Martin Popoff Discusses His New Guns 'N Roses Book, Grunge, Other Rockstars & More!

Episode Transcript
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THEME SONG (00:04):
Vanity down with the heavy stars, rock and rolling
through the cool guitars.
Chuck's got the questions,taking so sharp, feeling back
layers, hitting the heart.

Martin Popoff (00:20):
Yeah, I don't know, Chuck, keep keep it. Keep
it general. I wrote this a longtime ago, and I don't even have
a copy of the book yet, right?
So it's, it's hard for me toremember exactly what's in
there. I mean, let's, let'sjust, just don't hit me with too
much heavy trivia kind

Chuck Shute (00:35):
of thing. No, no. I mean, I read it and I have
notes. So like, yeah. I mean,maybe the heavy trick, just
whatever you can recall orremember. But I mean, because I
learned a lot of things, and Iconsider myself a pretty Die
Hard Guns N Roses fan, Ifollowed them, like the first
band that got me into my firstconcert was Guns N Roses
Metallica, so I think I know theband, and I learned a lot of
stuff from your book. Okay, allright, yeah. Well, here's an

(00:58):
easy question, because one ofthe things I noticed, too is a
lot of the pictures in the book.
That's another reason for, youknow, because we might spoil
some of the things in the book.
We talk about it too much, but areason to buy it, too is just
for the pictures. I can describethem, but you have to buy the
book to see them. And I've a lotof these pictures I've never
seen before. Where did you getthese pictures?

Well, this publisher has actually always
been really good in that, inthat respect, it's, it's kind of
a collaboration with myself andmy editor over there, Dennis.
And you know, he's a big musicguy too, so he knows what he's
doing. He also has his antennaup. He doesn't want to repeat
too much stuff that he's seentoo many times before. So, yeah,

(01:42):
it's a little bit of that, somesome things from my collection
and whatnot as well. But justbasically speaking, all, all of
these books I've done withquarto motor books, Voyager,
depending on what name you wantto call them, has, has really
nice photo curation. It turnsinto a really nice, you know,
coffee table book. How

many books have you, I know, I read that you had
7900 record reviews. How manyactual books do you have?

I guess I've done about 130 books at this point.
Wow,

that is so crazy.
Do you just love doing this,researching, then writing it all
out and doing all the work?
Yeah.

I mean, it's one thing, you know, I've worked
with my, you know, my goodbuddy, Tim Henderson, on brave
words and bloody knuckles. AndI've written for a lot of
magazines before, and I neverliked that idea that that, you
know, the month goes ends, andthen you got to do it all over
again. Do it all over again.
Magazines are very disposable,and so is anything kind of news
based. So I've always liked theidea of books having that

(02:41):
evergreen quality. Especially, Ireally like writing, you know,
books on bands that are brokenup long time ago and they aren't
going to give you a new album orwhatever that makes that out of
date. So yeah, it's, it's niceto have have it end, and then
it's there, and it's kind of thestory. But what I have been
finding recently with withvarious of my publishers, is, as

(03:02):
some time goes on, they've comeback to me a few times and say,
Hey, what do you want to do anupdate now that another couple
albums are out? Kind of thingthat's always a pain, because,
you know, you gotta kind of gothrough the whole thing and see
where you said something like,oh, I don't know what's going to
happen in 2024 right? And yougot to find all those little

(03:23):
things, right? And, you know,people have died and all that,
you know, do you change thingsto past tense? Do you mention it
somewhere earlier? So, so it'salways, there's little Gremlins
that come out of that process ofjust updating a book, you know,
you got to fool around with atable of contents. You know, you
got to redo your bibliography atthe end, maybe change your your

(03:45):
biography. So, yeah, it's, it'sa funny, it's a funny process
where you have to really keep aneye on what what you said
throughout the book. Well,

yeah, because even in this Guns N Roses book, I'm
assuming the time that youfinished it, you didn't know
that. Frank fair, the drummerwas going to be replaced, and
they have a and I can't evennow, I'm space on the guy's
name. I know little

things like that.
You know, it's like, it's justkind of like an old darn but
it's like, Guns and Roses areworking on new album that that
would be, you know, having havea new album come out would be
not, not great, right? Becauseyou're missing something
massive, right? Yeah. So when

you have over 100 books, do you just are you
constantly getting in like,mailbox money from books that
you've written years ago, like,just various things, like,
you'll have a check every monthjust from all these books you've

written? No, okay, so, so I would say 40% of
my income is being a mail orderguy of my own books. So that's
something, right. But no, once abook dies, once it's over with,
it's really over with. Like, Ihave books where I get maybe, I
mean, in an extreme case, I havebooks that I literally still
have copies of, or are in printthat I get one order every three

(04:59):
months. Months on kind of thing,right? But when it, when a book
dies, I mean, you know, oneorder a month is, is kind of,
kind of normal. So when, whenit's over, it's over, right?
Okay? And then, and there reallyis a window right at the front
where, where it's almost overafter a month, right? Kind of
thing. So, and then, yeah, Imean, and some of this adds up

(05:22):
to, I get royalties from myvarious publishers over the
years, and those, those dwindleand get smaller and smaller too,
because they're not reallyselling a lot of too. I should
do a better job of remindingpeople that these things exist,
right? Books on riot or Montroseor rainbow or whatever, I should
be going on Facebook. And I'vebeen thinking about that and
say, hey, you know, there arethese books out there. Because,
yeah, people don't know, right?
I mean, I could put books up atmy website that are brand new,

(05:45):
like the Iron Maiden and thegun, Guns and Roses with pricing
and everything. And if I don'tgo to my database and tell them
about it, it's, it's prettyfunny to see how nobody really
knows still that they can orderthese books from me. So yeah,
you know, yeah. I think, I thinkto keep getting any kind of pay
at all, I have to keep coming upwith new books. Oh,

wow. So what is the best selling book you've
written? Oh, boy.

I would say that the trilogy of, you know, the
whole story of rush in thosehardcover books and then sought.
They all came out in hardcover.
They all came out in soft coverwith different design. So that's
the story of rush through myCanadian publisher, ECW press,
that did really well. It'sfunny. Things we do on Blue
Oyster Cult kind of does well.
People just are alwaysfascinated by that band, as am

(06:32):
I. I find them superinteresting. What else has done
well? Over we put out, we putout a queen book through
Voyager, which was good timing.
It was kind of on the on thebacks of the movie coming out.
So that did, did well aroundthen, that's kind of important
to timing with some of thesethings. You know, is the band
being talked about? Very muchkind of thing? Yeah.

So why a Guns and Roses book? Why now, just
because you hadn't done thatone, and they're still really
popular. Well,

it's called Guns and Roses at 40. So we've, we're
at Voyager we're constantlylooking at these milestone
things. We've done some at 50s.
We've done at 75 for DavidBowie, you know, based on how
old he would have been, likesome are a little little
finagly, right? But Guns andRoses at 40, it kind of made
sense. I mean, I've even doneanniversary books for them on
just the Dark Side of the Moonand the WHO Quadrophenia, right?

(07:20):
50 years since those albums cameout? Right? Is it? Is it 5073,
how did we do the I guess it's,yeah, those, those books are two
years ago now. Yeah, so, so,yeah, and, and this, this at 50
series they've been doing. Andthis is the first one I've been
doing at 40. The idea is, okay,it is the band at 40 years old.

