Chip Z'Nuff: Xtra Cherries, Steven Adler, and Guns N' Roses | Ep. 518

Enuff Z’nuff are back with "Xtra Cherries" and the charismatic Chip Z'nuff returns to the podcast to discuss their new album. Plus, Chip talks about his close relationship with Steven Adler, touring with a Guns N' Roses tribute band, and more!

More info:
https://www.enuffznuff.com/
https://orcd.co/enuffznuff_xtracherries
https://youtu.be/kdpCirxG-WI?si=wWxgSmH_85JTt-FT
https://www.facebook.com/prettytiedupgnr/

"Xtra Cherries," available on all formats everywhere July 25!

WEBSITE: www.afdpod.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yes is Appetite for Distortion. Welcome to the podcast Appetite

(00:32):
for Distortion. My name is Brando, Episode number five hundred
and eighteen. Welcome back to the podcast, Chips Enough, it's
been seven years. I barely remember much about our conversation.
I don't know if you do either, but welcome, Welcome, sir, Thank.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
You, brand I'm holding Ace. I'm living in cyberspace and
my microphommobile on my English reel. The reel. It's always
nice to talk to cats who old friends, who I
haven't seen in years. You still look young. You look
about thirty years younger than me, obvious least there's something
in the water out in the Queens, And it's just
it's nice to see you, Elsey.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's the first time because our first interview this was
back in again seven years ago, so I called it
before times, before COVID and all that. So I was
just doing a straight up what podcast that was just
audio and it was you with your stories. It was
as visual as an audio podcast as you can get.
But now I'm just grateful to have another opportunity with

(01:33):
you again, to actually see you. And it's so funny
because our last my last interviewer, guys are making me
feel good, said the same thing I asked. He's like,
how old are you? And I said, guess thought I
was in my early thirties. I started this podcast, was
it was in my early thirties back in twenty sixteen.
But I'm gonna be forty two and it's September, so

(01:53):
I don't know if it's the rest of having my
son and wife on vacation or it's the water and queens.
But either way, you look good man. You always look
like a rock star with your glasses and the hat.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Man. I love that.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I can never rock the I'm not cool enough to
rock the chips enough style Iran.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
In those early enoughs enough days and we were just
first starting out twitter around the country, opening for Cheap
Trick or Bto or bad Lands. I'd get in my
bunk and I go to sleep, just like this, and
I hear my manager Bob brigg and Bob Brigham and
Doc McGee were managing the band in the early days.
I hear Bob say to me, we're doing it. And

(02:30):
I got out of my bunk and I'd be just
he goes, how do you do it? I'd be sleeping
in the bunk, just like this, I get up and
get up and go out right up on stage. We
yell on the pillow and that was the warm up
for vocals, okay, and then we'd get up there and
play the shows and we're doing a blistering hour set.
That's all we had material wise, even though we had

(02:50):
hundreds of songs, and the first record came out and
it was, you know, the debut, so it was only
a ten song record, and then we'd throw a couple
of songs and every we had to play a little
bit longer depending on who we're playing with, and we
able to navigate that. Those shows were just absolutely off
the chain and sindiary. I don't know how we did
it because we had a Brinch truck of drugs on

(03:11):
the bus, we had tons of alcohol. But we were
always focused making the records. Brandon from the beginning, from
day one, and Donny and I took that very seriously.
But once we were done recording and put the songs together,
then the extracurricular activities would slip through.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Is it a little different nowadays? As you know, we're
here to talk of a lot of things, one of
which is extra cherries spelled with an X. Do you
do that? Is it the same routine? Do you go
to sleep just like that? And is that your vocal
routine when you're out on tour? Is it slightly different nowadays?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
But my vocal routine is because I watched all my
constituents all warming up backstage, you know, and I go,
you know, I don't really want to do that. I
don't have to, so I just talk to the fans
and people that are at the shows, and I open
my pipes up that way, and then I go up
there and sing. Wow. It's a different approach for me too,
as far as the extracurricular activities, because you know, obviously,

(04:06):
back in the old days, with subse abuse and promiscuity
comes good songs. That's that's the Bob Doll. All the
great artists from the past, same thing. You can ask
them all. They experimented and they come up with great ideas.
But nowadays there's not drugs around my camp, and my
guys are good. We're all straight and focused, and the

(04:27):
task in hand is to leave a good performance and
leaving a doulible mark with the audience. And if you
look at the internet and look at how people are talking,
and everybody says they come out and see the shows,
and that brings back the old memories the first time
they party, the first time they got laid, first time
they fell in love, and this of those songs invoke
every single night, and I just want to leave an

(04:47):
adelible mark of fans that come up have been coming
out to support the band throughout the years, and even
on this record Extra Cherries, you know, I took a
popri of songs from the past and from the present,
put them all together, and to me, some of them
might have been older songs. Heavy Metal was written back
in twenty seventeen when we were doing the Diamond Boy record,

(05:09):
and we held that all the way until today and
finally put it out there and people are loving it.
You know, I had friends of mine, I had the
demos that were begging of me, please put that song
out there. It's a great tune, and I finally listened
to him. And some of the other material too that
you hear in this record, stuff with Steven Adler that
he'd recorded with me twelve years ago at my house
here on Blue Island, and the stuff with Neil Sean

(05:31):
and Robert Fleischman from Journey. Those are that's material that's
thirty years old. No one's ever heard it. It's not
fair for me to hang on today and keep them
in the vault. I want to share them with the people.
That's what music's all about. It's about freedom and getting
out there and no rules, no regulations, no handcuffs. And
I think that we nailed it on this record in
that way where it's a Poe Prix of songs and

