January 12, 2023 • 42 mins
Guns N’ Roses’ 1992 hit “November Rain” was more than just an epic, nine-minute power ballad for the ages. It was a swan song for the band—and for all the hair bands who’d been dominating MTV and rock radio. As Nirvana’s grunge anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit” burst onto the scene and birthed an icon, GN'R—who’d been one of the most popular acts in the world—began to unravel and lose the glow of the spotlight.
In the next two episodes, we’ll chronicle the making of “November Rain” and its wildly expensive video as well as the events that led to the group’s demise—from the drug abuse to the lavish spending to singer Axl Rose’s theatrics on stage and off. We’ll also explore the tension between Rose and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, whose infamous feud reached a fever pitch at the now-legendary 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.
This is the extraordinary tale of heavy metal taking its last, glorious gasp as grunge and alternative swept America. With special guest Andy Morahan, director of the “November Rain” video.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where Were You in ninety two is a production of
I Heart Radio that was all actl driven. I mean,
he was completely convinced that if he spent money on huge,
big videos, you know, the fans would you know, I
noticed that cliche. But if you build it, they will come,
you know what I'm saying, And they did in millions.
(00:26):
Welcome to Where Are You In nine two, a podcast
in which I your host Jason Lafier, look back at
the major hits, one hit wonders, shocking news stories, and
irresistible scandals that shaped what might be the wildest, most eclectic,
most controversial twelve months of music ever. This week, Guns
(00:46):
and Roses monster hit November Rain was more than just
an epic nine minute power ballad for the Ages. It
served as a swan song for the band and for
all the hair bands who dominated MTV rock radio. As
Nirvana's grunge anthem smells like teen Spirit burst onto the
scene and birtheden icon, gin R, who had been one
(01:08):
of the most popular acts in the world, would begin
to unravel and lose their grip on the spotlight. In
the next two episodes will chronicle the making of Guns
and Roses, Sprawling dual albums Use Your Illusion One and
Use Your Illusion Too, and their wildly expensive November Rain video,
as well as the events that led to the group's demise,
from the drug abuse to the lavish spending to singer
(01:31):
Axel Roses. Theatrics on stage and off will also explore
the tension between Rose and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, whose
infamous feud reached a fever pitch at the now legendary
Video Music Awards. Plus former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg joins
us to share his side of the story. This is
the extraordinary tale of heavy metal taking its last glorious
(01:54):
gasp as grunge and alternative swept America, ushering in an
era of flannel shirt, ear piercing feedback and enough apathy
to fill a thousand high school gymnasiums. The year was
I know, a rough place to start, but bear with
me because a few good things came out of that dark,
unprecedented time. Here's one of them. Tera Reader and Robin
(02:17):
Petering live in Los Angeles. Readers a bartender. Petering is
a former hip hop DJ who now serves as executive
director of lens Co, a research and advocacy organization committed
to ending homelessness in l A. The friends met nearly
two decades ago when they were living in Oregon in
their late teens. Like most of us, they were stuck
(02:40):
in lockdown with too much time on their hands, biting
their nails over the impending presidential election and the fate
of their divided, COVID stricken nation. That year, former Press
House Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released her memoir Speaking for Myself,
The Women learned that In one passage, Sanders described how
former President Donald Trump told her and Communications director Hope
(03:03):
Hicks that he wanted Guns and Roses hit November Rain
added to his rally playlist because it was quote unquote
the greatest music video of all time. To hammer his
point home, he queued up the video in the Oval
office so the three of them could watch it, says Reader.
He makes her sit down and watch it, even though
(03:24):
she's she doesn't disagree. She's kind of like baffled by
the whole story. So she goes home from work that
night after being forced to watch November Rain with Donald Trump,
and she goes to watch the premiere of the Bachelor,
and then Donald Trump goes viral for an insane tweet
about Kim john Ans nuclear weapons, so he went on
(03:45):
like a nuclear war rant, like right after watching November Rain.
In the tweet, Trump boasted in his typical, cartoonishly macho
fashion that his nuclear button was quote unquote much bigger
and more powerful than John guns and that quote unquote
my button works. So when I saw that, I'm like news, Trump,
(04:06):
guns and Roses, It's like the Holy Trinity. Immediately sent
it to Robin. A lightbulb went off, says Peter Ing.
We were like, maybe he's right, Like it's I think
he might be right. And then it was how do
we how do we know? How do you know? And
so how do you answer that question? And I was like,
let's just watch it over and over again and see
(04:27):
if that's the greatest music video of all time, you know.
The pair then took things a step further, documenting their
findings and Nothing Lasts Forever the November Rain podcast, which
they launched in December. Two years later, they have hosted
more than eighty episodes, tumbling down numerous rabbit holes as
they tackle not only the November Rain video but the
(04:48):
legacy of its controversial, heavy metal creators, Guns and Roses,
from their love lives to their lawsuits to their general lunacy.
As Reader likes to say, the n r U that's
the No Member Rain universe is vast and infinite. There
are people that don't know what November Rain is. There
are adult human beings in America that don't like that
(05:10):
whole thing totally missed them. However, Nirvana smells like teen
spirit that think that was happening at the exact same time.
Is is a huge part of their you know, cults
are still you know, Guns of Roses is really just
kind of in this like umbrella of one of those
old eighties hairbands. She's right, a certain segment of the
(05:31):
American population is unacquainted with all the outrageous splendor that
is the November Rain universe, and then when it came
out it was a hit. Many who do know it
consider it irrelict. Now, most major moments in music history
are about being in the right place at the right
time with the right sound. But some of those major
moments are about being in the wrong place at the
(05:53):
wrong time with a sound that suddenly finds itself being
taken out with the trash in a sense. That's what
happened with November, a brilliant but sometimes misunderstood slice of
pomp rock that marked the end of an era maybe
a few eras, but more on that later. It nearly
nine effusive minutes. It showed up at our door and
(06:13):
came on strong, real strong. But the song and it's
absurdly expensive, opulent video also became something bigger than itself,
an emblem of rocks unchecked, excess and artifice. This at
a time when a new sound, a grittier, low fi
and therefore seemingly more authentic sound, was starting to take
(06:34):
over the air waves. If grunge killed heavy metal, then
November Rain, the video for which featured an actual funeral,
was Heavy Metals Requiem. But before we get into how
it all ended, you've got to know how it all began.
(06:54):
The year Guns n' Roses were massive, one of the
biggest acts in the world. They released their debut studio album,
Appetite for Destruction in the summer of seven, but after
a string of hit singles in Sweet Child of Mine,
Welcome to the Jungle, and Paradise City, the record went
to number one on the Billboard Top two hundred Albums
(07:15):
chart and became one of the best selling albums of
all time. It's still right up there. If you could
ever imagine a time when heavy metal reigned supreme, the
late eighties and early nineties were it. I'm talking def Leppard,
Motley Crue, Skid Roll, Poison, Winger, Warned, White Snake, and
most of all Guns and Roses. Even if you didn't
(07:37):
like heavy metal, chances are you liked at least one
G and R song. I mean, how anyone in the
right mind can pop on Sweet Child of Mind and
not want to jump in their car, roll the top down,
take their top off, speed to the nearest seven eleven
and just pump some goddamn gas is beyond me and
I don't even drive. Scizzling, sticky, dirty and slutty. That
(07:57):
song is Summer in a Bottle After Appetite. G and
R lies a sort of stop gap album, consisting of
four tracks from a previously released and four new acoustic cuts.
The band's next proper albums arrived simultaneously. Use Your Relusion
(08:18):
One and Usual Illusion To dropped on September seventeen, offering
the world thirty new tracks spanning over two and a
half hours. As G and R lead guitarist Slash Rights
and its two thousand seven memoir Slash. After someboding in
his house, the group wrote early versions of more than
half the LP songs in two nights. This was because
(08:40):
a good number of them weren't totally new. They had
already existed in some form, including what would eventually become
the records ambitious video trilogy Don't Cry, November Rain, and Estranged.
November Rain is the centerpiece of Usual Illusion one and,
if you ask me, by far, the best thing out
of all thirty tracks his bandmates have set. Actual Rose
(09:00):
began working on November Rain as early as three and
that he'd essentially completed the original version of it when
it came time for G and R to release Appetite
for Destruction. But because that record already contained that undeniable
ballad Sweet Child of Mine, a number one single that
would become the group's calling card, they decided to shelve
the other ballad and save it for a rainy day.
(09:21):
Not to mention, the o G demo for November Rain
was eighteen minutes, which would be demanding enough for a
bunch of sober guys, and if you know anything about guns,
and Roses. It's that these guys were nowhere near sober.
But Rose had a fondness for the track, which he
planked away at on the piano for years, so he
was crushed to see it scrapped. Now it was back.