(07:41):
But what we're doing, and Ididn't even come up with this
concept, this is probablyDennis's idea, but we're
basically taking, okay, now Ineed you to come up with 40
career highlights and tell thestory chronologically with 40
career highlights. And that's,that's the format of the book.
So that's the other thing thatpublishers like to do, I mean,
they like to come up with fresh,new ways to present this

(08:03):
information and put a booktogether. So, you know, I don't
know it's, it's hard to tellwhat level of Guns and Roses fan
is going to learn what fromthis, but it is squeezed into a
pretty limited word count andand a pretty, you know,
interesting sort of canned ideaof these 40 career highlights.
So, yeah, that's what you getwith

this book. Yeah, I was interesting. I maybe I knew
this and I forgot, or I don'tremember this part about, well,
axles, first band was calledRapid Fire, some guitarist,
Kevin Lawrence, like, you justwonder, like, gosh, it'd be so
weird to I've never, I don'tknow if I've ever seen an
interview with him. I wonder ifhe's still around, if he has
memories of that first band thatAxel was in. That would be

(08:49):
interesting.

Yeah, there's, there's a lot of complication
with the whole first bandsituation, and it's all covered
in pretty, pretty, quite a bitof detail in in this book that
was on that took a lot of hoursto put all that together,
because you're fighting the wordcount of each section all the
time, right? And you have to,you have to make it really
concise, so you kind of have tomake every sentence count. But
yeah, there was a lot ofshifting, moving pieces around

(09:11):
at that time that the chaoticsort of, 8384 8586 period with
those guys. Yeah,

I had Tracy guns on my show, and he kind of, I mean,
he's already talked about it onso many other shows, so I tried
not to bring it up, but it didkind of spill in to the
conversation, but, and he's justYeah, because it was, like, for
people who don't know it was ait was first Hollywood rose. Or,
I think did it, I think you saidit was called something else, I
think was just called Rose atone point, then Hollywood, or
first called Axel, then rose,then Hollywood rose, and then

(09:41):
there was la guns. And I thinkAxel was in LA guns for a
minute, and then they merged thetwo, and it was Guns and Roses.
La guns, Hollywood rose, Gunsand Roses. And then Tracy guns
went back to LA guns. And thenAxel got slashed, and then the
rest is history,

yeah, and he's, you know, I you wonder sometimes
if it's just. Like, Okay, it'stime to write up a flyer, guys,
or drop a flyer. What do we put?
What's the name of us now?
Right?

It's crazy, though, because I think, I mean, I'm
such a fan, and I do think a lotof it is, you know, the skulls
and the in the the artwork andthe name Guns and Roses, I just
sounded so cool to me as a kid,and just like, with a gun, and
they had the rose on it and, andit fit the band too, because it
was like this, you know, macho,heavy, like guns, angry. And

(10:26):
then there's also, like, thisballad, soft side with the roses
and stuff. So it was like, Ithought it just was a great name
and a great fit for the band,

yeah, you know.
And I've always, I've always,and I say this in the book, I'm,
you know, I don't, I don't pullpunches particularly, I mean, I
sort of say, you know, myviewpoint of philosophically on
all this, I've never consideredthem anything other than another
hair metal band. They're just areally good one. And so there's
a whole chapter in there aboutGuns and Roses versus hair
metal, and how people, you know,differentiate them and stuff.

(10:56):
But I swear, I think, over theyears, it gets differentiated
more and more and more. And thelegend of how massive that first
album is feeds into that and itand it makes people frame it a
certain way. And I think thestory morphs over time. But when
that album came out, it was justanother, you know, what I call
it. I coined that term dirtyhair metal, right? Or, or, you

(11:17):
know, there's a similar categoryyou could call bluesy Hair
Metal, right? And theneverybody, you know, Guns and
Roses, you know, frankly, werekind of the first. But, I mean,
the look, the look, is basicallyHair Metal. I don't think we
have to ascribe any massivegenius to, oh, they didn't dress
hair metal or whatever, right?

(11:38):
And so, but, but what happensis, because they were the first,
and they were big, a big successat this, coming up with this.
So, I mean, I guess what I'msaying is, it was a, it was the
best hair metal album. Put itthat way, but it is squarely in
that genre, in in many, manydifferent ways. But then what
happens is, it was so successfuland so influential that it

(12:01):
actually kind of caused thedirty hair metal or the bluesy
hair metal thing going forward,right, where you get, where you
get every poison and Cindereverybody, everybody tries to
make their authentic album atsome point, right? And, and then
you also literally got bandslike Badlands and whatnot. But,
yeah, I don't, I don't see anyreason to really, uh, really say

(12:23):
it doesn't belong to that genre,yeah, but

it's just I, because I think too. I mean, you
could talk about the illusionsand how that totally went away.
A lot of those songs arecompletely not hair metal, but
even that first album, I feellike even there's not really a
ballad, but it's, I think it'sthe punk influence that that
gives it a different spin, likeyou, maybe that's what you would
call the dirty hair metal,because I feel like a lot of
hair metal, it's, it is verycliche, and I can't even I as a

(12:48):
die hard hair metal fan,sometimes I can't tell which one
is this, but Guns and Roses, Ifeel like they just had this,
like, raw, kind of punky vibe toit that a lot of I didn't. I
don't think a lot of hair otherhair metal bands had that,
except maybe la guns, and maybethat's, I don't know if that was
on purpose or just acoincidence, that they both like
the same stuff. Yeah,

I don't particularly feel a punky vibe
in it. I mean, I feel like, likea, just a really high quality
Aerosmith vibe to the wholething, right? And there are,
there is a lot of personality init as well. I mean, that's like,
like, there's a reason it soldso many copies, right? Slash is
a very unique soundingguitarist, albeit a very
conservative guitarist. You knowwhen, when he starts talking

(13:31):
about his influence, it's justlike stones and Aerosmith and
stuff like that, right? And Axelhas this super interesting
voice. The album had goodlyrics. It was super long. It
was a long album. It's anambitious album as well. And,
yeah, it had hits that didvarious things on it. So, you
know, I almost, it does feel tome like it almost. I've never

(13:54):
really thought about it thisway, but it almost feels like
it's got the ambition of anAerosmith permanent vacation and
a pump, but, but all the greatthings you love about draw the
line and rocks and get yourwings in it as well. But

don't you think too they had an edge to them as
well. Because I know, like, Imean, the song is so easy the
lyrics to that. I mean, that wasnot something a typical Hair
Metal band would be doing at thetime. And the same with, like,
with the usual illusions.
There's a bunch of songs. As akid, when I was, like, 13, I was
like, Well, this is, like,because they're telling people
to fuck off and all this shit.
And then that was not a thingthat a lot of bands at the time,

(14:30):
especially bands that were verypopular, were doing, you know, I
mean, this would be more like aniche, niche thing that where,
you know, if you you could buythat record, but you're not
going to sell millions of copiesof an album where you're
swearing all over it, yeah,

yeah. You know, I think, I mean, most of the edge
to that band comes from the factthat, yeah, they were, they
live, literally live that life.
They were authentic. I mean,scary people, right? Yeah. So
that's where the edge comesfrom. But when I think musically
about it, you know, havinggrown. Up being a metal head
since seven years old, eightyears old, 1960 or 1970 1971 and

(15:04):
then being into punk as well,and then seeing hardcore go by.
And then here comes grunge. Ithink grunge has 10 times more
edge than get anything Guns andRoses ever did. And, you know,
and there, there is other music,but you're right for popular
music and for being part of thisgenre, it's, it's at the outside

(15:24):
edge of that, not even though,but not even at the outside edge
of it creatively speaking,right? I mean, at the far
outside edge of it, maybe youhad something if you want to
talk about getting reallycreative from inside that scene,
faith, no more, Jane'sAddiction. You can go that far,
but you can even think of boywhen, when you just getting a