(05:51):
it's a mix pop rock, heavy metal alternative. It's all
right there for you and maybe there's something that might
trip your trigger.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I love that, and you are right because in the
days of don't look at the comment section. Do look
at the comment section on the video for heavy Metal,
and it's exactly everything Chip just said. You know, it's
taken you back. It's just it's it's it's even though
it's a few years old, it sounds fresh. It's but

(06:20):
it's reminding them of of of a day of yesteryear
of when just that they're happy that you were still
out there representing the brand. And I love you all
the posters that you're showing me. Pearl Jam Soundgarden, Matt
Cameron by the way.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Just Ve Man good, good friend of mine. Him and
his brother good people have been following for years. And
I remember going to see Pearl Jam when they were
playing el Pine Valley and his brother came up. He
was too drum checking the band and he says, Oh,
these guys are huge enough snuff fans. I go, hold
on a second. I went back to my car was
parked in the backstage area and pull out a bunch

(06:55):
of all enough snuffshirts and gave them to the cats.
And they're early, they're pretty. I've smitten by my generosity.
And I was smitten as well because they gave me
backstage passes and I was able to watch those guys
kick casting for the sixty thousand people.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
What a unique year for drummers because he had matc
Hammer leaving Pearl Jam and you just don't know, you
knew you heard about that that broke I think yesterday
as we're recording that. I'm not sure what's next for him,
but you know, speaking of drummers, and one of the
names that you mentioned, and to tie it into extra
Cherries is Steven Adler who plays on the album. But

(07:32):
you have to get the CD version. Is that how
that works.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, Cleo Pats with Brian Pereira and his team Matt
Green and Ken Tye, they have a game plan, fair
enough stuff. We did a deal with them years ago
for our catalog where he licensed all the records to them.
Really nice to have everything underneath one umbrella and make
it real simplistic for us. They were the ones that
came up with the idea of you know, let's just

(07:56):
do it like where we put everything indically and we'll
put one song out of the time, of course in
the video, but then we'll follow up previous single week
with something brand new, a new single, a new video,
just to keep the momentum going. And you guys got
to stay out there and work and of course, I
mean they work us like puppets. It's amazing with a

(08:16):
team that we that they put together. We got a
great publicist with demand over at ABC, so it's a
wonderful team. Everybody's focused on the what the common denominator is,
which is get people to hear this record and listen
and perhaps they'll lead to bigger things for us to
elevate our perception. There's no doubt about that. It's a

(08:37):
challenge in this day and age to put a record
out there, especially us in US Cats at the age
we are at right now, most bands aren't putting brand
new records out there and they're just going. Most of
them are just touring on their hits of the past,
and we focus our attention on the past but also
on the present as well. And I think this is
a really rock solid record. And every night we go

(08:59):
out with songs off the Extra Churies record, with the
heavy metals in the set every single night, but I'm
mixing it up with old stuff. For Indian Angel, we
don't even do that very often. It's in the set now.
I got some of those Beatles songs from the Hard
Rock Night record and there at Fly Michelle Baby Loves
You off Strength. It's a it's a it's a POLP
Prix of material all through our career. I love trainers

(09:21):
in the set now from animals and human intelligence. I
think it's come. I'll see enough enough show and you're
gonna get seven or eight hits now because of all
the material that we've put out and all the records
that we're showcasing every single night.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
And I'd be remissed if because go back to one
of the comments that I read, because you just mentioned
before about just the name Cheap Tricks. I don't want
to lose that the heavy metal sounds like the Beatles
meets Cheap Trick, and then songwriting is great, so again
you can just don't take Chips word for it. This
is these are the fans talking enough enough. I love
all the background that you got going on, but towards

(09:57):
that from that's from the album that was.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
From the tour we did with Cheap and Nasty Nasty Suicide.
He used to be in a band called Hanoi Rocks
and they were our opening act on our second tour
over in the UK, which I thought was pretty special.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
The old Cream magazine right there.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
I love looking online for those old magazines and Rocket
just yesterday I can't tell who those are.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Bass players, which is very special. Yeah, my wife put
all these pictures up in the in the studio, which
I thought was kind of nice because if you look
at it you walk in, you go, this guy's got
an ego bigger than the crowd of the Metallica show.
But I really don't. I'm proud of the history of
I'm proud of the history of enough's enough and what
we've achieved up to this point. And it's nice that

(10:48):
when people come by here and they look at the
crib and they go, Wow, you did that, Oh, you
did that. This is so cool. You don't see any
gold or platinum records really here because I've never received
any of those. For some reason or another, the record
company never sent us anything. I think the first record
is gold, to be honest with you. Second record, I
know was close to gold because when we were rolling
stone on that. In the Hot issue in ninety one,

(11:10):
it's said that a record company said that they plan
the record. It's that three hundred and fifty thousand sold,
they plan it going platinum. But I've never received any
of that. The accolades come from we making the records
and going out and playing the shows and meeting the
fans and they say how a certain song has changed
our life. That's what it is at the end of
the day. For us. It's nice when I see my
rockstar friends and you go to your house, like Rick

(11:31):
Nielsen from Cheap Trick, and you see all the golden
platinum records on the wall. It's a real nice thing
to see. Gadler too, sixty five million sold. He's got
in his wall in his front room and they've sold
over one hundred million records. And the same thing with
CC and Poison. Those cats have brings truck full of
records on the walls. He's gotten turned around up where
he came and read them. They're just sitting the guy
on the floor. He goes, Jim, take them. I don't

(11:52):
even want him. And of course, yeah, I just if
I could have one gold record just to pass out
to me in the gang, I'd be so proud of that.
But at the end of day day, it's it doesn't
matter the materialistic part of it. What matters most is
leaving an adulible mark on the songs for our new.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Generation, and you have done that. And to the kind
of well, a couple of things I want to circle
back on, but before I lose it, because you credited
your wife for decorating that. So shout out to kl
who was on the podcast to talk about her her
book about Jack Russell. So you just wanted to make
sure I give give her.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Oh yeah, the Tales of the Tales of Mister Boney
Jack Russell's story. Fabulous reading, great, great book. And I
know it's my wife, but she's a fabulous writer. No
one knows that she just did a record. She did
a full length record. We did over she called a
recorded company for he closed down. I'm looking for a
home for it right now. And it's got some Derek

(12:45):
Charinian from Black Country Communion on the record. Also, uh
Joel Holks playing guitar on the record, and Deck Steals
some playing drums and I'm playing bass. I produced it,
And I'm not just saying but she's an incredible writer,
not just the book writer, not just an author, unbelievable songwriter.

