June 18, 2025 • 62 mins
Alan Niven discusses his experiences as a manager and producer, particularly with Guns N' Roses and Great White. He highlights the challenges of managing Axel Rose's erratic behavior and the impact of losing key members like Izzy Stradlin. Niven emphasizes the importance of maintaining anonymity and the emotional toll of fame. He reflects on the band's decision to release two single albums instead of a double album, citing economic and creative reasons. Niven also touches on the band's struggles with substance abuse and the significance of maintaining a cohesive band dynamic.
0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:21 - Night Train & Drinking
0:00:58 - Alan's Many Roles in the Music Industry
0:04:15 - Guns 'N Roses, Axl, Songwriting & Emotion
0:09:00 - GnR, Izzy, Axl, Fame, Anonymity & Happiness
0:19:55 - When Axl Didn't Want to Perform
0:26:07 - If Alan Stayed On, Izzy Leaving & Axl's Grudges
0:34:35 - Izzy's Whereabouts and Slash's 50s
0:38:30 - Original GnR United, Axl Psychology & Beta
0:43:40 - Sweet Child O' Mine Video & Erin Everly
0:45:20 - Transitioning into the 90s with GnR
0:47:52 - Pressure from David Geffen
0:51:05 - Use Your Illusion Albums & Songs
0:57:15 - Memories, Memorabilia, Happiness & Success
1:00:10 - Sound 'n Fury & Wrapping Up
1:02:02 - Outro
Sound N Fury book for sale:
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Fury-Rock-Roll-Stories/dp/1770419942
Chuck Shute link tree:
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
THEME SONG (00:05):
Heavy stars, rock and rolling through the cool
guitars shops got the questionsdigging so sharp, feeling back
layers hitting the heart.
Alan Niven (00:22):
Night Train. Have you ever drunk it? No,
Chuck Shute (00:25):
but yeah, I've heard that was what the song was
based on, that they were alldrinking this, like, horrible
liquor. It was like, what, likea wine cooler kind of thing or
something. What is
Unknown (00:36):
it? It's disgusting.
And when they run out of jetfuel, they go up to the local
deli and get some nitrogen toget the plane in the air. It's
awful.
Chuck Shute (00:45):
Yeah, did you ever drink it with those guys back in
the day?
Unknown (00:49):
Oh, good God, no. I have, I have some degree of self
preservation.
Chuck Shute (00:56):
So it sounds like after reading your book,
listening to some interviews andalso other not. I don't know if
I've ever had a manager on, butI've had producers on, and it
feels like managers andproducers kind of similar role.
You're kind of like an adultbabysitter, are you not? Some of
the times?
Unknown (01:14):
Well, for accuracy, my name is in producer lists as
well, because I produced all thesuccessful Great White records
and worked with a number ofother people, including the
utterly fabulous and magicalClarence Clemens. God rest his
(01:37):
beautiful, beautiful soul. Ilove that man, so it depends for
the what perspective you'relooking from, if you're looking
from the organized perspectiveof the industry on Sunset
Boulevard, we have our managers,we have our producers. We have
(01:58):
our managers that are alsoproducers, like the guy who was
with ZZ Top, whose name I shouldremember, but since I'm old and
dilapidated, I forgive myselffor forgetting his name. But
there are some of us who thereare managers who are 1030 to 430
(02:19):
in the afternoon, and there aresome of us who take take on the
function as part of a way oflife, rather than an occupation.
And for me, music was a way oflife. So producer, manager,
(02:40):
manager, composer. I've donesales, I've done marketing. I
had a radio show on W, I n z inMiami, in for a year when
somebody looks at me and says,You've done it all. Hard pressed
to say otherwise. You know thatall the functions of music,
(03:07):
music world, to some degree oranother, have been been
experienced of but I think wayof life is a better way of
describing it than babysitter.
Chuck Shute (03:25):
Well, that's just one role maybe would that be
about? Because I just, you know,reading the book, that's what it
sounded like with Guns and Rosesand Jack Russell doing mushrooms
and talking to a cactus andstuff, and you're kind of having
to reel him in and get him backto reality.
Unknown (03:41):
Yeah. Well, that's looking after a big baby at that
point and having to cancel atour, which was disastrous. But
my criteria was, I'd rather losea tour than a singer, and the
condition he's in at the momenthe needs supervision and he
(04:04):
needs to get cleaner. And ifthat means we lose the tour,
that means we lose the tour,because I will not lose a
person.
Chuck Shute (04:13):
Yeah, no, that's rough. So yeah, you speak about
composing, obviously, with greatwhite, you co wrote all the
biggest hits that they wrote,other than the covers that they
did. How come you never co wrotewith Guns and Roses? Did they
just not ask for help? Or wasthere songs that you guys wrote
that didn't make the album? Or
Unknown (04:32):
when you have Izzy, you don't need anybody. And for me,
Izzy is the primary writer inthat band that said Axel could
write a good lyric. Axel couldfigure things out on a piano.
Axel could sit on his bed with aguitar and play you a song and
(04:57):
say, What do you think do? Andstupidly, you say, okay, because
he's just played you one in amillion. And in that moment, Oh,
I'm getting goosebumps,remembering it now, in that
moment, sitting on the bed withthe guitar playing that song, he
(05:19):
was that scared person in NewYork with somebody getting in
his face and going, you're gonnadie. And he was right then and
there, a truly, genuine artisticrepresentation of the moment of
(05:40):
himself. So of course, I say,Yeah, that's amazing. You really
captured me with that song. Andof course, you know, once it
gets out there, it's Oh, he's ahomophobe. He's this, he's that.
But to me, in that moment when Iendorsed it, he was of the
(06:05):
moment he was describing. Andfor me, that is genuinely
artistic.
Chuck Shute (06:13):
Yeah, no, I think he does, does such a good job of
capturing emotion. And I know Imean people who or people who
don't know. I mean, he's got,he's had a rough childhood, but
he was able to, I feel like,take those feelings and emotions
and put them into music where somany other people would just,
you know, they'd be homeless onthe streets, drug addict.
Unknown (06:35):
Well, I mean, you know, broad brush stroke here, where
do all the best Where does allthe best material come from? And
all the best material is usuallybased in the blues, misery, bad
and bad experiences, bademotions. And that's where all
(06:55):
the great songs come from. Allthe happy songs are pop and are
made by Swedish little girlswith big boots on going,
hello, Mamma mia, here I goagain.
I mean, you know, you get mypoint. All the, all the greatest
(07:16):
stuff comes from pain. And theexpression of pain an axle. That
voice, I mean, that is the voiceof an angry, working class
middle American being That's thevoice of an outlaw running
(07:45):
across the Arizona desert thatand that's the voice of the
individual, and that's that'sbasically what I bought into,
was he and GNR Stand for thevalue of each and every soul,
including Urchins from under thestreet. Now, Axel stands for the
(08:09):
worth of himself to the nthdegree, but that's another
issue. But as the band goes andyou know, basically, I signed on
for a band, I signed a contractwith five individuals,
collectively known as I wasn'tworking for one or the other, or
the other or the other. And ifyou've read the book, it's
(08:32):
obviously evident that mystrongest relationship was with
Izzy. But then we were bornexactly 10 years apart. There's
got to be something in that. Imean, we could probably get a
gypsy to sit down and turn cardsand look into a crystal ball and
say, born 10 years apart. Well,of course, you guys hadn't had
(08:53):
an empathy together.
Chuck Shute (08:57):
Yeah. What happened to Izzy? Because I made a video
on my channel, and it was verypopular. Very popular, just
trying to track him down andsee, you know, where he last
kind of left us, you know,because he made, him made some
solo music, and I know you weremanaging him for that. So some
of the beginning of the solomusic, but then it kind of
tailor, tailored off, and thenhe didn't rejoin the band for
(09:18):
the reunion. And I'm just sofascinated by that guy. I find
him so mysterious andinteresting and just such a
brilliant songwriter. I wouldjust love this. He's like a
dream guest for me to have, forsure,
Unknown (09:30):
yes, yes, yes, yes, and no, he won't do it.
Chuck Shute (09:35):
No, of course he won't. Yeah, yeah, no, but I'm
just saying if Axel would be toobut, though, but is he
especially, because I nobody'sreally I've never seen a long
form interview with him like Ithink he'd be really interesting
just as somebody to pick hisbrain, and if he if they could
get him to talk. I know Rachelbowling told me when they toured
with them that none of the bandmembers could get him to talk,
(09:55):
but Rachel could get him to openup about dirt bikes or
something.
Unknown (09:59):
Yeah, I. He likes dirt bikes. He likes riding dirt
bikes in Lafayette, Indiana withhis school friends. That's fun
for him, no pressure, noexpectations, no demands. There
(10:19):
is no there is no preparationwhatsoever for the onslaught of
fame such as Guns and Rosesexperience. There's no
preparation for that justsuddenly, yeah in it. And the
suddenness for me, for example,was I was in a Lincoln Town Car
(10:42):
in Manhattan and heading down toEighth Street because I was
going to electric radiolandstudios, and I had smash sitting
in the back with me, and we knowthat there were people who had
spotted him and Were starting torun after the car that, for me
(11:03):
was the moment when I went, Oh,shit, things have changed. And
of course, we get to ElectricLady land. He stays in the car.
I get to the door. Electric Ladyland, press the buttons, get the
door open. Once the doors open,he can come out of the car and
zip into the studio and not getgrabbed. And we're looking at
each other and going, Oh, fuck,our world's changed, hasn't it,
(11:30):
you know? And this people findout who is famous before the an
essay of the Kardashians, andit's all scripted and contrived
by Momma, and it's all being puttogether. If you're in a band
and you become famous, you findout about your fame after
(11:52):
everybody else, everybody elseknows you're famous before you
do, you just wake up to the factof, why are people staring at me
while I'm trying to get a packetof Marlboro reds in in the
convenience store? You know,this guy's not talking to me
(12:12):
quite same way as he used totalk to me, deference,
ingratiation, relationship.
Relationships get obscured andclouded by trying to figure out
what somebody wants, whetherit's just to be in the presence
(12:32):
of or maybe you can fund medoing this, or so on and so
forth, it all changes overnight,and you're the last person to
realize it. You know, you getsome signs. You come home from
the office and the wife isthere, steaming and pissed off.
What's up, honey? When are allthese people in leather jackets
(12:55):
going to stop banging on thedoor asking if the manager of
Guns and Roses. Lives here. Iwas married to a, you know,
European, as you can tell. Imean, you know, you get your
little signs and cues. Thingsare a little different. There's
a reason why a lot of people endup buying houses behind walls,
Chuck Shute (13:18):
and you tried to avoid that, right? Because you
didn't want people to take yourpicture, you didn't do
interviews, you didn't want apiece of that.
Unknown (13:25):
No, I mean, fuck. I mean not that smart, but I was
smart enough to realize a coupleof things, that once you lose
your anonymity, you've lost youranonymity, and there are certain
things about that that areuncomfortable. And there was
also the fact of, if people, ifyou're over exposed, then you're
(13:47):
going to start to start with abit of mystique. You start
listening, losing mystique. Youbecome familiar. Once you become
overly familiar, people don'ttake you as seriously anymore,
you know. So you say you wantto, you want to back off. Where
did we start this question then,oh yeah, Axel shitty childhood.
