Adam Mars talks Designing Shirts for Axl Rose | Ep. 481

Adam Mars shares his journey that allowed him to create custom clothing for artists like Axl Rose, Post Malone, and Billie Eilish. We take a deep dive into his GN'R fandom and stories behind some of Axl's shirts.

More info:
https://www.adammars.net/
https://www.instagram.com/adammars/

Our website: www.afdpod.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is Appetite for Distortion.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to the podcast Appetite for Distortion, episode number four
hundred and eighty one. My name is Brando and if
you are an audio listener of this podcast, I encourage
the YouTube version of it because today I am wearing
so rememborabilia merch from our guest. Thank you Adam Mars,

(00:51):
who's given me the official Hell shirt. I gotta put
this over my face. Hold on, no topless start now
that the official Hell shirt with the palm tree red
and I don't know if it's a yellow and reddish
orange whatever I'm over.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Described it's a GNR red and yellow, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah. So the one that you've seen Axel wear during
I believe he was in Mexico and twenty two.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
This was in Miami, Miami.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
That's it, because they met Snoop Dogg. That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, So when you get to see that picture of
Slash and Dove smiling and then Snoop Dogg smiling and
Axel not even cracking a grin like he's wearing that
Hell shirt. So Adam Marr's designer for Axel rose a
lot of his recent shirts and other artists like Billie
Eilish and I mean, you gave me your whole resume.

(01:41):
Who are some of the other artists that you've been
fortunate enough to work?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, yeah, it got my start working for my friends
in this indie SoCal band that are really big called
the Coralers, at least within our kind of surf rock community.
I did a couple of outfits for them for their
Halloween concert that they have but they used to have
every year called Beach Goth and I thought it would
be a one off thing, and then the next year

(02:06):
they kind of the singer Brooks Nielsen got me a
little drunk and said, Hey, we're going on tour. You
want to make thirty outfits in like a week for us?
And I was like okay, And then you know, I said,
I'll never do this again. I was babically remember watching
them play in La sitting on the side of the
stage and just be like, I'm never fucking doing this again.
This was a ton of work. And then I got

(02:26):
a DM out of the blue one day from Post
Malone Style. It's Kathy Hann and I didn't know who
he was. I thought it might have been like Carl
Malone's son, or somebody. And then my brother was sitting
shotgun with me and we were on the North Shore
for a wedding and we pulled over and he handed
me the phone and he goes, this guy's really big,

(02:46):
and I was like really, And I look over and
there's a billion plays of a song and I was like,
do I really not know who the next Michael Jackson is?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Like?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Because I'm a rocker GUYE. You know, I kind of
gave up on new hip hop after Tupac and Biggie died.
So but that opened up these crazy doors for me
where I overnight went from being out of Mars the
painter to Adam Mars the custom clothing designer of the Stars,
and rode that all the way through some really amazing
artists that let me get away with some cool creative things,

(03:16):
and then I found myself with an opportunity to work
for Axel Rose.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
I think that's so incredible that out of the little
But you know what, before we even get to the
post Malone launch, and I appreciate that, it says like
Carmelone's mailbox, Like no, no.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Carl Malone's. I thought it was Carmelon's Sun or.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Something like, I know, I'm making a terrible joke on
top of it because he was called a mailman, and
then like you had posts. I mean, that's what I
don't think he's named.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Those were the dots I was connecting. I just I
didn't know who he was at the time, and then
when I saw a picture, I was like, Oh, the
guy with all the tattoos on his face. And at
the time, it was a little bit more rare to
encounter someone like that in the pop lexicon. And he
was going through, you know, the outer rim of the
earth with his music at that time, and he was

(04:05):
really into wearing some He was kind of like the
Lady Gaga of hip hop at the time, and I
got to make some really wild outfits for him that
he would wear his one offs on on stage, and
it was just a really fun time to be, you know,
creatively inspired and working within a musical arena that wasn't

(04:25):
something that I was totally familiar with and learning about
new pop stars as an almost forty year old guy.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
That's I mean, that's insane. Off the air, we were talking
a little bit about breakthroughs and to get that right
almost out of the gate for a breakthrough but before then,
because I'm sure you weren't, but you could have been
a Chris Cornell impersonator, at least based upon your looks.
I haven't heard you sing.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I can't get into his upper octave ranch.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
I'm so not many can if any. Yeah, so you
said you started out as a painter. How did that start?
Because it's funny. My son, baby Brownstone is nickname. Yeah,
he loves the color. I mean, he doesn't know what
he's doing. He just likes to cry on and we
teach him on the paper, not on the wall. Yeah,

(05:10):
don't eat it? Is that how it started for you?
Were you eating it?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah? I eat?

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Or people say you.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Come into the world with a silver spoon in your mouth.
I like to say I came out of the room
with a handful of crams, and I like I was
ready to go. So I grew up with very liberal parents.
My dad was like a former biker from Venice, California.
My mom was, you know, a recovering hippie food spent
like the ladder end of the sixties and the seventies,

(05:36):
living up off the grid and Humboldt. And so I
wasn't really told my dad just said, you know, if
you don't go to jail, that'll make me happy. So
that was the bar that I was. I was judged
upon growing up. And so to you, when you mentioned
your son drawing on the walls, my parents did not

(05:56):
say don't draw on the walls like my my original
I remember before there was like a remodel I went
to town. I mean I was, I was michaelangeloing the shit.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Out of those walls.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
And they never just told me not to make art.
And so when you know you're getting older in your kindergarten,
you know, like little Timmy's good at karate and little
Becky's a ballerina, it was like little Adam Mars is
the artist. And I just held onto that title from
then on, and like I had a little bit of slippage,
I think in high school because I was I loved

(06:29):
rock and roll. It was really the one art form
beyond making drawings and paintings that just you know, had
my attention from the minute I woke up and turned
on MTV to the minute I went to bed. And
I wanted to get involved, you know, as a rock
and roller, but my voice just wasn't up to par
and I was getting vocal nodes in the bands that
I was playing in, but I thought maybe I could

(06:50):
get into the business side of things. And then right
around that time and the two thousands, Napster comes out,
and you know, the industry just cannibalizes itself, and so
I just jump back into art and I never looked back.
And so that was in my early twenties and I'm
forty three.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now we're you're a couple of years old than me.
I'm forty one, and okay, yeah, so let's see look
at this is this is crazy. I love seeing the
trajectory of someone around my age and just that's creative.
And my wife's a creative. Obviously I'm a creative working
in radio and doing this podcast. But we got to
return the gate that he's coloring on. It's one of
those like rented things he can't color on that we encourage.

(07:27):
I just want to let you know, like everyone know,
we encourage all the creativity in the world. Yeah, we
don't like saying though, but it's like, no, we got
to give that back, buddy, Please don't do that. Here's
here's some paper color you know, and uh, but I
mean he's not even two. Yet once he starts going crazy.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Uh yeah, and that's when you put up the boundaries.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah yeah, just like why I'm able to record with you.
Now he's out with my wife, she's a dance teacher
for little kids, and I could do this interview. Sometimes
he comes here. But then now he started out with
give like a few weeks he would just be on
my chest while I'm interviewing, like Thomas Stinson. But now
he loves playing with the faders, so I can't have

(08:07):
him just shut off my microphone in the middle of
an interview. But I digress. So when you get into
the design of it, and you started out as a painter,
I guess how does that transition go? Or do you
find like a company that makes the clothing and you
give them a design, or do you get involved in
the actual fabric. This is a well made shirt, so

(08:29):
I'm just curious how that goes.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
I'm like, you know, I'm a perfectionist by nature. I
like to say sometimes I can find an imperfection on
a nat So when it came to making a clothing company,
or when I found myself making clothes more than I
was making paintings, especially right around the beginning of the pandemic,
where I look back and I'd been making clothes, I
guess professionally for a few years. I really got into

(08:52):
trying to figure out like the best shirt that I
could get my hands on, that I could get in bulk,
that I could get rather quickly, and so yeah, I
was really investigating different inks and different materials as kind
of like a curious scientist. And I was going to
YouTube University and learning as much as I could about
silk screening. But that really all came about through through
working for Axel, because for the most part, the musicians

(09:16):
that I was working with before were wearing these as
one offs. They weren't circling back to the outfit after
they wore at that initial time, so you didn't have
to use specific paints and inks that would hold up
in a wash cycle. And then, you know, Axel is
more of a you know, a creature of habit when
he's touring, and so these shirts, if they're in the
rotation and he likes them, they have to stand up.