(13:06):
And I hope people get a chance to hear that
record one of these days. It's called a Swan Maiden.
That's the name of the project, Swan Maiden, and hopefully
we'll get it out sometime before the end of the
year early next year. And she's just a fabulous musician,
you know, my wife. No one understands how the background

(13:27):
she comes from. Her cousin is Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater.
He's my cousin now because we're married. Of course I
love him so much. Just a fabulous musician. He played
on one of enough Enough records with me on the
arm because we're family. But then she's also when she
was growing up, she was around all these illustrious stars.
Her grandmother was the girlfriend of Sully from The Grateful Dad,

(13:52):
So Scully and her will live together. She's got all
these old posters and all these R. Crumb postcards. She's
got hundreds of thousands of dollars with a memorabilia that
was left to her and then more importantly to me,
Billy Chill used to live at her grandmother's house, and
he wrote Moving Out about her family. Oh, her grandmother.
Her grandmother was Mama Leone. So you know, people don't

(14:14):
know about that stuff that she's done. And I'm really
proud of her achievements and her. She's got a movie
coming out real soon too, called Everything Works in the End.
I think it's called and it should be coming out
and Netflix sings real soon, So she doesn't really promoted
as well as she should, but nothing to be ashamed of.
They're a quite an illustrious history and a great life

(14:35):
that she's had. And this was all before me.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Well, no, she was awesome to talk to and I
didn't know all that. So I'll be watching what Chip
and KL do. I mean, both of you guys have
a lot of creativity going on in the future. But
and then another name, though, I obviously have to talk about.
Can you talk about Steven Adler in the song Zillion
Miles Away? Is that one of the songs that you
wrote back when I don't know, you said that you

(15:02):
wrote a bunch of songs back in the early aughts
or whatever, the early twenty tens. I guess I want
to say, no.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
This, yeah, this was even earlier. This was back in
the nineties. Oh sung the County and I wrote and
I wanted to I changed the title and changed a
few of the lyrics on it. Where you did the
whole song around Stephen Adler's drumming. Stephen was living at
my house here in Blue Island, where I'm talking to
you from right now, and Stephen would he was trying
to get cleaned up, and that's the best place from

(15:30):
the to do it would be here in Blue Island
with me. And we left California, a studio city, came
here and where's going to stay here? For a month?
That was it, And I thought, well, you know what,
I want to keep him busy when we're recording, when
we're in the studio because the house is also a
studio here. And what Stephen would do is during the
mornings before I have bands come in here to record

(15:51):
the records. Uh, he would get on the drums and
check the drums for me, and he play all these
iconic beats from the old days, and guns and roses
and the early stuff that he did, and I thought,
this is incredible. I had my engineer recording all that stuff,
and then I listened back to it to make sure
we had the right drum sounds, and I said, just
keep all this stuff on a hard drive for me.
I'm going to use this for later on. And Stephen goes,
that's okay, Sh'll be used whatever you want. And that's

(16:13):
what I did. I went to my tapes and my
hard drives and my library and pulled out beats of
Steven Adler and wrote songs around his drumming. Okay, you
can't go wrong, because he's got his own swing, his
own timber, and back then he was still full of
pisson vinegar. He's still playing great now, but his drumming
live and in the studio have always been incendiary to me,

(16:36):
and I thought, man having him on the record He'll
be proud of it because it shows people that he
still can play his ass off, and who cares how
old it is or or when it was recorded. It's
about sharing those songs with the audience out there. Everybody
wants to hear what Steven's doing, and this is a
perfect showcase of what he's all about in the studio
playing on a nice pop song.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Oh that's so cool, that's how Because yeah, we talk about,
especially on this podcast, if the way Guns and Roses
have currently done things, older songs made new And I've
always argued you want to hear the music, it really
shouldn't matter when it was recorded. So I mean, that's
cool that you have this ninety Stephen Nadler on the record,

(17:18):
and the reason why I thought it was on a
different year. So I want to credit Mariano on Facebook
when I said you were coming on the podcast. He's
still in an interview with you that you mentioned that
there was a period between twenty ten twenty twelve that
you and Stephen live together and they were constantly playing
and he recorded more than forty songs together. So I

(17:39):
didn't true.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Actually, I lived with Stephen from two thousand and five
to two thousand and eleven Wow with him and his
beautiful wife Caroline and Carolina and also the doggies. We
had four doggies of house, you know, so those definitely
brought a lot of love in to us. And all
we would do is watch family Guy American Dad in

(18:01):
south Park all day. Shippy, don't trust to TV. That's
what you say every day, and I wouldn't. I left
it alone. And he wasn't doing a drugs, no crack, cocaine,
none of that bad. So he's really trying to be clean.
And I was really proud of me. He said, smoke
quite a bit of pot because he would call it oxygen.
He loved his pot. But we just listened to music

(18:21):
all day and watch cartoons, and it was every single day.
And then we'd have a tour and we jump on
a plane, fly out to California. From California to England,
we'd do a thirty or thirty two show, run all
through England and Europe, come back way another month or two.
The agency was Artists Worldwide. It was booking us at
the time, and they would put us out in South

(18:43):
America and we play shows out there. No money. By
the way, I come home with you know, three four
hundred bucks after playing four or five shows out there
because management company took all the money, but we didn't care.
We played for thousands of fans every single day, and
more importantly, we got a chance to watch those people,
how say they were hearing those guns and Roses songs
and all that stuff. I've appetite for Destruction as Stephen

(19:05):
was a part of.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
That's that's that's so cool. And but I would be
remiss because you're gonna be playing Alphetite for Destruction with
a friend of the show who I share a name with, right,
Brandon Fields of Pretty Tied Up. You're going You're going
out on tour with them? Uh, And I don't know
the guy's name. The guy was the guy who's singing
for AXL was on I don't know, like Mexican TV.