(14:08):
Do you know what's worse? What,after a shitty childhood, he has
to live the rest of his life asAxel fucking rose. Now think
about this for a minute. Whenyou wake up in the morning, I
guarantee the first thought onyour mind is not necessarily, am
(14:31):
I leaving my house today, butwhen your axle rose and you're
waking up in the morning, that'sthe first thing you're going to
think about. If I'm leaving thehouse today, then I'm out there
in the world that thinks own itowns me, and I have to be Axel
all day long, and I can't justrelax and take off the persona
(14:57):
of the performer until I get.
Back through my front door andsink into the safety of my sofa.
Can you imagine that slash hasto go out there and be slash
every fucking day, and I've beenwith him enough to see where the
nerve ends just a little worn.
Sometimes you're in a restaurantin the back room and somebody
(15:19):
still finds their way in thereand wants an autograph, and he's
like, Excuse me, I'm sittingwith my friends. You know that
demand every day is a fuckingsentence. Now you and I, we're
lucky. You're probablyrecognized that as much as I am,
(15:39):
you know, just enough to benoticed. Aisle 13 in Safeway,
someone says, Hello, my wifejokingly says that I'm Safeway
famous. But you know, we alsohave our anonymity, which is our
privacy. And for example, whenyou don't have anonymity,
(16:00):
someone will come up to you inthe street address you by your
first name, stick a hand out toyou, and you're in plant mode
because you're going, Oh, fuck,I'm about to be rude to somebody
because I cannot remember thecontext in which I met them.
Now, you never met them before.
They've just seen you on a TVand know your name, but that
fleeting second you have thatsurge of panic through you,
(16:25):
through your body, who am Ibeing fucked to? Oh, God, I feel
bad. This is somebody I shouldrecognize. No, they just saw you
on the telly. You know,anonymity has its value. And of
course, when before, before welose anonymity, a lot of us go
through life going, will I berelevant? Will I be even
(16:47):
noticed? Will anybody even knowthat I've been here? Will I just
be gone and go from that fear?
Well, I'll tell you what. Enjoyit, because when you lose your
anonymity, sometimes, you getbodily reactions of tension and
fear that you don't necessarilywant a part of your life. So
(17:12):
you're
Chuck Shute (17:12):
saying it's better to be because I know, I've met a
lot of interviewed, a lot ofpeople were kind of in the
middle, right, like they'refamous to certain people, you
know, like, in certain, youknow, if they went to, like, a
rock convention, people knowthem, but if they're at the
grocery store, the averageperson doesn't. So that's maybe
kind of a nice happy medium,
Unknown (17:30):
yeah? Well, that's, that's the sort of happy medium
that you and I
Chuck Shute (17:33):
have. I don't even think I have that
Unknown (17:35):
happy Well, I'm sure you do. Yeah. I mean, you're on
a screen? Sure, sure, all right.
And what is being
Chuck Shute (17:44):
everybody's on a screen these days, though
Unknown (17:46):
I know good God. And also what is being recorded
right now is going out intospace and will eventually go
where Voyager One and voyage twogoing
Chuck Shute (18:03):
in that regard, do you feel like the big guys, Axel
and slash and Jack Russell andthese big rock stars, were they
not happy then, because of thatanonymity taken away, that they
couldn't leave the house and itwas too stressful during their
heyday, or Axel and slash now Ifeel like their heyday has never
ended.
Unknown (18:23):
Um, for Izzy, obviously, because he retreated,
would
Chuck Shute (18:29):
people even still recognize him, because I don't
think anyone's really seen himhardly in the last 1520, years,
Unknown (18:36):
I would say that he he's clawed back a lot of
anonymity that he's notnecessarily easy to to
recognize, but obviously heretreated from it. But it's like
anything else, all right, yougot a gorgeous girlfriend, okay?
Go to a party and you love beingwith your gorgeous girlfriend.
(18:57):
Well, just call her agirlfriend, not a wife. You
know, just the relationship isbudding, and then you notice
that other guys are noticingyour wife or your girlfriend,
rather, and then you start tofeel uncomfortable. It's like
anything else you'll recognize.
There are moments when you walkinto a restaurant and you get
given a really good table, andthey fawn over you and tell you
(19:20):
how wonderful you are and lookafter you really well. Oh, it's
good to be famous. Okay, youwalk out to go to get your car
and some dark shadow with ahoodie over his face goes, you
got a watch that I want give mea watch, and flicks out a knife.
Now, it's not so good to befamous, and at that restaurant,
(19:40):
it's like anything else in life.
There are moments when it'sgood, and there are moments when
you go, Yeah, fuck it,
Chuck Shute (19:51):
yeah. Well, in your book, you talk about, you know,
there was struggles sometimes toget Axel to perform. In fact,
sometimes he. Didn't like theother thing was a show in
Phoenix. So when he was late orhe didn't want to perform, what,
what was he typically doing? Iknow you talked about wanting me
to go get the cops to gab, toget him. Was he? Was he
sleeping? Was he just watchingTV? Was he? Was he drunk or
(20:14):
high? Or was it just anythingother than performing,
Unknown (20:17):
not drunk and high? And if I had to sweep a broad brush
across to try and get animpression of the continuous
moments, I would say, avoiding.
I don't perform on stage. Iwon't I don't like it. I love
(20:38):
being in the studio, but I don'tlike being on a stage. Now, if
you're a guitar player, youguitar player?
Chuck Shute (20:52):
No. I mean, I took lessons when I was in high
school, and, you know, a coupleof years in, I quickly realized
I could not compete with theselegends. So I was like, you
know, I'm gonna give up. That'swhy I have so much respect for
guitar players, because Irealize how hard it
Unknown (21:06):
is. Oh, I have only empathy for you, for me. It
started with hearing JimiHendrix and going, why fucking
bother? I mean, why fuckingbother, yeah, Jimmy, I will. I
Chuck Shute (21:21):
tried to play the wind cries, Mary. I could, I
could get some of those. Thatone's a little bit easier to
play. But some of the notes youjust, and it doesn't sound like
Jimmy, even if you're
Unknown (21:30):
playing the right notes. Oh, it's huge freaking
hands. I mean, you know the wayhe played. Where were we going
with this? Get me back on therails here.
Chuck Shute (21:41):
Just like, well, how Axel, wouldn't you send
guitar players avoidance
Unknown (21:47):
and Theresa and I asked if you played guitar, and thanks
to the you have is that you canunderstand when I say, if you're
playing guitar, there issomething between you and the
audience. You have actuallysomething material against your
body into which you can put yourlooks and your concentration,
(22:08):
because you have to, okay, ifyou're a singer, all you can do
is look out at that room full offaces. There is nothing between
you and them, you areemotionally and psychologically
Stark, staring naked. Now, I hada duality of mind. On the one
(22:34):
hand, I wanted, for example,Great White, to go out on stage
and be on and deliver everysingle night they went out
there. And the longest, thelongest tour we had. The joke
was, it's not a real tour unlessyou've had two birthdays, okay,
that's being out there four orfive nights a week for over a
(23:00):
year, okay, that's a lot ofgigs, and my mental assessment
was, if everybody has a badnight, I still want the level of
performance to be such that thepunters who leave go, it was
(23:21):
worth buying the ticket. Sothere was a lot of drilling and
rehearsal and repetition to beable to be able to ensure that
if everybody was fatigued andnobody was feeling it that
night, it still was of astandard. And the punters would
(23:44):
go, we weren't gypped tonight.
They were good right now, if youestablish that as your grounds,
when one or two or three or Godbless them, if all of them have
a good night, then the puntersare going away going that was
fucking amazing. They wereawesome tonight. So that was the
area I was working within. Butthe thing I found odd to
(24:13):
contemplate within being someoneresponsible. For making sure me
that happened was this thought,How the fuck do you invest
yourself in a particularemotion, in a particular song?
Night after night? There's anabsurdity to it. There's no way
(24:37):
as a human being, that you canget to that emotion in that song
in that same way, night afternight after night. But that's
the magic that you try and pulloff, and you pull it off through
repetition and throughrehearsing and through learning
to act you. But I've got Axelwho is a ruler, he's not an
(25:02):
actor, and he's sitting theregoing, I've got to go and sing
these songs tonight. I don'tfeel it. I don't have the
confidence in myself that I caneven half pull it off. This is a
ridiculous thing that I'm doing.
(25:26):
Why did I sign up for this? Idon't want to do it. I'm going
to stay in my hotel room. Pointof fact, I'm going to lock the
door to my condominium. I cantotally understand that. Problem
is, it's not how the systemfunctions. You commit to do
(25:47):
gigs. You commit to promoters.
You want to go out there, youcommit to yourself that you want
to buy a big old mansion inMalibu. Well, you got to go out
there and do it
Chuck Shute (26:02):
right, and you were good at wrangling him in even
when he didn't want to do it. Sodo you think that if you hadn't
left in 91 I think it was or 90and you had stayed on, do you
think that they could have mademore records, because it took, I
mean, at the punk album and thenChinese Democracy, which was
only one original band memberleft. I mean, do you think if
(26:22):
you had stayed on, they wouldhave kept going, because you
were able to, kind of, this is,make them disciplined.
Unknown (26:30):
You answer that question, there's only one
answer there. Chuck.
Chuck Shute (26:36):
It makes you wonder, right? Because it's
like, if you hadn't, if youweren't there, then maybe even
the user illusion records don'thappen or or maybe they happen
way later. Maybe they come outin 96 or something. Who knows?
Unknown (26:50):
Who knows? I you know the answer to that, but I can
base it on something rather thanjust my ego. And what I base it
on is this, if I'd still beenthere, Izzy would still have
been there, he wouldn't haveleft. And if we had Izzy, Izzy
(27:13):
was the one who I always reliedon for input, for contributing
to a decision is he was the onewho had the best sense of what
(27:33):
the band was and could be losingIzzy is where it all goes off
the rails. And I have to saythat was the dumbest, stupidest,
most moronic thing that MichelleAnthony and Doug Goldstein could
have done was lose Izzy, becauseyou've lost your center and
(27:55):
core. He is the cool hot heartof raging, boiling Guns and
Roses. Soul, if you lose Izzy,you got a disaster on your hand.
You've lost your band. And howthose geniuses managed to lose
(28:16):
him within three months of megoing, I mean, do you not wake
up in the morning go Alan andIzzy were close. We need to make
sure Izzy's on side and he'sdoing well, and make sure our
relationship with Izzy is whatit should be. No, they just
Izzy, because they don'tunderstand his significance and
what happens. He goes and weget, what a rose solo record,
(28:41):
and that's it in 30 years.
Chuck Shute (28:44):
Yeah, and didn't you? You said, you said
something to the book about howthere was an attempt to bring
Izzy back at some point.
Unknown (28:54):
Yeah, there was, and you were a part of that. No, no,
no, no, no, absolutely not.
Chuck Shute (29:02):
So that was after you had, it was the other
management, but they didn'treach out to you to help or
anything. No, no, no, no. Imean, should have, though,
maybe,
Unknown (29:11):
yeah, maybe, you know, but Axel. Axel is the master of
the garage. He keeps notebooksfull of perceived slides.
THEME SONG (29:19):
And I read that that was crazy.
Unknown (29:21):
I know it is crazy. You know, leave it alone. Let it go.
Life's not perfect. There'sgoing to be some bruising and
some bumps here and there. Letthem go and look for the
positives. I keep my sanityChuck by keeping in touch with
(29:42):
what I call small gratitudes. Ihave a little a little thing I
did, ceremony, whatever you wantto call it, that I do for myself
that is an acknowledgement of asmall gratitude. And I'll tell
you how small I can go to.
Fridge. Open the fridge door,and the first gratitude I have
is that the fridge is exactlythe same as when I closed the
(30:05):
door and when I had a house fullof children and wives and
friends and musicians. That wasnever the case. Every time I
opened the fridge door, it waslike, Oh, fuck. The locusts have
been here nothing, alright, sothat's the first small grant.
