How I got Dr. Pepper involved with Chinese Democracy | Ep. 549

Some might recognize Chris Kooluris as "Kaneda" from his successful pinball podcast or perhaps the controversial days on GN'R message boards. After this episode, you'll know him as reason behind Dr. Pepper getting involved with Chinese Democracy. What really happened with this infamous Guns N' Roses promotion?

More info:
https://patreon.com/kanedapinball

Our website:
www.afdpod.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was so fun to watch it start to get
covered in all these legitimate media outlets, and then they
realized it was real.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the podcast Appetite for Distortion. My name is Brando,
Episode number five hundred and forty nine. Welcome to the podcast.
I should have asked how to say your last name properly?
Chris uh Cooloris.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
But you can call me Canada on this on this
podcast if we want, because.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You're known by Canada as you people. But I was
because you're you have a cool last name. It's almost
Chris cool cool.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah it's Greek. My father's Greek, so Cooloris is a
Greek name.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Okay, Chris coloris. But how do you should I address you?
I mean, if you're in my GNR forum, we know
you as Canada or we did know you. Oh call
you Chris. I want to me Chris Chris. Yeah, okay, okay,
welcome Chris. Thank you for joining the podcast. Look at
this if you're watching this on my YouTube channel. I
mean I'm adding all the time to my my back drop.

(01:00):
You know all you have your watch guns shirt.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
You wear, I've got this is a versace. Let me's
turn around real quick. The staff shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's no Versace charity. No backstage shirt from what year?
Two thousand and eleven?

Speaker 3 (01:17):
This did? No, this was like ninety oh in ninety two.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
Oh, I thought I saw too.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
So I was wearing a Versachi shirt.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Remember when he got arrested, he was wearing the white
one when he was handcuffed.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, yes, getting taken away and that I do remember.
So was that just like the Peach version of the
Salmon version of that?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
So with like the Italian concert, they gave all the
staff like these special shirts. It's actually a Versace T shirt.
It's got the Versace logo on the tag and everything.
So had to get out an e day though I
was not in Italy in nineteen ninety one when I
was thirteen, So.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
No, and not only you're wearing the apparel backdrop the
old school pinball machine going.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
This is this is yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
This is the latest one from Jersey Jack. So the
Data East was the first one and they this one
came out about six years ago. I see, yeah, made
by Slash and Jersey Jack pinball Okay, because it has
the Jersey Jack.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Because I have a week's pan up for a little bit,
I usually don't show this on my screen. I have
the panel the trans back right. Yeah, signed by Eric
one A. I have you got to have pronounced his
last name, but the guy who designed it along with slash,
So I don't know why that look. I should have
asked you a bunch of pre questions before I got
into I'm really prepared today. Yeah, that's because you may

(02:34):
hear my kid and wife playing dominoes in the background.
But I'm excited because it looked like the old school
design of the pinball. That's why I didn't see that
big screen. Why I didn't think it was the new
one from Jersey Jack. Yeah, I should cabinet.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
The cabinets haven't changed much over the years, gotcha, gotcha cabinet.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
We're talking to the guy who knows all the lingo
the name of your podcast. You got a pinball podcast?

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Canadis Pinball Podcast episode I'm on like one thousand and eighty,
so I've been doing it for thirteen years.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
It's been a lot of fun to do it.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I did it after I got banned from the Pinball Forum,
but we'll talk about too. I got banned from the
Guns and Roses form as well. But it's fun to
do a podcast when you can no longer speak freely
on the internet.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Wow wow wow wow, And look at this. You really
humbled me right there, because I'm interviewing. It's not just
me thinking like, oh wow, I've done five hundred something episodes.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
So when I.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Interview people now like oh wow, five hundred, I'm like, yeah,
I guess. And this is the tenth year of doing it.
Ten years since the reunion, but thirteen years over one
thousand episodes. My god, I got a lot more to go.
I got a lot more to catch up.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Man, all right, Well, like I give you more credit though.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
I mean, you're talking about just one band for all
this time that only puts out an album every twenty years,
so you definitely get the credit.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
There's not as much subject material.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
I will say, as we're recording this.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
So January twenty eighth, a Wednesday, Slash did an interview
with a radio station in Las Vegas. Well Flash said
on that Vegas radio station, talking about nothing about it
was it was a good question and I'm sure like
he's been asked this before, but maybe it was the
right time to answer it. Uh, this is just what
we're doing now with rehashing these old songs and these
are the last two and I'm paraphrasing the last two