(19:30):
In person, he was.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
He was on South America and I think it was
American Idol.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
His name is La thank You, and the guys looks.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
And sounds just like Actually he's a young cat, like
twenty six years old. He's got a wonderful swagger. I'm
looking forward to seeing if he can sing those songs
every single day. Because there's a long, illustrious tour. Pretty
Tied Up goes out from uh We leave tomorrow for
Philadelphia and we're out all the way until August sixteenth.
It's a long run, not many days off on their brother,

(20:00):
but it's a really good band. He's got Alex Kane
formerly a Life, Sex and Death, and Marky Ramone playing guitar,
and I think he's got I think I'm not mistaken
at some of the shows. I think it's Rob Hammersmith
from skid Row might be doing some of the tour
as well. So he's got this all star band of
good musicians and we'll just be focusing on Appetite for Destruction.

(20:20):
That's it. It's really challenging. Those jag Offs wrote those
songs in there in our twenties and now here we
are grown men going out there and trying to play
them as well as they did him. It's good. It's
definitely a challenging time to employees tunes, but I'm always
up for the challenge.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
And you know, I'm sure it's even hard for those
jag Office to play them themselves at this age. I
think that needs to be taken into account. But you
know what, this is I'm really curious about this. What
makes you Chips Enough? Who has Enough's Enough? You know,
Brandon's a good dude, like I understand wanting to play

(20:59):
with him, But for you to commit to a tour
to play guns and Roses music, I guess find that
very It's cool and curious. So I'm just curious, why
Why is chips Enoup playing guns and Roses? Why are
you doing that?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
It's a chance for me to go out and work
after we just finish up this last tour. I was
able to. I talked to the agency and I said
I was asked to do this tour with a band
called Pretty Tied Up playing the guns and Roses Appetite
for destruction. I'm familiar with those songs cause I did
it for years with Steven and his Appetite. And they're
paying me a brigs truck full of money to go

(21:30):
out and do it. I thought, why don't I go
out and play and trying to make some dough. Let's
face it, in Enough's Enough band, we go out and
play these shows. It is a challenge. Every day my
ass is on the chatman block. I gotta fly everybody in.
I gotta get transportation, We got a hotel, rooms, got
to pay for fuel, Gotta make sure the band is
paid every single night. And I love working with Enough's Enough,
That's my baby. But when I get a chance to

(21:51):
an opportunity like this, I had to say yes. I
talked to my guys in the band, and Jason Camino
and and the rest of the guys in the band
Luis of course read Double Vortex, and and my chiller
drummer Brent Arsmith. They al said, man, go out and work. Man,
if there's an opening, we'll come out and do it

(22:12):
with you. And it's just so happens that I'm going
on tour during a time where Enough Stuff is putting
a record out there. But there's plenty of bands that
put records out on the they tour a month after
the records released.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
I'm gonna do the same thing, right on, all right,
This is very cool, just like one of those things
like oh Wow. And Brandon's hasn't been impressive of what
he's been able to put together with his Minefield project
working with Todd Kurrn, so we a shout out to
I like him for more than just his brilliant name.
I also really remiss. I don't again, I said this before.
I don't expect you to remember our conversation from from

(22:48):
seven years ago. But during that we spoke, of course
then about Steven Adler too, and you were I would
never ask you to speak for Steven, and you were
very just cool about like why he wasn't really involved
or your opinion of why he wasn't involved in the
reunion and why he continued or why he didn't continue.
I'm just curious if you have. It's just it seems

(23:09):
now that with them now hiring Isaac Carpenter, it's been
several years. I just I just posted on my social
media it was like the anniversary of him reuniting with
Guns and Roses in Ohio. It's been so long? Is
that that even? Do you even think that crosses his mind?
And feel free to say I can't speak for him,
but because I know he's doing his thing, he's doing great.

(23:32):
But there are still fans out there who while Isaac
Carpenter is killing it out there, Stephen still alive. And
we saw this Black Sabbath thing where like they finally
got the Sabbath guys together with bill Ward, did it right?
Is the same thing gonna happen with Guns and Roses.
They're gonna have to like do it right before they
all die, you know. So I'm just curious what your

(23:52):
thoughts are, what you can share.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Sure, Brandon. For years and years, Steve and I would
sit in the front row at his house and stood
city and pray for the telephone call. He loves Slash,
loves stuff, loves Axel. He wanted to do it bad.
It was a dream for him. And what happened was
phone call from the Guns and Roses camp. They were
playing at a place in Las Vegas, and Steven goes,

(24:17):
you think I should go to gig Shippy, I said,
are you kidding me? Absolutely, go make amends. It's time
to Burriyer to hatch it with you and Axl. You
guys had a illustrious career together. Go say hello, enjoy
the show. So he goes to the Vegas gig to
see Guns and Roses play, just before slashes back in
the band by the way, And when he gets to

(24:38):
the gig, he smothered like a bum in a baloney sandwich.
Fans are attacking him. They just wanted to autographing a picture,
and he loves the fans beyond belief, and then he
gets a phone call from Axel's guy saying, listen, man,
we don't want to piss the Axle off. Well, maybe
it's better if you just leave. So Steven leaves the
show before it even starts. He's bummed out, and he
gets back to his place in Las Vegas where he's