(09:44):
It had been around forever, Slash rights in his memoir,
and it was finally getting its due. Because they were
piano driven and contained multiple movements and were like four
thousand years long, November Rain and its sister song Estranged
were a bitch to record, though the group handled November
Rain in a day, Slash recall spending hours refining its
(10:07):
intricate arrangements. He also claims his guitar solo in the
track is the exact one he played when he first
heard it in the eighties, and that it's mostly improvised.
Rose two was crazy committed to making it perfect, so
much so that he moved couches, a bed, and his
exercise equipment into the record plan their studio, which also
became a party palace for the band In his entourage,
(10:29):
Slash pinpoints a source of tension among the group where
they were toiling away on Usual Illusion one and two.
Rose's edition of keyboards and synthesizers. Rose had snuck some
into the appetite cut Paradise City, and Slash had made
it clear he wasn't a fan. He felt they were
superfluous and that they diluded the G and R brand. Meanwhile,
(10:49):
drummer Matt Sorum wasn't digging Rose's heart on for softer sounds,
as he recalled and Stephen davis is two thousand eight
biography Watch You Bleed the Saga of Guns and Roses quote.
I didn't really sign up for this, all these ballads.
I was hoping to join a badass rock and roll band.
I was like, what's with the piano? But Rose insisted
on the ornamentation. Stoned and surrounded by keyboards, he'd tweaked
(11:13):
and tinker, adding his vocals and more and more synths
to slash his guitar parts. Those grand, weepy strings you
here on November Raine, that's not an orchestra, it's synthesizers.
Go play it. It's insane that they are not real strings.
Even Slash remains in all of them. By slashes account,
(11:35):
friction and g and R ebbed and flowed, but Rose
was firmly behind the steering wheel during much of the
mixing of User Illusion one and two. As he recalls
in his memoir, Slash would wait in the studio while
Rose hung out in his house and retooled mixes Slash
had none. Slash called the process quote unquote one sided,
adding quote subconsciously, I think I began to see the
(11:56):
band as one guy sitting on a throne high above
and completely apart from the crowd of people hustling around
beneath him. The band's working arrangement essentially became a dictatorship,
with Dictator Rose torturing himself and an attempt to be
more like his hero Elton John, whose work, in particular
his own nineteen seventy three double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,
(12:17):
seems to have been a major influence for the Illusion Records.
As Storm told Rolling Stone in two thousand and sixteen,
quote we listened to Elton John for inspiration for the
drum fills and overall tone. I vividly remember sitting with
Axel listening to Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me,
and Axel pointing out the style of the Tom Tom
drum fills. Rose had long been frank about how precious
November Rain was to him telling Rolling Stone back that
(12:39):
if he didn't know the song, he'd quote unquote quit
the business. His obsession was exhausting. November Rain had become
Rose's white whale, and it was at least partly responsible
for Genr's demise. Slash even went so far as to
describe November Rain is quote unquote the sound of a
band breaking up. I know, harsh, but take that with
(13:00):
a grain of salt, because he writes in his memoir
the Guns and Roses cover of the Rolling Stones Sympathy
for the Devil, which they recorded for the nine four
soundtrack for Interview with a Vampire, was also the sound
of the band raking up. So yeah, you get it
as purty as it wound up being. November Rain rained
on the parade of everyone in the group who wasn't
Axl Rose, and it's impressive, some would say ridiculous music
(13:21):
video didn't help matters up next after the break, the
story behind the November Rain video, which involved multiple locations
and a shipped ton of extras to churches, a supermodel,
(13:44):
a wedding, a funeral, a man randomly hurling himself at
a cake, and of course, buckets and buckets of rain
it was a feat that someone deem a masterpiece and
others a disaster piece. The year was Guns and Roses
(14:13):
dual albums User Illusion one in two had debuted the
number one and number two spots on the Billboard Charts.
The previous fall. They would score their final top ten
hit with their epic ballad November Rain, which peaked at
number three on the Billboard Hot One. The song was
bursting at the seams with melodrama, but at least part
(14:34):
of its success must be credited to its equally melodramatic
music video. If Axel Rose was crushing on Elton John
at the time, he was also crushing on writer artist,
longtime Gene R chum and current Gene R Road manager
Del James, specifically his short story Without You, which reportedly
inspired the video for November Rain before it was published
(14:56):
in james Horror Stories collection. The l lguage of Fear
Without You centers on main man Get It, a famous
hard partying rocker struggling after his band breaks up. He's
subsisting off booze and pills to keep himself afloat in
his ocean of existentialism. His lady catches Maine cheating on
(15:17):
her and dumps him. To try to win her back,
he writes her the song Without You, which becomes his
biggest hit. She isn't having it, though, she won't accept
royalties from the song or his attempts to reconcile with her.
After going to her house one night, he finds her dead,
with without You playing on repeat. She has shot herself
in the head. He completely loses a trashing his apartment,
(15:39):
his car, and his guitar collection. The tail ends with
him lighting his place on fire, sitting down at his piano,
and playing without You one final time. As he swallowed
in flames, Rose felt like someone had held a mirror
up to him. I basically was that person, he wrote
in the introduction to James is the Language of Fear.
A few years later, Rose's tempestuous marriage to his ex
(16:02):
wife Aaron Everley had ended in early so he was
going through some of the same ship as Maine. The
tragedy and historyonics Without You spoke to him. When it
came time to craft the video for November Rain, Rose
wanted that vibe. Enlisting award winning director Andy Morahan, he
would pull out all the stops to execute his vision
and release what at the time would become the most
(16:24):
expensive music video ever made. By the time Rose recruited Morahan,
he had already directed videos for the likes of Ryan Carrey,
Brian Adams, Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, and Moore. His
video from Michael's Father Figure, which followed a cab driver's
love affair with a model and one Best Direction at
the MTV Video Music Awards, piked Rose's interest. He wanted
(16:49):
a short film trilogy depicting a tale loosely based on
Without You. Morahan had the bona fides to do it.
First came Morahan's video for Don't Cry, in which Axel
and supermodel Stephanie Seymour, his real life girlfriend at the time,
sees their way through a stormy relationship. In the beginning
(17:09):
of it, he has seen trudging through a blizzard in
a cape and period piece soldier garb a bottle on
one hand and a pistol in the other. Cut to
Axel and Stephanie fighting over a gun. Later, she bitch
slaps a woman dynasty style in a bar after she
catches her flirting with Axel, throwing a helicopter a raven.
Axel's very tiny jorts Axel and regression therapy and slash
(17:33):
driving himself and some poor chick off a cliff, only
for him to re materialize from the fiery wreckage, unscathed
and shirtless, at the top of the cliff for a
guitar solo. And you've got a lot going on. But
this is nothing compared to the antics of part two
of the trilogy. November Rain also stars Stephanie Seymours, Rose's
main squeeze. No slapping her guns in sight here, though
(17:56):
in fact the couple are totally smitten and tying the knot.
We can't be entirely sure of that gun scuffle and
don't cry came before or after their nuptials, but more
on that later. Pour yourself some whiskey and buckle up,
because we're about to get into this thing. All right.
(18:19):
Here goes the November Rain video opens with Axel sitting
on the edge of his bed in his gloomy room
as he downs some pills. Behind him, the curtains blow,
the wind whistles, the thunder rumbles, we hear the pitter
patter of rain. Were then transported to a packed theater
where Axel tickles the ivories backed by the rest of
G and R and a full orchestra, flashed to an
(18:41):
empty church in the middle of a desert, where he
also sits at a piano. At around the minute and
a half mark, here comes Stuff and he strutting down
the aisle of a different church, decked out in a
white gown shaped like a mullet. It's been called the
mullet dress. As we learned an episode three of this podcast,
mullets were very trend, but this thing takes mullet fashion
(19:03):
to a whole new level. It's back his big, long
and flowing, but its front is dangerously short, shorter than
a damn miniskirt, revealing the bride's garter. Folks, this may
be the one and only mullet scenario where the party's
in the front. Meanwhile, Axel looks like he's going to
a revolutionary war re enactment slash his eternal cigarette dangling
(19:26):
from his mouth. Remember to bust out his trademark top
hat for the occasion, but he can't remember where the
hell he put the wedding rings. Uh, but have no fear.
G and R Bass Stuff mccagan has some spars safely
placed on his leather gloved pinky finger, Slash hands them
to the minister. He thinks duff for saving his ass,
then heads down the aisle and exits the church. Do
(19:47):
you think he might be taking a smoke break? But
as an't he already been puffing away during the whole ceremony?
What's going on? Surprise Slash emerges from that other church
and a desert minus top hat entails and in stead
wearing his classic look leather jacket no shirt. Were then
treated to not one but two guitar solos, the cameras
zooming in and out, encircling him like an eagle, leaving
(20:09):
us the viewers soaring through an expansive, endless sky. This
is what true love looks like. But wait, that are
on the five minute and second mark. As Slash slides
into that second guitar solo and the wedding guests dous,
Stuffy and Axel with white petals, we see her in
the back of a convertible outside the non desert church,
(20:30):
with a hint of longing or unease crossing her face.