Second, small gratitude is myfavorite drink. Is a mix between
(30:27):
mango tea and mango juice. And Itake a small drink of that, and
I close my eyes, and I say,thank you three times, to higher
power to myself, to whomever.
That's my appreciation. I likeit. It makes my body feel good.
(30:47):
I love the taste in my mouth. Iappreciate it, because there
were long periods of time whenI'd go through life, and my
sense of appreciation wasminimal because I was so
stressed, and I wasn't going, Ilike this. This is good. I enjoy
that. Didn't get enough of that,you know, and that's probably
(31:11):
where is he was at. He wanted toget closer to appreciating what
he could do, going surfing,riding his mountain bikes,
getting in a tour bus anddriving to Florida. Yeah, go is
you don't have to be a part ofthe machine. There's no rule or
law that says you must. But Iwill come back to this. Losing
(31:35):
Izzy was the dumbest thing thosepeople could do. Michelle
Anthony, Doug, Goldstein,Richard Feldstein, all those
people who were important aroundthe band were idiots to losing
30 years of creativity
Chuck Shute (31:52):
lost. But do you think there was anything that
they could have said or donethat would have brought him
back? Because it seemed like hewas just kind of done at that
point, because he had gottensober, and then he realizes,
like, oh, like, I don't want toput up with all this bullshit
when I'm when I'm fucked up. Ican deal with, you know, people
being fucked up in the drama andthe late nights and an axel
(32:12):
being laid on stage. But thenwhen he got sober, he's like,
Oh, this is a shit show. I gottaget the hell out of here. Do you
think that they would havepushed to get the rest of the
band sober sooner? Because thateventually did happen.
Unknown (32:26):
There was, there was a lack of intelligent oversight on
the touring entity from 1991 on,and a lot of money got wasted,
and there was a lot ofindulgence, and they all thought
it was cool and fun, though,really it wasn't. It was
indulgent in the waste. If youcould have gotten Izzy through
(32:47):
that period, the period whenDuff's body said, If you don't
stop drinking, you're gonna die,when Slash's body said, If you
don't stop doing coke. You'regonna die. You know, he hasn't.
He's got a pacemaker. He can'tfuck around. All right, there's
(33:10):
his sign. His spleen explodes.
You get a pacemaker. All right,time to stop. If Izzy could have
lost until then, then is he'd bethere today. There is only one
criteria. You can go online andyou can find Izzy saying, I'm
not a part of it because theywon't share the loot. I did see
that? Yeah, yeah. So it comesdown to him not getting an equal
(33:31):
share of a band that was builton his style and his
sensibilities,
Chuck Shute (33:44):
but so he's got enough loot him and Adler. Do
they just have enough from that,those first, uh, albums, that
they can just basically live offof that for the rest of their
life?
Unknown (33:54):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You go to Vegas and
you win the jackpot, the gamebecomes, figure out who your
girlfriends and wives are. Don'tgo crazy on big, expensive motor
cars. Put some money into somereal estate, and adjust your
(34:18):
social circle so as it's notcrazy. That's the state of play
at that point you have gotenough to last you through your
days. Hell of an achievement.
Well done. Easy.
Chuck Shute (34:36):
Yeah. I mean, he's just so fascinating that he
just, I mean, do you think he'sstill writing music just by
himself and just playing in hisgarage or his studio. So home
studio somewhere, just for fun.
Unknown (34:48):
10 years ago, I decided to say that I'm dead. Now I'm
not so sure there was somebody.
Who had a birthday, and theywere turning 49 and they called
me up and they had a fuckingmeltdown.
(35:14):
Slash, why are you having ameltdown about your 49th
birthday? Because my next one ismy 50th. Do you realize what
that looks like to me? Me and Isaid, simmer down, little fella
and listen up. If I could haveback one decade to relive, it
(35:39):
would be my 50s. Really, yes,because that was the best
balance of body, mind, spiritexperience that I've had that
was the best living cocktailthat I've experienced is my 50s.
Chuck Shute (35:58):
That's how I feel about my 40s, honestly, like I'm
loving my favorite time of mylife.
Unknown (36:03):
Wait until you get to your 50s, so you tell me, it
Chuck Shute (36:05):
gets better. I love it. I love to hear it all right.
Unknown (36:07):
Now, if you want to question that, go back and look
at the 50s of Slash's life andwhat's occurred in that period
of time. It has been far andaway the most productive,
materially period of his life,and probably the most settled,
emotionally familiar. This ishis 50s. Is his best now, when I
(36:29):
was in my 40s, I went to a rockand roll doctor and Rodeo Drive
to get a physical, and at theend of them doing all their
tests, they said, You're you'rein remarkably good shape,
considering what you're involvedin. In fact, you're going to be
in this shape until you're about60. Stupidly, I did not take
(36:52):
that and leave the room. I hadto be a dumb ass and go, Well,
what happens at 60? And thedoctor looked at me and said,
well, buddy, it's all downhillfrom there. Oh shit, yeah. So
here's the thing, being old,ancient and in the way and
beyond my 60s,I haven't played guitar properly
(37:13):
in 10 years. I don't listen tomusic as much as I do.
However, if I'm in an actualworking creative situation, I
find that the spirit has notaged, and I can connect, and I
can be with it, and I cancontribute to it, and I'm on it.
(37:38):
But in terms of my daily habits,does is he write songs now in
his late 60s, maybe not. Daddystill rides his bike.
Chuck Shute (37:51):
Yeah, I guess there's just that part of me
that's just as a fan. I'd loveto see Izzy just come back with
GNR and bring in Steven Adlerjust for a couple songs, at
least, even if it's not a fulltour or even a full album, like,
give, give me, like, three newsongs that they sit down
together. And I think that wouldjust be a really cool cherry on
top to their amazing career. Andjust, you know, again, just, you
(38:14):
know, it's for fun. I mean, it'snot forget the money. They all
got enough money. They shouldjust come out and write a few
songs for the fans, forthemselves too. It'd be fun.
Unknown (38:22):
What's the question, Chuck, I don't know. I don't
Chuck Shute (38:25):
have a cry. Just wanted to say that. I don't
know. I just just my What areyour thoughts on that? Do you
think that's realistic?
Unknown (38:31):
I'll tell you what the question is, Chuck. The question
is, why didn't you do it for theRock and Roll Hall of Fame? That
was the moment, right? Theyshould have done it then, and it
would have been the perfect micdrop, good fucking night. Yeah,
(38:51):
whatever they performed, just tohear Axel say that and then drop
the mic on a table full ofcelebrities who have spent
ridiculous money to be sittingwhere they're sitting. Just drop
the mic and say, We're done, seeya.
Chuck Shute (39:06):
But Axel didn't want, he, he doesn't want to do
what people want him to do. Hewants it to be his idea. You
know what? I mean? Like, it waslike a thing like, Oh, you guys
need to get together. And he'slike, No, I don't. I can do
whatever the fuck I want. Andthat's and then, you know, he
reunites with the band later.
It's like he and he wanted it tobe his idea. I understand that.
I get that he's, he's a rebel.
(39:26):
That's, I think that's why Ilike him so much. Well,
Unknown (39:32):
are we a rebel with a cause or not?
Chuck Shute (39:38):
I don't know, but it's so entertaining.
Unknown (39:41):
Either way, are we psychologist Chuck?
Chuck Shute (39:44):
I love psychology.
I love the psychology of Axl.
Rose is fascinating to me. LikeI said, he'd be a dream guest. I
think we'd have amazingconversation.
Unknown (39:53):
Okay, well, let me ask you one question. Okay, put it
on the list to ask Axel when hecomes on so on. Axel. You never
had a successful marriage. Doyou regret not being a father?
Chuck Shute (40:08):
Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I feel like if that's
something he wanted to do, hecould still do it. Now, if you I
mean, sure, there's a lot ofwomen who would you know he
could impregnate that would wantto have his baby. For sure.
Unknown (40:18):
Oh, I'm sure, but it hasn't happened. What I find
interesting is that beta camewith a family.
Who will say that again. What Ifind interesting is that beta
came with a family. So shebrought him what was obviously a
(40:46):
good enough, if not a perfectfamily that he'd been deprived
of. And, you know, I look at Ilook at bands, and, you know,
when we generalize, we always gooff, you know, too far this way
or too far that way, inimplication. But I think there's
a valid perception to bands, andthat the majority of the people
(41:10):
in a band come from adysfunctional childhood. The
majority of the people in a bandare looking to create their
perfect family, and of course,when they're young, bloods
indivisible against the world.
It works, but as soon as moneyand girlfriends and wives and
mothers and gardeners comealong, it starts to fall apart,
(41:30):
and all that dysfunction fromchildhood gets unpacked and a
band falls apart. I think betaprovided over the family.
Whatever else I'm going to sayabout about beta. And a lot of
people go, what the fuck youknow? How did she become the
(41:51):
manager of somebody of thatcreative status? My observation,
is, look at the gig. She's gothim to whatever she's doing in
providing a family. I tip mycap, they just got him to a lot
(42:12):
of gigs, and let's see. IrvingAzoff couldn't handle him. Doc
McGee couldn't handle him. Merccouldn't handle him. I mean, you
know, I obviously had anentertaining moment with Doc
McGee when we were on somepodcast together, and I said,
Doc, do tell me what was it liketo manage Guns and Roses. I and
(42:38):
only we would smile. You know,what did you get done? Okay, now
we're looking back at 30 yearsago. Who the hell thought people
would care about something 30years later? But on the other
hand, I can say wasn't perfect,but I was the only one who would
(43:03):
work with them, and I made somegood decisions, because they're
living off the product of thatrelationship that five or six
years today, I did my Job, andone day, Axel you might have the
manners to actually say thankyou. For the very first time.
Chuck Shute (43:30):
Think about that.
Yeah, one of the things that youdid, thank you, thank you. Well,
yeah. And one of the things thatyou did, and speaking of the
relationships and this, then, 30years in the past, I thought
this was really interesting. Inever knew this. I don't know if
this was out in the public, butyou talk about there's an
alternate version of the videofor sweet child of mine with his
then girlfriend, Aaron Everly,in bondage. And your and your
(43:53):
call was to cut this, don't burythis. Is that? Is there any copy
of that for the public to find?
Or is that just like beendestroyed? Now,
Unknown (44:02):
what the original?
Yeah, I don't know what happenedto the original. The last I
heard the original was bothAaron everlise lawyers and axles
lawyers were desperately tryingto find every single fucking
copy of right, because they werein a divorce proceedings, and
Aaron wanted to use it againstAxel, but you can go online
right now and you can see theupdated version, which has even
(44:26):
more of Aaron in it than theoriginal one from 30 years ago.
You know, sometimes you think,what are you thinking, dude? Is
that any way for people to thinkthat you treat a sweet child all
right, hang her from the raftersand whoop her with a paddle and
(44:48):
oh, by the way, this now makes abrilliant video with some of the
best live footage. We have ashot in the cat house that
night. It makes the video aboutyou and Aaron and your fetish,
rather than being a video aboutthe band. Let's try and keep
(45:10):
things about the band. So no, Iburied it.
Chuck Shute (45:18):
Yeah. What do you think? Because that was such a
different time in the 80s, andthen obviously things
transitioned in the 90s. Like,what, putting on your manager?
