler when behind the Music continues. By

(12:21):
the end of Guns and Roses had launched a multi
platinum blast of dirt and grime onto the airbrush base
of rock and roll. Just one year after the release
of their debut album, they were one of the most
popular bands in the world. They were the baddest thing
on the block at the time. They had a certain
genuineness to them. I think people really attached themselves too.

(12:44):
They were what they were, and what you saw is
what you got, and no expectations for it to be
such a global of that. In November of eight, eight
Guns released the e P G n R Lives, a
collection that included four new tracks knocked out in a
single inspired studio session, driven by the top ten ballad patients.

(13:05):
The record would go on to sell two million copies. Basically,
it was a live session. I recorded everybody in the
same room and in a circle and they all played
together and it was pretty magical. We did live's record
and it was like a real easy, quick thing to do,
which was really successful, which is sort of the shock

(13:26):
when day's work and it sounds like all these copies.
Despite their success, controversy constantly threatened to disarm the Young Guns.
Another of the tracks on g n R Lives was
One in a Million, a divisive tune with racially charged
lyrics that put the band under fire. Hit home with

(13:47):
me on a bad level because I'm half black, so
he started saying the word man's very unsettling, but The
storm of protest only fueled album sales, and in February
of eighty nine, as g in Our Lives joined Appetite
for Destruction in the top five, the band decided to
take a break from recording and the rope, but their

(14:07):
downtime quickly became an endless succession of wanton days and
wasted nights. That's where we really went down. That's that's
where I got lost, as he got lost, Stephen got lost,
even got lost, and Axel disappearance somewhere. Slosh didn't know
how to entertain himself unless he was on stage of
going to a gig or doing something. You know, So

(14:29):
what did he do? Wake up, drink and drink more?
I love flash to death with his drug abuse was
out of control. Stephens drug abuse was out of control.
You know, doves drinking um and Axl's you know, wild
eyed vision of reality was was out of control. In
October of eighty nine, Guns got an offer to open

(14:51):
four shows for the Rolling Stones in l A. It
seemed the perfect opportunity to bring the band back together,
but on opening night, Actual made a shocking and ouncement
on stage. He implied, if certain members don't stop dancing
with Mr Brownstone meaning Slash and you know the band
was over. Oh we're messing around there, I went. But

(15:12):
somebody had a real big problem and if they didn't
stop doing it, that was the end of Guns and Roving.
I know it was directed at me because I was
all strung out at the time. That was one of
the things that probably made me hate Axcel more than anything,
something I probably never ever forgave him for without really
even thinking about it at the time, the tirade seemed

(15:34):
to galvanize the band. In the spring of nine, the
Guns entered the studio to begin work on their most
elaborate project yet, a double album of all new material.
We all managed to sort of straighten ourselves out, except
with the exception is Stephen. Stephen was so locked up
that he just couldn't get it together. He was so

(15:55):
messed up with junk that he couldn't pull off the tracks.
The band had lofty ambitions for the new album, but
Adler's debilitating heroin addiction made him a liability in the studio,
and the sessions came to a grinding hall. He couldn't play.
He would lie to us and we go over to

(16:15):
his place and find behind the toilet and my myself
underneath the scene. In July, frustrated by their lack of progress,
the band fired Stephen Adler, only worsening the drummer's depression
and drug abuse. He would eventually suffer a cocaine and
due stroke. I did everything I possibly could. She's trying

(16:40):
to kill myself. I had nothing there for him. I mean,
everybody that I knew I thought were my friends took
everything they're good for me and disappeared. I would drink
a whole bottle of Vodkas down at right for as
I was coming at a second pass out as Stephens

(17:07):
spun into a deadly narcotic abyss. The band recruited former
cult drummer Matt Sorum, and in September of ninety Guns
began laying down the tracks that would make up the
epic double album Use Your Illusion one and two is
creative idea of moving forward was we can't remake Appetite.
The next record has to be in another direction. But

(17:29):
the impoverished gang of five who lived through the turmoil
that inspired Appetite for Destruction had drifted apart, and from
the start sessions were literally phoned in it was impossible
to get us in so one room, all of us
at one time. It is very dark, and there was
a lot of just toxic sort of feeling in the room,

(17:53):
and sightings of accel Rose were feeling far in between.
User illusions was all over in the place. It was
sort of like, you know, because of Roses version of
the White album, so to speak, maybe not right, it's good.
It was like all this masterial coming from all different directions.
Despite all the turmoil, Guns double album was destined to

(18:15):
become a phenomenal success. A few could have guests that
it would also serve as the band's last artistic gas.
By early Guns and Roses were both finishing up their
ambitious double album and plotting a massive world tour. But
as they hit the road, concert crowds discovered that the
look of the band had drastically changed. I had a