Trouble in Paradise cut to the reception. Stephanie has slipped
into a sleeveless black velvet number Axel is wearing a
shiny electric blue blazer. They cut the cake. They toast
guests of all ages dance fuck a DJ. There's a
band complete with an accordion and a multed saxophonist. Suddenly
(20:54):
the sky opens up and unleashes a torrential downpour. The
invitees for cover. Pandemonium ensues. People fall over tables, knocking
over glasses, and spilling bottles of wine. A handsome man
with very long hair charges at the newly weds tiered
wedding cake, shoving miniature axel and Stephanie off its summit
and totally annihilating it. Que a third, darker guitar solo.
(21:22):
It's actually a dirge, because now we're at a funeral.
Stephanie lies in a casket in a church, half her
face mysteriously hidden, next a cemetery where guests are drenched
in more rain. Flashed to axle tossing and turning in bed.
Flashed back to Stephanie strowing her wedding bouquet. As it
races through the air and through time. It's white flowers
(21:42):
termed blood red before it lands on the rain soaked coffin,
now lowered into the ground. The flowers bleed out onto
the coffin, flickering as they fade back to white It's
night and Axel is kneeling over it, sopping wet and alone.
Yeah yeah, I tried to keep that short, but I
(22:06):
got carried away, because when it comes to November Rain,
you can't not get carried away. Axel Rose got carried away,
Andy Morahan got carried away. Terror Reader and Robin Petering
have certainly gotten carried away. That's what this thing does.
It sucks you in. Since it premiered on the MTV
show Had Bangers Ball in June, November Rain has racked
(22:27):
up one point nine billion views on YouTube, the most
views of any video from the nineteen eighties or nineties.
In two thousand eighteen, it became the first video it
made before the invention of YouTube, to exceed a billion
views on YouTube. In ven countdown of the top videos
of all time, MTV put it at number three. If,
(22:48):
by some strange chance, you're not responsible for any of
those one point nine billion views and think the whole
thing sounds decadent, you are very right. It was as
costly as it look, with a reported price tag of
one point five million dollars and This was thirty years ago.
I tracked down as director any Moorehan to get some
(23:09):
intel on what, at the time was the most expensive
video ever made. Why was it so lavish? You know,
it was an expensive video, Don't get me wrong. At
nifty thousands, just start with that's expensive. But it did
grow exponentially. That was all ACTL driven. I mean, he
was completely convinced that if he spent money on huge,
big videos that you know, the fans would you know,
(23:33):
I noticed that cliche. But if you build it, they
will come, you know what I'm saying. And they did
in millions billions. Even Morihan attributes all those YouTube views
to the video's epic nous, but also to its ambiguity.
You know, we decided to make a virtue of the
fact that the more seeds of non linear narrative that
(23:54):
you kind of throw together, the more you know, weirdly
enough of the more intriguing things become. And and I
think the test, you know, that testament of that is
it's still to this date people are trying to unravel
what the whole thing means and did how did she
Stephanie die? And why she got half her face missing?
And I speak to students sometimes you don dissertations on
(24:18):
November and they start telling me what some of them
symbolism is and what it means. Fans have indeed tried
to put the pieces together over the years. If actual
Rose is inspired by Del james short story Without You,
in which a rocker's ax shoots herself in the head
after he breaks her heart, then maybe Stuffanie Seymour's November
Rain character did the same. After all, we do see
her in Rose's character fighting over a gun in the
(24:40):
video for gin Rs Don't Cry. The predecessor November Rain
and the first of their in More Hands Use Your
Illusion video trilogy, was this foreshadowing don't expect answers from
more Hand. I don't have to explain everything, and I
think again, I think that's why I'm quite protective of
the amba ambiguity of it, because I think it's open
to interpretation, and I think that's why has longevity. Morehand
(25:04):
had his own inspirations for the video, including the nineteen
seventy three thriller Don't Look Now, about a husband and
wife mourning the loss of their young daughter, who then
go to Italy to restore a church. Things get weird
when the husband starts seeing his dead kid running through
the streets of Venice. But some of what we see
in November Rain is a result of happy accidents. Turns out,
when Slash stops out for that killer guitar, soul in
(25:25):
the desert, dude was going for a smoke at least
in real life. The video's wedding scene was filmed at St.
Brendan Church on van Ness Avenue in Los Angeles, and
after the cameras captured him heading down the island through
its doors, Morehand got the idea to segue to what
would become one of the most iconic moments in November Rain.
Morahan hunted for a week before finding the perfect spot
(25:46):
for it, Syrah Polone Ranch in New Mexico, which has
served as the location for a slew of movies, including Silverado,
Cowboys and Aliens, Wild Wild West, and Thor. There was
a white clapboard church but in the set, but it
was on a pallette, So we basically talking to the
people who owned the things. They said, O, yeah, if
(26:06):
you want to drag out the middle of the desert,
put your little fence around him and do what's your
like to get that part of the video was the
biggest pain really thing. There were no drones then, so
to shoot it, Morahan's team used a crane, a study cam,
and a helicopter, all for a scene that makes up
less than thirty seconds of the video. Fun fact, designer
(26:27):
Tom Ford eventually bought that ranch, so it's not been
sold to somebody else. Church included also a fluke that
famous cake dive. It wasn't planned. It was like, we've
done all the rain and the cake was there with
fucking less trash it, let's do it on one take
and this kid offered himself and did it. My cameraman,
(26:49):
Daniel Pel He still to this day cannot stand that
shot and all the fact it was in the video.
They found it so silly that Morahan left the shot
on the cutting room floor and it was excellent. Saile went, man,
where's that shot of the guy from going through the cake?
And I go, yeah, it was all right. I mean,
it was nothing much to write home about. It was
seen the last shot of the day and actually wanted
(27:11):
it back in and his interestinct must be right because
now people have not stopped talking about it for years
and years and years. The big question that has haunted
Genre disciples for years who was the Great Cake Destroyer.
The theory among many was that it was Ricky Rachtman,
Roses Pale and the former host of head Banger's Ball,
(27:31):
who does show up in the reception scene. Wrong. With
intense prodding from Terror Reader and Robin Petering, the host
of the Nothing Last Forever podcast, Morihan got to the
bottom of the mystery when we spoke. He was initially
a bit koy, but then after some prodding from me,
he pulled up an email from a guy named Chris
Saint Quax who claims he and the Cake Destroyer worked
(27:52):
his extras in the video. He said, Yeah, of course
I know who jumped through the cake. He was one
of the gang. He and what buddies at Central casting
on cool being long haired brookers in the nineties. So
we did tons of videos, but we were just standing
around and the A D was desperate to find someone
that he was the man for the joke. We busted
these bulls before and as it was clear there was
(28:13):
only one cake telling when he was going to miss it,
and he kind of did. His name is Steve catro
C a t R E doubled l Reader and Petering
have tried to track Step Controlled down, but to no avail.
Morehan doesn't never call Sheet vaguely remembers the guy Steve.
If you're out there and listening, please contact me. That's
(28:34):
law fier L A M P h I E R.
And also contact Terror and Robin. We're looking for you.
We love you. That poor demolished Cake is now a
frosted artifact in music history, but shooting the November Rain video,
much like doing anything with guns and roses, was hardly
a cake walk. The band may have been one of
(28:55):
the most famous in the world, but they were also
one of the most un hinged and reliably unreliable on drugs,
on the rocks, and never on time. Axel Rose was
the chief reason for the notorious tardiness, but all of
them were a no show for one November Rain video
set up where they were supposed to play live with
an orchestra for more than a thousand extras wrangled into
(29:16):
the Orpheum Theater in l A. A cinematographer who worked
on that shoot told the Los Angeles Times in two
thousand twenty two that he accrue with eight cameras and
all those extras waited for the group in the theater
until three in the morning, only for the whole operation
to be shut down and filmed a few days later
and a new location. And because the early sun is
(29:37):
poison to party monsters. More Hand came up with the
workaround for that too. You learned pretty quickly that you're
going to get daylight shots, come do it on the
end of the night shoot. We basically had to keep
them up all night to shoot them first thing in
the morning. Slash wasn't always feeling the concepts. He has
since knocked the November Rain in Estranged videos for being
so over the top, telling Q Magazine in two thousand four,
(30:00):
we got into doing these huge production videos, and by
November Rain it was just too much, just too involved.
At the end of the day, it was a great video,
but that's when I started realizing that it was getting
out of hand. Was they ever worried about looking a
bit silly? Well? Yeah, wait, though has Slash ever looked
anything other than cool? Still? More Hand maintains that Slash
(30:21):
and the rest of g n R showed up and
did their jobs without much complaining. He could detect issues
between Rose and his then girlfriend Seymour, but friction in
the band didn't cast a pall over production. I didn't
feel there's a powerful tension internal band at tension, but
there was tension in the experience, in the process um,
(30:44):
which was kind of inevitable. I think from you know,
you got from being the biggest ban. You know you're
the biggest ban in the world. But it started full part,
it seems it's bound to be some kind of tension.