How, like, if you had taken onone of those, you know, quote,
unquote, like a hair band inlike 91 like, let's say, like a
warrant or poison or and I knowyou're going to say, I would
never take that job, but let'ssay somebody paid you 10 million
(45:40):
to take it. What would yourdirection have been
Unknown (45:43):
up right there? David Geffen might put me with Jon.
Bon Jovi, that's a lot of money.
Yeah, my answer was, you fuckingkidding me. I work with artists,
not entertainers.
Chuck Shute (46:02):
So you turn that down, yes. And so you just felt
like that. You just would not.
You could even for a shitload ofmoney. You there's nothing you
could do to because that was atough transition for bands of
the 80s to go into the 90s andcompete against grunge. I just
wondered if you had some sort ofstrategy that you would like
with guns and roses. I mean,even they could have been pigeon
(46:23):
holes as a quote, unquote 80sband. How would you have
navigated those waters in 929394 as the you know, because
they, they started to kind of,that's, I think that's also part
of the reason they kind of tooka hiatus.
Unknown (46:39):
There are no brilliant or original ideas. And I think
for anybody in thatcircumstance, that period of
time, should look at a littleold band from Texas who looked
at their environment at acertain point and went, look at
(47:01):
the band. Look at where we'reat. Look at what's around us.
Yo, I'm gonna get my car gothrough. Drive after you in two,
three years. And they went away,they took a hiatus, and then
when they came back, oh my god,they taken it to another level.
(47:22):
But that's part of what taking ahiatus does again. It gives you
time to absorb, think thingsthrough, evaluate, try things
out without them being underpressure. I mean, you know, one
of the biggest problems you haveis a record company going more,
more more. We want more now. Wewant to sell now. Give us
(47:47):
another one. Now, just like theother one. All right, you get
that. I was under incrediblepressure from David Geffen.
Where's my record? Walking intohis offices one day, he's coming
down the staircase, the Queencoming down his staircase. David
liked to intimidate. He'd get upnew grill this close. And he
(48:12):
comes up, and he puts his faceright in mine. I bought why
ball? And he goes, When am Igoing to get my fucking record?
And my reply, eyeball to eyeballis when it's fucking ready,
David. And he just stands therelaser beams coming out of his
(48:36):
eyes going through the back ofyour skull, and then he turns
around and walks out the door.
And you sit and think about itfor a moment, and he's going, I
think his thought process wasthis, in 1986 we were going to
drop this band without recordinganything. This weird fucking tea
bag comes along. And now all I'mconcerned about is how fast I'm
going to get a multi millionseller. I'll leave him in place
(48:58):
for now.
Chuck Shute (49:05):
Yeah, that was a crazy part of the book where you
said you renegotiated a dealwith him. That sounds like,
that's like, that's some roughnegotiating. Like, yeah, if he
gets in your face, like, that'scrazy.
Unknown (49:17):
Oh, more than getting in your face, you go up to his
office and he's got his entiresenior executive standing on
parade in the bay window of hisroom, and he's telling you to go
and sit on a little stool infront of the fireplace. And
you're sitting there thinking,Oh, fuck, what's going on here?
And you realize that the wholething is an intimidation tactic,
(49:39):
because, because the minute hesays, We will renegotiate, he
immediately says, What do youwant in the contract? And he's
trying to beat me down andintimidate me right then and
there. And that's not a questionthat I'm going to field. That's
a question that goes to thelegal representative of the
band, not to me. I. Comment tothe legal representative when he
(50:04):
comes back to me and tells mewhere the offers are at or when
the negotiations at, I don't sitthere with a piece of paper and
go, Well, you know, give me fourmore points on the record or
something. I need to be out ofthat so as the lawyers can put
on the pressure, but the onething I got from him was his
(50:24):
commitment, and his commitmentto me was they would get the
best contract on the label.
That's all I needed to hear.
Done. Okay? Now it's up to thelawyers done, and my reward for
that is to get fired by Mr.
Rose. Appreciated.
(50:47):
I'm tempted to say what we havehere is failure to appreciate.
Chuck Shute (50:58):
That's a good that's good. That's a good
little reference to theillusions album, which I love
those albums, by the way. So youwere around for the making of
that. It was just like afterthey released. Then that's when
you left.
Unknown (51:15):
I was around for the first mixes to be done, and the
first mixes were abandonedbecause they were lifeless. Now,
because this has become a topic,or once, are you sitting
comfortably? Yes, use yourillusions. We start with double
(51:41):
King jive, because there's a lotof that going around. And the
next time you play that lend anear to the tone and the
aggression of the guitar solo,that guitar so Solo says to me,
we're back. Bucha, okay, fromthere, we go into back off
(52:02):
bitch, which at every leveleverybody had been thinking,
whether the bitch is yourgirlfriend or David Geffen or
the fans who are going, when arewe gonna get a new record? Back
off bitch? Then we go dust andbones, which is my magic song of
(52:23):
the whole collection,yesterday's civil war. You could
be mine a little bit of humor toput those together. Locomotive,
one of his better lyrics,November, rain and dead horse,
because trying to followappetite with the consciousness
(52:45):
of trying to follow appetite isbeating a dead fucking horse.
But there's here, there's youralbum. So you would
Chuck Shute (52:53):
have made it just one album. Oh yeah,
Unknown (52:58):
I bought him. Can you imagine? Lying in bed for two,
three years thinking, How thefuck do we follow this up? Oh,
it's at 3 million, oh it's at 5million, oh it's at 8 million,
(53:20):
and it's still selling. That'scrashing. How are you supposed
to follow a record that performsan absolute way I know that Axel
thought, hmm, one way we can doit is to overwhelm them, to put
(53:41):
out a double album, to have morematerial there than they can
absorb and deal with, and thenwe can go out on the road and
play the best songs and build afollowing to the record. It's
pretty good thinking on rosesPark. Okay, my thinking on the
double album was No, no, no, no,no, no. If we put a double album
(54:06):
out, we are going to get fuckingcrucified by the critics, on top
of which look at the economiesof a double album. It's a very
expensive item to throw into thegrocery bill at the end of the
week. Okay, what effects we dosomething that no one's ever
(54:28):
done not going to do a doublealbum. We're going to do two
single albums, and, oh, by theway, let me get a pencil and
paper and show the economics ofdoing two separate albums, as
opposed to a double album. Bandmakes an awful lot more money on
single albums than they doubleOkay, in the economics, and no
(54:49):
one's ever done it before, gunsand fucking roses. Who would
have the nerve to put out twosingle albums in one go? We
would, of course, Chuck, youknow that there's no such thing
as an original idea. There areonly the ideas that you store in
(55:11):
your memory. And when the rightoccasion comes up, you bring out
that memory and goes, Oh, thatcould apply to us. Because, you
know what I was thinking? I wasthinking United Kingdom
electric, Ladyland, JimiHendrix, they put out a double
album, and they put out thedouble album as two separate
(55:32):
albums. It had been done before.
But of course, none of mycontemporaries, my band,
certainly didn't know that, andnobody in America noted that
they thought it was just Guns NRoses being Guns N Roses.
Actually it was the name in auraHendrix, stealing from his idea.
Chuck Shute (55:52):
I didn't know that either. That is interesting.
That's cool. Yeah. Well, some ofthe songs, so the songs that you
wouldn't put on the album likeone of them, which I probably am
the only one that likes a song,but I love the song. Get in the
ring, and you talk about thecritics, and he bashes all the
critics in there. So did thecritics fuck What's that?
Unknown (56:13):
Fuck all that? That's bullshit that you have
conversation in the bar. Youdon't write a fucking song about
ridiculous
Chuck Shute (56:21):
they were. So the critics did bother. That's what
I find so fascinating. Becauseif I sold 15 million records,
whatever appetite sold at thetime, I wouldn't give a fuck
what anyone says about me. Butthey were still bothered by
critics.
Unknown (56:32):
Explain to me, Chuck why you have the brilliance to
write Civil War War. You havethe idiocy to write right next
door to hell, which is about himbeating his neighbor over the
head with a wine bottle, and Ifind myself Stark staring naked
in my kitchen at three o'clockin the morning, phoning around
everybody I knew with a safetrying to find enough money to
(56:54):
bail him out before thesheriff's office send him down
to general pop, because inGeneral pop, he's going to be
fucking me and now tear himapart.
Chuck Shute (57:06):
I love that song too. Though. I love, I love it
all. I love all the B sides,unreleased stuff. It's all
great.
Unknown (57:14):
Yeah. I mean, you know when you when you're close to
stuff, you really don't want toI mean, I don't have any golden
platinum records, none. I usedto have a bar full of them. I
used to have about 70 or 80 instorage. I had a whole bunch in
(57:37):
the house. They're gone. Got ridof them. I don't want to live in
a mausoleum of a museum. What Ihave to remind me, I have a
photograph of Izzy and Keith andRonnie Wood playing together in
Atlantic City. I have that on mywall that says, that says
(58:02):
something to me. Go on platinumrecords. What wasn't stolen? I
just gave away. I got addictedto how excited people would get
when I'd give them one.
Chuck Shute (58:15):
Yeah, didn't you sell the Didn't you have an MTV
Movie Award or music videoaward. You sold that or
something. I read an articleabout that that's kind of
Unknown (58:24):
interesting. Given away, all gone. I mean, you
know, that was five or six yearsof my life, not my entire life,
not the sum total of myrelationships, not the sum total
of my interest, a moment ofincredible event, an activity, a
(58:52):
moment of extraordinaryprivilege, because at the end of
my days, I'm not sitting thereGoing well, I wonder what would
it be like if we'd been able totour the world. Well, I wonder
what it would have been like ifwe did number one, adorable.
Been there, done it. Threw the tshirt away. Who cares? You?
Chuck Shute (59:22):
Yeah. So you're saying there's better things
than the success.
Unknown (59:27):
Oh, equal and better, better than equals. Yeah, that's
awesome to hear. Yeah. You knowwhat really matters to you at
the end of the day? Who can youtrust? Who can you call if you
fall over? Who can you call ifyou if your vehicle breaks down?
(59:48):
Who can you spend some timewith? Because you need to spend
some time. All arrest Chuck isjust sound and fucking. Fury.
It's a stupid tale told
THEME SONG (01:00:05):
by an idiot.
Chuck Shute (01:00:07):
Well, I know you got to get going the book. The
book is out June 24 I've readit. The entire thing. People can
get it. It's a it's an easy readbecause it's just so
interesting. It's just acollection of all these
different stories. And there'smore than Guns and Roses.
There's great white stuff.
There's other things that youdid. There's this Rosie Lopez
girl that sounded amazing. Whythat didn't work out. A lot of
really interesting stuff. Rockywas, sorry, Roxy, not Rosie.
Unknown (01:00:32):
Yeah, Rocky was fucking amazing. Yeah, I was
Chuck Shute (01:00:35):
trying to fight. Is there a copy of that? Someone's
trying to find it on YouTube orso I couldn't
Unknown (01:00:40):
find it. Get me an email through Jamie, give Jamie
or email around to me. At thevery least, I can email you a
couple of tracks and you can,
Chuck Shute (01:00:52):
okay, cool. Are you still in Prescott, Arizona?
Because I'm in Scotts, I'm onlylike, 990 minutes from you or
something. Are you kidding?
Yeah? Are you still in Prescott?
Fuck yes. Oh, that's good. Ialways like whenever I go there,
I look around to see if I seeyou, but I've never seen you
there.
Unknown (01:01:07):
Well, as an alternative dude, send me an email. Tell me
you're coming up and we'll havelunch or something. Go and go
and have a beer or something.