(09:38):
And I remember vividly like one of the first shirts
that i'd made for him, I kind of knew what
I was doing, you know, I tried to make it
the best, but I didn't know about heat setting and
all these things and like working with water based inks
and how long you have to cure them. And I
got a call from a text from someone on the
team when they were in like Wichitar somewhere in the
Midwest or something, and they sent me this picture that

(10:00):
the dry cleaners had taken one of his shirt and
it was just a ghost of what it was before,
and he's like, anyway you can get me another one
of these, Like immediately, it's like, we got a show
today in the dry cleaners at whatever hotel you know,
they murdered this shirt. So I learned a lot about that,
and I really kind of built up a brand and
like a business around him as a client where I felt,

(10:23):
you know, now's the time to really invest in silk
screening and learning about that process and buying a curing
of and turning turning my once painter based studio into
kind of like a T shirt shop, and then working
with outside people to get information on how to make
things in masks. But you know, I was never really
making things in such quantities that I wanted that to

(10:45):
be my day in and day out of bagging shirts
and shipping them out. It was much more of a
get the fans and the dedicated people and some of
my friends' shirts within a limited edition capacity, and make
sure that I've got a shirt that doesn't feel like
you're wearing your wall and you know, and it doesn't
short change the audience.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
And it's true, it's not like you I'm here. It's
like some sort of paid promotion. It's not. These are
really like nice, well made shirts.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
And the other one I got, which is so sadly appropriate.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Appropriate right now. Yeah, the future will get weird.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
I mean it's it's already weird. I mean it's already weird.
My my wife can't wait to wear this one. We
have to.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, the one that sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes
it's a bad thing.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
You know, it's there's good weird and then there's weird weird.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Where we're where we're at right now?

Speaker 2 (11:40):
We're in We're in the red.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, we're in the red, I think so. Uh so, Yeah,
let's let's talk about AX a little bit. How did
that situation pop up? And Slash is the one that's
really known for wearing his shirts, so you would have
thought that might have been a max made in Heaven.
So how did ax came? And then we'll go into
like the designs and how we pick those and stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
All Right, Well, I kind of touched upon how my
friends in the Band of Growlers gave me this opportunity
to make some outfits for their tour, which got me
on Instagram on the radar of Kathy Hann who was
or is postmalone stylist. That started a couple of year
cycle where he was kind of touring NonStop for the

(12:20):
Beer Bongs and Bentley and the Hollywood's Bleeding Records, and
so I was just making clothes for him. And then
at some point I started looking around and being like,
do I know anybody else who knows somebody else that's
really creative and cool and I could kind of diversify
my portfolio just a little bit. And so, not to
sound like a douche or whatever, but one of my
buddies knew Billie Eilish and she was at the top

(12:41):
of the charts at that time, and I just was like, Hey,
do you think I could get a contact to her
and see how that goes? And I ended up getting
in touch with her manager who was super kind, and
within like ten minutes he sent me over to Samantha Burkhart,
which was her stylist at the time, and she was
on tour and she just said, yeah, you know, like

(13:02):
this is our budget, this is what we got. Can
you come up with some stuff? So I got to
work with her for a little bit, just did like
a handful of outfits and some of them got on
Saturday Live for first time, which was really cool. And
then I started thinking, like, who's someone that I really
would like to make close for And I just thought
back to, you know, Guns n' Roses, which when I

(13:24):
was seven years old, I was already a huge music fan.
At that time, my parents, you know, were blasting MTV
and force feeding me the Doors and talking Heads and
the Stones, and you know, they had seen everybody in
the sixties and so we were a very MTV friendly,
music friendly you know, parental advisory blah blah blah that
stigre didn't mean shit like when I was growing up.

(13:47):
But Guns n' Roses, for whatever reason, when I saw
Sweet Child and Welcome to the Jungle when I was
a kid, they really resonated with me as just the
coolest thing I'd ever seen. They all looked distinctly awesome.
They all had killer fucking names, and they were all
probably the best at their craft within the arena that
I was absorbing as a non critical seven year old.

(14:10):
You know, I was into Michael Jackson, I was into Prince,
I was into fucking Poison, I was into whatever. But
they became the band that you know, you hear musicians
when they saw kiss when they were kids. That's what
they were for me. They were just superheroes, and they
were on MTV so much that even and I brought
this picture just to makes sense because I'm not like

(14:31):
a huge celebrity, and I don't have platinum records and
Grammys as someone as your guests do. But I'm more
of a fan that paid his dues for many, many
years and got an opportunity that just reminded me that
life is very special and that maybe there is a
thing called fate, and maybe there isn't someone named God,
you know, out there that's pulling some strength. So this

(14:51):
is me when I'm seven or eight years old, wearing
my first appetite shirt that I got in the back
of a heavy metal ma I can say what my
parents probably sent a check for eleven dollars. But if
you could see all the feet above it, these are
my buddies. And they're wearing like he Man T shirts
and you know, and Laker shit, and these were my superheroes.

(15:13):
And so from that time fourth I was always they
were my band. You know, I branched out and become
bigger fans and bands like you know, I'm still a
huge David Bowie fan. He's my favorite musician. But I
got into Queens of the Stone Age, I got into
the Stooge as I got into you know, a lot
of different bands that were the number ones at certain

(15:33):
periods in my life. But Guns was just that through
line that kept me grounded and reminding me how special
it is to be alive while rock and roll is around,
because music has been part of the fabric of human
existence for centuries, you know, and music has been around

(15:53):
for so long, but really rock and roll starts in
the fifties, So it's an art form that's captured the
hearts and minds of the world, but it's less than
one hundred years old, and so we're really experiencing kind
of like the tail end of the high renascence of
this art form, and Guns n' Roses was just such
an interesting band because they got so big so fast,

(16:15):
and they went so wide, and they became so interesting,
and there was so much drama and drugs and band
members leaving and whatnot that they were just you know,
they were like a reality TV show and the best
band in the fucking world all rolled into one. And
they just captured my imagination then. And so when I
got around to the point where I was thinking of
people that I wanted to work for, I was like,

(16:37):
it's got to be Axel. And he just wears a
lot of iconic graphic shirts, you know, the works that
you know, came out in the Allusion tours when he
was wearing the Charlie Don't Serve stuff with Charles Manson
on it, and like the you know, kill your Idol shirts.
Those are just cemented into the fabric of pop cult shirt.
And so I thought, you know, I was seeing the

(16:58):
shirts that he was wearing on that first not in
this Lifetime tour, and they were rat like, you know,
they were very like, you know, evocative of BDSM stuff
and old you know, like vintage kind of pornography and
more stuff, and they were loud and there were big graphics,
and you could see him from the back of the
arena and you could see him from the front row,