Tensions were there due to have you drug use the
strain of a NonStop Two or two were the making
of those wildly ambitious Illusion Albums and Roses Swelling Eaglemania.
(31:12):
Up next, after the break, we explore Guns and Roses
off camera drama in the early nineties, including a concert fire,
two riots, a fan suicide, and an overdose that nearly
killed one of them. The year was that summer, Guns
(31:48):
and Roses embarked on a co headlining stadium tour with Metallica.
As Slash recalls in his two thousand seven memoirs, Slash
gin R's chemistry on stage was quote unquote beauty full,
but their dysfunction as a unit off stage was that
an all time high. He Embassis stuff McKagan would down
vodka back stage to cope. Meanwhile, during a show at
(32:12):
Giants Stadium in New Jersey from an axel, Rose could
barely get through the set because of intense pain in
his throat. He was diagnosed soon after with severe vocal
cord damage, and the band had to cancel three shows.
Shortly after that, in August, when Metallica was in the
middle of a set in Montreal, some pirate technics malfunctioned
(32:33):
on stage, seriously burning James Hetfield's arms and shoulders and
forcing the band to cut their performance short. G and
R filled in, but Rose claimed his throat still hurt,
and they too had to end their set prematurely. Piste
off fans took to the streets of Montreal and rioted,
overturning cars, looting businesses, and setting fires. It wasn't the
(32:57):
first time in abridged G and R performance ended in
a riot. A little more than a year before, in July,
at a concert in Riverport Amphitheater in Maryland Heights, Missouri,
near St. Louis, an angry Rose jumped into the crowd
and took a video camera from an audience member who
had been recording the show. Furious of what he considered
a lack of concern from the venue security. He then
(33:18):
grabbed his mic, shouted something to the effective because of
bullshit security, We're going home, and left the stage. The
concert goers went ballistic. Dozens were injured, and the cost
of damage amounted to more than two hundred thousand dollars.
G and R were banned from playing St. Louis. They
didn't return for a show there until two thousand seventeen.
(33:38):
Rose is arrested a year later when the band returned
from touring in Europe, but a judge dismissed the charges,
ruling that he had not directly incited the riot. The
group was so resentful of the debacle that when Use
Your Illusion one and two came out, they included a
special message among the thank yous in the album's inserts.
It read fuck you St. Louis. As Us recalls in
(34:00):
his memoir, Rose was consistently late to concerts and prone
to walking off stage. One report says he once even
puked on stage. All this left his bandmates and audiences
fuming one scene. As a scrappy symbol of the working class,
Rose became infamous for his diva like behavior, as one
Boston journalist wrote, quote, at the stars are in the
(34:21):
proper alignment and if Axel Roses psychic herbalist, massuse local
coach and chiropodist, I'll give him the thumbs up. Guns
and Roses will perform tomorrow at Foxboro Stadium. Guns and
Roses reputation had long been questionable, but it was sullied
even further after a grim event in Argentina that The
London Times reported. On watching the news, a man named
(34:43):
Nestor Tallarito looked on and discussed as Rose and Slash
pede from the eighth floor balcony of their five star
hotel into a crowd of fans. Suddenly, he spotted his
sixteen year old daughter, Cynthia among those adoring fans. When
she got home, Tellartos slapped her and forbade her from
attending her Idol's concert that weekend. In response, she shot
herself in the head with her father's revolver. When he
(35:04):
found her, he shot and killed himself. The band was
also accused of burning the Argentinian flag. They held a
press conference to deny the claims, but critics still protested
their presence in the country. President Carlos menhim, called them
criminals and threatened to cancel their performances. Before any of
(35:28):
the chaos and tragedy in the group had undergone some
staffing changes. Matt Sorum had replaced drummer Stephen Adler, who
was fired from the group because of his hair and addiction.
G and R had also replaced their manager Alan Niven
with a new manager, Doug Goldstein, and May Slash has
described him as a self motivated climber who really only
(35:50):
cared about making a buck, and claimed that around the
time of the release of the Illusion Records, Guns and
Roses had become a quote whirling dervish of miscommunication that
spent money like it was water. Furthermore, Rose's bandmates felt
very uncomfortable with his continued insistence that they work ownership
of the band's name and their contracts. They didn't like
the idea of their quote unquote identity becoming a quote
(36:11):
unquote commodity, Slash writes in his memoir of this tension
mounting after he offended Rose with a rolling stone interview
he gave. Rose apparently reacted by ignoring Slash while they
were prepping this stage for a show During the Allusion
tour and then leaving a strait jacket. Slash It presented
him as a birthday gift on slashes Amp before he left,
But petty manager and bandmaate Drama was the least of
(36:32):
slashes problems. In September, before his show in Oakland Stadium,
he got into a big fight with his then fiance,
model actress Renee Sarran over their pre up agreement. As
he recalls in his memoir, I went to the gig
so angry that I was determined to do what I
do when I want to act out get some smack.
(36:53):
After bumping into an old porn star friend of the show,
he gave her seven dollars to get him some heroin.
She rocked up at the room of his Sam Francisco
hotel at five the following morning with her boyfriend and
the goods. Slash had already been drinking, but they proceed
to consume copious amounts of crack and smack. Later that morning,
his bandmate from Romatt Sorum called and invited him to
(37:13):
his room to do some blow. Slash caught up and
opened the door to had to swarm his room. He
didn't make it far, crumbling to the floor and blacking out.
When he came to, he was told his heart had
stopped for eight minutes. I woke up when the defibrillator
sent an electric shock through my chest and stunned my
heart into beating again, he writes. In his memoir, Slash
(37:36):
recalls wrapping Jars year long tour soon after his brush
with death, only to discover that they had little money
to show for it because of Rose's pricey backstage theme
parties and the union fees they had racked up for
all those late performances. As Slash tells it, Goldstein informed
Rose if he wanted to keep his mansion in Malibu,
they'd have to continue touring. In October, just weeks after
(38:00):
slashes overdose, before the band would embark on another year
of tour dates they would take them to Europe, Japan, Australia,
and that ill fated stop in Argentina. Slashed Mary renaiss
Iran at the Four Seasons at Marina. Del Rey Duff
mccagan was his best man. We can be pretty sure
he had their rings on hand. When Slash describes his
wedding and his memoir, he might as well be referring
(38:20):
to the fictional one he attended and his massively famous
bands November Rain video quote. We definitely didn't do it small.
It was this really big production that I had very
little to do with. Of course, there were other forces
of play, forces beyond the control of Slash and Axel
in the Gang Well Guns and Roses were hard at
(38:44):
work finishing their dual user illusion albums, The Tides returning
the courser less, flamboyant, more low five sounds of grunge
were creeping in from the Pacific Northwest. Bands like Soundgarden,
Pearl Jam, Allison, Chains, and Nirvana were gaining momentum. Nirvana's
Smells Like Teen Spirit would completely change the game soon
(39:04):
after its release in September that year, radio big wigs
would scramble to retool their programming to accommodator shift and taste.
The video for Smells Like Teen Spirit, which premiered on
MTVS Alternative Rock Show A hundred and twenty minutes later
that month, would become a staple on the network, changing
MTV's own rotation strategy and letting loose a decade's worth
of copycats. Remember that nine countdown of MTV's top five
(39:28):
videos that placed November Rain at number three. Well, Smells
Like Teen Spirit was number one. Guns n' Roses stagy
grandiloquent video for November Rain stood in sharp contrast to
Nirvana's simple, five minute video for Smells Like Teen Spirit,
a murky anarchist affair depicting up pep rally in a
high school gymnasium that ends with its listless students coming
(39:49):
to life and trashing the set. In the band's gear,
no opulent churches, fancy weddings, top hats, or period costumes.
Frontman Kurt Cobain is seen hanging out with everyday kids
in a pair of jeans and a sweater layered over
a T shirt, his hair tangled and greasy and mostly
in his face, looking like he'd been stirred away two
minutes before shooting began. The vibe was visceral and raw,
(40:12):
and it tapped into a new generation's disillusionment and apathy.
It spoke to young MTV viewers because it felt fresh, relatable,
sincere real, to put it bluntly, more punk. By September,
after Guns and Roses had piste away so much money
(40:34):
and Slash had nearly died, heavy metal was already attending
its own funeral. Robin Petering, co hosted the Nothing Last
Forever podcast, points to the exact moment when Nirvana played
Lip the m and broke the guitar like changed everything
and guns and roses clothes with the dueling piano with
(40:54):
Elton John. People did not want that, you know, It's
just it was over, like right then and there. Yeah.
Next week, we delve into the simmering tension between Axel
Rose and Kurt Cobain had culminated with a nasty showdown
at the Video Music Awards, a night that, for many reasons,
(41:16):
has become legendary. We'll also examine how grunge exploded, leaving
heavy metal for dead and changing the music landscape, and
why Axel ditched women for Dolphins. Plus former Navada manager
Danny Goldberg joins us to share his side of the story.