(24:59):
living at time, and he's crying. He's just bummed out
that he's going to miss the show and he gets
the phone call. His phone rings as he's putting the
key in the door, and it's the camp saying, we
made a mistake. Please come back. Axel wants to see you.
So Steven turns around and goes back to the venue
watches the show. At the end of the show, Axel

(25:20):
invites him over to a suite start bowling in there
and having a great time, having a couple of cocktails,
and he buried the hatchet and everything was good and
the love was back in the air. So that set
the tone for him to get another call back. Then
he gets the call to come out out and play,
and he plays the first show and he calls me
from the tour bus and he says he just faced

(25:42):
the first show, I go, how many tunes you do? Bro?
He goes, I just did two of them. They wanted
me play the best of me Appetite, and I said, well, listen,
you're cool right now, just do the two songs. He
gets through it with no hassles and no arguments or anything.
I'm sure going to call you for more songs later on.
I go, where are you at right now? He says,
I mean, She says, I go, what are you doing?
He goes, smokeingg you. I go, put the fucking joint out,

(26:03):
don't piss off Slash, show him that you're a guy,
that you can go out there and be responsible and
get through the gigs. And he played the following gig
that night, great show. And then he realized when he'd
stayed on the side of the stage he didn't want
to do it more than just to two songs. He
wanted to play more of Appetite. But Frank at the time,
who was playing drums in the band, he was a
Frank's noold friend of mine. We've done a lot of

(26:24):
recordings together as well. He used to be in a
band called Honky Toast with Richard Fortes. Frank says, I'd
love you to come up and play, but the boss
tells me just two songs, Steven, and I think Stephen
got his fix. He was able to get back out
and play in arena stadium show in front of tons
of people, and that's all he wanted to do, really,

(26:45):
And the only way he would come back to Guns
of Roses that would be to play the whole Appetite
for Destruction its entirety. And he was happy he cleansed
his soul. He feels good about that, and he goes
out and plays with Adler's appetite when there's called Adler right,
and he's and I think he's happy where he sits now.
That being said, Stephen told me that if he had

(27:06):
a chance to go back out with Guns and Roses
and play the Appetite for Destruction its entirety, he'd be
interested in doing that for sure. And I think that's
the next move for Guns and Roses if they were
going to do something. And I'm not speaking for the band,
even though I am. I love the guys, I respect
them beyond belief, but I think if they called an
Appetite for Destruction and they got Izzy back and Steven,

(27:28):
that would be a massive story, just like Oasis or
the Black Sabbath gig. Tons of people would go out
to that just to hear those great songs that sold
over one hundred million records. But you know, it's easy
to sit in the back seat and be a back
seat driver. There's more variables that are a lot of
responsibility there, and there's no room for air. And I'm
sure that guns and Roses looked at the Tarot cars

(27:51):
and realize that if we're going to make this move,
it's going to be a lot of responsibility. And can
those guys make the fourth quarter? Can they get easy back?
And that's the question right there, because I know Steven
would do it.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
That's well said just via Alan and Niven. I know
is he said he said, is he showed up at
a sound check once or was there and didn't like
what he saw and then left. And also he apparently
tried to have a meeting with Axel before the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame and Axle didn't show up.
So I mean, that's if you believe Allen Niven, which

(28:27):
I mean, I'm sure there's an element of truth there,
But again you said the key thing, there's always variables.
I don't know the other side, you know, we don't
know the other side of things, because yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
I do know that when you're in a big, major
tour like that Brandon, there's a lot of responsibility. He
got a hundred guys of the crew, you got promoters
and agents that are involved their management company, and then
you just don't want to piss off your constituents. So
there's really no room for air, no room for any
kind of little problems or any hiccups. You really got
to show up there, sign the contract, and go out

(28:57):
there and play, and you got to bring the show
every single and there's no excuses. Okay, nobody wants to
hear about I don't feel good today, or this is
not right, I don't feel good about this. You really, really,
you have to show every inch of responsibility you carry
in your body, and you know, to do a show
like that, there's just so many variables that are involved there.

(29:19):
As I just mentioned that, maybe the band that's you
don't want to bite off too much more than you
can chew. I remember playing with Guns and Roses on
their twentieth anniversary. We played the Key Club. It was
Izzy Duff, Steven myself Slashed on the side of the stage,
and I was wondering, and of course the rest of
the band was there, you know, Matt Soarm was there,

(29:40):
and Gilby and all the guys, and I asked Slash,
I go, how come you didn't want to come up
and play on the show? When he says, well, Chip,
I don't want to ruffle axles feathers, and I get
it because there's another singer that was up on stage
singing the songs. I think it was Patrick Stone at
the time, who used to sing with Sweet and Butterside.
I think he's in Hairball right now. So you know,

(30:05):
there's a lot of little things that go. They are
coming to play there, and there's a lot of feelings
that are evolved. And it was an honor for me
to get up there and play bass with those cats.
And I'm playing all those songs off Happetite for Destruction
and Steven had a great time. Those rehearsals we had
with Izzy and Duff was just incredible because those guys
are just it was loosey goosey. You know. First thing

(30:25):
Duff did when he walked into rehearsal was picked up
a guitar because I was playing bass and we went
to write. The first song was It's so easy. He
was great, and Touff was singing too, and I thought,
go tough. He's the sixth trick pony. He gets sing
he plays bass, plays guitar. Yeah, I hear he turns
butter in the winter type over in Amsterdam and done this.
You said, he's really good at what he does. And
Izy was the cat that I was just smitten by