(17:18):
and so I just thought, you know, how can I
get in there? And at the time, my brother was
in this indie horror surf film called Ghost Babe Shout
Out to Ghost Babe, and they were filming it in Ohio.
And this is when I'm doing shit for Post Malone
and Billie Eilish and I just remember that Braiden Bacha,

(17:39):
who was the guy who was directing the film and
producing it with his wife. His brother was on Axl
Rose's team, and so Braiden needed some songs that I
had written with my brother for his punk band DM
Tina and the Bumps, And I thought, well, I'll give
him these songs and maybe I'll just be able to
ask for a kind favor and maybe if he'll connect
me with his brother and we'll just see how that goes.
And so he connected me with his brother brand just

(18:01):
through texts, and I pitched them on some of the
stuff I had done before, and they were so cool,
you know, just within you know, he was like, yeah,
this sounds great. We'll send you a box of shirts
and we'll see how it goes and see if ACTSA
likes them. So they're going on this not in this
Lifetime part two kind of tour in the US. And
this is in September, I believe, of twenty nineteen, and

(18:23):
at the time, Postmalone just releases Hollywood's Bleeding and he's
got this sold out arena tour going, and so I'm
pumping out shit like all day, working on pants for
him for all these these tour stops. And then the
Billie Eilish thing pops up with that Saturday Night Live
and that's like right in the same timeframe. So I'm like, fuck,
I need these shirts really bad. I need them really fast,

(18:44):
because I like to say, you know, I'm not Chipotle.
I can't just throw a bunch of paint on something
and make it happen really fast. Like I'm a very
for better or worse, way too critical, way too detail
orientated creative person. And so I'm waiting for these shirts
and I know that, you know, his team, Vanessa and
Branch are putting together all this stuff, and I'm just
really garnish, you know. If anything happens on my end,

(19:06):
it's just garnished. They all got all these shirts ready
to go, ready to rock for this tour. And then
within about a couple days of the launch, I get
this box of shirts. And I've been looking for these shirts,
been waiting for them and communicating with the team, and
they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, but I'm not getting
this box of shirts. And then I go outside one
day and I look on my balcony and like, tucked

(19:28):
away behind one of my chairs is a fucking postal
box that no one's ever put a UPS box there
or whatever, so it could have been there for days whatever.
Get this box out and there's these five gorgeous shirts
with like gratuitous red counts, and you know, they're fucking gorgeous.
They're probably two hundred dollars shirts, just as blanks. And

(19:48):
I get a text also from them going like, hey,
can we have these ready before they're playing this secret
show at the Pladium? And by the way, do you
want to come and be on the guest last time?
Just like you know this, this little kid is losing
his fucking mind. But I'm a professional and I'm focused,
and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I can get this done.
But I don't have much time to put together these ideas.

(20:10):
And I had a couple of things that I was
told as far as cheap cards that you know, our
references that Axel was into, and it was like, very
very quick. It was like, you know, he's into girls,
guns and war and something along along those lines. And
so I'm trying to come up with something visually that
will satiate what they want and maybe get on Axle's
radar and have him be like, fuck, this is a

(20:31):
great shirt. So I had these this one idea for
post Malone that he didn't end up wearing, which was
this neon woman with this kind of Amsterdam red light
district motif, and I was like, that never got worn.
That thing is sick. It's in the guns and Roses
color palette, Like, let me just make this thing. So
I made that and then at the time, Axel was

(20:52):
really trolling Trump on Twitter, and I was like, all right,
maybe if I make something that's kind of tongue in
cheek around that, it'll be on his radar and he'll
he'll really be stoked about that. And so I made
this one that was like Don Corleoni and it said
like the real down you know, like because at the time,
you know, Trump was being pitched as this mob boss
and like this want to be Don corleone.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
And then I made another shirt with this like a
bloody peace sign, you know, because accellent. You know, when
he's performing a lot of times he has that thing
that's you know, evocative of you know, Nixon, you know,
that kind of gesture. But he's just had that in
his and his performance for so many years. And so
I made those three and you know, they were done

(21:35):
like the night before, and I drove to the Palladium
right before it was while they were sound checking, and
there was fans lined up around the block and I
didn't know how to get in. And I learned, you
know from kind of growing up around some professional musicians,
if you act like you belong backstage or in like,
you know, beyond the security line, just say I'm here
to pick up some credentials for dot dot Dots. And

(21:56):
you know, they parted the sees of the people of
all the fames that were you know, they were dressed
in more black than an ant. You know, it was
just all these like coffee looking fans that were out there.
And I went in and just said he, yeah, I've
got a delivery for Raxel Roast and they just opened
the doors and I went in there and could hear
them sound checking Brownstone, which was so surreal, you know,
like you could hear stuff and Slash and the rest

(22:20):
of the guy is just like reverberating through the brick
wall of the Pladium in Hollywood, and you know, I
handed off the shirts to brand and he said, okay, cool,
you know, thank you so much. And again, super sweet
people working for Axel, you know, like no Ego, just
really polite and very generous. And they said, you know,

(22:40):
I'll show it at Axel and see what he thinks,
and you know, hopefully he'll like them, and you know something,
and I just said okay, cool. And I didn't know
if it was going to be now or if it
was going to be on tour. All he knew was
that I was coming back to the fucking Pladium and
I was going to get in line one of those
people while I was going to see the show. And
so I ended up taking my kid brother, who's a
huge GNR fan and has the A tight cross tattooed

(23:01):
on his arm. And you know, the Mars Brothers walk
the red carpet with no one giving a shit about us.
But then, you know, we couldn't have been happier, and
go in and buy a couple overpriced cans of PBR
and kind of just sit and wait in the middle
of the crowd and try to figure out what's going
to happen. And then they come out. You know you
wanted the best, Well they didn't fucking make it. Here's

(23:21):
what you Yet comes out, and then they just kick
into It's so easy. And Axel comes out and he's
wearing some shirt with something that looks like a butterfly
and a woman or something, and it's not my shirt,
but I'm getting buzzed. I don't care, you know, I'm
so stoked. And then like midway through the set, you know,
he's he shuffles his shirts about every three songs and

(23:44):
he comes out, goes on the side stage, kind of chills,
put on a new shirt, and like midway through the set,
I'm like, God, like, my shirt's look pretty rad, like
like if he sees them back when he's going over there,
like I just got some weird sensation midway or around
the midpoint of the show, and it was right when
it was with Rocket Queen was coming out and I

(24:06):
just got like goosebumps. It was it was like Jedi shit.
You know, it's like if you watch Star Wars enough,
like someone was communicating and being like get ready for
the next second of your life. And what happens. And
Axel comes out and he's doing you know, his signature
snake walk along the stage, but his back is to
the crowd. And I can't remember because if it was
in the midpoint of the song when he goes off
and they're doing the solo and they kind of switched

(24:27):
the song, or if it was at the beginning, but
he swings wide and he's wearing that Neon Woman shirt
and I was just like, holy shit, this is so
you know, full circle moment. And I was so stoked.
And my brother's like tripping on shrooms and I'm like Alex, Alex, look,
he's wearing my fucking shirt. And he's just like, oh

(24:48):
my god, and I got to pull out my fuck.
He's like, oh my god, oh god. And to his credit,
if you go back in time, a couple of days,
I'm working, like I said on you know, three clients
projects all in my little cram, studio space, and I
bring my brother and I don't tell him that I'm
working on these shirts for actually, because I don't want