(15:47):
little later and out of I'venever really thought about this,
but boy around that time, youwould have had, eventually bands
like big F, liquid Jesus, mindfunk. I guess we're getting a
little more into grunge. But,you know, even think of Alice in
Chains, right? Alice in Chainsat the very beginning even be,
say, before facelift, right,when they when they were Alice

(16:09):
in Chains, maybe with a Zed, Ithink they had a little more of
a glance. So at one point, Alicein Chains would have been kind
of just the next step past Gunsand Roses. But by the time you
get to face lift the debutalbum, it's, it's, it's three
steps beyond, right? Yeah. Imean

more kind of alternative, yeah, although,
although

that band in particular is much closer to
Guns and Roses than Soundgardenor Pearl Jam or Nirvana, or
Melvin's or mud honey was right.
And it even is in their in theirroots. In fact, the other band
that is that is the next steppast Guns and Roses would be
Mother Love Bone from thatscene. Yeah,

that's true, yeah.
I think the same thing with Gunsand Roses and Allison chains.
Both bands kind of came in and,like, turned things upside down,
like they shook. I think theappetite album totally shook the
hair metal thing. And I thinkAllison chains, it just shook
the rock and metal in general.
Same with Nirvana too. Like itkind of those, both those things

(17:13):
needed to happen. Like HairMetal needed the shake up, and
then rock in general needed theshake up with the grunge. And I
mean, I was just thinking aboutthat the dirt album, especially
for Allison chains. I mean, thatis just so dark. I don't even
know if I would say use the wordedge, but it's just so dark and
like, and just so original andlike you just, you could feel
like what they were goingthrough. That's probably laying

(17:34):
you know, it was a big influenceon a lot of that sound, and
Jerry with the guitars andstuff. But just, it was just
this dark place that you couldfeel it. You could feel where
they were coming from. Yeah,it's,

it's a, it's a, definitely a big step up in
creativity. And I mean, the mostcreative band from all of that
was Soundgarden. But, you know,and then there was a different
kind of creativity, more of a,more of just a different
sensibility or esthetic that yougot out of Nirvana and Melvin's
and mud, honey and stuff likethat. But, you know, I don't
know. I don't know if Guns andRoses shook things up

(18:06):
particularly. I mean, when Ithink back to it, it's, it's
like, this album comes out, HairMetal still has four, four and a
half, five good years to go whenthis album comes out. Right? I
mean, you talk about all thoseguys on the strip, and all they
said is that we just starteddressing differently. There are
still tons of Hair Metal albumsto come. Skid Row still coming

(18:26):
around. Warren's still comingaround. Cinderella's got three
or four more albums. Motley Cruzgot more albums. There's not a
big difference that happens,right? I mean, you essentially
get, you essentially get somemore, you know, you get a little
more authenticity and a littleless pure glam out of things,
but, but the pure glam out ofthings kind of continued as

(18:46):
well. So it's not everybody kindof changed course from this. So,
so I don't think, I don't thinkyou ever get within See, I, I
did this book called The Big,Big Book of hair metal, and I
kind of regretted ending it at1991 because we ended it at at
the Nirvana album

coming. Oh no, yeah, there's some great hair
metal stuff that I know. Ithink, as a hardcore fan,
Warrens and and a lot of thesebands, in my opinion, put out
their best poison. I think theyput out some of their best stuff
in the in the mid like 9392

Exactly. That's the point, Chuck So, so what
happens with hair metal is, isit? It's not like it's not like
everybody is is is influenced bygrunge, and they completely
change direction. What happensis, there's this one little I
did a podcast episode called goto Vancouver and try harder,

(19:41):
right? Which is where, which iswhere a lot of hair metal bands
did that. Did that pilgrimage torecord in Vancouver at either
little mountain or what's theother one called? Anyways, we're
with Bob Rock, or with that, youknow, Mike Fraser and all these
guys. So, so one thing thathappened, one thing that hair
metal bands did. COVID, right?
Is, is they said, Okay, grungehas happened if we're going to

(20:03):
compete with this new music, youknow, it would look really fake
if we changed our entirephilosophy. But what we're going
to do is we're going to make thevery, very best, most ambitious,
most sober, most thoughtful,most interesting, long version
of a hair metal album. Weproper, but, you know, we, we
can, right? And so you get, youget better records from extreme

(20:25):
and motley crew and Mr. Big.
And, like you say, Cinderellapoison warrant, does dog eat
dog? So, so love hate comesalong. I love, love hate. I
think they're amazing. I myfavorite hair metal album,
probably, of all time is wastedin America, the second love,
hate and and. So, yeah, you'reright. You get you kiss, does

(20:49):
revenge, right? Revenge is a isa total upgrade on crazy nights
and Hot in the Shade, right? So,so that's kind of what happens.
And then Guns and Roses comesout, and they, they kind of kind
of do the same thing, wherethey're, we're now. I mean, one
of the cool things they do isthis massive, 277, minute album

(21:12):
idea, but a lot of those songs,yeah, they widen their palette.
They get even more generalist,rock and roll, like, like, we're
now a world band and werepresent or, you know, it's
almost like the clash withLondon calling or, or, you too,
with Rattle and Hum, where theysay we're going to embrace all
of American culture here, sortof thing, Guns and Roses. Moves

(21:34):
from, you know, here's ourselection of songs on, on
Appetite for Destruction. Butnow that we've got whatever it
is there, maybe, what would wesay, 40 songs, something like
that, across those two albums.
Now that we've got this widepalette, we're doing this entire
thing all at once, which was soballsy and cool that they did
that right. But now they've nowthey now they've really

(21:57):
stretched out. And you get anestranged in a November rain,
you get some total gut bucketblues kind of things on there.
You get some punkier things, Ithink, as well. So it's almost
like here, appetite is like thethe the hub of the the wheel,
the Guns and Roses wheel. Andnow you get to appetite, and
they're going off in alldirections and giving you this
cool panorama of, frankly, likeAmerican rock history in a way,

(22:21):
right? Yeah,

I love those that Use Your Illusion albums,
although I do wonder if itwouldn't be more revered if they
had taken all the best songs andjust put it on one album and
then took the rest and maybemade it like a bonus album, or
released it later as like a diehard fan out, you know,
something different, like abootleg or something. Because I
think if you put the best songson one album, I think it rivals

(22:47):
appetite. But obviously, as itwas with two doubles, it just,
it never did as well as happen.
It wasn't. It was, you know,criticized. There was, oh,
there's a lot of filler andthings like that.

Yeah, I always love that idea to like, like,
you know, it's, it's good.
Metallica is another example ofa band who makes these massive,
long albums that have to be ondouble CDs now, where, where it
would be really cool if, if, Ithink they gave us more albums
and maybe even even pumped upthe identity, like, that's
something Guns and Roses couldhave done as well. Is like, give

(23:18):
us, give us. You know,distinguish them a little more,
because people always have thathot debate on, on, oh, which is
better? Which is, what is thepersonality of Use Your
Illusion, one versus two. Butyeah, if, if you played with
those songs and sequenced themacross two separate albums, say,
say, 1112, 13 months apart, orwhatever, right? You could have,

(23:39):
you could have really, like,said, Okay, well, we're gonna,
people are gonna say this aboutthese 12 songs, but these 12
songs, they're gonna begenerally way more up tempo or
something or punkier, andthey're gonna say, and we know,
you know, there are adjectivesthey can ascribe, ascribe to
this. But I think, as it stands,people listen to those two