Okay, extraordinary. Born in NewZealand, raised in England,
lived in Sweden, lived in Miami,lived in LA. Somehow, I've spent
almost a third of my life inPrescott. And every time I'm
away from it for more than threedays, I get two, three. I want
(01:01:31):
to get back. Interesting.
Chuck Shute (01:01:35):
Yeah, I do love Prescott. It's nice. Yeah,
Unknown (01:01:39):
there's something about the environment that I am very
content in, that I have neverbeen content in any other part
of
Chuck Shute (01:01:47):
the world. Wow.
Okay, well, thank you so muchfor doing this. I'll get this
episode. I know you got anotherone to get to. So
Unknown (01:01:54):
Chuck, it's been a pleasure do the thing. And next
time you're up in Prescott,let's hang
Chuck Shute (01:01:59):
out. Okay? Sounds good. See ya. See
THEME SONG (01:02:03):
ya. Bye, bye.
Heavy stars, rock and rolling through the cool
guitars shops got the questionsdigging so sharp, feeling back
layers hitting the heart.
Alan Niven (00:22):
Night Train. Have you ever drunk it? No,
Chuck Shute (00:25):
but yeah, I've heard that was what the song was
based on, that they were alldrinking this, like, horrible
liquor. It was like, what, likea wine cooler kind of thing or
something. What is
Unknown (00:36):
it? It's disgusting.
And when they run out of jetfuel, they go up to the local
deli and get some nitrogen toget the plane in the air. It's
awful.
Chuck Shute (00:45):
Yeah, did you ever drink it with those guys back in
the day?
Unknown (00:49):
Oh, good God, no. I have, I have some degree of self
preservation.
Chuck Shute (00:56):
So it sounds like after reading your book,
listening to some interviews andalso other not. I don't know if
I've ever had a manager on, butI've had producers on, and it
feels like managers andproducers kind of similar role.
You're kind of like an adultbabysitter, are you not? Some of
the times?
Unknown (01:14):
Well, for accuracy, my name is in producer lists as
well, because I produced all thesuccessful Great White records
and worked with a number ofother people, including the
utterly fabulous and magicalClarence Clemens. God rest his
(01:37):
beautiful, beautiful soul. Ilove that man, so it depends for
the what perspective you'relooking from, if you're looking
from the organized perspectiveof the industry on Sunset
Boulevard, we have our managers,we have our producers. We have
(01:58):
our managers that are alsoproducers, like the guy who was
with ZZ Top, whose name I shouldremember, but since I'm old and
dilapidated, I forgive myselffor forgetting his name. But
there are some of us who thereare managers who are 1030 to 430
(02:19):
in the afternoon, and there aresome of us who take take on the
function as part of a way oflife, rather than an occupation.
And for me, music was a way oflife. So producer, manager,
(02:40):
manager, composer. I've donesales, I've done marketing. I
had a radio show on W, I n z inMiami, in for a year when
somebody looks at me and says,You've done it all. Hard pressed
to say otherwise. You know thatall the functions of music,
(03:07):
music world, to some degree oranother, have been been
experienced of but I think wayof life is a better way of
describing it than babysitter.
Chuck Shute (03:25):
Well, that's just one role maybe would that be
about? Because I just, you know,reading the book, that's what it
sounded like with Guns and Rosesand Jack Russell doing mushrooms
and talking to a cactus andstuff, and you're kind of having
to reel him in and get him backto reality.
Unknown (03:41):
Yeah. Well, that's looking after a big baby at that
point and having to cancel atour, which was disastrous. But
my criteria was, I'd rather losea tour than a singer, and the
condition he's in at the momenthe needs supervision and he
(04:04):
needs to get cleaner. And ifthat means we lose the tour,
that means we lose the tour,because I will not lose a
person.
Chuck Shute (04:13):
Yeah, no, that's rough. So yeah, you speak about
composing, obviously, with greatwhite, you co wrote all the
biggest hits that they wrote,other than the covers that they
did. How come you never co wrotewith Guns and Roses? Did they
just not ask for help? Or wasthere songs that you guys wrote
that didn't make the album? Or
Unknown (04:32):
when you have Izzy, you don't need anybody. And for me,
Izzy is the primary writer inthat band that said Axel could
write a good lyric. Axel couldfigure things out on a piano.
Axel could sit on his bed with aguitar and play you a song and
(04:57):
say, What do you think do? Andstupidly, you say, okay, because
he's just played you one in amillion. And in that moment, Oh,
I'm getting goosebumps,remembering it now, in that
moment, sitting on the bed withthe guitar playing that song, he
(05:19):
was that scared person in NewYork with somebody getting in
his face and going, you're gonnadie. And he was right then and
there, a truly, genuine artisticrepresentation of the moment of
(05:40):
himself. So of course, I say,Yeah, that's amazing. You really
captured me with that song. Andof course, you know, once it
gets out there, it's Oh, he's ahomophobe. He's this, he's that.
But to me, in that moment when Iendorsed it, he was of the
(06:05):
moment he was describing. Andfor me, that is genuinely
artistic.
Chuck Shute (06:13):
Yeah, no, I think he does, does such a good job of
capturing emotion. And I know Imean people who or people who
don't know. I mean, he's got,he's had a rough childhood, but
he was able to, I feel like,take those feelings and emotions
and put them into music where somany other people would just,
you know, they'd be homeless onthe streets, drug addict.
Unknown (06:35):
Well, I mean, you know, broad brush stroke here, where
do all the best Where does allthe best material come from? And
all the best material is usuallybased in the blues, misery, bad
and bad experiences, bademotions. And that's where all
(06:55):
the great songs come from. Allthe happy songs are pop and are
made by Swedish little girlswith big boots on going,
hello, Mamma mia, here I goagain.
I mean, you know, you get mypoint. All the, all the greatest
(07:16):
stuff comes from pain. And theexpression of pain an axle. That
voice, I mean, that is the voiceof an angry, working class
middle American being That's thevoice of an outlaw running
(07:45):
across the Arizona desert thatand that's the voice of the
individual, and that's that'sbasically what I bought into,
was he and GNR Stand for thevalue of each and every soul,
including Urchins from under thestreet. Now, Axel stands for the
(08:09):
worth of himself to the nthdegree, but that's another
issue. But as the band goes andyou know, basically, I signed on
for a band, I signed a contractwith five individuals,
collectively known as I wasn'tworking for one or the other, or
the other or the other. And ifyou've read the book, it's
(08:32):
obviously evident that mystrongest relationship was with
Izzy. But then we were bornexactly 10 years apart. There's
got to be something in that. Imean, we could probably get a
gypsy to sit down and turn cardsand look into a crystal ball and
say, born 10 years apart. Well,of course, you guys hadn't had
(08:53):
an empathy together.
Chuck Shute (08:57):
Yeah. What happened to Izzy? Because I made a video
on my channel, and it was verypopular. Very popular, just
trying to track him down andsee, you know, where he last
kind of left us, you know,because he made, him made some
solo music, and I know you weremanaging him for that. So some
of the beginning of the solomusic, but then it kind of
tailor, tailored off, and thenhe didn't rejoin the band for
(09:18):
the reunion. And I'm just sofascinated by that guy. I find
him so mysterious andinteresting and just such a
brilliant songwriter. I wouldjust love this. He's like a
dream guest for me to have, forsure,
Unknown (09:30):
yes, yes, yes, yes, and no, he won't do it.
Chuck Shute (09:35):
No, of course he won't. Yeah, yeah, no, but I'm
just saying if Axel would be toobut, though, but is he
especially, because I nobody'sreally I've never seen a long
form interview with him like Ithink he'd be really interesting
just as somebody to pick hisbrain, and if he if they could
get him to talk. I know Rachelbowling told me when they toured
with them that none of the bandmembers could get him to talk,
(09:55):
but Rachel could get him to openup about dirt bikes or
something.
Unknown (09:59):
Yeah, I. He likes dirt bikes. He likes riding dirt
bikes in Lafayette, Indiana withhis school friends. That's fun
for him, no pressure, noexpectations, no demands. There
(10:19):
is no there is no preparationwhatsoever for the onslaught of
fame such as Guns and Rosesexperience. There's no
preparation for that justsuddenly, yeah in it. And the
suddenness for me, for example,was I was in a Lincoln Town Car
(10:42):
in Manhattan and heading down toEighth Street because I was
going to electric radiolandstudios, and I had smash sitting
in the back with me, and we knowthat there were people who had
spotted him and Were starting torun after the car that, for me
(11:03):
was the moment when I went, Oh,shit, things have changed. And
of course, we get to ElectricLady land. He stays in the car.
I get to the door. Electric Ladyland, press the buttons, get the
door open. Once the doors open,he can come out of the car and
zip into the studio and not getgrabbed. And we're looking at
each other and going, Oh, fuck,our world's changed, hasn't it,
(11:30):
you know? And this people findout who is famous before the an
essay of the Kardashians, andit's all scripted and contrived
by Momma, and it's all being puttogether. If you're in a band
and you become famous, you findout about your fame after
(11:52):
everybody else, everybody elseknows you're famous before you
do, you just wake up to the factof, why are people staring at me
while I'm trying to get a packetof Marlboro reds in in the
convenience store? You know,this guy's not talking to me
(12:12):
quite same way as he used totalk to me, deference,
ingratiation, relationship.
Relationships get obscured andclouded by trying to figure out
what somebody wants, whetherit's just to be in the presence
(12:32):
of or maybe you can fund medoing this, or so on and so
forth, it all changes overnight,and you're the last person to
realize it. You know, you getsome signs. You come home from
the office and the wife isthere, steaming and pissed off.
What's up, honey? When are allthese people in leather jackets
(12:55):
going to stop banging on thedoor asking if the manager of
Guns and Roses. Lives here. Iwas married to a, you know,
European, as you can tell. Imean, you know, you get your
little signs and cues. Thingsare a little different. There's
a reason why a lot of people endup buying houses behind walls,
Chuck Shute (13:18):
and you tried to avoid that, right? Because you
didn't want people to take yourpicture, you didn't do
interviews, you didn't want apiece of that.
Unknown (13:25):
No, I mean, fuck. I mean not that smart, but I was
smart enough to realize a coupleof things, that once you lose
your anonymity, you've lost youranonymity, and there are certain
things about that that areuncomfortable. And there was
also the fact of, if people, ifyou're over exposed, then you're
(13:47):
going to start to start with abit of mystique. You start
listening, losing mystique. Youbecome familiar. Once you become
overly familiar, people don'ttake you as seriously anymore,
you know. So you say you wantto, you want to back off. Where
did we start this question then,oh yeah, Axel shitty childhood.
(14:08):
Do you know what's worse? What,after a shitty childhood, he has
to live the rest of his life asAxel fucking rose. Now think
about this for a minute. Whenyou wake up in the morning, I
guarantee the first thought onyour mind is not necessarily, am
(14:31):
I leaving my house today, butwhen your axle rose and you're
waking up in the morning, that'sthe first thing you're going to
think about. If I'm leaving thehouse today, then I'm out there
in the world that thinks own itowns me, and I have to be Axel
all day long, and I can't justrelax and take off the persona
(14:57):
of the performer until I get.
Back through my front door andsink into the safety of my sofa.
Can you imagine that slash hasto go out there and be slash
every fucking day, and I've beenwith him enough to see where the
nerve ends just a little worn.