(25:09):
them bugging me and I don't want to be like
freaking out. And I bring him in and I make
the Neon Woman T shirt and it's just in grayscale
at this point, it's just black and white and it
looks sick. It looks it's like Raiders colors, like it
looks really rad and looks vintage and I and I
show it to my brother and he comes in and
he's like half baked and he's like okay, and I'm like,
is this cool? Like do you think this is cool

(25:30):
as is? And he goes, well, who's it for? And
I go it's for Axel Rose And he's like whoa
And he goes, Dude, if it's for Axe, you should
make it the best you can. And I was like,
that's like a hippie bumper sticker, Like you know, if
you're making it for someone special, make it the best
you can. And so I just like put it in
gear and I made it that red and yellow and

(25:51):
I airbrushed it and made it really sick. And so
that was the first shirt that he came out wearing,
and so he wears that for you know, he wears
that for rock a Queen You Could Be Mine, which
is one of MY favorite songs, and wears it for
another song. And then Duff does Attitude and Axel leaves
the stage, and I'm just like, all right, I'm cooked.
This is one of the coolest little creative resume fillers

(26:14):
I've ever had. And then he comes out in a
civil War and it's really dark and they do the
intro and then I see him turn around and Axel's
got the big hat on, you know, like looking like
the most badass cowboy that ever was. And he turns
around and he's wearing the Bloody Peace signed shirt, like
back to back, and he wears that for you know,

(26:36):
a couple other songs. And I was just so fucking
stoked at that point on just where I was creatively.
I mean, I was levitating at five foot eight. There
was probably about six foot and nine that day, and
that was just one of those threal moments. And I
went outside to smoke a cigarette. When I smoked and
I got to meet like Fernando from Management and Charles

(26:57):
dor and Molly terrorists who do work for Global, their
merchandise company, and was able to just cultivate a little
bit of friendship with them and got to work with
them at some different points and it was just a
really special night. And then I woke up in the
morning and texted Brandt just being like, thank you so much, man,
Like that was just such a special thing. I really

(27:17):
appreciate everything that you did for me. I was really
glad that Axel obviously liked the shirts, and he said, yeah,
we're going to be sending you some more shirts. So
it was going to be a job. And that started
to me kind of being in their rotation as making
a lot of shirts or handling the digital production of
some of the imagery that Axel's team was coming up with,

(27:41):
and that led up all the way until the pandemic.
And I vividly remember they were going to South America
and I met up with brand and like the parking
lot in West Hollywood at like one of the Federal buildings,
and it was this ominous grade day in LA and
it was kind of trickling raining. It was almost like
we were handing over like secret stuff and and you know,

(28:02):
people on the inside, they they they know what's going
on a little bit more than I think the common
man of what's going on.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
And like, yeah, they didn't.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
They didn't know if the tour was going to continue
on or if the pandemic was going to be this
weekend thing or a two week thing. No one, no
one really did. And but Guns and Roses played the
last show, if I can recall, like the last festival
show in Mexico that there was, and I got to
make a couple of shirts for that, and so that

(28:31):
was my last time there for you know, and then
and then the pandemic happens, and then it's just crickets.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Oh you haven't spoken to them since the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
No. I worked for them a ton on those those
subsequent tours once they got going. So I was, I was,
I was really fortunate. And at that time, during the pandemic,
I started to think about starting my own clothing brand,
and so I started Adam Mars. You know, it's my name,
I was born with it. It was not like a fake
name or anything.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
I was wondering that at first.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, my dad was was Bob Mars, my mom is
Patsy Mars. No, that's his.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Fortunate error.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
No, Bruno, Mars, Mars Bars, candy bars, none of that stuff.
But there's actually quite a few mars Is out there
the found But yeah, so that's that's my name. But
so I started a clothing brand in that period and
really invested a lot into making shirts specifically for Axle,
because I didn't go to undergraduate school and graduate school

(29:31):
with the goal of making T shirts. I just I
want to be a painter that's hanging in the best
museums in the world and has shows all over the world,
and that was that's the goal. But having said that,
as I mentioned before, just the love and appreciation for
being alive while rock and roll is a dominant force
in the world, bringing music and art together and getting

(29:56):
them on stage, not just like on a on a
T shirt, but getting them on a platform where some
of the most important musicians and artists, you know, I
consider Axle on the Guys and Guns and Roses is
true artists. Just because they sold millions and millions of
records does not mean that like that they're cheesy, or
that there's like anything lesser than like something hanging in

(30:16):
Googosing Gallery. I mean sweet chilt of mind versus a
Jeff Coons painting like I'm taking Sweet Child of Mine.
I love Jeff Coons, but I'm taking that. But anyway, Yeah,
during that pandemic, I'm kind of coming up with my
clothing brand. And so when things get started again after
the pandemic and everyone's kind of getting tour crazy and

(30:37):
ready to go, they went on a couple of tours,
and I was making a lot of stuff for them
at the time, and you know, working on hundreds of
digital images that were kind of sourced from BDSM stuff
or vintage imagery that his team is putting together that
I'm color correcting and trying to diversify so that it's
not all rectangular, that it's you know, giving him the

(30:57):
best image quality that I can from these found images.
While at the same time, if I've got a rat idea,
I'm making these shirts for him as well. And so
I got to go see them and London play a
couple shows one summer when I was over there. I
saw I think twice, you know, two London things. I
saw them at Hyde Park and I saw him at
at a football stadium. And then I wasn't working with

(31:21):
him so much for a little period of time, and
I was. I was okay with it because I was
really focused on painting at that time and getting that
back in motion in my studio practice. And then they
were going to play a couple of shows at the
Hollywood Bowl, and I thought I got a couple of
cool ideas that I wanted to throw their way, and
I sent it over to his team and they greenlit

(31:41):
like three or four or like four or five of
the six or seven ideas that I had, and same
thing drove to the Hollywood Bowl. I've got credentials for.
I got a drop off for Axel Rose drive up,
you know the long private driveway and hand it over
to the team, and.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I see you like wayneing Garth, is this cool? Is
this cool?

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Like don't bother me? You know, think I'm like, oh sorry,
I'm not going to freak out. But yeah, And I
showed up with with my beautiful girlfriend Elizabeth, and we
had great seats. We were sitting like right behind Jason
Sedakis and like sitting next to members of you know,
former members of Guns N' Roses and and Axel came

(32:21):
out and he wore all the shirts like in succession,
like he came out wearing a Kelly Cole blank black
like traditional shirt and shout out to Kelly Cole. He
makes a lot of great blanks and has done great
work for Axel as well as super cool guy. But
he wore all these shirts. I made him like a
like a Lemmy shirt because I don't know. It was

(32:42):
like an anniversary of Lemmy's passing or something like that,
and it was in Hollywood where Lemmy lived, and so
I made him a Lemmy shirt. And there was a
lot of talk about Trump getting a gag order, and
so I made this one of a woman with a
ballgag in her mouth and it's just a gag order
and bold fonts. And it was Halloween time as well.
I kind of appropriated something from Halloween too, like this

(33:02):
big fucked up pumpkin and a couple other things. But
if I remember correctly, he wore them all, all the
shirts the whole night. And another one I made of
the Hollywood Freeway that said like this way to Hell
or something, but it was the green like LA Freeway
thing or Hell next exit or some shit like that.
And yeah, that was the last time I worked from

(33:24):
and that was I think the last time. They pretty
much we're on.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Tour yeah, right on. And I was going to ask
you though, I'm looking at the gag order one right
now at your website atamars dot net, and so you
can go to see all Axles or even all the
artists that you've posted pictures off, and I'm just going through,
of course the Axle one, and then you brought up
the gag order. I would not have thought that would
have been the story behind it. I appreciate that one.