Yea Ye, Where Were You in ninety two was a
(42:08):
production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel
Brown and Jordan run Talk. The show was researched, written
and hosted by me Jason Lafier, with editing and sound
design by Michael Alder June. If you like what you heard,
please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,
(42:28):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Where Were You in ninety two is a production of
I Heart Radio that was all actl driven. I mean,
he was completely convinced that if he spent money on huge,
big videos, you know, the fans would you know, I
noticed that cliche. But if you build it, they will come,
you know what I'm saying, And they did in millions.
(00:26):
Welcome to Where Are You In nine two, a podcast
in which I your host Jason Lafier, look back at
the major hits, one hit wonders, shocking news stories, and
irresistible scandals that shaped what might be the wildest, most eclectic,
most controversial twelve months of music ever. This week, Guns
(00:46):
and Roses monster hit November Rain was more than just
an epic nine minute power ballad for the Ages. It
served as a swan song for the band and for
all the hair bands who dominated MTV rock radio. As
Nirvana's grunge anthem smells like teen Spirit burst onto the
scene and birtheden icon, gin R, who had been one
(01:08):
of the most popular acts in the world, would begin
to unravel and lose their grip on the spotlight. In
the next two episodes will chronicle the making of Guns
and Roses, Sprawling dual albums Use Your Illusion One and
Use Your Illusion Too, and their wildly expensive November Rain video,
as well as the events that led to the group's demise,
from the drug abuse to the lavish spending to singer
(01:31):
Axel Roses. Theatrics on stage and off will also explore
the tension between Rose and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, whose
infamous feud reached a fever pitch at the now legendary
Video Music Awards. Plus former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg joins
us to share his side of the story. This is
the extraordinary tale of heavy metal taking its last glorious
(01:54):
gasp as grunge and alternative swept America, ushering in an
era of flannel shirt, ear piercing feedback and enough apathy
to fill a thousand high school gymnasiums. The year was
I know, a rough place to start, but bear with
me because a few good things came out of that dark,
unprecedented time. Here's one of them. Tera Reader and Robin
(02:17):
Petering live in Los Angeles. Readers a bartender. Petering is
a former hip hop DJ who now serves as executive
director of lens Co, a research and advocacy organization committed
to ending homelessness in l A. The friends met nearly
two decades ago when they were living in Oregon in
their late teens. Like most of us, they were stuck
(02:40):
in lockdown with too much time on their hands, biting
their nails over the impending presidential election and the fate
of their divided, COVID stricken nation. That year, former Press
House Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released her memoir Speaking for Myself,
The Women learned that In one passage, Sanders described how
former President Donald Trump told her and Communications director Hope
(03:03):
Hicks that he wanted Guns and Roses hit November Rain
added to his rally playlist because it was quote unquote
the greatest music video of all time. To hammer his
point home, he queued up the video in the Oval
office so the three of them could watch it, says Reader.
He makes her sit down and watch it, even though
(03:24):
she's she doesn't disagree. She's kind of like baffled by
the whole story. So she goes home from work that
night after being forced to watch November Rain with Donald Trump,
and she goes to watch the premiere of the Bachelor,
and then Donald Trump goes viral for an insane tweet
about Kim john Ans nuclear weapons, so he went on
(03:45):
like a nuclear war rant, like right after watching November Rain.
In the tweet, Trump boasted in his typical, cartoonishly macho
fashion that his nuclear button was quote unquote much bigger
and more powerful than John guns and that quote unquote
my button works. So when I saw that, I'm like news, Trump,
(04:06):
guns and Roses, It's like the Holy Trinity. Immediately sent
it to Robin. A lightbulb went off, says Peter Ing.
We were like, maybe he's right, Like it's I think
he might be right. And then it was how do
we how do we know? How do you know? And
so how do you answer that question? And I was like,
let's just watch it over and over again and see
(04:27):
if that's the greatest music video of all time, you know.
The pair then took things a step further, documenting their
findings and Nothing Lasts Forever the November Rain podcast, which
they launched in December. Two years later, they have hosted
more than eighty episodes, tumbling down numerous rabbit holes as
they tackle not only the November Rain video but the
(04:48):
legacy of its controversial, heavy metal creators, Guns and Roses,
from their love lives to their lawsuits to their general lunacy.
As Reader likes to say, the n r U that's
the No Member Rain universe is vast and infinite. There
are people that don't know what November Rain is. There
are adult human beings in America that don't like that
(05:10):
whole thing totally missed them. However, Nirvana smells like teen
spirit that think that was happening at the exact same time.
Is is a huge part of their you know, cults
are still you know, Guns of Roses is really just
kind of in this like umbrella of one of those
old eighties hairbands. She's right, a certain segment of the
(05:31):
American population is unacquainted with all the outrageous splendor that
is the November Rain universe, and then when it came
out it was a hit. Many who do know it
consider it irrelict. Now, most major moments in music history
are about being in the right place at the right
time with the right sound. But some of those major
moments are about being in the wrong place at the
(05:53):
wrong time with a sound that suddenly finds itself being
taken out with the trash in a sense. That's what
happened with November, a brilliant but sometimes misunderstood slice of
pomp rock that marked the end of an era maybe
a few eras, but more on that later. It nearly
nine effusive minutes. It showed up at our door and
(06:13):
came on strong, real strong. But the song and it's
absurdly expensive, opulent video also became something bigger than itself,
an emblem of rocks unchecked, excess and artifice. This at
a time when a new sound, a grittier, low fi
and therefore seemingly more authentic sound, was starting to take
(06:34):
over the air waves. If grunge killed heavy metal, then
November Rain, the video for which featured an actual funeral,
was Heavy Metals Requiem. But before we get into how
it all ended, you've got to know how it all began.
(06:54):
The year Guns n' Roses were massive, one of the
biggest acts in the world. They released their debut studio album,
Appetite for Destruction in the summer of seven, but after
a string of hit singles in Sweet Child of Mine,
Welcome to the Jungle, and Paradise City, the record went
to number one on the Billboard Top two hundred Albums
(07:15):
chart and became one of the best selling albums of
all time. It's still right up there. If you could
ever imagine a time when heavy metal reigned supreme, the
late eighties and early nineties were it. I'm talking def Leppard,
Motley Crue, Skid Roll, Poison, Winger, Warned, White Snake, and
most of all Guns and Roses. Even if you didn't
(07:37):
like heavy metal, chances are you liked at least one
G and R song. I mean, how anyone in the
right mind can pop on Sweet Child of Mind and
not want to jump in their car, roll the top down,
take their top off, speed to the nearest seven eleven
and just pump some goddamn gas is beyond me and
I don't even drive. Scizzling, sticky, dirty and slutty. That
(07:57):
song is Summer in a Bottle After Appetite. G and
R lies a sort of stop gap album, consisting of
four tracks from a previously released and four new acoustic cuts.
The band's next proper albums arrived simultaneously. Use Your Relusion
(08:18):
One and Usual Illusion To dropped on September seventeen, offering
the world thirty new tracks spanning over two and a
half hours. As G and R lead guitarist Slash Rights
and its two thousand seven memoir Slash. After someboding in
his house, the group wrote early versions of more than
half the LP songs in two nights. This was because
(08:40):
a good number of them weren't totally new. They had
already existed in some form, including what would eventually become
the records ambitious video trilogy Don't Cry, November Rain, and Estranged.
November Rain is the centerpiece of Usual Illusion one and,
if you ask me, by far, the best thing out
of all thirty tracks his bandmates have set. Actual Rose
(09:00):
began working on November Rain as early as three and
that he'd essentially completed the original version of it when
it came time for G and R to release Appetite
for Destruction. But because that record already contained that undeniable
ballad Sweet Child of Mine, a number one single that
would become the group's calling card, they decided to shelve
the other ballad and save it for a rainy day.
(09:21):
Not to mention, the o G demo for November Rain
was eighteen minutes, which would be demanding enough for a
bunch of sober guys, and if you know anything about guns,
and Roses. It's that these guys were nowhere near sober.
But Rose had a fondness for the track, which he
planked away at on the piano for years, so he
was crushed to see it scrapped. Now it was back.
(09:44):
It had been around forever, Slash rights in his memoir,
and it was finally getting its due. Because they were
piano driven and contained multiple movements and were like four
thousand years long, November Rain and its sister song Estranged
were a bitch to record, though the group handled November
Rain in a day, Slash recall spending hours refining its
(10:07):
intricate arrangements. He also claims his guitar solo in the
track is the exact one he played when he first
heard it in the eighties, and that it's mostly improvised.
Rose two was crazy committed to making it perfect, so
much so that he moved couches, a bed, and his
exercise equipment into the record plan their studio, which also
became a party palace for the band In his entourage,
(10:29):
Slash pinpoints a source of tension among the group where
they were toiling away on Usual Illusion one and two.