(04:19):
of that ILK and then you know, this is all
we've had time for, and Atlas and nothing. We're done
at different times, and then it will be a whole
new album of all original material. I'm paraphrasing slashes.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
I never, I never.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Why do you think I got to keep doing this podcast?

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
No, it's good because you know, much like the wait
for the next Guns N' Roses album, you're never gonna
get a final conclusion.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
There's never gonna be a new album, so you can speculate.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
But but you bring up a good point, Brandon, like,
waiting for new material was probably the most exciting period
in all of Guns and Roses history, like ninety six
to two thousand and six, two thousand and.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Eight, now maybe, yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
So much fun.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
We will talk about when we get into like the proma,
but like, it was so much fun just being curious
what was still left in the tank of this band
that had created some of the best music of all time.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
You're right, and so you're to set the stage. You're
so you're a few years older than me. Do you
mind if I ask, how ill do you are?

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I'm forty nine.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Okay, so I'm forty two.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
So my.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Real vision of gn R, they already were broken up
and it was waiting for Chinese democracy. This thing was
never going to happen. So I was still maybe I
was in college when this happened. When the reason why
you're here today. I mean, we can keep talking about
pinball and you're obviously a super fan for many years.

(05:44):
And I love talking to anyone from involved into my
GNR forum because that means you are passionate.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
Whether you're hated or not, I mean, you're passionate. I
don't know. I guess I want to the doctor.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Think here's someone if if you were into my gn
R forum during that period of you know, post ninety five,
you love self inflicted gunshot wounds because it was like
it was fun, but it wasn't very healthy to be
doing it every day. I mean people were daily just obsessed.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
I was one of them.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I was on there hyper posting every day. But there
was just something about the band's magnetic quality right that
kept people coming back, like what is he going to do?
Is it going to be worth it? And are we
going to get something that makes the weight worth it
in the end, and I don't know, I kind of
will talk about it, but I love what came out,
but it never really materialized in a way I think

(06:42):
most people envisioned.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
So that's why we're here and I'm still I guess
I was having PTS flashbacks of because I was more
of a lurker on the forums. And I remember I
posted one of my probably my first posts when I
met Bumblefoot at a GNR show in Ottawa and he
assigned my ticket and I just wrote the story on it.
I didn't show anything the picture I took at the time,
and somebody called me like a fraud, like pictures or

(07:04):
it didn't happen, and at the time, like why would
I make that up? So that's still stuck in my
head anyway, So Chris is here. The thing I really
still remembered so vividly. Why is doctor Pepper getting involved
in Chinese democracy?

Speaker 4 (07:19):
What is this?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Right?

Speaker 2 (07:22):
And a full disclosure, I'm not a huge I'm not
a Doctor Pepper fan. I know you don't work for them,
you don't really care. I like Coca Cola or PEPSI
just regular soda. If I got crazy cherry coke or
vanilla coke, whatever, So what's interesting. Last episode, we interviewed
James Green Junior, the author of magnum Opus, the Fifteen

(07:45):
Year Saga, the Crazy fifteen Year Saga of Chinese Democracy,
and as in a few weeks prior, I got a
DM from you, Chris telling me about this doctor Pepper thing.
I'm like, Okay, cool, I want to do interview with
this guy. I want to learn more about him. But
I have some of the things they get through first,
and as I'm reading, I'll just read you the first
paragraph and we could pick up from there. Okay, today

(08:09):
people might know Chris cluris getting Did I say that right?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Perfect best for his occasional controversial presence in the world
of competitive finball pinball. First of all, let's get off
why why are you controversial? Let's like because we always.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I just don't like everything that pinball companies release. I
also saw on your Facebook chat people are like, what's
competitive pinball?