(33:48):
I do ask because you mentioned Lemmy and that was
your idea because it was like an anniversary of his passing, right,
was it also your idea or possibly Axles about his
Taylor Hawk and the shirt that was so?

Speaker 2 (34:02):
So I grew up in the Guna Beach and in
another weird, bizarre twist of rock and roll fate, I
grew up on the coattails of stone Table Pilots. So
Eric Kretz, the drummer of stone Tuble Pilots, stay with me, guys.
There's a lot of little dots.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
For I know what I say all the time about myself.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
There will be there will be no Milkman references and
blah blah blah. But so when I was eleven years old,
my best friend and kind of my brother Shane Murphy.
His mom Sherry, started dating a drummer in this band
called Mighty Joe Yung, and this was Eric Kretz. And
from the time I was eleven to about thirteen, I

(34:41):
became kind of like another extended member of the family.
I was around them so much that, you know, like
I was in all the pictures of the family stuff
and outings and whatnot, and we were just we were
a family kind of union. And Eric was probably ten
or twelve years older than us at the time. But
Stone Tuble Pilots, the new incarnation or the new name
behind My Joe Young, got signed to Atlantic Records, and

(35:04):
so right when grungees in full throttle, I was on
the cotails of Stone Tuble Pilots, and so I got
to go my first show ever. I was at Universal
Amphitheater when I was thirteen years old. I was full
access backstage. I got to meet Scott Wiland and the
DeLillo Brothers for the first time, and I got to
go on all these crazy shows with them and concerts

(35:26):
you know, here, there and everywhere. But someone very special
from Laguna Beach is also Taylor Hawkins, and so He's
born and raised in Laguna, you know, went to Laguna
Beach High School. Became super famous, at least locally, and
you know, we thought it was a rock god when
he was working with Atlantis, and so Taylor Hawkins and

(35:47):
Aerickrets became friends. When Talk Show, one of the offshoot
bands of STP was on tour opening for Food Fighters
when Scott was in jail, and so they became friends.
And when I was eighteen, the summer going into college,
STP was going to play a secret Miller blind date show,

(36:08):
if you remember those people out there and YouTube, and
they were these special secret shows that if you won
through getting a case of Miller Lite or Highlight for
whatever the fuck they were producing at the time, you
had a chance to get a ticket to go to
see a show at a small club and you would
get your airfare and your hotel paid for it, but
you wouldn't know who was going to play. Could have

(36:28):
been olymp Biscuit, it could have been Fucking Corn, it
could have been Bush, it could have been any of
those bands that were still relevant in the rock world
in two thousand and so SEP got offered. I think
it was like a half a million dollars or three
quarters of a million dollars to go play this show.
And Scott was in this position where if he violated
his parole, he was going to go to jail. But
I think he thought that he was going to go

(36:49):
to jail no matter what, because he had flubbed so
many times and got popped with heroin that he was like, well,
I'm going to do this big cash grab show and
we're going to go play in Las Vegas at the
House of Blues and then the next day to go
to jail and start my one year stint there.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Wow, how rock and roll man. He is so missed.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
He was so missed. But long story longer. Right before
that show, it's the summer and we're at this beach Thalia,
which is like this designated surf beach in Laguna Beach,
and Shane and I walk along the beach and we
see Taylor Hawkins, and Shane is like the most charismatic
teenager that I'd ever met. He was like Eddie Furlong
but like half Asian and like had his long sick

(37:27):
hair and like was just super confident with talking to
anybody because Scott Wiland was his babysitter when he was
a kid, and like he was, you know, he just
grew up backstage and meeting all these rock stars. And
so we see Taylor Hawkins at the beach and Shane
goes up and it's like, hey, man, like, there's an
STP show in Vegas. You want cruise And Taylor's like, yeah, dude,
let's go. I'll pick you guys up and I'll pick
you up and we'll drive out there and you can

(37:49):
we'll get a sick hotel and we can all stay together.
And so the next couple of days later, I'm at
my parents' house and Taylor Hawkins pulls up in this
gray beat up Weyota Corolla, smoking a cig and you know,
his hair, you know, looking the you know, looking like Taylor,
and he's with his one of his best friend's Atticus,
and we drive out to the last fucking Vegas at

(38:10):
eighteen years old and stay at the Mandale Bay and
go see STP played down at you know, at the
House of Blues, and it's on YouTube. They filmed it.
It's one of the best live shows that I've ever seen.
Scott was really clean at that time and was in
great shape and vocally, he was just insane, and so
they did a lot of the recording for the number

(38:30):
four Down video there. But that's where I met Taylor,
and so over the years I would cross paths with
him when i'd see him at this SEP shows, and
I fight see him Laguna. We were by no means
like like close friends or whatnot, but we were acquaintances.
And so when he passed, I remember that night, I
was like, oh, just like such a gut punch, especially

(38:52):
for the people in Laguna that he was really close
to and his family and they had just bought a
house a couple of blocks away from my mom, and
so I just remember seeing him during the pandemic and saying,
what up to him done at our local beach, And yeah,
it was just a really sad thing. And I knew
that Axel and Slash and stuff and those guys were
friends with him, So I thought, you know, how can

(39:14):
I pay it forward to him? And I just started
thinking of something that had, you know, his hawk tattoo,
but wasn't his HOWK tattoo, and maybe had a little
bit more kind of sould to it and had a
little bit more nuanced detail to it, and then that
Foo Fighter's logo with his with his initials was my idea,

(39:36):
and so I submitted that to Axel's team and they
worked down for it right away, and so I made
him a couple of those shirts and he ended up
wearing them, I think as the closing you know, on
court shirt for a long time. And yeah, that was
one of the coolest things, where you know, you try

(39:57):
to come up with these very special ideas for these
musicians to wear, and when it can actually be something
that you deeply care about and that affects, you know,
people beyond you and can affect your friends that are
mourning for the loss of like a real close buddy,
that was That's a story.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, no, it's it's it's tough, another one, just like
with Scott and I mean Taylor to lose so young
as well. It's actually I mean I only met him once.
I forget if I said the story. It's not as
uh rock and roll as yours. It's silly. It's when
I used to work for Serious ExM. I worked for
the Catholic Channel. I don't know if you could tell

(40:37):
about my schnas I'm there's a little disconnect there, Okay, yeah,
but I mean radio is radio whatever. But I mean
this was the beginning. In middle of my career, I
still was fighting. You try to get full time or something.
And I remember seeing the food fighters. Everything in Serious
XM is what's called the fish Bowl studio, so you
can look right in, and I remember seeing the food
fighters being interviewed and Taylor wasn't there. But that didn't

(41:01):
process at the time. All that process was I really
want to work in rock radio. What is it going
to take? This stinks? You know, I'm working for the
Catholic Channel. What's happening. Yeah, I am on my way
to the bathroom, go to the bathroom, urinal whatever, and
I see out the corner of my eye because you
know when guys have a rule based down anyway, This

(41:21):
isn't like that scene in the Aventura. It's not like that.
You know that.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, that very well.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
But I see But then I see Taylor in my
peripheral start to walk, you know, getting out of a stall.
So I decided to wash my hands even longer the
time it so we leave at the same time. And
that's when I started using a cane because I have
a neurological disability so I wear leg braces. I started

(41:48):
using a cane. This is when I started going to
the city more because I just didn't have the balance.
And it's this interesting when you're I mean, I'm forty
one now, but then you know, early thirty. He's late
twenties with a cane. People don't know what to make
of it. But he knew something was wrong. He's like
you first. I'm like no. He opens the door for me.
I like, no, you first. Your tailor from the Foo Fighters.