(24:01):
albums, and they're just becausethey're at the same time too.
They're just confused. Andreally, there's not a lot of
there's not, you can't describea personality to one versus the
other. I don't think tooaccurately. No,

yeah, well, it's the production is different and
stuff. But yeah, I mean, goingback to the to the appetite and
the stuff in your book, that wasthe another thing that I found
so interesting that I don'tthink I knew this, I don't.
Maybe this is common knowledge,but I didn't know all the
different producers they weremeeting with to produce appetite
before they settled on MikeKlink, it was the Nazareth guy,

(24:35):
Manny Charlton. They met withhim, who produced some of the
demos, I guess. And then PaulStanley was considered and Max
Norman. I didn't know howthat's, that's kind of, I
thought that was kind ofinteresting to think of how that
album could have soundeddifferent with a different
producer. Because, as it soundsnow, I feel like Mike Klink, he
didn't do a lot, which I thinkwas good. He kind of let it have
a raw, you know, feel he didn'ttry to overproduce it. I mean,

(24:58):
I'd say the most i. Producedthing is having the keyboards on
Paradise City,

yeah, the production job on that is
absolute magic. It's, and it'shard to describe what it is,
it's, it's correct, it'sconservative. It's got all the
bottom end you want. It's gotall the top end you've want. But
there's just somethingaggressive about it. There's
something, there's, there's,it's got really magical mid

(25:23):
ranges to it. And I think, Ithink the other thing that is, I
think Mike clink helps slash geta sound. There's just something
about the way his tone is onthat album, which, again, it's
just got hair on it. It's just agnarly, cool guitar tone. But,
you know, it's not an album thatyou're going to say, Wow, this

(25:44):
is weird. You know, this isweird production. There's
nothing strange about it. It'sjust, it's just really, really
street, but, but tough Street,it doesn't sound like crappy
Street. It just that there's, itjust has this, this really
visceral in your face, sort ofquality. And I think that all
helped as well. And, you know,you kind of feel, you kind of

(26:07):
feel that there is a little pushpull in the in the in the tempos
as well. There's, there's alittle bit of breathing that you
get out of Stephen Adler andDuff in terms of the rhythm
section as well. It's just abrilliantly, brilliantly
produced album.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting, too. I
didn't know this, that StevenAdler recorded all the drums in
six days. That blew my mind.

Yeah? And, well, I mean, just this band was
really routine. They knew whatthey were doing at this point
and, but, yeah, it's still, it'sstill, you wonder. It's just,
it's just so scary thinking ofthe drugs and the drink going
into into this band all thetime, and to have them pull this
stuff out. But, you know, Iguess, I guess, when it comes

(26:49):
down to it, maybe they, youknow, I do. I do kind of get mad
when people say that Guns andRoses didn't put out much music.
But yeah, obviously it's, it's afair bit of part, and this is,
it's still a small catalog, butwhen you add it all up, you know
the you've got, you've got theEP with originals on it and and

(27:10):
faux live stuff and covers.
You've got acoustics so theystart off, there's some
complication already. You get asuper long album for the vinyl
days in appetite. You get twomore super long Albums of All
originals, right? Which couldhave been easily three albums
worth of material. You get afull covers album. And then over
the years, I mean, we do getChinese Democracy that, I think

(27:31):
that that totally counts. Overthe years, you get individual
songs here and there along theway for soundtracks or whatever.
And then I, in fact, I That'sright. I have sort of a chapter
in the book that kind of arguesthis point right, where, you
know, you think of slashes,Snake Pit and duff and Duff side

(27:52):
projects. You think of Izzystradlin And how prolific he was
over the years. You think ofslash featuring miles Kennedy.
You think of the slash slashalbum, you know, you add all
that stuff together, and theseguys have stayed busy, Velvet
Revolver. They've, they'veactually, you know, they, they
absolutely have stayed busy.

(28:14):
It's just a lot of it doesn'thave the Guns and Roses branding
to it, yeah,

do you know, is there any sort of talk of a new
album? Because, I mean, youalways hear rumors, but is there
any sort of concrete things thatsays a new album is coming, or
new new songs? I mean, if theyput stuff out here and there?

Yeah, I just, I remember hearing about two
months ago just a very vaguething, oh, we're working on new
material for a new album orwhatever. So I don't know how
serious they are. I mean,frankly, I mean, they've been
pretty quiet in the news, andthat that often means they're
working, right? So, yeah, I

wonder too, if they could, I would love for them to
get Izzy back, at least for asong or two, just a songwriting
session, you know, have him playon one or two songs. Just
curious what they could do withhim, because I feel like he was
a big part of the songwritingprocess. I mean, it's kind of
hard to tell because of theappetite. It just says, written
by Guns and Roses. But you knowthat he had, you know, people

(29:08):
wrote, brought in differentriffs and lyrics and things, and
I feel like he was a big part ofthe songwriting, yeah.

And that's also what I found so interesting
about doing the book. I mean,one of the surprising things is
how often he'd, he'd show up andhe'd play, live with them and
stuff, right? Or, or you know,any estranged members, they're
not all that estranged. They cancome around and do stuff. So
these guys, you know are on kindof talking terms and all that,
all the guest stars all the timethat show up and and do songs

(29:34):
with them and or, or you knowthem paying tribute to their
their heroes, like Mike Monroe,or whatever, and going play
Angel City, right, the angelsfrom Australia. I thought that
was amazing, right, playing withthose guys. So, so that's,
that's really cool as well. But,yeah, it's, it's, it's good to
see that, that the relations arethere, you know, and these guys

(29:54):
are not, are not, you know,crazy old, like, are, like,
like, many of my. Heroes who areinto their 70s now, kind of
thing, I mean, there, they stillcould have some gas in the tank
where we could, we could seeanother album from them. I hope
it happens.

Yeah, you also mentioned in the I don't know if
I must have probably knew this,maybe I forgot, but they had
done early during the appetite,or before that, around that
time, they did shows with MotleyCrue. Is there any, do we have
any documentation of that, likestories or pictures or like
video that, because that, Imean, that's a crazy show to
think of guns and roses in theirheyday with Motley Crue and the

(30:30):
same. I mean, yeah, I can'tremember, insane, yeah, I

can't remember if there's anything on YouTube. I
mean, I mean, you know, the wayYouTube works, obviously, is,
you know there's, there'sprobably you individually. You
could see Guns and Roses playingwhen you know they're on the
Motley Crew tour. You can seeMotley Crue play when you know
they're on the on with Guns andRoses. But you're not going to
see them together kind of thing,right? So,

yeah, because the thing you said in the book slash
was, was with Nikki six thenight he od that's, I see. I
thought it was Stephen Adler, orwas it both of them? I

don't know what it whatever. I can't, I can't
remember, you know, and where Igot that.

It's such a yeah, there's so much incestuous
things, doing these interviews,and interviewing a lot of these
guys that, I mean, there's somany things where this, they're
friends with this guy, and thenthis, this band and and even a
lot of the bands that youwouldn't think, like the hair
metal people hung out with,like, Red Hot Chili Peppers and
stuff. Back in the day, everyonewas just friends. And because,
who didn't have Bob forest,who's now like a, you know, he's

(31:32):
like, a drug alcohol counselor,but he said, back in the day,
like he was friends with Red HotChili Peppers, and he goes, Oh,
they were friends with all thehair metal bands. He's like, the
thing that brought themtogether, drugs, drugs that
brought everybody together.
Yeah,

funny, yeah, it's, it's interesting. I think
I've done some, some stuff on myhistory, and five songs with
Martin pop off podcast about thewhole, you know, various times I
know it comes up with, with thewhole thing, like, these guys
should have been big. These guysshould have been big. These guys
should have been big. But themain point, you know, and being
here in Canada, I'm in Toronto,the main point is, you know, how

(32:08):
big do you want to be? Becauseif you want to be big, you got
to move to LA, right, you know,so, so if you're not going to
move from your from yourterritory, from your region, you
know, you're not, you're notgoing to be boots on the ground
where all the other musiciansare and all the all the guys are
from, from the industry that youcan meet in person and invite

(32:28):
out to gigs and be at partieswith, and go down to the office
and negotiate and stuff. Sothere's, there's so many stories
like that where, you know, itreally does feel like there are
so many bands that left a lot onthe table, you know, and it's a
personal choice, and there'sprobably a million reasons not
to move as well, but, but it'slike, yeah, there are a lot of
bands that had they gone and setup shop in LA at that time, if

(32:52):
you're that kind of music orwhatever, like, get in there in
1984 85 and don't move. Juststay there. And, yeah, you would
have a lot more doors open foryou than than staying, you know,
than than staying in Toronto orstaying even in New York City,
for that matter.