(18:38):
horn section and pianos and all this other kind of crowd,
which we didn't necessarily want as a band of it
was something that Axel still want. I remember feeling a
bit like I didn't really sign up for this. I
was kind of hoping to join a badass rock and
roll man. What's with the piano just it just got
bloated play in a simple always the dominic guns Man,

(19:03):
Axel Rose now seemed hell bent on season control of
the band. Soon after the tour began, he gave slash
Izzy and Duff an ultimatum, signed over the rights to
the name Guns and Roses, where the group would be history.
In his mind, the name belonged to him, and if
something disintegrated, you know, he wanted to ensure Guns and

(19:24):
Roses ultimate survival. Even if this version of the band
broke up. If we didn't sign it, the band was
going to break up right then and there. So we
just did what we've always done and just kept the
thing going. But his tensions mounted within the growth. The
strain began to show on stage in July of a

(19:46):
concert in St. Louis, spun out of control after Axel
dove into the crowd and tried to grab a camera
from an overeager fan. I jumped off stage, and yeah,
things went haywire after that, and I maybe I could
have handled it better or whatever, but no one was
really handling anything at that point. So I took it
into my own hands with what I could do. Within minutes,

(20:08):
tens of thousands of people were enveloped in chaos the
whole place to collectively destroyed everything. It was one of
the scariest things I've ever seen. We were in the
dressing here and I remember openly door and be like
people on stretcher is never all bloody and just like gnarly.

(20:30):
I tell the driver just to get the quickest way
out to the state line and get us out and
we drove. You know, here's the biggest band in the
world laying down in the back of the van to
escape arrest, to get and drive to Chicago. It was.
It was insane. As the tour rolled on, fans could
never be sure what they would get from the guns.

(20:50):
Sometimes actual walk off stage, or he didn't show up
at all. But at other gigs he delivered mesmerizing performances
that all but overpowered the cry out. We had that
that way of talking to the audience and speak in
his mind that they could relate to. But he also
had the swagger like a lizard, you know, and the
girls love that. I cannot recall one show I've seen

(21:13):
that Sheep didn't give him goose post. He was like
the greatest rock them all in front that at Guns
concerts had become larger than life spectacles, but even that
could not prepare them for the hysteria that greeted the
release of their long awaited double out. There has been
nothing like the anticipation of Usual Illusions, have they? They

(21:34):
sound scan a million, six hundred thousand records the first
week and was just this juggernaut that had not been
seen since the Beatles Really released in September ninety one.
Usual Illusion one and two was an imperfect masterpiece, running
the gamut from grandly epic ballads to down in dirty rock.
It just had a lot of everything, and it was

(21:56):
the good, the bad, and the ugly of guns and Roses.
Is this one when we were going to pull all
the stuffs, everything we could think of to do that
we want to do, what we're going to do. Guns
were both more popular and more divided than ever. As
the group began shooting videos for the new album, Actual

(22:17):
outlined elaborate, big budget visions with minimal input from the
rest of the band. Everything had to be bigger and
better and more grander and more majestic and more money.
And he had just lash it, and that he did
for me. The biggest change and Guns and Roses. I
think was the video when Axel decided that they needed

(22:39):
an aircraft carrier and he's gonna jump over an aircraft
carrier and swim with dolphins. Okay, that was the part
that I said, you know what, that's not so street,
And that's where we just sort of completely separated. This
group of guys is here and these other guys on
this page. By November of one is He Stradling had
had enough of actuals iron fist. Just as Guns was

(23:02):
amping up for another tour, the newly sober guitarist abruptly
quit the group as he felt dictated to and quit. Yeah,
everybody wished they could go with him, but then you
have your balancing, you know, your your your livelihood with
do I put up with this crowd. Just weeks before
Guns was to hit the road in December ninety one,

(23:23):
l A guitarist Gilbert Clark, stepped into his shoes. He
knew he wouldn't be filling them for long, but just
you know, here, learn the songs, play the songs. Here's
your paycheck. I knew from day one that it could
end tomorrow. You know, the Guns got on the road,
but from the beginning the band had little contact with

(23:43):
Axel Loft stage and even less of a clue when
he might turn up for gigs. It was hard, you know.
So we had a lot of canceled gigs. We had
a lot of gigs where he almost didn't play. We
had a lot of like walking off the stays and
all of sudden having It was all very trying, you know,
that would be like, come on, you guys, I mean,
we got to deal with this. Let's be a band.