(42:11):
And I happened to be wearing a shirt that I
saw Dave wore in the Times, like these videos the
sounds that banned the sounds. I bought a blue version.
He had the red.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
He had the red version, right red.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
I bought the blue. I didn't want to be too
much of a carbon copy of him. And he noticed it.
He's like, oh, you're wearing the shirt that Dave wore
in the video. He's like, I don't know, man, they're
not that cool. I'm like, are you a fan? I'm like,
I'm a fan. I'm not a poser. I wouldn't wear
you just wear the shirt. And he looked at me
like like crazy, Like I'm not calling you a poser
kid kind of thing. But we had like a nice little,

(42:43):
you know, thirty second conversation, but just a chance to
just I don't know, sorry, just to bring that up.
Being in the littlest moments. He's just such a kind man,
you know, holding a door open for little old me,
you know.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, and also like one of the nar you know
I had mentioned before. You know, I was just a huge,
huge music MTV fan, and music was kind of like
my big brother before I had, you know, another sibling around,
and I know my shit when it comes to I
read the liner I've read every liner note of every
album I've had. I take notes on who want every VMA,

(43:20):
every Grammy, like how many out millions of albums they'd sold.
And so when I was around Taylor, this guy was
like so passionate about music. Not only is he like
playing the drums on the steering wheel for five hours
on the way out to Vegas, but he's popping in
tapes and being just so pumped on what the fuck
he's listening to, to the point when we pull over
to get gas, he's buying more tapes of like, you know,

(43:43):
like Boston and stuff like this, and just being so
just in love with whatever's coming out of those speakers.
And he also didn't hold back on you know, like
you mentioned he sees the shirt, he goes they're okay,
you know, like I remember he made some comment to
me or I was like like that thinks, so they're
the kind of all. You know, he wasn't being polite

(44:03):
to a fault. He was just being like totally honest.
You know, not a lot of filters on his love
for rock and roll, And that's what you get when you,
you know, have guys like Axel that are friends, like
they're totally probably you know, I don't know Axeled personally,
but like you know, just from what I've I've gathered,
you know, these are different personalities, Like Taylor is a

(44:23):
high energy dude and Axles a little bit more kind
of calculated and chill. But they all these musicians just
love Taylor because I think that he gave that energy
that he was just cultivating inside about the love for
their craft right back to them, you know, totally unfiltered
and unchecked and just being like, wow, it's really great

(44:44):
to have that love for what I do come back
at me from a guy who just is at the
top of his craft as well.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
And it's such a feelings are such a funny thing.
But just seeing that, you know now the story behind
the tailor shirt, and me as a fan seeing Axel
wear that, I don't know, it kind of meant something
like it just meant something like, you know, we're all hurting,
whether you knew him or not, and Axel was acknowledging it.

(45:12):
You know, he a loss of somebody he cared about,
and it just meant something to me. Is something is
you would think silly as a T shirt? Maybe isn't
that silly at times? So it's it's not, at least
not from Adam Mars. It's not just a silly shirt.
There's always a meeting behind it. And I want to
get a few more meetings before I get you. Please
start here. Do you have a favorite shirt that you

(45:34):
made for Axel?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Jeez, favorite shirt that I've made for I mean the
tailor one, as I just mentioned, you know, has a
lot of meanings. So that and because I came up
with that from scratch, that was probably a number one
shirt contender. I got to say just that neon woman's
shirt because that was the first memory that I have

(45:58):
of him wearing it was present when I saw it.
You know a lot of times I make these things
for these these artists, and I only see them in
my studio and then I see them like the rest
of the world, and I see them on YouTube, or
I see them on Instagram or Facebook. But to be
able to be in the presence of something that was
so fresh, I mean, the ink had just drived, and
that the obstacle course that it took to get those

(46:21):
shirts to the Pladium, the crazy chaotic week before it
just that shirt is just super special to me, not
not for the subject matter or whatnot, but because, for
whatever reason, that was the first shirt that Axel was like, Fuck,
I like that shirt. That's a cool shirt. I'm gonna
wear that shirt. And he continued to wear it throughout

(46:42):
that tour, so that that put me in rotation for
his his his wardrobe for the tour, and it opened
up so many doors that I'm just I'm just still
so grateful for Again, as I mentioned, I didn't get
into the into art to make to make T shirts,
but I would have done that my whole life had

(47:02):
I known that I get to work for these great
musicians and have that reward at the end of the day.
You know, it's just it's just such a special thing.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I hear you, and I can on my end kind
of I can feel a lot of what you're saying,
because I didn't get into radio thinking i'd be doing
a podcast about guns and roses. But I am so
fortunate to be able to connect with fans all over
the world. Shout out to Eric from Ohio who suggested
you as a guest.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
And he's he sent me this Fargo poster behind me.
Oh great, just like the kindness of his heart. So
I mean meeting people like that, or getting the interview
someone like you who's been just a creative person, passionate,
uh known in the industry, get to work with all
these sorts of you know, amazing artists that are known
for what they wear. I mean Billie Eilish, you know

(47:51):
that's that's her. A lot of what makes her her
is her style and to be part of that, and
obviously the same goes for for Axel And if you
want to see because the kneon girl is the one
with the three axis and just make sure I'm looking
at the so you want to see all those photos
there on Adam Mar's website is everything, I mean, what
is for sale, Like if I noticed that that helps

(48:13):
that I'm wearing right now is sold out.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
You know, in the miss size medium that you requested.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, I'm Amedia. If you can tell my size, I'm
a little five six Jewish boys.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Okay, I'm five eight, one hundred and twenty pounds wet,
so I wear a smaller medium as well. But yeah,
I have a couple of limited edition runs of some
of the shirts. I hope to continue to make them available.
But for the most part, a lot of these shirts
were one offs. They were custom shirts that were made
specifically for the client at the time. So there's not

(48:42):
a lot of stuff readily available, but there are, if
you know, there are chances for people, if you're just
encountering me for the first time, to go on my
website Adam Mar or Adam dash Mars dot com or
Adam Mars dot net. You'll find it through the clothing
links on those sites. You'll be able to get your
hands on a couple of things that, you know, we're
shirts that actual had worn, not the specific original shirt,

(49:03):
but an edition of that of that design.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Oh yeah, no, mine was fresh in the packaging. What
did I do with the Oh I had the certificate?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Me see, yeah, I go next, I'm an arty farts
guy like yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
I mean I was like, I've never gotten like a
shirt that had me hold it up the certificate. Ay,
the future is wonders for the future.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
You know, when I when I make limited edition prints,
sometimes in the past, I would do these little certificates.
So I just thought it'd be cool. You know, sometimes
you just get a shirt in the mail and it's
just not enough because you've been getting these shirts and
they've got a sticker and they've got you know, all
this other crap that's coming along with the shirt.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
So that was my my my chance to put something
else in there, that a little momento.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I like it. I saw that, I was like, oh,
all right, that's cool. Now I felt like I really
really got something special. I mean, when you first, hey,
let me send you a couple of shirts, I was like, wow, okay,
thank you, it's yeah. I when we asked the way
to the health income from since I haven't.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Well so that show okay. So I knew they had
this pre Super Bowl warm up show in Miami going
on and I had, Okay, let me just wrap my
head around this. Okay, this is around February. So my
birthday is February third, and the Super Bowl is always
going on around my birthday. So I remember I was

(50:22):
making some custom shirts. It was probably like the second
batch of shirts that I was making for Axel, and
I had made some shows, some shirts about this show
called The Outsider that I was told that he really liked,
which was on HBO. It's based on Stephen King novel
and pretty rad show. But then I was thinking of like,
how can I make something that's authentically Florida, Because when