Yeah, you've put, like you said, your big love,
hate fan you because do theywere they east coast, I think
they were New Jersey, right? No,no,

they're in LA band. They were LA, okay,
they're LA, yeah, yeah. And Irevere those guys. I think
they're amazing. I thoughtblackout in a red room was
incredible. And then waste inAmerica is an absolute
masterpiece. And the next one'sa masterpiece too. But the fact
of the matter is, you know, bythe time they come around, the
tide is turned, right? There'sthat whole, you know, you could

(33:37):
get laid in the scene. Thingsare still very good in 8990 kind
of thing. But you know, ifyou're making a brunt of your
records after that kind ofthings, you know, Skid Row had a
nice run. Jackal comes late,right? Jackal comes late. They
stay in Atlanta. But you know,you come late, and you can have
some success with that firstone. You're catching the mature
phase kind of thing. But by thetime he gets to the second and

(33:59):
the third one, all of a suddenthat record label, you know that
major label, record labels, gota slash next to it, and you're
and you're now on the boutiquepart of it, and then the next
one, you're down to an indie,and the next one, you're putting
it out yourself kind of

thing. Yeah, that is crazy. It's like, it's, it
was tough back then now. I mean,I guess it's so the music scene
is so different. I feel like youdon't really need to move to LA
and New York, as much like, youcan put out everything yourself,
and you can just go viral, butit's so hard to get your voice
heard in such a sea of like, howmany new records come out every
day on Spotify or whatever? Imean, it's insane. It used to be

(34:34):
like there's so many recordlabels and only so many records
come out every week. And nowit's just like, anybody can put
out a record, and it's a hard toand a lot of them are sound
pretty good.

Yeah. Well, you know, you go all the way back to
the 70s, and the fact of thematter is, all those records
that were failures, that we knoware all done in the same studios
as the big, expensive,successful records, they're all
done with a big producer. Youknow that there's. Was no real,
even small label structure inthe 70s. So everything's more or

(35:05):
less on a major label. So andthen that changes, you know,
with punk and the new waveBritish heavy metal and hardcore
and stuff. So now you startgetting Indie labels and stuff.
But you know now that now thewhole situation is that it's
just with with computers. Youknow, the dozen different ways
computers can be used, it's justway, way more efficient and easy

(35:25):
to make a good sounding albumnow. So that's why there's so
many records out there, so andyeah, the different ways to make
money, the kids have come upwith new ways to make money.
It's not the same model that itwas before. You know that the
whole death of physical productis such a profound thing in all
of this as well. Yeah,

do you think could there be a new rock band that
could come and, you know, turnthe rock scene upside down, like
Guns and Roses and Allisonchains and all these other bands
did? Because it seems like it's,you know, that used to happen
every few years, somebody wouldcome around and go, Wow. And
like, turn the scene upsidedown, and now it's like, it
seems like it's been, I don'tknow, 20 So, years. I mean, who

(36:07):
was the last people? I mean,there was, like, you know, the
Marilyn Manson and Kid Rock.
That was kind of a big newscene, and then it hasn't, I'm
trying to think of someone thatin the last 20 years or so
that's really, like, stood out.

Well, all I know is, and I'm just amazed at this.
But I mean, we have, we have a,we have a stadium here in
Toronto, right, Rogers Centerwhere the Jays play, and used to
be called the Sky Dome, right?
You know, with the famouslyretractable dome and all that,
right? Rarely you get rockconcerts in there, but you do

(36:38):
once in a while, I just sawMetallica in there. But even
Metallica, you know, I thinkthey're in there. They were
there for two nights. But, Imean, they were there with also
with Pantera suicidaltendencies. And the other night,
I think, is limp, Bizkit andwhatnot. But, you know, rarely
you get rock concerts in there.
But I think the fact of thematter Chuck these days, I mean,

(36:59):
I saw a roster the other day.
And there are acts that are bigenough to play that place which
gets used, I swear, for rockconcerts, maybe three times a
year. I mean, it's mainly thehockey arena, football, I mean
basketball, hockey arena thatgets used, right? But to have
there are, there are bands thatare big enough to play these
massive venues that we barelyeven know the name of. So there

(37:20):
are still huge, huge, huge bandsout there, but, but it's, it's
the kids thing now. So, so youcould, you could be, you could
be a cult Act, as far as as whatcult act used to mean to us in
the 90s or 80s, or whatever, youcould be a cult act and and
fill, fill hockey arenas all dayand night all over the world

(37:41):
kind of thing. There aremassive, massive bands that we
barely know the names of thesedays,

really like name some of them that like that are
recently, the last five or 10years?

Well, I know.
Okay, so, so at the RogersCenter, I believe there was a
hip hop act going in there, anda country act that I barely knew
the name of. So that's two. Myson's going to see Kendrick
Lamar at that venue. And, like Isay, that venue almost never
gets used. I mean, we know whoKendrick Lamar is, of course,

(38:14):
yeah. But so

there's a rock, there's no, I mean, yeah,
there's tons of pop and rap andcountry, those are all still

token. I know those guys are really big. Who,
who's, who are some of the otherones. There's the odd one of
those, those big, massive newdeath core bands, which which
get huge crowds, which is hardto believe, because it's so it's
so extreme. I used to joke.
Well, I I joke now, but I usedto say it quite often that that,
oh, nothing could get heavierthan this, right? And then I

(38:44):
must have said that five timesthrough the last 40 years, and
then something, sure enough,comes along that is heavier,
right? So, so it's funny, andtoday's heavy music is, is just
off the charts. I mean, with thewith the with the pig, pig grunt
vocals and the, you know, movingwell beyond the death vocals and
the black vocals these days, andthe and the, you know, the

(39:07):
massive breakdowns and stuff.
It's very, very progressive andcomplicated, the absolutely
fluttery double bass drum. Youknow, the drummers are insane
these days. And, you know, youscroll through your Tiktok, this
stuff is kind of mainstream.
Kids brains are able to processthis stuff just like we were,
you know. Well, there's a funnyTiktok. In fact. This just

(39:30):
drives home the point, you know,as scrolling. It might have been
Facebook shorts that that theyhad one of these, these crazy,
you know, Lorna shore type, orwhat's the other one, suicide,
something or other type,completely insane, death core
bands, the music playing overthe Beatles at Ed Sullivan,
right? And the headline said,This is what your mom thought

the Beatles sounded like. Oh yeah, I've seen, I saw
that video that is funny.