Rose's edition of keyboards and synthesizers. Rose had snuck some
into the appetite cut Paradise City, and Slash had made
it clear he wasn't a fan. He felt they were
superfluous and that they diluded the G and R brand. Meanwhile,
(10:49):
drummer Matt Sorum wasn't digging Rose's heart on for softer sounds,
as he recalled and Stephen davis is two thousand eight
biography Watch You Bleed the Saga of Guns and Roses quote.
I didn't really sign up for this, all these ballads.
I was hoping to join a badass rock and roll band.
I was like, what's with the piano? But Rose insisted
on the ornamentation. Stoned and surrounded by keyboards, he'd tweaked
(11:13):
and tinker, adding his vocals and more and more synths
to slash his guitar parts. Those grand, weepy strings you
here on November Raine, that's not an orchestra, it's synthesizers.
Go play it. It's insane that they are not real strings.
Even Slash remains in all of them. By slashes account,
(11:35):
friction and g and R ebbed and flowed, but Rose
was firmly behind the steering wheel during much of the
mixing of User Illusion one and two. As he recalls
in his memoir, Slash would wait in the studio while
Rose hung out in his house and retooled mixes Slash
had none. Slash called the process quote unquote one sided,
adding quote subconsciously, I think I began to see the
(11:56):
band as one guy sitting on a throne high above
and completely apart from the crowd of people hustling around
beneath him. The band's working arrangement essentially became a dictatorship,
with Dictator Rose torturing himself and an attempt to be
more like his hero Elton John, whose work, in particular
his own nineteen seventy three double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,
(12:17):
seems to have been a major influence for the Illusion Records.
As Storm told Rolling Stone in two thousand and sixteen,
quote we listened to Elton John for inspiration for the
drum fills and overall tone. I vividly remember sitting with
Axel listening to Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me,
and Axel pointing out the style of the Tom Tom
drum fills. Rose had long been frank about how precious
November Rain was to him telling Rolling Stone back that
(12:39):
if he didn't know the song, he'd quote unquote quit
the business. His obsession was exhausting. November Rain had become
Rose's white whale, and it was at least partly responsible
for Genr's demise. Slash even went so far as to
describe November Rain is quote unquote the sound of a
band breaking up. I know, harsh, but take that with
(13:00):
a grain of salt, because he writes in his memoir
the Guns and Roses cover of the Rolling Stones Sympathy
for the Devil, which they recorded for the nine four
soundtrack for Interview with a Vampire, was also the sound
of the band raking up. So yeah, you get it
as purty as it wound up being. November Rain rained
on the parade of everyone in the group who wasn't
Axl Rose, and it's impressive, some would say ridiculous music
(13:21):
video didn't help matters up next after the break, the
story behind the November Rain video, which involved multiple locations
and a shipped ton of extras to churches, a supermodel,
(13:44):
a wedding, a funeral, a man randomly hurling himself at
a cake, and of course, buckets and buckets of rain
it was a feat that someone deem a masterpiece and
others a disaster piece. The year was Guns and Roses
(14:13):
dual albums User Illusion one in two had debuted the
number one and number two spots on the Billboard Charts.
The previous fall. They would score their final top ten
hit with their epic ballad November Rain, which peaked at
number three on the Billboard Hot One. The song was
bursting at the seams with melodrama, but at least part
(14:34):
of its success must be credited to its equally melodramatic
music video. If Axel Rose was crushing on Elton John
at the time, he was also crushing on writer artist,
longtime Gene R chum and current Gene R Road manager
Del James, specifically his short story Without You, which reportedly
inspired the video for November Rain before it was published
(14:56):
in james Horror Stories collection. The l lguage of Fear
Without You centers on main man Get It, a famous
hard partying rocker struggling after his band breaks up. He's
subsisting off booze and pills to keep himself afloat in
his ocean of existentialism. His lady catches Maine cheating on
(15:17):
her and dumps him. To try to win her back,
he writes her the song Without You, which becomes his
biggest hit. She isn't having it, though, she won't accept
royalties from the song or his attempts to reconcile with her.
After going to her house one night, he finds her dead,
with without You playing on repeat. She has shot herself
in the head. He completely loses a trashing his apartment,
(15:39):
his car, and his guitar collection. The tail ends with
him lighting his place on fire, sitting down at his piano,
and playing without You one final time. As he swallowed
in flames, Rose felt like someone had held a mirror
up to him. I basically was that person, he wrote
in the introduction to James is the Language of Fear.
A few years later, Rose's tempestuous marriage to his ex
(16:02):
wife Aaron Everley had ended in early so he was
going through some of the same ship as Maine. The
tragedy and historyonics Without You spoke to him. When it
came time to craft the video for November Rain, Rose
wanted that vibe. Enlisting award winning director Andy Morahan, he
would pull out all the stops to execute his vision
and release what at the time would become the most
(16:24):
expensive music video ever made. By the time Rose recruited Morahan,
he had already directed videos for the likes of Ryan Carrey,
Brian Adams, Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, and Moore. His
video from Michael's Father Figure, which followed a cab driver's
love affair with a model and one Best Direction at
the MTV Video Music Awards, piked Rose's interest. He wanted
(16:49):
a short film trilogy depicting a tale loosely based on
Without You. Morahan had the bona fides to do it.
First came Morahan's video for Don't Cry, in which Axel
and supermodel Stephanie Seymour, his real life girlfriend at the time,
sees their way through a stormy relationship. In the beginning
(17:09):
of it, he has seen trudging through a blizzard in
a cape and period piece soldier garb a bottle on
one hand and a pistol in the other. Cut to
Axel and Stephanie fighting over a gun. Later, she bitch
slaps a woman dynasty style in a bar after she
catches her flirting with Axel, throwing a helicopter a raven.
Axel's very tiny jorts Axel and regression therapy and slash
(17:33):
driving himself and some poor chick off a cliff, only
for him to re materialize from the fiery wreckage, unscathed
and shirtless, at the top of the cliff for a
guitar solo. And you've got a lot going on. But
this is nothing compared to the antics of part two
of the trilogy. November Rain also stars Stephanie Seymours, Rose's
main squeeze. No slapping her guns in sight here, though
(17:56):
in fact the couple are totally smitten and tying the knot.
We can't be entirely sure of that gun scuffle and
don't cry came before or after their nuptials, but more
on that later. Pour yourself some whiskey and buckle up,
because we're about to get into this thing. All right.
(18:19):
Here goes the November Rain video opens with Axel sitting
on the edge of his bed in his gloomy room
as he downs some pills. Behind him, the curtains blow,
the wind whistles, the thunder rumbles, we hear the pitter
patter of rain. Were then transported to a packed theater
where Axel tickles the ivories backed by the rest of
G and R and a full orchestra, flashed to an
(18:41):
empty church in the middle of a desert, where he
also sits at a piano. At around the minute and
a half mark, here comes Stuff and he strutting down
the aisle of a different church, decked out in a
white gown shaped like a mullet. It's been called the
mullet dress. As we learned an episode three of this podcast,
mullets were very trend, but this thing takes mullet fashion
(19:03):
to a whole new level. It's back his big, long
and flowing, but its front is dangerously short, shorter than
a damn miniskirt, revealing the bride's garter. Folks, this may
be the one and only mullet scenario where the party's
in the front. Meanwhile, Axel looks like he's going to
a revolutionary war re enactment slash his eternal cigarette dangling
(19:26):
from his mouth. Remember to bust out his trademark top
hat for the occasion, but he can't remember where the
hell he put the wedding rings. Uh, but have no fear.
G and R Bass Stuff mccagan has some spars safely
placed on his leather gloved pinky finger, Slash hands them
to the minister. He thinks duff for saving his ass,
then heads down the aisle and exits the church. Do
(19:47):
you think he might be taking a smoke break? But
as an't he already been puffing away during the whole ceremony?
What's going on? Surprise Slash emerges from that other church
and a desert minus top hat entails and in stead
wearing his classic look leather jacket no shirt. Were then
treated to not one but two guitar solos, the cameras
zooming in and out, encircling him like an eagle, leaving
(20:09):
us the viewers soaring through an expansive, endless sky. This
is what true love looks like. But wait, that are
on the five minute and second mark. As Slash slides
into that second guitar solo and the wedding guests dous,
Stuffy and Axel with white petals, we see her in
the back of a convertible outside the non desert church,
(20:30):
with a hint of longing or unease crossing her face.
Trouble in Paradise cut to the reception. Stephanie has slipped
into a sleeveless black velvet number Axel is wearing a
shiny electric blue blazer. They cut the cake. They toast
guests of all ages dance fuck a DJ. There's a
band complete with an accordion and a multed saxophonist. Suddenly
(20:54):
the sky opens up and unleashes a torrential downpour. The
invitees for cover. Pandemonium ensues. People fall over tables, knocking
over glasses, and spilling bottles of wine. A handsome man
with very long hair charges at the newly weds tiered
wedding cake, shoving miniature axel and Stephanie off its summit
and totally annihilating it. Que a third, darker guitar solo.