(50:42):
I was working for post Malone, a lot of times
I would make things that were city centric. They had
a lot of imagery or references to the city that
he was going to be wearing the outfit in. And
so I thought, let's get something that's kind of Florida
based or whatever. And I just thought, you know, the
Palm Tree was something that was interesting and that it's
just going to be super hot down there, and the

(51:04):
political climate at the time was really on fire, and
I just thought, you know, I don't know, I'm trying
to figure it out. I'm trying to give you a
good story. The dots that I was connecting, I just
thought would be kind of sick to have a ratch
like a big shirt that had Hell on it, almost
like a skateboard graphic. And so I just was dicking

(51:25):
around sketching some ideas, and then I just thought, okay,
what about like, you know, like an atom bomb blowing
up behind a palm tree, and that image together with Hell,
the GNR red and yellow color scheme, just it looked
really cool. And so I made that. I cut that
all out my hand stencil and did some airbrush work
on it. And yeah, it was my birthday on the third,

(51:48):
and I think they wore on the fourth or something
like that, and I remember looking and he wore like
a shit ton of my shirts. And so that was
just a really special birthday present of being like, all right,
the world's being okay to me right now, no complaint
saxel or a ton of my shirts. And I went
and had I think dinner with my mom. You know,
it was a good time.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Yeah, have you ever, I mean again, I understand the
politics of it all, just like I want to say,
you have you ever tried to reach out to him directly?
Or is it always through that.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
I have not I've been very respectful of knowing that
he's a very private guy. You know, he's one of
the most notoriously hermetic people that like just went underground
for so long and we didn't know what was going
on with him in the pre Chinese democracy era. And
his team has just been so kind and I'm so
grateful that just to be included in his his arsenal

(52:43):
of fashion. You know, he's one of the most iconic
fashion people, you know that we have in the Rock Lexicon.
Those those shirts in his you know, you could turn
on the TV in nineteen eighty nine and he'd be
wearing leather pants and like shit that he had taken
from Izzy. And then the next day he's wearing like
a kill and a catcher's protector and looking like that's
the coolest thing that ever, like was ever put together,

(53:05):
or the Versace stuff. And so the fact that you know,
I didn't have to go to fashion school, I didn't
have to read Vogue and all this stuff, and somehow
I got my way in there, and that I appealed
to his sensibilities as a you know, as a human.
You know, I just just thought that my stuff was cool.
That's enough for me. I do have some other gn

(53:25):
R member stories again the VR Velvet Revolver thing. I've
been around Scott Wild quite a few times, not like
Buddy Buddy, but you know, to the point where I
knew who he was and he knew who I was.
And I did have a really fun conversation at a
Weenie roast with Matt Sorehm in like two thousand. This

(53:46):
was before a revolver for him and when he was
back with a cult that As you probably know, Matt
is like loves to talk and he's got some good
stories and loved to shoot the shit. Super cool guy.
And I had had some like a brief conversation with
Gilby when his daughter and my brother's band were playing
in downtown l A right before the pandemic, and he

(54:07):
was super cool. And then I went to a Camp
Freddy show and I touched Slash as he was walking
by me, and I said, give us a good show, Slash,
and he kind of looked at me like I'm fucking Slash,
of course, but I was just that was a very
Waynesborod moment where one of my best friends, Jordan Hellman,
who's my partner in crime and rock and Roll is

(54:28):
walking right in front of me. He's about six foot
something and he's just like behind me, behind me, behind me,
and he steps to the side and Slash with the
leather jacket is coming towards me, and we're an eye
level and I'm just like O Me Trix.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
But I was hammered at that point. And then Duff
was right behind us and like gave my friend I
five was like, look, yeah, so I do have that overlap.
But you know, no no Axle stories to share. And
I apologize if everyone's tuning out. I now wants a refund.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
What hey, this is free. Uh, there's no refund. I'm
just asking you out of curiosity, because, yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
I hope so that one day, you know, I could
pay it forward and just say thank you. As a
human being. I'm not like a super I've met the
diehard fans. I'm a big fan of Guns and Roses.
They are my favorite band for what they've taught me
about rock and roll, of how they lit that fire
that has never extinguished. But I've met the big super
fans to the front row, people that are super dedicated,

(55:30):
as I say, I said to them. I'm like, you know,
we're the same species, but we're a different breed.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
I I understand that as somebody who talks to fans
on the on their regular I mean, I don't know
how you can afford it, first of all, but yeah,
they're just they're great.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
They're like Margo. Shout out to Margo and the girls
that they showed up at my art show. I told
you a little bit, but they I had this art
showed in like Torrents of all places, and like a
pack of these diehard, really devoted fans were super sweet.
They came and we swapped you in our stories for
like a couple hours, and they stayed the whole time.
And it was just rap to meet these people that

(56:08):
that that band has the same effect on them and
that they're just they're so grateful that the band is
still around. And I will just say that there's a
you know, if you look at the internet over the years,
there's been a lot of people that are coming at
this band from a why don't they do this? Or
I wish they were like this, or I wish he
sounded like this, or I wish they played this. And

(56:29):
that's fair. I mean, we all have an all the
cart understanding of what we want our reality to be.
But just be grateful that they are playing, and that
they are not playing, that they are still out there
giving one hundred percent when they're playing. I mean, these guys.
Rock and roll was not created for people their age
to be doing this stuff. This is super challenging material

(56:50):
to travel, to get warmed up, to do all this
stuff that they probably don't understand that this is like
athletic stuff that they're doing a prep to be able
to give you a huge chunk of their life to
put on a show to hopefully make you happy.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Three hour show that they don't need to do an axel.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Fuck, he is such a pro. I mean he's he
performs the whole time, he is not locked into the
mic phoning it in, and when he gets those notes
that he invented that nobody else in this world can hit,
it is worth the price of admission for one fucking
bar of vocals in my opinion, and that's just my opinion.

(57:30):
So I hope I can just instill a little bit
more faith in that this band is worth your time
and money hopefully to continue to see into support because
when they're gone they're gone. There is no Axel Rose
Part two coming. Rock and roll is not better off
now than it was ten years ago, and it's not
better off than it was twenty years ago. They'll be

(57:52):
grateful that these guys are still entertaining us.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
I agree with you, and I had said this recently
with because there was an article that came out, a
few articles that came out about my interview with lou
Graham partner, and I just asked his opinion, you know,
because it was just interesting, okay, when when Foreigner was
hot in the eighties, and it's a different kind of
rock than when Guns of Roses came in. And I've
always had a chance to ask the other kind of

(58:17):
hair metally bands about what they thought about. But I'm like,
here's a chance to ask this pop rock band vocalist
who's about you know now thankfully hall of famer, But
Asko's voice, and he goes to talk about how he
can hear he was damaging his voice early on, and
that kind of set off a bunch of comments about
how he sounds now and all these things. And yes,

(58:37):
we all have our opinion, and even like me, I
would love to see an acoustic stuff or maybe you know,
different songs that fit his range. Now all of that
being said, is just playing fantasy baseball or football. Yeah,
at the end of the day, I've always say I'm
so grateful that they're here because when I became a fan,

(58:58):
like a fully in my my psyche and just like
you know, they were broken up, they were already broken up.
I thought they would never get back together. I thought
I would never see slashing axle on stage. And the
fact that they've been doing it literally as long as
I've been doing this podcast, and I've kind of been
along on this ride with the fans as a fan,
I by accident did not I remember. I told I've

(59:19):
said this before my still current friend, former co host
Ian Scotto, when he first came to me with this
idea about a GNR podcast, I thought that was stupid.
I'm like, what, they're my favorite band, but what am
I going to talk about November rain for an hour?
But here we are, you know, eight years later, that's
leading up to the reunion at the at the Troubadour.
And just grateful that they are still together. And while