So I mean that that just drives home the point.
It's. Like, you know, extremityhas, has changed all the way
since, since, well, since,probably, you know, fairly sped
up jazz music in the 1920s rightthrough Elvis Presley and the
Beatles and on and on. But yeah,you never, you never thought
things could get heavier thanMetallica. Then you never

(40:20):
thought things could get heavierthan Pantera, and then you never
thought things could get heavierthan black metal or slipknot.
And it does. It has, I mean, theheavy metal over the last five
years is, it's very, it's verydegent and meshuga influenced as
well, right? But it's, but,yeah, that the heavy metal of
the heavy stuff of these days,you know, makes, makes death or

(40:46):
who, who are some of the otherheavy, heavier bands of the
extreme death scene of the 80sor 90s. It makes them look like
AC, DC, right? It's just thatsimple compared to what they're
playing now.

Yeah, I thought when I was a kid, I thought Nine
Inch Nails and the industrialsound. I thought that was going
to be the next thing, the nextfuture. And I think Axel kind of
banked on that too. And I thinkthat's what he was kind of
trying to do with ChineseDemocracy a little bit. And then
I feel like, for whateverreason, that that industrial
kind of sound, it kind of wentby the wayside there. Really, I

(41:19):
can't even think of a newer,really industrial that, that's,
you know, really their sound. Imean, there's pieces of that,
like, what's the Ronnie Radkefalling in reverse? They have
that, some of that industrialrap rock, kind of a mix. But
there's not like a, like a NineInch Nails, type of, like, Next
Level band, I don't think,

yeah, although, again, I think what happens,
what tends to happen out thereis, once a genre is invented, it
never, kind of goes away. Itgoes underground. And then, like
I say, there's so much music outthere that there are little
pockets of scenes foreverything. I had a funny
situation where I just went andsaw a band I really love,
chameleons UK, and I thoughtthey were the headliner at this

(42:00):
thing. And I'm there watchingthem, and all of a sudden it's
over. And sudden it's over. Andgo, Oh, that's interesting. And,
but I remember looking aroundthe crowd saying, there's a lot
of girls here. There's a lot ofGoth people here too, right? I
thought that doesn't seem likereally, them, them, that kind of
band. And then right after that,there's like a, you know, to my
surprise, there's, there's likea, like a two piece industrial
act from San Diego, who areobviously much bigger than the

(42:23):
chameleons UK are, which justkind of goes to show that
there's just scenes out there,right? But, you know, to get
back to Axel for a second inindustrial, Axel is a true
artist. He He loves art, andthat's, that's why, that's why
so much time is spent and somuch hand wringing is done over
him putting something out. Imean, with the legendary, you
know, example, being ChineseDemocracy, but just that band in

(42:45):
general, he loves, He lovescreativity so much that, that he
is so particular and and so analretentive about just absolutely
making everything perfect beforehe he can put it out that, that
it's, it's really admirable towatch, like going through and
writing those chapters in thereand thinking about him doing

(43:07):
sessions and then just shelvingthem and they, you know, some of
it gets used years later andwhatnot, right? And then change
all these members and put trysomething with all these guys.
That's the other thing he wouldhe was very good at, at just
wanting to work with differentmusicians all the time. So
there's a lot of there's a lotof really neat, you know,
experimentation that goes onwith that band, whether the fans

(43:30):
want to hear experimentation outof them is, is something that
probably is, is a no. And thathappens a lot with a lot of
bands that you don't want themto change to so much, but I
think he got to let Axel beAxel. I think I think that guy
is his head is screwed onstraight when it comes to to

(43:50):
really worshiping creativity andworshiping the muse.

Is that what he was doing? Because I know there's
that. There was that time fromlike 9495 when the original
lineup kind of dissipated, andthen I don't think he came out.
I mean, 1999 oh god, he did thatsingle. And then I think they
started doing shows later. Butwas that whole time? Was he just
working on Chinese Democracy?

Unknown (44:14):
Well, working on, what is working on? Mean, right?

You know, was it like every day he's just writing
music and tinkering and stuff,or was it, was there just long
periods of, like, what was hejust depressed and later

he's just on and off, right? It's the business of
being Axel, it's the business ofdoing the business. It's the
business of going on tour. Yeah,it's the odd song, here and
there. So I think just in theback of his mind, he's just
always, I mean, there's there'swriting, there's thinking,
there's lyrics, there's makingdemos. There's making demos by
yourself. There's making demoswith one person, three people,

(44:48):
five people, you know, differentpeople. Next time, different
studios all over the place. So,so yeah, it's just yeah. And to
say I'm working on ChineseDemocracy, it's like, okay. When
does that really come up? Kindof thing that it is Chinese
Democracy. So, and then, youknow, changes were being made
right up to the last minute,kind of thing with that whole

(45:08):
thing, right? So, yeah, that's,that's the cool thing about that
guy is, and you wish, you wishwe would have got more music out
of him over the years, but he's,he's just one of these. He's
just one of these guys thatsays, When it's ready, it's
ready, and then I'm not going toput out anything I don't believe
in.

Yeah, well, it's interesting, because I think in
the there's like a little miniinterview in your book where you
interview Tommy Stinson, who wasin Guns N Roses for a long time,
and you ask him about, I'msurprised he answered. You asked
him about actual strengths andweaknesses, and he said his
strength was loyalty to people.
He's going to be as loyal to youtill the day, you know, till
it's over, as long as you'reloyal to him, but you but he did

(45:46):
say that axles weakness was thathe cared too much about what
other people thought of him,which kind of surprised me,
because that was something Ialways looked up to, Guns and
Roses, and especially Axel waslike he didn't give a fuck what
anybody thought he was going todo what he wanted, no matter
what. And so that wasinteresting. To hear Tommy say
that, yeah,

that is interesting. I forgot about
that. Yeah, that's, that's,that's funny, you know? And
maybe that's, that's a that'skind of like a good quality of
axle, that that we really, thatwe really don't know about,
because he's such a privateperson. But maybe he's just
yeah, maybe, maybe he does wantto be liked, but, but the public

(46:25):
persona of them is, is yeah, hewill do what he wants, kind of
thing. He's his own boss, butyeah, maybe deep down, or maybe
in more personal relationships,he's he's more like, Yeah, I do
want to be like, yeah.

And then also that he mentioned that how hard it
was for Axel just to walk downthe street because he's such a
big rock star. I mean, that partof him is so fascinating, too,
just how famous he is. Like, howdo you deal with that? It's got
to be such a mind fuck. Andmaybe that's why he kind of
disappeared for a while and justwas a recluse. Because he was
like, Dude, I don't want to bebothered every time I go out to

(47:00):
eat or whatever. Yeah,

yeah. It's funny.
I've noticed over the years,hey, when you, when you
interview really, really bigrock stars, and you kind of come
away thinking, I You didn'treally say much that interesting
or controversial, right? Andthen you go, I think there's a
reason for that. You know? Thereason is everybody's gonna
listen to every, every exactword I say and and my words have
impact, right? My words could,could, could kill jobs. You

(47:26):
know, it's, it's a little bitlike we got to go on tour,
because so many of our friendsrely on a job being on tour,
right? So, so it's, it's almostlike, I think these guys, over
the years, just realize theirwords have weight and and a lot
of people are going to see theirwords so they, they're just,

(47:46):
they just get a little morecareful over time. But having
said that, I mean, I guess everytime Axel comes out and talks,
you know, these guys aren'tparticularly, particularly like
that. I think, I think these,this particular bunch of super
famous guys, are pretty honestand forthcoming when they do do
interviews. And maybe that's alittle bit of their, of their,

(48:08):
you know, don't give a damn sortof attitude where, where they
are. They, they still have alittle bit of that, that punk
rock in them. But I'm sure even,I'm sure even slash and Duff
have realized over the years,it's like, yeah, we got to watch
what we say, because people aregoing to read these interviews.