(21:22):
It's actually a dirge, because now we're at a funeral.
Stephanie lies in a casket in a church, half her
face mysteriously hidden, next a cemetery where guests are drenched
in more rain. Flashed to axle tossing and turning in bed.
Flashed back to Stephanie strowing her wedding bouquet. As it
races through the air and through time. It's white flowers
(21:42):
termed blood red before it lands on the rain soaked coffin,
now lowered into the ground. The flowers bleed out onto
the coffin, flickering as they fade back to white It's
night and Axel is kneeling over it, sopping wet and alone.
Yeah yeah, I tried to keep that short, but I
(22:06):
got carried away, because when it comes to November Rain,
you can't not get carried away. Axel Rose got carried away,
Andy Morahan got carried away. Terror Reader and Robin Petering
have certainly gotten carried away. That's what this thing does.
It sucks you in. Since it premiered on the MTV
show Had Bangers Ball in June, November Rain has racked
(22:27):
up one point nine billion views on YouTube, the most
views of any video from the nineteen eighties or nineties.
In two thousand eighteen, it became the first video it
made before the invention of YouTube, to exceed a billion
views on YouTube. In ven countdown of the top videos
of all time, MTV put it at number three. If,
(22:48):
by some strange chance, you're not responsible for any of
those one point nine billion views and think the whole
thing sounds decadent, you are very right. It was as
costly as it look, with a reported price tag of
one point five million dollars and This was thirty years ago.
I tracked down as director any Moorehan to get some
(23:09):
intel on what, at the time was the most expensive
video ever made. Why was it so lavish? You know,
it was an expensive video, Don't get me wrong. At
nifty thousands, just start with that's expensive. But it did
grow exponentially. That was all ACTL driven. I mean, he
was completely convinced that if he spent money on huge,
big videos that you know, the fans would you know,
(23:33):
I noticed that cliche. But if you build it, they
will come, you know what I'm saying. And they did
in millions billions. Even Morihan attributes all those YouTube views
to the video's epic nous, but also to its ambiguity.
You know, we decided to make a virtue of the
fact that the more seeds of non linear narrative that
(23:54):
you kind of throw together, the more you know, weirdly
enough of the more intriguing things become. And and I
think the test, you know, that testament of that is
it's still to this date people are trying to unravel
what the whole thing means and did how did she
Stephanie die? And why she got half her face missing?
And I speak to students sometimes you don dissertations on
(24:18):
November and they start telling me what some of them
symbolism is and what it means. Fans have indeed tried
to put the pieces together over the years. If actual
Rose is inspired by Del james short story Without You,
in which a rocker's ax shoots herself in the head
after he breaks her heart, then maybe Stuffanie Seymour's November
Rain character did the same. After all, we do see
her in Rose's character fighting over a gun in the
(24:40):
video for gin Rs Don't Cry. The predecessor November Rain
and the first of their in More Hands Use Your
Illusion video trilogy, was this foreshadowing don't expect answers from
more Hand. I don't have to explain everything, and I
think again, I think that's why I'm quite protective of
the amba ambiguity of it, because I think it's open
to interpretation, and I think that's why has longevity. Morehand
(25:04):
had his own inspirations for the video, including the nineteen
seventy three thriller Don't Look Now, about a husband and
wife mourning the loss of their young daughter, who then
go to Italy to restore a church. Things get weird
when the husband starts seeing his dead kid running through
the streets of Venice. But some of what we see
in November Rain is a result of happy accidents. Turns out,
when Slash stops out for that killer guitar, soul in
(25:25):
the desert, dude was going for a smoke at least
in real life. The video's wedding scene was filmed at St.
Brendan Church on van Ness Avenue in Los Angeles, and
after the cameras captured him heading down the island through
its doors, Morehand got the idea to segue to what
would become one of the most iconic moments in November Rain.
Morahan hunted for a week before finding the perfect spot
(25:46):
for it, Syrah Polone Ranch in New Mexico, which has
served as the location for a slew of movies, including Silverado,
Cowboys and Aliens, Wild Wild West, and Thor. There was
a white clapboard church but in the set, but it
was on a pallette, So we basically talking to the
people who owned the things. They said, O, yeah, if
(26:06):
you want to drag out the middle of the desert,
put your little fence around him and do what's your
like to get that part of the video was the
biggest pain really thing. There were no drones then, so
to shoot it, Morahan's team used a crane, a study cam,
and a helicopter, all for a scene that makes up
less than thirty seconds of the video. Fun fact, designer
(26:27):
Tom Ford eventually bought that ranch, so it's not been
sold to somebody else. Church included also a fluke that
famous cake dive. It wasn't planned. It was like, we've
done all the rain and the cake was there with
fucking less trash it, let's do it on one take
and this kid offered himself and did it. My cameraman,
(26:49):
Daniel Pel He still to this day cannot stand that
shot and all the fact it was in the video.
They found it so silly that Morahan left the shot
on the cutting room floor and it was excellent. Saile went, man,
where's that shot of the guy from going through the cake?
And I go, yeah, it was all right. I mean,
it was nothing much to write home about. It was
seen the last shot of the day and actually wanted
(27:11):
it back in and his interestinct must be right because
now people have not stopped talking about it for years
and years and years. The big question that has haunted
Genre disciples for years who was the Great Cake Destroyer.
The theory among many was that it was Ricky Rachtman,
Roses Pale and the former host of head Banger's Ball,
(27:31):
who does show up in the reception scene. Wrong. With
intense prodding from Terror Reader and Robin Petering, the host
of the Nothing Last Forever podcast, Morihan got to the
bottom of the mystery when we spoke. He was initially
a bit koy, but then after some prodding from me,
he pulled up an email from a guy named Chris
Saint Quax who claims he and the Cake Destroyer worked
(27:52):
his extras in the video. He said, Yeah, of course
I know who jumped through the cake. He was one
of the gang. He and what buddies at Central casting
on cool being long haired brookers in the nineties. So
we did tons of videos, but we were just standing
around and the A D was desperate to find someone
that he was the man for the joke. We busted
these bulls before and as it was clear there was
(28:13):
only one cake telling when he was going to miss it,
and he kind of did. His name is Steve catro
C a t R E doubled l Reader and Petering
have tried to track Step Controlled down, but to no avail.
Morehan doesn't never call Sheet vaguely remembers the guy Steve.
If you're out there and listening, please contact me. That's
(28:34):
law fier L A M P h I E R.
And also contact Terror and Robin. We're looking for you.
We love you. That poor demolished Cake is now a
frosted artifact in music history, but shooting the November Rain video,
much like doing anything with guns and roses, was hardly
a cake walk. The band may have been one of
(28:55):
the most famous in the world, but they were also
one of the most un hinged and reliably unreliable on drugs,
on the rocks, and never on time. Axel Rose was
the chief reason for the notorious tardiness, but all of
them were a no show for one November Rain video
set up where they were supposed to play live with
an orchestra for more than a thousand extras wrangled into
(29:16):
the Orpheum Theater in l A. A cinematographer who worked
on that shoot told the Los Angeles Times in two
thousand twenty two that he accrue with eight cameras and
all those extras waited for the group in the theater
until three in the morning, only for the whole operation
to be shut down and filmed a few days later
and a new location. And because the early sun is
(29:37):
poison to party monsters. More Hand came up with the
workaround for that too. You learned pretty quickly that you're
going to get daylight shots, come do it on the
end of the night shoot. We basically had to keep
them up all night to shoot them first thing in
the morning. Slash wasn't always feeling the concepts. He has
since knocked the November Rain in Estranged videos for being
so over the top, telling Q Magazine in two thousand four,
(30:00):
we got into doing these huge production videos, and by
November Rain it was just too much, just too involved.
At the end of the day, it was a great video,
but that's when I started realizing that it was getting
out of hand. Was they ever worried about looking a
bit silly? Well? Yeah, wait, though has Slash ever looked
anything other than cool? Still? More Hand maintains that Slash
(30:21):
and the rest of g n R showed up and
did their jobs without much complaining. He could detect issues
between Rose and his then girlfriend Seymour, but friction in
the band didn't cast a pall over production. I didn't
feel there's a powerful tension internal band at tension, but
there was tension in the experience, in the process um,
(30:44):
which was kind of inevitable. I think from you know,
you got from being the biggest ban. You know you're
the biggest ban in the world. But it started full part,
it seems it's bound to be some kind of tension.
Tensions were there due to have you drug use the
strain of a NonStop Two or two were the making
of those wildly ambitious Illusion Albums and Roses Swelling Eaglemania.
(31:12):
Up next, after the break, we explore Guns and Roses
off camera drama in the early nineties, including a concert fire,
two riots, a fan suicide, and an overdose that nearly
killed one of them. The year was that summer, Guns
(31:48):
and Roses embarked on a co headlining stadium tour with Metallica.