Sometimes you're in a restaurantin the back room and somebody
(15:19):
still finds their way in thereand wants an autograph, and he's
like, Excuse me, I'm sittingwith my friends. You know that
demand every day is a fuckingsentence. Now you and I, we're
lucky. You're probablyrecognized that as much as I am,
(15:39):
you know, just enough to benoticed. Aisle 13 in Safeway,
someone says, Hello, my wifejokingly says that I'm Safeway
famous. But you know, we alsohave our anonymity, which is our
privacy. And for example, whenyou don't have anonymity,
(16:00):
someone will come up to you inthe street address you by your
first name, stick a hand out toyou, and you're in plant mode
because you're going, Oh, fuck,I'm about to be rude to somebody
because I cannot remember thecontext in which I met them.
Now, you never met them before.
They've just seen you on a TVand know your name, but that
fleeting second you have thatsurge of panic through you,
(16:25):
through your body, who am Ibeing fucked to? Oh, God, I feel
bad. This is somebody I shouldrecognize. No, they just saw you
on the telly. You know,anonymity has its value. And of
course, when before, before welose anonymity, a lot of us go
through life going, will I berelevant? Will I be even
(16:47):
noticed? Will anybody even knowthat I've been here? Will I just
be gone and go from that fear?
Well, I'll tell you what. Enjoyit, because when you lose your
anonymity, sometimes, you getbodily reactions of tension and
fear that you don't necessarilywant a part of your life. So
(17:12):
you're
Chuck Shute (17:12):
saying it's better to be because I know, I've met a
lot of interviewed, a lot ofpeople were kind of in the
middle, right, like they'refamous to certain people, you
know, like, in certain, youknow, if they went to, like, a
rock convention, people knowthem, but if they're at the
grocery store, the averageperson doesn't. So that's maybe
kind of a nice happy medium,
Unknown (17:30):
yeah? Well, that's, that's the sort of happy medium
that you and I
Chuck Shute (17:33):
have. I don't even think I have that
Unknown (17:35):
happy Well, I'm sure you do. Yeah. I mean, you're on
a screen? Sure, sure, all right.
And what is being
Chuck Shute (17:44):
everybody's on a screen these days, though
Unknown (17:46):
I know good God. And also what is being recorded
right now is going out intospace and will eventually go
where Voyager One and voyage twogoing
Chuck Shute (18:03):
in that regard, do you feel like the big guys, Axel
and slash and Jack Russell andthese big rock stars, were they
not happy then, because of thatanonymity taken away, that they
couldn't leave the house and itwas too stressful during their
heyday, or Axel and slash now Ifeel like their heyday has never
ended.
Unknown (18:23):
Um, for Izzy, obviously, because he retreated,
would
Chuck Shute (18:29):
people even still recognize him, because I don't
think anyone's really seen himhardly in the last 1520, years,
Unknown (18:36):
I would say that he he's clawed back a lot of
anonymity that he's notnecessarily easy to to
recognize, but obviously heretreated from it. But it's like
anything else, all right, yougot a gorgeous girlfriend, okay?
Go to a party and you love beingwith your gorgeous girlfriend.
(18:57):
Well, just call her agirlfriend, not a wife. You
know, just the relationship isbudding, and then you notice
that other guys are noticingyour wife or your girlfriend,
rather, and then you start tofeel uncomfortable. It's like
anything else you'll recognize.
There are moments when you walkinto a restaurant and you get
given a really good table, andthey fawn over you and tell you
(19:20):
how wonderful you are and lookafter you really well. Oh, it's
good to be famous. Okay, youwalk out to go to get your car
and some dark shadow with ahoodie over his face goes, you
got a watch that I want give mea watch, and flicks out a knife.
Now, it's not so good to befamous, and at that restaurant,
(19:40):
it's like anything else in life.
There are moments when it'sgood, and there are moments when
you go, Yeah, fuck it,
Chuck Shute (19:51):
yeah. Well, in your book, you talk about, you know,
there was struggles sometimes toget Axel to perform. In fact,
sometimes he. Didn't like theother thing was a show in
Phoenix. So when he was late orhe didn't want to perform, what,
what was he typically doing? Iknow you talked about wanting me
to go get the cops to gab, toget him. Was he? Was he
sleeping? Was he just watchingTV? Was he? Was he drunk or
(20:14):
high? Or was it just anythingother than performing,
Unknown (20:17):
not drunk and high? And if I had to sweep a broad brush
across to try and get animpression of the continuous
moments, I would say, avoiding.
I don't perform on stage. Iwon't I don't like it. I love
(20:38):
being in the studio, but I don'tlike being on a stage. Now, if
you're a guitar player, youguitar player?
Chuck Shute (20:52):
No. I mean, I took lessons when I was in high
school, and, you know, a coupleof years in, I quickly realized
I could not compete with theselegends. So I was like, you
know, I'm gonna give up. That'swhy I have so much respect for
guitar players, because Irealize how hard it
Unknown (21:06):
is. Oh, I have only empathy for you, for me. It
started with hearing JimiHendrix and going, why fucking
bother? I mean, why fuckingbother, yeah, Jimmy, I will. I
Chuck Shute (21:21):
tried to play the wind cries, Mary. I could, I
could get some of those. Thatone's a little bit easier to
play. But some of the notes youjust, and it doesn't sound like
Jimmy, even if you're
Unknown (21:30):
playing the right notes. Oh, it's huge freaking
hands. I mean, you know the wayhe played. Where were we going
with this? Get me back on therails here.
Chuck Shute (21:41):
Just like, well, how Axel, wouldn't you send
guitar players avoidance
Unknown (21:47):
and Theresa and I asked if you played guitar, and thanks
to the you have is that you canunderstand when I say, if you're
playing guitar, there issomething between you and the
audience. You have actuallysomething material against your
body into which you can put yourlooks and your concentration,
(22:08):
because you have to, okay, ifyou're a singer, all you can do
is look out at that room full offaces. There is nothing between
you and them, you areemotionally and psychologically
Stark, staring naked. Now, I hada duality of mind. On the one
(22:34):
hand, I wanted, for example,Great White, to go out on stage
and be on and deliver everysingle night they went out
there. And the longest, thelongest tour we had. The joke
was, it's not a real tour unlessyou've had two birthdays, okay,
that's being out there four orfive nights a week for over a
(23:00):
year, okay, that's a lot ofgigs, and my mental assessment
was, if everybody has a badnight, I still want the level of
performance to be such that thepunters who leave go, it was
(23:21):
worth buying the ticket. Sothere was a lot of drilling and
rehearsal and repetition to beable to be able to ensure that
if everybody was fatigued andnobody was feeling it that
night, it still was of astandard. And the punters would
(23:44):
go, we weren't gypped tonight.
They were good right now, if youestablish that as your grounds,
when one or two or three or Godbless them, if all of them have
a good night, then the puntersare going away going that was
fucking amazing. They wereawesome tonight. So that was the
area I was working within. Butthe thing I found odd to
(24:13):
contemplate within being someoneresponsible. For making sure me
that happened was this thought,How the fuck do you invest
yourself in a particularemotion, in a particular song?
Night after night? There's anabsurdity to it. There's no way
(24:37):
as a human being, that you canget to that emotion in that song
in that same way, night afternight after night. But that's
the magic that you try and pulloff, and you pull it off through
repetition and throughrehearsing and through learning
to act you. But I've got Axelwho is a ruler, he's not an
(25:02):
actor, and he's sitting theregoing, I've got to go and sing
these songs tonight. I don'tfeel it. I don't have the
confidence in myself that I caneven half pull it off. This is a
ridiculous thing that I'm doing.
(25:26):
Why did I sign up for this? Idon't want to do it. I'm going
to stay in my hotel room. Pointof fact, I'm going to lock the
door to my condominium. I cantotally understand that. Problem
is, it's not how the systemfunctions. You commit to do
(25:47):
gigs. You commit to promoters.
You want to go out there, youcommit to yourself that you want
to buy a big old mansion inMalibu. Well, you got to go out
there and do it
Chuck Shute (26:02):
right, and you were good at wrangling him in even
when he didn't want to do it. Sodo you think that if you hadn't
left in 91 I think it was or 90and you had stayed on, do you
think that they could have mademore records, because it took, I
mean, at the punk album and thenChinese Democracy, which was
only one original band memberleft. I mean, do you think if
(26:22):
you had stayed on, they wouldhave kept going, because you
were able to, kind of, this is,make them disciplined.
Unknown (26:30):
You answer that question, there's only one
answer there. Chuck.
Chuck Shute (26:36):
It makes you wonder, right? Because it's
like, if you hadn't, if youweren't there, then maybe even
the user illusion records don'thappen or or maybe they happen
way later. Maybe they come outin 96 or something. Who knows?
Unknown (26:50):
Who knows? I you know the answer to that, but I can
base it on something rather thanjust my ego. And what I base it
on is this, if I'd still beenthere, Izzy would still have
been there, he wouldn't haveleft. And if we had Izzy, Izzy
(27:13):
was the one who I always reliedon for input, for contributing
to a decision is he was the onewho had the best sense of what
(27:33):
the band was and could be losingIzzy is where it all goes off
the rails. And I have to saythat was the dumbest, stupidest,
most moronic thing that MichelleAnthony and Doug Goldstein could
have done was lose Izzy, becauseyou've lost your center and
(27:55):
core. He is the cool hot heartof raging, boiling Guns and
Roses. Soul, if you lose Izzy,you got a disaster on your hand.
You've lost your band. And howthose geniuses managed to lose
(28:16):
him within three months of megoing, I mean, do you not wake
up in the morning go Alan andIzzy were close. We need to make
sure Izzy's on side and he'sdoing well, and make sure our
relationship with Izzy is whatit should be. No, they just
Izzy, because they don'tunderstand his significance and
what happens. He goes and weget, what a rose solo record,
(28:41):
and that's it in 30 years.
Chuck Shute (28:44):
Yeah, and didn't you? You said, you said
something to the book about howthere was an attempt to bring
Izzy back at some point.
Unknown (28:54):
Yeah, there was, and you were a part of that. No, no,
no, no, no, absolutely not.
Chuck Shute (29:02):
So that was after you had, it was the other
management, but they didn'treach out to you to help or
anything. No, no, no, no. Imean, should have, though,
maybe,
Unknown (29:11):
yeah, maybe, you know, but Axel. Axel is the master of
the garage. He keeps notebooksfull of perceived slides.
THEME SONG (29:19):
And I read that that was crazy.
Unknown (29:21):
I know it is crazy. You know, leave it alone. Let it go.
Life's not perfect. There'sgoing to be some bruising and
some bumps here and there. Letthem go and look for the
positives. I keep my sanityChuck by keeping in touch with
(29:42):
what I call small gratitudes. Ihave a little a little thing I
did, ceremony, whatever you wantto call it, that I do for myself
that is an acknowledgement of asmall gratitude. And I'll tell
you how small I can go to.
Fridge. Open the fridge door,and the first gratitude I have
is that the fridge is exactlythe same as when I closed the
(30:05):
door and when I had a house fullof children and wives and
friends and musicians. That wasnever the case. Every time I
opened the fridge door, it waslike, Oh, fuck. The locusts have
been here nothing, alright, sothat's the first small grant.
Second, small gratitude is myfavorite drink. Is a mix between
(30:27):
mango tea and mango juice. And Itake a small drink of that, and
I close my eyes, and I say,thank you three times, to higher
power to myself, to whomever.
That's my appreciation. I likeit. It makes my body feel good.