Speaker 3 (08:31):
There are pinball tournaments. I don't really cover that.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I cover all the new games that come out, and
a lot of people out there just praise everything.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
So if you don't like something, people.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Think you're being negative, But would it be exciting to
read a movie reviewer that gives every movie a good review?
So that's kind of the controversy. Nothing really other than that.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Oh, okay, so you didn't like beat up an old
lady for quarters in arcade?

Speaker 3 (08:57):
I did throw it. I did throw a drink in
one dude's face at a to a minute. But that's it.
The interaxl and me came out. How dare you, sir?

Speaker 4 (09:05):
At least it was a pistols at dawn.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
I guess it was abouka soda.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Fair, fair enough and competitive. There's competitive everything. I mean,
if there's competitive eating, competitive pinball does not surprise me, right,
I mean? So yeah, So sixteen plus years ago, he
was vice president of Disruptive Media, a unit working with
the Catchum public relations firm. Was that Is that anything

(09:29):
to do with ash Ketchum? Okay, okay, sorry my Pokemon
interworking account and quoting you. I was just trying to
find cultural opportunities for these brands, He says. Doctor Pepper
asked for an opportunity in music to get fans interested
in Doctor Pepper. At the time, Doctor Pepper's marketing campaign
was asking people to drink it slowly so you can

(09:49):
enjoy the twenty three ingredients. I started thinking, what else
is happening slowly axel spending time to get the right ingredients.
So that's from the the hype of Opus book. Let's
kind of pick up from there, how old, where were
you in your life? And take us through because there's
a lot of crazy stories that you want me to
remind you of.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Giving.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, it's hard to like parachute in right when you
think about waiting for this album over fifteen years to
a specific you know year that was like the turning point,
if you will, so to the point of like the
Doctor Pepper. Just all these brands, whether it's a soda
brand or a car brand, they're all looking to remain
relevant in culture. And so when you think about what

(10:34):
a soda that is an inanimate object that can't really
do anything or say anything unless someone helps them. You know,
connect to people, reaching communities is everything. We're seeing it
now more in the marketing world than ever before. So
how do you get a soda to tell a group
of Guns n' Roses fans that I love what you love?

(10:54):
And so when they wanted a campaign that made music
people talk about Doctor Pepper. Their initial campaign, they were
doing a TV spots I think with like Beyonce. They
spent thirty million dollars on a partnership with the Indiana
Jones movie The Crystal Skull.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
You might remember that movie. It bombed. They even got
cut from the film.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
So they gave me ten thousand dollars and they were like, look,
if we're going to do something culturally, what can we
do to get people talking and connect to music? And
to your point, the strategy was if you drink it slowly,
you know you'll appreciate all twenty three ingredients. So basically
it was an email to our client that was like, look,

(11:36):
why don't we try to get Axos to release Chinese Democracy?
And I kind of may have sold them on the
notion that the album is never coming out, so if
we do this, we're not going to have to fulfill
because clients are very risk adverse. And so the offer
was everybody in America except for two people would get
the free Doctor Pepper. The two people excluded were Slashing

(11:59):
buck Head. See this is the thing, unless you knew
what was going on in the Guns and Roses space,
Like nobody at Doctor Pepper knew that, and even if
you read the press release, everything in it was IP infringement.
We didn't have any permission from guns n' Roses, from
Slash from Buckethead. Even when you read the release, I