(30:47):
how charming he was. He showed up a son on
at the top his little hat that he wears, and
he played those songs. It was effortless. In fact, he
asked me, I go it goes to g right, we're
playing out to get me. I go, that goes. I
think it's a gee right there. Because you sure, Chip,
I said, I've been playing a song for the last
eight years. Probably I'm pretty sure it. As I wrote it,
it was just me a lot of chuckles that talked

(31:07):
about the old types of the band, and he was
clean and sober, and there was really a lot of
fun playing with those guys. Is celebrating the Guns and
Roses twentieth year anniversary and here we are now, all
these years later, those guys are all playing stadiums and sheds,
they're still doing. Steven's all playing around the country. It's
great because everybody's still alive and can celebrate.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Life well said, and you're right with Guns ros doing
their thing. It was such a pleasure to see me.
I couldn't believe axelm Azzie they met each other for
the first time, you know that the Sabbath thing, and
Steven just to see him out and be successful for
such a long time with this band that is getting
grave reviews. They're great singer. So I'm just so proud

(31:50):
of Stephen and I hope it continues because I have
I have see what I've seen Guns and Roses. I
have not had the opportunity to see Steven live yet,
so that needs to happen on my buck. But we
need to circle back because obviously I could talk about
Guns and Roses for a long time, but we've got
chips enough here, but in a way to tie it
in together with moving parts and variables and personalities. So

(32:15):
was this song recorded with Donnie v that you're putting
out shine? Was that recorded when there was a better
relationship or because that's on the track, Because I mean,
may correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if
you and Donnie have the best relationship.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Well, the relationship is what it is. You know, still
a lot of love between all of us. We're still
doing business in the in the game of music. You
can you can say that much. We're not hanging out
having coffee and tea together, that's for sure, but we
certainly do talk and enough stuff is being inducted into
the Illinois Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Disturbed
and Spacily Pumpkins Awesome on September fourteens at the Realto

(32:55):
Theater and Charliet and we're all going to play a
couple of songs. And I asked alright to come up there,
because even when I seen Foreigner, or Guns and Roses
for that matter, at the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, they shared the stage with each other because
they're all part of the history. And even though Donnie's
not in the band, I thought it was only fitting
to ask him be would come up and sing with

(33:16):
us after all these years together, and of course he
accepted it. And we're gonna go out there and we're
gonna play a few songs and to a pact Soldau
House and at the world renowned rialto theater which is Bill.
It was Bill one hundred years ago and sharing a
stage with disturb who used to open for Enough Snuff.

(33:37):
How ironic that yeah, and now and of course Smashing
Pumpkins who've always adored Billy Corrigan. I think it's gonna
be a wonderful moment. And since it's really good and
it's we come full circle together, that's for sure. In
that track you're mentioning called Shine, that's early, Enough's enough.
That was us in the studio at Chicago Recording Company

(33:58):
with Neil in the studio I was recording. I was
producing a band called the Cyclops Blues Band on Guitar Recordings,
and it was Gregor Rico from Sline of Family Stone
on Norton Buffalo, from Steve Miller's band of course, the
two guys from a journey wearing there Neil, Sean and

(34:21):
Ross Valery, and we got a chance to record a
whole blues record together and from that that was the
catalyst to get Neil to come to Chicago to record
with Enough Snuff and we had a few hours of
studio time at the old Iconic Chicago Recording Company building,
and we had an idea, and we just laid down
the idea of the song live in the studio, playing

(34:41):
at the same time down a pro tooled record, a
real recording like the old band used to do. And
then it just sat on two inch tape all these years.
And I transferred all my two inch tapes to a
hard drive and I just happened to hear that track,
and I go, why have we not used that after
all these years? And then light went above and it said,

(35:01):
why don't you call Robert Fleischman dial singer from Journey
who wrote Wheel in the Sky and Anytime at All
with Neil Sean and get done to get him to
come down there and sing on the track, and it'll
be the first time him and Neil reunited in forty years.
Donnie and I back together again. Donny's playing piano on
the track, And that's what I did and got him
come down to Blue Island. Robert Fleischer just finished his

(35:25):
latest release. It's called Emotional Atlas. I'm playing bass on
that record, by the way, It's all moots and the
Sizors and real edim Son of record. His pipe sound
fantastic sounds like him and Vini Vincent Invasion in the
old days. And I had Robert come in there and
write a lyric to it and put a great Milly
line to it, and I sing along with him. And
we've put the record together in a day, and I

(35:49):
finally got a chance to put it out there for
the diehard Journey fans out there. I love to hear
those two guys together. Tons of people are gonna want
to hear this. Why wouldn't I share something like that?
Why would I leave it sitting in a vault. It's
just a magnificent track with some illustrious musicians playing together,
and I'm proud to be a part of it. And
the song is called Shine by the Way, and it's

(36:10):
the last song on the Extra Cherries record, and it's
just fitting beyond belief with the beautiful Robert Fleischman singing
a great lead vocal part, and of course Neil sean
one take on guitar, No overdubs, no, okay, let's fix this,
let's punch this note in. Everything is live in the
studio and that's the beauty of that track.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Oh I love it. Yeah, now because I don't know
now this conversation, what's all and what's new? What may
have been redone? So I appreciate the backstory and not
just like Neil Shaw, Robert Fleischman and Steven Nadler. I
mean you have Steve Stevens on this, you have Robert Xander,
Robin Exander on this, and Gunnar Nelson. I mean you

(36:50):
have like an all star Like this is like a
this is cool, this is like this is like extra
extra cherries.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, the president of the label, Brian Pereira, he walks
around the big stick. He said, if you're gonna make
a record for us, we have your catalog of stuff,
but let's put a brand new record out and I
want you to call your constituents and friends and see you.
They'll come down and sing and play with you. And
that's what I did. And I was lucky because his
prison business I've mentioned before is redicated on friendships. And