That's interesting, yeah, because I just think, I
don't think Axel has done a lotof interviews, and people always
ask me, like, you know, whenthey find out to do podcasts or
whatever, like, Oh, who's yourlike, number one person that
you'd love to get on the show?
Like, who's your bucket listinterview? And it's number one.
Would be Axel for sure. I thinkit would be such I could do such
a good job too. I think I would.
It would be an amazinginterview, and it probably
wouldn't be that hard, becausehe's just so fascinating to me,

(48:49):
anyways, but I mean, well, soyou think that's why he doesn't
do interviews, because he thinkshe might say something that
could offend people or costjobs, like you said, or cause
damage. It's interesting

you say that, Chuck, because here's, here's
another thing I've noticed bydoing many, many interviews over
the years, there are people thatdon't do that many interviews
because they're way too good atit. So part of it is, is they,
they, they will probably saysome really good stuff that'll

(49:21):
be out there that probablyshouldn't have got out there,
and then they're going to regretit. But the other thing is, they
just put their heart and soulinto it, and it wears them out.
And literally, even, even thetime, like, like, I've
interviewed a lot of people whodon't do a lot of interviews,
where they'll just go way overtime and they'll blow off, you

(49:41):
know what? They mixed up, andthen they've made a mess of the
whole schedule and all thisstuff, and everybody hates them,
and they get mad at that. So, soI think a lot of people don't do
a lot of interviews because theyjust care too much, and they
just do way too good a job atthem. And then they get off.
They get off the line after, youknow, this was supposed to be a
15 minute interview, and itwent. Hour 15 and and they're

(50:02):
worn out. It's like, I don't dointerviews, because at the end
of it, it's a little bit likearguing politics with a buddy,
right? You know, you get to theend of it after two hours of
just like, like wearing yourselfout, arguing about politics, and
you stand back and go, there'sonly two people that heard this
damn thing. What a waste oftime. This was, right? You know,

(50:24):
this should have been on camera.
That's what I tell people allthe time that want to talk to
you about music. It's like, No,I don't want to talk to you
about music. It's, it's, it's,it should be on camera. We gotta
get use out of this, or don'tsend me this massive email.
Stick it on the Facebook so wecan all look at this. You're,
you know, you're wasting yourtime just showing it to me,
right? Because I sure as hellain't going to write you back

(50:44):
something that long, right? So,so that's the other thing. I
definitely feel like, I'vetalked to people where, where
it's like, they don't do a lotof interviews, because it just
wears them the hell out. Andthey and they and they do end up
saying things they shouldn'thave said, That's

interesting, yeah, because I always feel when I
come away with a longerinterview, like I just had Tracy
guns on, like I said, and it waslike it was close, I think was
like a three hour interview. AndI got off of that interview, and
I just felt so energized, and Ifelt like we just had this great
conversation. And he revealed somuch stuff, and he really opened
up about Guns and Roses stuff,and La guns, and what he thinks

(51:22):
about this. And there was alittle bit of politics, and it
was just everything. And I justfeel like he really opened up,
and I just felt so energized. Soit's interesting

that you say that, but you say, when, how
long? How long did it go? Itwent about three hours. Yeah. So
think about how him getting offthat line, right? He goes, he
gets off the line and goes, Ijust shot my whole day doing
this, right? And like, it'slike, seem to have a good time.
I mean, well, I know, I know,but, but he's worn out. His
voice is shot, right? He can'ttalk for the rest of the day.

(51:51):
He's probably blown off two orthree things he was supposed to
do that day, right? So my pointis, he might have enjoyed your
company, but in the back of hismind for the rest of his life,
he's going to think, Man, Ican't do these in, you know,
people have asked me to dointerviews, and in the back of
his mind, he's thinking aninterview is three hours long.
When? When really the publicistsaying, No, I want you to do

(52:12):
like, 420 minute interviews?
Yeah,

it's like, that is what the publicist wanted. But I
said, I go, Hey, you need to go.
And he goes, No, we keep going.
I was like, well, then I'm justgoing to keep asking questions.
Yeah, that's fine. So, yeah, Imean, Axl Rose, like, I feel
like, if I did it, I would wantit to be a three hour interview,
because I want to get there's somuch to cover. There's so many
things from the beginning of thethe early days to the, yeah, use

(52:36):
your illusions, to the ChineseDemocracy to now, and just all
this stuff that's so fat. Like,

the thing is, Chuck, the reason I went on that
big rant is because in the backof my mind, I can remember
seeing some older axleinterviews, and they are great.
He is that, oh yeah, he's a Jewwho will just, who will just
give himself to the interview,right? So, so he is that guy
where part of the reason heprobably doesn't do a lot of
interviews is he's probablygotten into a lot of trouble by

(53:03):
doing the few that he has Tracy

guns. I can't remember if he said it in my
interview or another one Ilistened to, but he was saying
part of the reason that he leftGuns and Roses at the time is
because Axel would get up thereand he wouldn't even say Tracy's
like, I just want to play music.
And Axel get up there and dothese rants for like an hour. He
would just rant about differentthings in the end, like, but
people loved it. It was reallyfascinating, because he's a
fascinating guy. Yeah,

and Chuck. The other thing I noticed by seeing
prince on Oprah. I think it was,did Prince do an interview on
Oprah? I think prince went onOprah.

I don't know if it might be on YouTube, if it
happened. Anyway,

I realized that Prince doesn't do a lot of
interviews because he's stupid.
He had nothing to say. He's aterrible interview. So he
probably realized that early onand said, I, I, and he's a
genius too. He's a musicalgenius, musical, yeah, but I
think he realized early on is,like, I have nothing to say
about any of this stuff. So, soit's like, probably even his

(54:02):
management everybody said, youknow, Prince, don't do talking,
because you don't do it verywell. That

would be interesting to interview another
one that would have, like,almost be up there as high as
Axel would be Izzy. And I don'tknow if he would be a good
interview or not, because Ithink he's a brilliant
songwriter, but Kenny, Kenny,verbalize that in an interview.
Could he explain how he wrotethese songs and or would it be
like a prince thing?

Yeah, I can't remember, off the top my head,
yeah, there's, there's a fewlike that Prince one, where you
go, yeah, I can see why youdon't do a lot of interviews.

Who's the best person that you've personally
interviewed?

Oh god. I always liked talking to Bill Ward. I
always liked talking to ZachWilde, especially when he was
drinking and we were on the bus.
That was always hilarious,because he could do, he could do
Bill Ward and, well, he coulddefinitely do Aussie, Aussie
impressions. That was alwaysgood. You know, oddly enough,
Ted Nugent is an amazinginterview.

He's, I've had him on twice. That guy's, he's, so
you. Easy. You just, yeah,

yeah. After a while though, you get his
greatest hits, and you gotta,you gotta, like, steer him away
from the Greatest Hits kind ofthing, right? But

yeah, there's a lot of good ever interviewed a Dee
Snider. He's another one who's,oh yeah, yeah, he's great.