(24:04):
And every time I go out to deal with acts.
So I turned around and they had all gone the
other way. They dude, you said you were backing me up.
We would go down to the show and you know,
you know, you have a cocktail of the show, you
have another cocktail. And by the time he showed up,
we were hammered, you know, from sitting and drinking so much.
And soon the heavy drinking and drug abuse began taking

(24:26):
a physical toll on the band. I got a phone
call at five thirty six am at my room from
the front desk saying, Mr Reese, one of your fan
members is passed out in front of the elevator on
the sixth or fifth floor. So I drawn some pants
and jump, run out of my room and slashed his dead.
I mean the dead, blue dead. He had no pulse.

(24:47):
Paramedics show up, bam the trimlin right into his heart.
Slash had dodged the bullet, but Duff was killing himself
slowly with booze. Duff wasn't rible ship, terrible shape. It
can barely speak. I'd be on stage and I'd hear
when I look over and be laid out his bass

(25:09):
guitar on the stage and him passed out. In the
summer of ninety two, despite the off stage fireworks, Guns
and Roses joined Metallica for a stadium concert tour, but
on August eight, at a gig in Montreal, Metallica frontman
James Hetfield was severely burned in a bizarre pyrotechnic accident,

(25:30):
leaving the Guns to deal with an incendiary crap. It
could have probably saved the day, but his voice was
messed up. He just couldn't hear himself and chose to leave.
I went out to the stage and you know, they're
shredding the place there. You know, I saw bondfires and

(25:51):
this is an enclosed stadium and they just looted everything.
Their cop cars overturned, and I mean I've never seen
anything like you know, that was my first it that
wasn't really sort of embarrassing on everybody because it was
like when we have no control. Yeah, the Guns soldiered
on until July of Their final performance was for seventy

(26:14):
thousand fans in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was the last the
world would see of the original band. Next the Guns
come under We're behind the music continues, m h yeah.

(26:48):
On July, Guns and Roses completed a two and a
half year tour that was the longest in rock history,
but as the band touchdown in Los Angeles, their future
was more uncertain than ever. Even though the family was dysfunctional,
they were still family on the road. Nobody wanted to
come home, you know, nobody really wanted to end because

(27:10):
I think everybody in the back of them, I thought
that it was gonna be. In November of ninety three,
Guns released a collection of cover tunes called The Spaghetti Incident,
but as they began working on a new album of
original material in early Axels dominating demeanor was stifling the
rest of the band. It's not brain surgery. I mean,

(27:31):
if you can send it a million times, dude, what
are you doing over there? Who? He's you being made
of doing a seventy two piece orchestral masterpiece. In December
of nine, G and R managed to cobble together a
cover of the Rolling Stone Sympathy for the Devil for
a movie soundtrack. It would prove a sonic farewell for Matt.

(27:51):
Slash dumped Naxer. That's the sound of the bound breaking
up right there. Slash and and them had much less
patience or eating the amount of they had to eat
to keep everything going. A band is a marriage, and
they were bound for divorce corps. In October of nineties six,

(28:13):
Slash finally quit the Guns and Matt saw him and
Doth mccagan soon followed suit. In the aftermath, Axel virtually
disappeared for half a decade, attempting to reinvent Guns and
Roses with a brand new cast. It's taken along, yeah,
but it's also it's also how do you rebuild something
that got so big and replaced virtually every person on

(28:35):
the crew, every single thing. Actual took his new Guns
on the road in two thousand two, but the North
American tour was fraught with cancelations and unraveled after only
fifteen shows. So I think the guy has really fought
hard to make Guns and Roses relevant to whatever was
going on. But he's waited for long. Whatever was going

(28:58):
on has changed a few times. I think he just
in his head wants to achieve a sort of mythic
perfection that may be impossible. Axel's long awaited Chinese Democracy
album was finally released in two thousand and eight, after
more than a decade of anticipation. As for Slash Duff

(29:20):
and Matt Sorum, they formed the supergroup Velvet Revolver with
former Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Wiland. In June of
two thousand four, they released their debut album, Contraband, touted
by critics as a scathing blast of righteous rock. I'm
out on the road touring on stage that it's the

(29:42):
greatest position around me, and that's the most important. And
enough bands and done enough sessions and played enough gigs
after all these years, now I do understand what it
is and finally have that come around the second tires
or a busser. Despite these separate projects, the public's hunger
for the original Guns remained insatiable. Finally, in it was

(30:07):
announced that Slash and Duff would rejoin the band as
the headliners at Coachella. Since then, they have continued touring
and are even planning an upcoming seventh album release. But
whatever the future holds, the band's legacy will live on.
For more than three decades, these rock and Roll Hall

(30:27):
of Famer's pillaged the music world and remade rock and
roll in their own decadent image. Listen to Behind the
Music on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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(30:48):
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