(30:47):
I love the taste in my mouth. Iappreciate it, because there
were long periods of time whenI'd go through life, and my
sense of appreciation wasminimal because I was so
stressed, and I wasn't going, Ilike this. This is good. I enjoy
that. Didn't get enough of that,you know, and that's probably
(31:11):
where is he was at. He wanted toget closer to appreciating what
he could do, going surfing,riding his mountain bikes,
getting in a tour bus anddriving to Florida. Yeah, go is
you don't have to be a part ofthe machine. There's no rule or
law that says you must. But Iwill come back to this. Losing
(31:35):
Izzy was the dumbest thing thosepeople could do. Michelle
Anthony, Doug, Goldstein,Richard Feldstein, all those
people who were important aroundthe band were idiots to losing
30 years of creativity
Chuck Shute (31:52):
lost. But do you think there was anything that
they could have said or donethat would have brought him
back? Because it seemed like hewas just kind of done at that
point, because he had gottensober, and then he realizes,
like, oh, like, I don't want toput up with all this bullshit
when I'm when I'm fucked up. Ican deal with, you know, people
being fucked up in the drama andthe late nights and an axel
(32:12):
being laid on stage. But thenwhen he got sober, he's like,
Oh, this is a shit show. I gottaget the hell out of here. Do you
think that they would havepushed to get the rest of the
band sober sooner? Because thateventually did happen.
Unknown (32:26):
There was, there was a lack of intelligent oversight on
the touring entity from 1991 on,and a lot of money got wasted,
and there was a lot ofindulgence, and they all thought
it was cool and fun, though,really it wasn't. It was
indulgent in the waste. If youcould have gotten Izzy through
(32:47):
that period, the period whenDuff's body said, If you don't
stop drinking, you're gonna die,when Slash's body said, If you
don't stop doing coke. You'regonna die. You know, he hasn't.
He's got a pacemaker. He can'tfuck around. All right, there's
(33:10):
his sign. His spleen explodes.
You get a pacemaker. All right,time to stop. If Izzy could have
lost until then, then is he'd bethere today. There is only one
criteria. You can go online andyou can find Izzy saying, I'm
not a part of it because theywon't share the loot. I did see
that? Yeah, yeah. So it comesdown to him not getting an equal
(33:31):
share of a band that was builton his style and his
sensibilities,
Chuck Shute (33:44):
but so he's got enough loot him and Adler. Do
they just have enough from that,those first, uh, albums, that
they can just basically live offof that for the rest of their
life?
Unknown (33:54):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You go to Vegas and
you win the jackpot, the gamebecomes, figure out who your
girlfriends and wives are. Don'tgo crazy on big, expensive motor
cars. Put some money into somereal estate, and adjust your
(34:18):
social circle so as it's notcrazy. That's the state of play
at that point you have gotenough to last you through your
days. Hell of an achievement.
Well done. Easy.
Chuck Shute (34:36):
Yeah. I mean, he's just so fascinating that he
just, I mean, do you think he'sstill writing music just by
himself and just playing in hisgarage or his studio. So home
studio somewhere, just for fun.
Unknown (34:48):
10 years ago, I decided to say that I'm dead. Now I'm
not so sure there was somebody.
Who had a birthday, and theywere turning 49 and they called
me up and they had a fuckingmeltdown.
(35:14):
Slash, why are you having ameltdown about your 49th
birthday? Because my next one ismy 50th. Do you realize what
that looks like to me? Me and Isaid, simmer down, little fella
and listen up. If I could haveback one decade to relive, it
(35:39):
would be my 50s. Really, yes,because that was the best
balance of body, mind, spiritexperience that I've had that
was the best living cocktailthat I've experienced is my 50s.
Chuck Shute (35:58):
That's how I feel about my 40s, honestly, like I'm
loving my favorite time of mylife.
Unknown (36:03):
Wait until you get to your 50s, so you tell me, it
Chuck Shute (36:05):
gets better. I love it. I love to hear it all right.
Unknown (36:07):
Now, if you want to question that, go back and look
at the 50s of Slash's life andwhat's occurred in that period
of time. It has been far andaway the most productive,
materially period of his life,and probably the most settled,
emotionally familiar. This ishis 50s. Is his best now, when I
(36:29):
was in my 40s, I went to a rockand roll doctor and Rodeo Drive
to get a physical, and at theend of them doing all their
tests, they said, You're you'rein remarkably good shape,
considering what you're involvedin. In fact, you're going to be
in this shape until you're about60. Stupidly, I did not take
(36:52):
that and leave the room. I hadto be a dumb ass and go, Well,
what happens at 60? And thedoctor looked at me and said,
well, buddy, it's all downhillfrom there. Oh shit, yeah. So
here's the thing, being old,ancient and in the way and
beyond my 60s,I haven't played guitar properly
(37:13):
in 10 years. I don't listen tomusic as much as I do.
However, if I'm in an actualworking creative situation, I
find that the spirit has notaged, and I can connect, and I
can be with it, and I cancontribute to it, and I'm on it.
(37:38):
But in terms of my daily habits,does is he write songs now in
his late 60s, maybe not. Daddystill rides his bike.
Chuck Shute (37:51):
Yeah, I guess there's just that part of me
that's just as a fan. I'd loveto see Izzy just come back with
GNR and bring in Steven Adlerjust for a couple songs, at
least, even if it's not a fulltour or even a full album, like,
give, give me, like, three newsongs that they sit down
together. And I think that wouldjust be a really cool cherry on
top to their amazing career. Andjust, you know, again, just, you
(38:14):
know, it's for fun. I mean, it'snot forget the money. They all
got enough money. They shouldjust come out and write a few
songs for the fans, forthemselves too. It'd be fun.
Unknown (38:22):
What's the question, Chuck, I don't know. I don't
Chuck Shute (38:25):
have a cry. Just wanted to say that. I don't
know. I just just my What areyour thoughts on that? Do you
think that's realistic?
Unknown (38:31):
I'll tell you what the question is, Chuck. The question
is, why didn't you do it for theRock and Roll Hall of Fame? That
was the moment, right? Theyshould have done it then, and it
would have been the perfect micdrop, good fucking night. Yeah,
(38:51):
whatever they performed, just tohear Axel say that and then drop
the mic on a table full ofcelebrities who have spent
ridiculous money to be sittingwhere they're sitting. Just drop
the mic and say, We're done, seeya.
Chuck Shute (39:06):
But Axel didn't want, he, he doesn't want to do
what people want him to do. Hewants it to be his idea. You
know what? I mean? Like, it waslike a thing like, Oh, you guys
need to get together. And he'slike, No, I don't. I can do
whatever the fuck I want. Andthat's and then, you know, he
reunites with the band later.
It's like he and he wanted it tobe his idea. I understand that.
I get that he's, he's a rebel.
(39:26):
That's, I think that's why Ilike him so much. Well,
Unknown (39:32):
are we a rebel with a cause or not?
Chuck Shute (39:38):
I don't know, but it's so entertaining.
Unknown (39:41):
Either way, are we psychologist Chuck?
Chuck Shute (39:44):
I love psychology.
I love the psychology of Axl.
Rose is fascinating to me. LikeI said, he'd be a dream guest. I
think we'd have amazingconversation.
Unknown (39:53):
Okay, well, let me ask you one question. Okay, put it
on the list to ask Axel when hecomes on so on. Axel. You never
had a successful marriage. Doyou regret not being a father?
Chuck Shute (40:08):
Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I feel like if that's
something he wanted to do, hecould still do it. Now, if you I
mean, sure, there's a lot ofwomen who would you know he
could impregnate that would wantto have his baby. For sure.
Unknown (40:18):
Oh, I'm sure, but it hasn't happened. What I find
interesting is that beta camewith a family.
Who will say that again. What Ifind interesting is that beta
came with a family. So shebrought him what was obviously a
(40:46):
good enough, if not a perfectfamily that he'd been deprived
of. And, you know, I look at Ilook at bands, and, you know,
when we generalize, we always gooff, you know, too far this way
or too far that way, inimplication. But I think there's
a valid perception to bands, andthat the majority of the people
(41:10):
in a band come from adysfunctional childhood. The
majority of the people in a bandare looking to create their
perfect family, and of course,when they're young, bloods
indivisible against the world.
It works, but as soon as moneyand girlfriends and wives and
mothers and gardeners comealong, it starts to fall apart,
(41:30):
and all that dysfunction fromchildhood gets unpacked and a
band falls apart. I think betaprovided over the family.
Whatever else I'm going to sayabout about beta. And a lot of
people go, what the fuck youknow? How did she become the
(41:51):
manager of somebody of thatcreative status? My observation,
is, look at the gig. She's gothim to whatever she's doing in
providing a family. I tip mycap, they just got him to a lot
(42:12):
of gigs, and let's see. IrvingAzoff couldn't handle him. Doc
McGee couldn't handle him. Merccouldn't handle him. I mean, you
know, I obviously had anentertaining moment with Doc
McGee when we were on somepodcast together, and I said,
Doc, do tell me what was it liketo manage Guns and Roses. I and
(42:38):
only we would smile. You know,what did you get done? Okay, now
we're looking back at 30 yearsago. Who the hell thought people
would care about something 30years later? But on the other
hand, I can say wasn't perfect,but I was the only one who would
(43:03):
work with them, and I made somegood decisions, because they're
living off the product of thatrelationship that five or six
years today, I did my Job, andone day, Axel you might have the
manners to actually say thankyou. For the very first time.
Chuck Shute (43:30):
Think about that.
Yeah, one of the things that youdid, thank you, thank you. Well,
yeah. And one of the things thatyou did, and speaking of the
relationships and this, then, 30years in the past, I thought
this was really interesting. Inever knew this. I don't know if
this was out in the public, butyou talk about there's an
alternate version of the videofor sweet child of mine with his
then girlfriend, Aaron Everly,in bondage. And your and your
(43:53):
call was to cut this, don't burythis. Is that? Is there any copy
of that for the public to find?
Or is that just like beendestroyed? Now,
Unknown (44:02):
what the original?
Yeah, I don't know what happenedto the original. The last I
heard the original was bothAaron everlise lawyers and axles
lawyers were desperately tryingto find every single fucking
copy of right, because they werein a divorce proceedings, and
Aaron wanted to use it againstAxel, but you can go online
right now and you can see theupdated version, which has even
(44:26):
more of Aaron in it than theoriginal one from 30 years ago.
You know, sometimes you think,what are you thinking, dude? Is
that any way for people to thinkthat you treat a sweet child all
right, hang her from the raftersand whoop her with a paddle and
(44:48):
oh, by the way, this now makes abrilliant video with some of the
best live footage. We have ashot in the cat house that
night. It makes the video aboutyou and Aaron and your fetish,
rather than being a video aboutthe band. Let's try and keep
(45:10):
things about the band. So no, Iburied it.
Chuck Shute (45:18):
Yeah. What do you think? Because that was such a
different time in the 80s, andthen obviously things
transitioned in the 90s. Like,what, putting on your manager?
How, like, if you had taken onone of those, you know, quote,
unquote, like a hair band inlike 91 like, let's say, like a
warrant or poison or and I knowyou're going to say, I would
never take that job, but let'ssay somebody paid you 10 million
(45:40):
to take it. What would yourdirection have been
Unknown (45:43):
up right there? David Geffen might put me with Jon.
Bon Jovi, that's a lot of money.
Yeah, my answer was, you fuckingkidding me. I work with artists,
not entertainers.
Chuck Shute (46:02):
So you turn that down, yes. And so you just felt
like that. You just would not.
You could even for a shitload ofmoney. You there's nothing you
could do to because that was atough transition for bands of
the 80s to go into the 90s andcompete against grunge. I just
wondered if you had some sort ofstrategy that you would like
with guns and roses. I mean,even they could have been pigeon
(46:23):
holes as a quote, unquote 80sband. How would you have
navigated those waters in 929394 as the you know, because
they, they started to kind of,that's, I think that's also part
of the reason they kind of tooka hiatus.