(59:42):
I voice my frustrations about certain interviews or not getting
certain interviews. That's just me get taking things personally, and
you know, it can hurt my perception of the business
of just like how people are, how certain things are,
communicad or whatever. But at the end of the day,
these I've heard nothing but wonderful stories about all these men,

(01:00:06):
and they all could be looked up to. Yeah, they
might have been rough around the edges back in the day,
but I think now all of them are like role models. Yeah,
it's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yeah, that's interesting too, because when I was introduced to
these guys, they were in their early twenties, and the
perception of mental health and all these things right now
is so much more. It's so much more heightened. People
are acutely aware of these things that people are dealing

(01:00:39):
with that may be affecting them in their professional life.
And when we first get introduced to guns n' roses,
it's just like, oh, they're all just crazy, right, axles, crazy, slashes, this,
blah blah blah. And then over time you get to
realize that these guys were kind of fish out of water.
They were put in these really bizarre worlds of business
and public spectacle, and they probably didn't get to address

(01:01:02):
any of these things that were really fucking them up,
and so they become a much more complicated individual with fame, drugs, women,
dot dot dot dot dot dot dot. And so it's
really cool, as you said, to see them now as
adults putting in the work on themselves and putting in
their work as individuals and going out there. And you know,

(01:01:25):
it didn't take Oprah to get them together, like whoever
it was. You know, they had to agree that they
were going to put differences aside and that they were
going to evolve together and continue to offer this gift
that they created when they were young and wild and
fucked up with this new relationship that they have and
so we get to see them be probably better people

(01:01:45):
and they're giving us a lot right now. And I
don't know, you know, again, I'm not going to say
all these guys were saints and you're defending them and
cancel culture this that day, I think, I know, I'm
just coming into it purely as a fan, like I
can look at a Jackson Pollock er Picasso and appreciate
the artwork and not be like, oh, well he was
a piece of ship or that guy was a murderer,
you know, like I can separate those two things. And

(01:02:06):
I'm just coming to it as a as a fan
and someone who appreciates rock and roll in.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Music likewise, and I think that's why we've been getting
along today and having this, uh, this long conversation because
I look at it as a as a flawed fan.
I'm a flawed person and I'm just and I look
at these guys. That's what gravitated me towards them, not
just in addition to the music, is that they're all
flawed in ways that I saw myself. And sure, and

(01:02:32):
then we spoke about people that, like with Scott and Taylor,
who couldn't overcome these demons and it's so painful. But
we see these guys the band that's behind you, over
your over your shoulder, right, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
A specific decorating, right, this is on brand decorating, and
this is well my brand. This is one of my
pains that Iggy pops. So but yeah, this guy, these
guys were were very.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Wild, right and people will so complain about you know,
the two other guys there, Steven and Izzy not being
in it, but you know what, they're all alive, man, Yeah,
and they're all like they seem like they're happy, and like, yeah,
I'm grateful. I'm grateful I get to have this conversation
with you, and everything else is just kind of having fun.
If you want to talk about the set list, you
want to talk about new music, all of that is fun.

(01:03:21):
You know, It's really not important in the grand landscape
of things. But the fact that we have this band
that you could see, I'm sure Axel was and s
last year probably were hurting for a long time that
they lost their one time best friend or their friend
that they made this, and then to see them smiling
on stage together, especially when Axel was wearing one of
your shirts, is pretty special and cool and I can't wait.

(01:03:43):
You know, there are rumors of them touring next year.
I don't know where it's going to be. You know,
there might be rumors of the overseas. I don't know
in our neck of the woods, but I don't know.
I now with my wife because she mentioned you went
to London and see gn R. She dragged me to
London go see Dave Matthews, even though my son and
when I we just stayed in the hotel room and

(01:04:05):
played with docs.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
So he's great. Though he's great.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
No he is very talented. It's just I've seen him
once is enough. Once is enough for me. Over seventy
is not enough for her. But the next time they
tore gn R, I can't wait to go with my
son and pass the torch of this band that is
so cool. So and he's gonna get all these stories
from this freaking podcast and we may not have known

(01:04:32):
so and these these are all these peripheral people that
are somehow involved in Adam and you were one of them.
I hope to do this again. I'll extend it because
you're so cool to talk to. If you ever want
to come on as as a co host, if you
ever see a guest I announced, you're like, hey, you
know what, I've made sures for that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Maybe someone will.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
You could talk more than her. That's that's it's all.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
Right, Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity. Yeah.
I don't know what's going on with that upcoming tour,
but if I still just have one client as a
fashion guy, like I'm happy for it to be for
Axel And if it doesn't happen, I'll still be a
fan and I'll still be watching your videos and I'll
still be at their shows.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Yeah, as you told me before, and I guess still
it is again my negative mindset that's been so hard
to break out of, like no one listens whatever. And
before we started recording, you're like, I've been listening to
you for years, like I've subscribed. When you know you
asked me to be on the podcast, I was excited

(01:05:36):
and I was. You saw my face. All of that
was just like I wasn't like, oh yeah, of course,
of course I was, just I was surprised. So those
I appreciate moments like that, and the fact that this
is still happening, you know, four hundred and eighty one
episodes into this and I was born.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
In nineteen eighty one, so that's another fun coincidence.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Perfect, perfect, And as far as what is to come
for the next episode, I don't know. I'm not sure.
There's a lot of a lot of feelers out there.
But you can be just like Eric and just comment
to whether I specifically asked on a post on social
media or not, say hey, have you thought about so
and so, and maybe I have, maybe I haven't. And

(01:06:18):
look at that, Eric created an episode out of nowhere,
so yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
I will just say in this timeframe, we get really
preoccupied with volume of lights and views. But if you
can kind of scale it down a little bit and
think about how many people saw the first sex Pistol show,
how many people saw the first Stooges show, you know,
or followed the Stooges or did these really interesting things

(01:06:44):
where interesting people. Not in massive by the millions or
by the hundreds of thousands, but you know when the
thousands or hundreds followed things, and that is special in itself,
you know, and that there are some you know, again,
I've been watching this stuff for years. I think I'm okay,
I'm a good person, especially guy, and there's a lot
of other people that might not be filling up those

(01:07:05):
view counts comparable to some other channel or other garbage
or whatever. But it's still worthwhile, and it's still informing people,
and it's still making people happy and probably engaging with
like YouTube or Facebook or stuff in a way that
is not negative. You know. There's so many people that

(01:07:25):
are just these newscasters for fucking hate out right now,
and that's become the norm. And now it's just like,
just give me like ten minutes to geek out with
the guy from foreigner, or for the guy from Nineish
Nails or with you know, something like that, and you're
providing that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
So thank you. Referring to my Aaron North interview which
I still get comments on YouTube being like he's alive.
Thanks for doing it live, just somebody I'm lucky, one
of the many interviews I've gotten lucky enough to do.
You can also send emails. You can at the AfD
Show at gmail dot com if you have. I have
a suggestion website a fdpod dot com. Constantly be an

(01:08:05):
updated shout out to my buddy Graham out in Scotland
that does all my graphics and helps me out with
the website. It's just been a lot of fun. I
can't wait to see what's gonna happen, and knowing that
you're listening at them all, I'll up my game. I'll
up my game. So that does it for this episode
of Appetite for the Stortion. When we see the next one.
In the words of Axel Rose concerning Chinese democracy, I

(01:08:28):
don't know as soon as the word, but you'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
It thanks to the lame ass security. I'm going home