(37:20):
I called my guys and I asked them they'd be
honored to come down there and interested it all in
what in any capacity? You know. Robert Fleischman, I go
back with him a long ways from the old days
because we were both managed by Herbie Herbert, who managed
Journey Steve Stevens. It's old buddy of mine from the
back in the New York days on the East Coast.
I played and run for some recordings on some demos

(37:43):
with him in the early days. So we're great friends.
And he's always loved Enough's Enough, And and Steve Brown
from Beth Leppard in Trickster, there was a no Brainer
writer there. He's a wonderful songwriter. He just finished up
doing the last Ace Freely record, ten thousand Volts, and
he's a fabulous producer, and I thought it would be

(38:03):
great to have him on the record. And my guitar
player Jason Camino, who used to play with the Nelson's Nose,
Gunner and Matthew very well, and we've toured together doing
an arenas in the old days. And Gunner was kind
enough to go, yeah, put a slide solo on one
of these songs for you, and he's been up playing
guitar and a wonderful sense of balance on that and
anybody else in Elexander. That was an old track has

(38:26):
Anders singing all day and all the night. I just
took a couple of parts from the song and put
him on this record because it was only fitting to
have him on there, seeing is that Dax Neelsen was
playing drums on the whole record except for one song
with Steven Adler. So I was able to get all
these guys together to sing and play with me, and
that's what elevates the record at the end of the day,

(38:46):
and the fans are gonna love that. Look, I'm not
doing it. I'm not re event in the wheel. You
look at all the hip hop bands that are out.
There's five six guys on the track, you know, and
they're all sharing the spotlight and it helps bring eyes
and ears to their music. And I did the same
with this Enough Snough album. It's a brand new record,
but some of the songs are older. But to quote
the great Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, if it's twenty

(39:07):
years old, it's new again.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Well, congratulations on Extra Cherries which comes out later this month,
I believe joy July twenty fifth, that comes out. And
congratulations also on getting inducted into the Illinois Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. I mean, what a what an honor.
Very cool. I mean, there's a lot of cool things
happening now and for the future. Chip, I mean, it

(39:30):
really was a pleasure from the get go. I wish
I hit record from the beginning. Sometimes I just like
have a little pow wow. But you were just ready
to go, and I should have expected that this was
thanks bro.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, well yeah, you said you were from Queens and
I mentioned to you that we got lost in Queen's
in the twenty It was a two thousand and one
Glam Slam Metal Jam tour with Poison, Quiet, Riot and Warrant.
We got lost. We pulled a bus over. The cops
pulled behind us. They go, yeah, what are you guys doing.
We said, we're playing Joe Beach. We can't get there
because all the bridges, seeing they're all eleven feet and

(40:04):
twelve feet and the bus is too tall. Can you
help us navigate our way to the venue to Jones Beach?
And the guy goes, what's the name of the bench?
That enough stuff? He goes, man, we listen to you
guys all the time about the Howard's thirds show. Come on,
we'll take you. We'll get you a police escort. And
we were hiring and to send smoking pot and hashish
in the bus, but we weren't causing any troubles and
the cops could smell the pot on the bus. They

(40:25):
didn't say one word, and they took us in. They
gave us a police escort through there. We got into
the venue, we pulled in, their security goes, yeah, who
are you? Guys said, we're enough stuff playing her tomorrow
and we see the place is jam packed. We go,
who's playing right now? They go, oh, Tom Petty's getting
ready to go on stage right now. It's a unbelievable.
This guy a chance to hang out with those cats.
It was just a wonderful moment. And it all started

(40:46):
because we got lost in Queens.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
There are a lot of unwonderful, if that's a word,
moments if you get lost in Queens. So I'm glad
yours had a happy ending.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
And yeah, because there's some bad neighborhoods out there, just
like Chicago, but we were able to navigate our way
through there, and we and we we found freedom at
Jones Beach, big sold out show, two nights in a
row of first night with the great Tom Petty and
h and then of course Enough's enough and poison quiet
right and warned all together with the Great Jenny Lane,

(41:18):
and it bought us are good moments out there hanging
out with Kevin Dubrow. He dressed to the nines. He
was so nice to us. They dubbed our bus to
yellow Submarine because if you wanted something on the bus,
you can find it. We had all the records from
kings X to Stone Tumble Pilots and Marilyn Manson to
Old Motley Crue and mat to Hoople and Sweet and

(41:39):
Cheap Trick. So if you want to borrow any records,
you can come on the bus and we can give
you a seed to borrow. And if you needed drugs,
we had that as well well.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
I appreciate this somewhat drug free conversation. It's it's a
lot's changed since our last conversation. It's marijuana's legal here
in New York.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
I was the government knows we can make it, brings
truck full of money off. You listen the governments. It's
already been put out there and it's all over social
media that they make more money and taxes on pot
than they do on alcohol. This is unheard of them.
You know, people want to smoke pot, you can, and
rules and regulations anymore, and there's dispensaries in every single

(42:20):
time because that's the common denominator is money. But I
don't think pots for everybody, And just like alcohol is
not for everybody. You pick and choose what you love
and what your taste will accept and embrace. And I'm
happy that people are serving time in jail because this
is funny. Now Here we are, in twenty twenty five,

(42:40):
hundreds of thousands of people that have been acar serrated
and vilified for smoking pots, set days in jails. Families
are wrecked and torn apart, and now here we are going, oh,
it's okay, now you guys, we're gonna make it legal
and we're gonna make money on you. That's it. He's
jag also taking advantage of us for years. And either
there should be restitution paid for the people that serve
time in jail for years and years for a little