Unknown (46:39):
There are no brilliant or original ideas. And I think
for anybody in thatcircumstance, that period of
time, should look at a littleold band from Texas who looked
at their environment at acertain point and went, look at
(47:01):
the band. Look at where we'reat. Look at what's around us.
Yo, I'm gonna get my car gothrough. Drive after you in two,
three years. And they went away,they took a hiatus, and then
when they came back, oh my god,they taken it to another level.
(47:22):
But that's part of what taking ahiatus does again. It gives you
time to absorb, think thingsthrough, evaluate, try things
out without them being underpressure. I mean, you know, one
of the biggest problems you haveis a record company going more,
more more. We want more now. Wewant to sell now. Give us
(47:47):
another one. Now, just like theother one. All right, you get
that. I was under incrediblepressure from David Geffen.
Where's my record? Walking intohis offices one day, he's coming
down the staircase, the Queencoming down his staircase. David
liked to intimidate. He'd get upnew grill this close. And he
(48:12):
comes up, and he puts his faceright in mine. I bought why
ball? And he goes, When am Igoing to get my fucking record?
And my reply, eyeball to eyeballis when it's fucking ready,
David. And he just stands therelaser beams coming out of his
(48:36):
eyes going through the back ofyour skull, and then he turns
around and walks out the door.
And you sit and think about itfor a moment, and he's going, I
think his thought process wasthis, in 1986 we were going to
drop this band without recordinganything. This weird fucking tea
bag comes along. And now all I'mconcerned about is how fast I'm
going to get a multi millionseller. I'll leave him in place
(48:58):
for now.
Chuck Shute (49:05):
Yeah, that was a crazy part of the book where you
said you renegotiated a dealwith him. That sounds like,
that's like, that's some roughnegotiating. Like, yeah, if he
gets in your face, like, that'scrazy.
Unknown (49:17):
Oh, more than getting in your face, you go up to his
office and he's got his entiresenior executive standing on
parade in the bay window of hisroom, and he's telling you to go
and sit on a little stool infront of the fireplace. And
you're sitting there thinking,Oh, fuck, what's going on here?
And you realize that the wholething is an intimidation tactic,
(49:39):
because, because the minute hesays, We will renegotiate, he
immediately says, What do youwant in the contract? And he's
trying to beat me down andintimidate me right then and
there. And that's not a questionthat I'm going to field. That's
a question that goes to thelegal representative of the
band, not to me. I. Comment tothe legal representative when he
(50:04):
comes back to me and tells mewhere the offers are at or when
the negotiations at, I don't sitthere with a piece of paper and
go, Well, you know, give me fourmore points on the record or
something. I need to be out ofthat so as the lawyers can put
on the pressure, but the onething I got from him was his
(50:24):
commitment, and his commitmentto me was they would get the
best contract on the label.
That's all I needed to hear.
Done. Okay? Now it's up to thelawyers done, and my reward for
that is to get fired by Mr.
Rose. Appreciated.
(50:47):
I'm tempted to say what we havehere is failure to appreciate.
Chuck Shute (50:58):
That's a good that's good. That's a good
little reference to theillusions album, which I love
those albums, by the way. So youwere around for the making of
that. It was just like afterthey released. Then that's when
you left.
Unknown (51:15):
I was around for the first mixes to be done, and the
first mixes were abandonedbecause they were lifeless. Now,
because this has become a topic,or once, are you sitting
comfortably? Yes, use yourillusions. We start with double
(51:41):
King jive, because there's a lotof that going around. And the
next time you play that lend anear to the tone and the
aggression of the guitar solo,that guitar so Solo says to me,
we're back. Bucha, okay, fromthere, we go into back off
(52:02):
bitch, which at every leveleverybody had been thinking,
whether the bitch is yourgirlfriend or David Geffen or
the fans who are going, when arewe gonna get a new record? Back
off bitch? Then we go dust andbones, which is my magic song of
(52:23):
the whole collection,yesterday's civil war. You could
be mine a little bit of humor toput those together. Locomotive,
one of his better lyrics,November, rain and dead horse,
because trying to followappetite with the consciousness
(52:45):
of trying to follow appetite isbeating a dead fucking horse.
But there's here, there's youralbum. So you would
Chuck Shute (52:53):
have made it just one album. Oh yeah,
Unknown (52:58):
I bought him. Can you imagine? Lying in bed for two,
three years thinking, How thefuck do we follow this up? Oh,
it's at 3 million, oh it's at 5million, oh it's at 8 million,
(53:20):
and it's still selling. That'scrashing. How are you supposed
to follow a record that performsan absolute way I know that Axel
thought, hmm, one way we can doit is to overwhelm them, to put
(53:41):
out a double album, to have morematerial there than they can
absorb and deal with, and thenwe can go out on the road and
play the best songs and build afollowing to the record. It's
pretty good thinking on rosesPark. Okay, my thinking on the
double album was No, no, no, no,no, no. If we put a double album
(54:06):
out, we are going to get fuckingcrucified by the critics, on top
of which look at the economiesof a double album. It's a very
expensive item to throw into thegrocery bill at the end of the
week. Okay, what effects we dosomething that no one's ever
(54:28):
done not going to do a doublealbum. We're going to do two
single albums, and, oh, by theway, let me get a pencil and
paper and show the economics ofdoing two separate albums, as
opposed to a double album. Bandmakes an awful lot more money on
single albums than they doubleOkay, in the economics, and no
(54:49):
one's ever done it before, gunsand fucking roses. Who would
have the nerve to put out twosingle albums in one go? We
would, of course, Chuck, youknow that there's no such thing
as an original idea. There areonly the ideas that you store in
(55:11):
your memory. And when the rightoccasion comes up, you bring out
that memory and goes, Oh, thatcould apply to us. Because, you
know what I was thinking? I wasthinking United Kingdom
electric, Ladyland, JimiHendrix, they put out a double
album, and they put out thedouble album as two separate
(55:32):
albums. It had been done before.
But of course, none of mycontemporaries, my band,
certainly didn't know that, andnobody in America noted that
they thought it was just Guns NRoses being Guns N Roses.
Actually it was the name in auraHendrix, stealing from his idea.
Chuck Shute (55:52):
I didn't know that either. That is interesting.
That's cool. Yeah. Well, some ofthe songs, so the songs that you
wouldn't put on the album likeone of them, which I probably am
the only one that likes a song,but I love the song. Get in the
ring, and you talk about thecritics, and he bashes all the
critics in there. So did thecritics fuck What's that?
Unknown (56:13):
Fuck all that? That's bullshit that you have
conversation in the bar. Youdon't write a fucking song about
ridiculous
Chuck Shute (56:21):
they were. So the critics did bother. That's what
I find so fascinating. Becauseif I sold 15 million records,
whatever appetite sold at thetime, I wouldn't give a fuck
what anyone says about me. Butthey were still bothered by
critics.
Unknown (56:32):
Explain to me, Chuck why you have the brilliance to
write Civil War War. You havethe idiocy to write right next
door to hell, which is about himbeating his neighbor over the
head with a wine bottle, and Ifind myself Stark staring naked
in my kitchen at three o'clockin the morning, phoning around
everybody I knew with a safetrying to find enough money to
(56:54):
bail him out before thesheriff's office send him down
to general pop, because inGeneral pop, he's going to be
fucking me and now tear himapart.
Chuck Shute (57:06):
I love that song too. Though. I love, I love it
all. I love all the B sides,unreleased stuff. It's all
great.
Unknown (57:14):
Yeah. I mean, you know when you when you're close to
stuff, you really don't want toI mean, I don't have any golden
platinum records, none. I usedto have a bar full of them. I
used to have about 70 or 80 instorage. I had a whole bunch in
(57:37):
the house. They're gone. Got ridof them. I don't want to live in
a mausoleum of a museum. What Ihave to remind me, I have a
photograph of Izzy and Keith andRonnie Wood playing together in
Atlantic City. I have that on mywall that says, that says
(58:02):
something to me. Go on platinumrecords. What wasn't stolen? I
just gave away. I got addictedto how excited people would get
when I'd give them one.
Chuck Shute (58:15):
Yeah, didn't you sell the Didn't you have an MTV
Movie Award or music videoaward. You sold that or
something. I read an articleabout that that's kind of
Unknown (58:24):
interesting. Given away, all gone. I mean, you
know, that was five or six yearsof my life, not my entire life,
not the sum total of myrelationships, not the sum total
of my interest, a moment ofincredible event, an activity, a
(58:52):
moment of extraordinaryprivilege, because at the end of
my days, I'm not sitting thereGoing well, I wonder what would
it be like if we'd been able totour the world. Well, I wonder
what it would have been like ifwe did number one, adorable.
Been there, done it. Threw the tshirt away. Who cares? You?
Chuck Shute (59:22):
Yeah. So you're saying there's better things
than the success.
Unknown (59:27):
Oh, equal and better, better than equals. Yeah, that's
awesome to hear. Yeah. You knowwhat really matters to you at
the end of the day? Who can youtrust? Who can you call if you
fall over? Who can you call ifyou if your vehicle breaks down?
(59:48):
Who can you spend some timewith? Because you need to spend
some time. All arrest Chuck isjust sound and fucking. Fury.
It's a stupid tale told
THEME SONG (01:00:05):
by an idiot.
Chuck Shute (01:00:07):
Well, I know you got to get going the book. The
book is out June 24 I've readit. The entire thing. People can
get it. It's a it's an easy readbecause it's just so
interesting. It's just acollection of all these
different stories. And there'smore than Guns and Roses.
There's great white stuff.
There's other things that youdid. There's this Rosie Lopez
girl that sounded amazing. Whythat didn't work out. A lot of
really interesting stuff. Rockywas, sorry, Roxy, not Rosie.
Unknown (01:00:32):
Yeah, Rocky was fucking amazing. Yeah, I was
Chuck Shute (01:00:35):
trying to fight. Is there a copy of that? Someone's
trying to find it on YouTube orso I couldn't
Unknown (01:00:40):
find it. Get me an email through Jamie, give Jamie
or email around to me. At thevery least, I can email you a
couple of tracks and you can,
Chuck Shute (01:00:52):
okay, cool. Are you still in Prescott, Arizona?
Because I'm in Scotts, I'm onlylike, 990 minutes from you or
something. Are you kidding?
Yeah? Are you still in Prescott?
Fuck yes. Oh, that's good. Ialways like whenever I go there,
I look around to see if I seeyou, but I've never seen you
there.
Unknown (01:01:07):
Well, as an alternative dude, send me an email. Tell me
you're coming up and we'll havelunch or something. Go and go
and have a beer or something.
Okay, extraordinary. Born in NewZealand, raised in England,
lived in Sweden, lived in Miami,lived in LA. Somehow, I've spent
almost a third of my life inPrescott. And every time I'm
away from it for more than threedays, I get two, three. I want
(01:01:31):
to get back. Interesting.
Chuck Shute (01:01:35):
Yeah, I do love Prescott. It's nice. Yeah,
Unknown (01:01:39):
there's something about the environment that I am very
content in, that I have neverbeen content in any other part
of
Chuck Shute (01:01:47):
the world. Wow.
Okay, well, thank you so muchfor doing this. I'll get this
episode. I know you got anotherone to get to. So
Unknown (01:01:54):
Chuck, it's been a pleasure do the thing. And next
time you're up in Prescott,let's hang
Chuck Shute (01:01:59):
out. Okay? Sounds good. See ya. See
THEME SONG (01:02:03):
ya. Bye, bye.
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