Bruce Dickinson is great. I just had a big fat
new Iron Maiden book just comeout on my birthday, actually,
two weeks ago, 666, pages,Hallowed by their name, the
unofficial Iron Maiden Bible andand I have fond memories of
interviewing Bruce. He's alwaysvery intelligent. Has good stuff
to say. You know, bigmusicologist. He can talk about

(55:37):
the influences on everything andall that, and put things in
context. So, yeah, there's,there's, I mean, most of the
time they're, they're prettygood, yeah, but you do get, you
do get some, you know,inarticulate ones that you think
haven't, haven't really told youmuch,

and so you're not much of a hair metal fan. Then,
oh,

I'm, oh yeah, absolutely, I'm a fan of all
that stuff. You know, peoplesometimes think that because,
because there's also a hotdebate, like, people don't like
calling it Hair Metal, right? Ihave no problem with that term.
But, yeah, no, I from the verymoment it came out in 1983 with
rat and great white and MotleyCrue second album, and whatever

(56:14):
you want to call it, docking atthe beginning, quiet ride at the
beginning, Twisted Sister,right? All the way through, I
had most of those albums, and Iliked most of those albums like
anybody else, the poppier it wasor the more repetitive or or
redundant to things that camebefore. Sure, I was just like
the critics, not, not a big fanof for some reason, I always

(56:37):
hated every single thing BonJovi ever did. That's one band I
just never, never could get intofor a moment and then, and then,
oddly enough, poison. I became amassive poison fan, starting
kind of in the 90s, when Istarted interviewing them and
liking them and, you know,understanding what they were
doing and their newer music andstuff. So I was never a big
poison fan of their actual bigalbums. It's just kind of later

(57:01):
on, but, but I loved, oh man. Iloved Skid Row and extreme and,
like I say, Love Hey, I loveslaughter. I love kick Tracy,
that whole screechy Dana strumsound. I love that as well.
Loved Guns and Roses, of course,great white. Great White went
downhill for me a little bit. Imean it. I love the EP in the
first album. And then it kind ofwent downhill a little bit

(57:23):
because it got a little too, toosmooth sounding and not, not
very heavy. But you know, as afan of that, all through that
thing, plus all traditionalheavy metal through the 80s,
thrash through the 80s, whengrunge picked up, I loved
grunge. I loved alternative,hard stuff. All through the 80s.

Did you ever get to interview like any of those
grunge bands, like Allisonchains or nirvana or,

Yep, yeah, let's see. Dave Grohl, Lane. Staley,
I'm not lane. Staley, JerryCantrell, Sean, Kenny, Mark, arm
stone Gossard, who else fromthat scene? Buzz from Melvin the

(58:07):
Melvins, I guess, not really toomany of them. If I, if I thought
about, there'd be, there'd be afew more, and then, and then
repeat it. Let you know, JerryCantrell two or three times, and
Sean a couple times. What

about Nikki six from Motley Crue? That's another
one bucket list for me.

Yeah, I interviewed him a bunch of times
as well, on the phone, inperson, met those guys, been
backstage with Vince, on the buswith them. Hang on. I know I
didn't get on the bus with them.
I was backstage with them, alsoat the record company with them.
Yeah, they're all They're allgood interviews. Nikki knows his
music really well. He's a verypersonal guy, personable guy. I
think out of those four guys, myfavorite interviews would be

(58:46):
Nikki and Tommy. Tommy's also areally Tommy's. Tommy's a smart
guy. He's a he's a good dude.
Yeah, Vince doesn't haveparticularly much to say. Nick's
pretty good too. Yeah, Vince.
Vince, I suppose, is not that,you know, insightful on on, I
don't know, I sometimes it justfeels like maybe he doesn't want

(59:08):
to be there. It felt like thatat times. But when did

you when were you backstage, like back in the
heyday when it was crazy, ormore like when recently

with Motley I remember one place being the our
big shed in Toronto, Molsonamphitheater. So that would have
been, what years now, 2025 thatwould have been maybe 2000 2005
something like that.

Okay, yeah, they kind of cleaned up a little bit
by then. Yeah, Nikki, at least,and not so much. Vincent Tommy,
yeah, yeah, that's what's itanother thing I find interesting
that doing a lot of theseinterviews, like, it's a lot of
the same story, like, the bandworks really hard, they get big,
and then there's a drug problem,the band breaks up, then they

(59:56):
get sober, and then the band getback, gets back together. I feel
like that's like a lot of.
Stories, it sounds like to me,yeah,

Martin Popoff (01:00:02):
yeah. And, like I say that go to Vancouver and try
harder. Which, which, you know,you reminded me of that, because
a lot of that has the we gotsober and and made this really
good quality album, right? So,yeah, I agree with you. I mean,
I think it'd be really cool tojust do a hair metal book that
just looks at, looks at theyears after Nirvana, that that

(01:00:22):
would be kind of prettyinteresting, because I agree
with you. I think, I think allthe albums got better in 9293

Chuck Shute (01:00:30):
Yeah, a lot of them have kind of a cult following,
like I thought, because I grewup in Seattle in the 90s, and I
was really, I was into grunge,but I was really into Hair Metal
and Guns and Roses and MotleyCrue and warrant. And I thought,
like, dog eat dog and poisonsnative tongue. I thought those
albums were so great. And I waslike, I feel so, like, alone
because all my friends arelistening to Allison chains dirt

(01:00:50):
and all that stuff. And I'mlike, Yeah, I like that stuff
too, but like, what about thisalbum? Like, it's like, you it
was, like, embarrassing to tellpeople you liked it.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I, I was living in
Vancouver in 8889 and gettingall that grunge stuff, all the
original EPs and everything atZulu records there, and I was
just blown away by all thatmusic. It just did everything
for me that I I never reallythought I didn't really

(01:01:20):
recognize was lacking in, in thehair metal stuff that I liked.
But it just, it just checked offa whole bunch of other boxes. It
just, it just felt way moredangerous, like you just didn't
know what was going to happennext, like sound garden. It'll
be a froggy song, a doomy song,a bluesy song, a short song, a
long song. It's anything couldhappen with that music. And
that's, that's what I lovedabout it and it and, and, yeah,

(01:01:43):
it felt heavier. It felt heavierthan all the hair metal stuff.
It just something aboutinjecting that, that sabbathy
vibe, or they were just themurkiness of it meant that, you
know, by certain definitions, itwas heavier than Hair Metal. No,

absolutely. Yeah. I love it all. Well, the Guns and
Roses book. Do we have a date asto when that is that it's not
out yet, right? When does itcome out?

I think it's, you know, it's kind of out right
now, as we're speaking. It's,what is it? May 13. It's kind of
out by the end of this month,middle of June, kind of thing. I
know physical copies exist therein the warehouse, all that sort
of stuff. So just like an album,well, no albums have a have a
clear release date. I supposebooks do too. I think it, I

(01:02:27):
think late June is when itactually says, I think

it's, can people pre order it now? You can

get it on Amazon.
And my site, I've got, I've gotall my, you know, description of
it, and PayPal buttons. Andanytime anybody gets them from
me, I sign them and send themout. So yeah, mail order is a
big part of my business. Soyeah, you can order it now. And
yeah, what? Soon as it comes in,it'll let it'll head out the

(01:02:52):
door,

and then your podcast is on YouTube, and
people can follow you. I thinkyou're on Instagram, right?

No, I'm not on Instagram, but we do have a very
prolific YouTube channel calledthe contrarians. But my podcast
is an audio only podcast, andit's called history and five
songs with Martin pop off. I'vedone like 308 episodes of that.
The website is Martin popoff.com. Like all the books in
print, full descriptions, PayPalbuttons there for us,
international Canada. Out of the130 books, there's probably 100

(01:03:24):
that are in print. So they'rethey're all available. Yeah,
that's about it. I do an AC DCpodcast with John Gaffney called
kicked in the teeth and AC DCPodcast. I'm on Brian slagles
podcast as well, every time,with a little little clip in
there about these songs. He does100 most important songs, heavy
metal. So, yeah, yeah, awesome.

Well, thank you so much for doing this great
conversation, and I'll get thisepisode out soon. All right.

Unknown (01:03:49):
Chuck, very cool. Nice.
Nice chatting with you. Nicechatting

with you. Bye, bye, every stop. Pick one of a kind,
from

THEME SONG (01:03:54):
the rockets to the wise men. You

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