(43:02):
bit of pot or a little bit of hashish or
a little bit of smoke, because that's not to me,
that's not a violent crime whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Amen. No, I couldn't have said it any better and
I won't even try.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Chip.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Just thank you so much for your time, and I'll
show you this because again I said, my wife and
son are away for a week. I got my teenage
meeticu turtle grinder with me to enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
It's beautiful. Too bad, I couldn't say you. Some of
this stuff I found in San Francisco and Herbie Herbert
turned me on two years ago. It was called snow
Peak ulture. I don't know if it's from Humble Park
or one of those places in the fields where you
know some places in San Francisco. If you go up
in those mountains you're putting in front of line, they'll
shoot you out there. Okay, they don't know who you are,
but they have the best pot and the best soil,

(43:44):
and just they know how to cultivate that stuff and
it's delicious. It costs like five hundred bucks an ounce
for that stuff, but boy, it makes a big difference
to anybody that smokes pot because it's really got some
great nutrients in there, and it's good for the head.
If you're going to pot smoker, Yeah, it's going to
be healthy for you know, it's going to inspire you
and give you ideas on how to move forward life.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
No, you're right, because I I have quit. You know,
I did quit for like a year, and I haven't
I don't, I haven't drank in nine years. So I've
had my love hate And you're saying everything right, because
it's everything is as we wrap up here. But I'm
glad we talk about we're talking about this everything in moderation.
It's not for everybody, but just to show you how
much things have changed as we know. Uh. I get

(44:27):
it from right here in Queens Forest Hills shut out
the cure leaf, which is legal. So I had to
pay for to see a doctor doing a zoom just
like this and they drop it off in my apartment.
It gets delivered.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
It can't beat dead. Yeah, you're a Chicago and you've
got to find a local drug dealer across the street
from seven to eleven to get the really.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Good business series in Chicago they have.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Like at these dispensaries. It's not the best pot out there.
It's not buds, it's not full of you know, all
that chromes and stuff to her in the great pot
that the casting a grateful dinner smoked every single day.
It's just a pote just gets you through. It's like
a cigarette almost. So it's nice when you can find
an additional pot that's gonna help you at the end
of the day and shout out to you, bro for

(45:16):
getting off the loud mouse soup. Okay, congratulations. I'm sure
your wife is happy about that too. Give you a
lot more years and that loud mouse soup will catch
up to you if you keep doing it all the time. Pot,
I think you're gonna be Okay.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
On, I would not have met her if I didn't
stop drinking because I was just on a path of
I had an appetite for destruction to tie everything in.
I was just using it to fall asleep and Pot.
You know, I said, as soon as you see it
affecting me, not like I do it, you know, with
my son obviously, but I'm like, if you see it
affect any in our relationship or the way that I

(45:49):
am with my son, tell me and then I stop.
But I'm probably gonna stop for money reason. It's just
to save for the kid, you know, at some point.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
But everything moderation at the end of the day, Bro,
everything in moderation. That's Gonnah, that's the best way to go.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with smoking. Uh.
You find out what your tool and the trade is
and you grab on to that and hold on to it.
Most musicians that I know who are on blowing heroin
and crack and just tweeked out of their mind back

(46:16):
in the old days have all gotten off it and
all just smoke pot right now. Most of my not
all of them, but most of them I know they
were alcoholics. They grab down to something at the end
of the day, and the best thing I think would
be marijuana. I think that's that's a great drug that
provides you solace and the sensibilities to be able to
move forward and deal with everyday life.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, Chip, I hope we get to do this again
to talk more about pot, guns and roses, your your
next venture, what your wife is doing, what you know,
what backstory she has? You know, I guess you know.
Now I feel like I want to get her back
on the podcast and learn more about her. When does
she get to write a book about herself? But anyway,
I digress.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
Well, I'm writing a book right now. I've been writing
it for seven or eight years. It takes a long time.
News stories come up all the time, and I'm right
in the middle of doing a documentary for enough stuff.
It's going to be called Strength and Innocence. It's directed
by a guy named Bob Osborne. We shot we shot
most of it in Milwaukee, but I went through over
two hundred tapes of an early Enough's Enough stuff all

(47:18):
the way till today. Great stuff that's involved here, and
a wonderful story exposing the warts, scars and tattoos of
Enough's Enough. We're talking about perhaps releasing it sometime early
in twenty twenty six, and that's going to be incredible
telling all the stories, and hopefully i'll have the book.
I'm done by it as well. Only time will tell it. It

(47:38):
takes a lot of it's a lot of the verbiage
to write those books, and you want to make sure
it's right and every leading thing is correct. And this
is not a book where I want to be milk
and cookies. I want to be transparent and I want
to be real and authentic. And that's the only way
I'm putting that book out there. So it's not going

(48:00):
to be as pretty as you think it is. It's
gonna tell wonderful stories, but it's not rabbits running through
the field and birdies and kitty cats and pretty stuff.
It's gonna be exposed of those tattoos and wars that
we've carried throughout our career as well.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Right on, Well, I'll look forward to that, and with
your way of way with words, I really look forward
to it. So thanks Chip and I just so, just
so the listeners just like a little teaser. Coming up
for another interview. Coming up, I'm gonna speak with the
lead singer of Winterburn, the first Arab band to ever
open for Guns and Roses, which they just did.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Oh it's gonna be good. But she's got some pretty
good stories about the band, except for Axel, because Axel
never comes out after the show. He hides out, and
I don't blame him. He sings for two and a
half hours. He's tired. He doesn't really want to me
anybody at the end of a show, unless your family.
But I'm sure Slash gave him some good fodder to
talk about and that that's great. It's a feather in
the camp. But you can talk about opening for Guns
and Roses. I can't say I did it, but I

(48:58):
can say I played with guns of Roses.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes you can, which is I think kind of better.
So that does it. With this episode of Appetite for Distortion,
when will we see the next one? In the words
of Axel Rose concerning Chinese democracy, I don't know as
soon as the word, but you'll see it thanks to

(49:20):
the lame ass security.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
I'm going home.