As Slash recalls in his two thousand seven memoirs, Slash
gin R's chemistry on stage was quote unquote beauty full,
but their dysfunction as a unit off stage was that
an all time high. He Embassis stuff McKagan would down
vodka back stage to cope. Meanwhile, during a show at
(32:12):
Giants Stadium in New Jersey from an axel, Rose could
barely get through the set because of intense pain in
his throat. He was diagnosed soon after with severe vocal
cord damage, and the band had to cancel three shows.
Shortly after that, in August, when Metallica was in the
middle of a set in Montreal, some pirate technics malfunctioned
(32:33):
on stage, seriously burning James Hetfield's arms and shoulders and
forcing the band to cut their performance short. G and
R filled in, but Rose claimed his throat still hurt,
and they too had to end their set prematurely. Piste
off fans took to the streets of Montreal and rioted,
overturning cars, looting businesses, and setting fires. It wasn't the
(32:57):
first time in abridged G and R performance ended in
a riot. A little more than a year before, in July,
at a concert in Riverport Amphitheater in Maryland Heights, Missouri,
near St. Louis, an angry Rose jumped into the crowd
and took a video camera from an audience member who
had been recording the show. Furious of what he considered
a lack of concern from the venue security. He then
(33:18):
grabbed his mic, shouted something to the effective because of
bullshit security, We're going home, and left the stage. The
concert goers went ballistic. Dozens were injured, and the cost
of damage amounted to more than two hundred thousand dollars.
G and R were banned from playing St. Louis. They
didn't return for a show there until two thousand seventeen.
(33:38):
Rose is arrested a year later when the band returned
from touring in Europe, but a judge dismissed the charges,
ruling that he had not directly incited the riot. The
group was so resentful of the debacle that when Use
Your Illusion one and two came out, they included a
special message among the thank yous in the album's inserts.
It read fuck you St. Louis. As Us recalls in
(34:00):
his memoir, Rose was consistently late to concerts and prone
to walking off stage. One report says he once even
puked on stage. All this left his bandmates and audiences
fuming one scene. As a scrappy symbol of the working class,
Rose became infamous for his diva like behavior, as one
Boston journalist wrote, quote, at the stars are in the
(34:21):
proper alignment and if Axel Roses psychic herbalist, massuse local
coach and chiropodist, I'll give him the thumbs up. Guns
and Roses will perform tomorrow at Foxboro Stadium. Guns and
Roses reputation had long been questionable, but it was sullied
even further after a grim event in Argentina that The
London Times reported. On watching the news, a man named
(34:43):
Nestor Tallarito looked on and discussed as Rose and Slash
pede from the eighth floor balcony of their five star
hotel into a crowd of fans. Suddenly, he spotted his
sixteen year old daughter, Cynthia among those adoring fans. When
she got home, Tellartos slapped her and forbade her from
attending her Idol's concert that weekend. In response, she shot
herself in the head with her father's revolver. When he
(35:04):
found her, he shot and killed himself. The band was
also accused of burning the Argentinian flag. They held a
press conference to deny the claims, but critics still protested
their presence in the country. President Carlos menhim, called them
criminals and threatened to cancel their performances. Before any of
(35:28):
the chaos and tragedy in the group had undergone some
staffing changes. Matt Sorum had replaced drummer Stephen Adler, who
was fired from the group because of his hair and addiction.
G and R had also replaced their manager Alan Niven
with a new manager, Doug Goldstein, and May Slash has
described him as a self motivated climber who really only
(35:50):
cared about making a buck, and claimed that around the
time of the release of the Illusion Records, Guns and
Roses had become a quote whirling dervish of miscommunication that
spent money like it was water. Furthermore, Rose's bandmates felt
very uncomfortable with his continued insistence that they work ownership
of the band's name and their contracts. They didn't like
the idea of their quote unquote identity becoming a quote
(36:11):
unquote commodity, Slash writes in his memoir of this tension
mounting after he offended Rose with a rolling stone interview
he gave. Rose apparently reacted by ignoring Slash while they
were prepping this stage for a show During the Allusion
tour and then leaving a strait jacket. Slash It presented
him as a birthday gift on slashes Amp before he left,
But petty manager and bandmaate Drama was the least of
(36:32):
slashes problems. In September, before his show in Oakland Stadium,
he got into a big fight with his then fiance,
model actress Renee Sarran over their pre up agreement. As
he recalls in his memoir, I went to the gig
so angry that I was determined to do what I
do when I want to act out get some smack.
(36:53):
After bumping into an old porn star friend of the show,
he gave her seven dollars to get him some heroin.
She rocked up at the room of his Sam Francisco
hotel at five the following morning with her boyfriend and
the goods. Slash had already been drinking, but they proceed
to consume copious amounts of crack and smack. Later that morning,
his bandmate from Romatt Sorum called and invited him to
(37:13):
his room to do some blow. Slash caught up and
opened the door to had to swarm his room. He
didn't make it far, crumbling to the floor and blacking out.
When he came to, he was told his heart had
stopped for eight minutes. I woke up when the defibrillator
sent an electric shock through my chest and stunned my
heart into beating again, he writes. In his memoir, Slash
(37:36):
recalls wrapping Jars year long tour soon after his brush
with death, only to discover that they had little money
to show for it because of Rose's pricey backstage theme
parties and the union fees they had racked up for
all those late performances. As Slash tells it, Goldstein informed
Rose if he wanted to keep his mansion in Malibu,
they'd have to continue touring. In October, just weeks after
(38:00):
slashes overdose, before the band would embark on another year
of tour dates they would take them to Europe, Japan, Australia,
and that ill fated stop in Argentina. Slashed Mary renaiss
Iran at the Four Seasons at Marina. Del Rey Duff
mccagan was his best man. We can be pretty sure
he had their rings on hand. When Slash describes his
wedding and his memoir, he might as well be referring
(38:20):
to the fictional one he attended and his massively famous
bands November Rain video quote. We definitely didn't do it small.
It was this really big production that I had very
little to do with. Of course, there were other forces
of play, forces beyond the control of Slash and Axel
in the Gang Well Guns and Roses were hard at
(38:44):
work finishing their dual user illusion albums, The Tides returning
the courser less, flamboyant, more low five sounds of grunge
were creeping in from the Pacific Northwest. Bands like Soundgarden,
Pearl Jam, Allison, Chains, and Nirvana were gaining momentum. Nirvana's
Smells Like Teen Spirit would completely change the game soon
(39:04):
after its release in September that year, radio big wigs
would scramble to retool their programming to accommodator shift and taste.
The video for Smells Like Teen Spirit, which premiered on
MTVS Alternative Rock Show A hundred and twenty minutes later
that month, would become a staple on the network, changing
MTV's own rotation strategy and letting loose a decade's worth
of copycats. Remember that nine countdown of MTV's top five
(39:28):
videos that placed November Rain at number three. Well, Smells
Like Teen Spirit was number one. Guns n' Roses stagy
grandiloquent video for November Rain stood in sharp contrast to
Nirvana's simple, five minute video for Smells Like Teen Spirit,
a murky anarchist affair depicting up pep rally in a
high school gymnasium that ends with its listless students coming
(39:49):
to life and trashing the set. In the band's gear,
no opulent churches, fancy weddings, top hats, or period costumes.
Frontman Kurt Cobain is seen hanging out with everyday kids
in a pair of jeans and a sweater layered over
a T shirt, his hair tangled and greasy and mostly
in his face, looking like he'd been stirred away two
minutes before shooting began. The vibe was visceral and raw,
(40:12):
and it tapped into a new generation's disillusionment and apathy.
It spoke to young MTV viewers because it felt fresh, relatable,
sincere real, to put it bluntly, more punk. By September,
after Guns and Roses had piste away so much money
(40:34):
and Slash had nearly died, heavy metal was already attending
its own funeral. Robin Petering, co hosted the Nothing Last
Forever podcast, points to the exact moment when Nirvana played
Lip the m and broke the guitar like changed everything
and guns and roses clothes with the dueling piano with
(40:54):
Elton John. People did not want that, you know, It's
just it was over, like right then and there. Yeah.
Next week, we delve into the simmering tension between Axel
Rose and Kurt Cobain had culminated with a nasty showdown
at the Video Music Awards, a night that, for many reasons,
(41:16):
has become legendary. We'll also examine how grunge exploded, leaving
heavy metal for dead and changing the music landscape, and
why Axel ditched women for Dolphins. Plus former Navada manager
Danny Goldberg joins us to share his side of the story.
Yea Ye, Where Were You in ninety two was a
(42:08):
production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel
Brown and Jordan run Talk. The show was researched, written
and hosted by me Jason Lafier, with editing and sound
design by Michael Alder June. If you like what you heard,
please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,
(42:28):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Jason Lamphier
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