(12:20):
filled it with all GNR lyrics like it takes just
the little patience and all this stuff. And they didn't
think it was going to pop. And so I brought
them the idea. I wrote the press release and here's
a great story, Brando.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
The only reason they.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Let this press release go out the door is because
another idea I brought them earlier. They said no to you,
and they were just kind of like, well, we keep
saying no to Chris's ideas, Let's just go with this one.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
And the other idea was so bad.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
It was they had a root beer float coming out
in the world, and I was like, look, if we're
going to bring a new float into the world, we
should remove a bad float. And it was to trade
in DVD copies of the movie Hope Floats to get
a free roup Bear like that would have gotten nowhere.
So they greenlit this, and I think the lawyers that

(13:09):
looked at it were bottling lawyers, so they had no
idea that we were about to promise everyone in America,
but two people a free soda using all the IP
and so when out the door, it got covered by
New York Post page six.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
The best part.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
And the scariest part of the moment was I get
a phone call at my desk at Ketchum and this
woman introduces herself as Axel Rose's lawyer, and she says,
I'm seeing all this coverage. I just want to go
to Axel and tell them what's up. And I'm like,
oh no, Like this is how you get fired. Because

(13:44):
the lawyer is calling me. I don't even have permission
at my agency to represent doctor Pepper legally.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
And I just was like, yeah, I'm a big.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Fan, you know, we really hope the album comes out,
which is all true. And then I go for a
walk and I'm like, I'm going to get fired, and
then my phone rings and my friend is like, you
have to go look at Gunsrooses dot com right now,
and I do, and that's when Axel responded. And then
my phone rang again and it was Bumblefoot and he's like, hey,

(14:13):
cause my cell phone was on the press release. He's like, hey, Chris,
this is Ron Bumblefoot on the lead guitars for Guns
N' Roses. Just really want to thank you for the support.
And at that time, you have to remember, right, nobody
was really giving this band much support. They had taken
so many arrows.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
In the back.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, all the years, the VMA performance, everything, it was
like no one was really welcoming the new members as
guns n' Roses, all that stuff was happening around. And
then when they saw this or like all right, like
we actually gave people a reason to root and cheer
for the album and it was all positive. And I'm
still to this day, Brandon, I'm so excited that the

(14:52):
stars aligned to even get it out the door. It
was a miracle that that press release even got approved.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
That Axel said, you.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Know, I wasn't aware of this beforehand, but I'm not
sure if the album will be ready in time, but
I'll share my doctor Pepper with Buckethead all like. His
response was amazing, and once he responded, then it went viral.
You know, Axel has this power to just he didn't
speak much, like he never spoke much back then, and
for him to actually make an on the record comment

(15:22):
and by him saying he was going to share.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
His Doctor Pepper with Buckethead.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
People were like, oh man, that means it's coming out,
because there wouldn't be a Doctor Pepper to share. So
that's how he got out the door. That was the
That was the best part when it first went into
the world and people got to become excited about it.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
You were obviously a diehard fan, Like how that's kind
of why I explained, you know what I do. I'm
just a Guns Roses fan who happened to you know,
I happened to work on radio start this podcast. You
are already a fan. How long were you working at
this place and pitching ideas?

Speaker 3 (15:52):
I was curious.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
I was there for eight years, and this was probably
five or six years into being there.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Okay, so you were confident, you were known, you already
you know, had successes and everything. So I was just
I didn't I wanted to just get the baseline of like,
how out of left field at a character? Is this
with Chris is the pitch? Were there any G and
R fans on your team that kind of supported you?

Speaker 4 (16:17):
It was you against the world kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
I mean, it was it really was one of these
moments where I was I was just I felt lucky
that this was my favorite band. This was an album
I've been intimately following the journey for years, and I
was able to hand it to them. I will say
this though, and I'll never forget this moment. As much
as this was all my creation the concept. After it

(16:42):
broke there was a trade magazine called PR Week, which
highlights the marketing campaigns that are popping in the world
that week. And my client, who I still love to
this day, but he got caught up in all the frenzy.
He said that he came up with the idea one
day why he was playing rock band on Xbox like,

(17:03):
took credit for originating the idea, and that's, you know,
that's part of what we do. We want to make
our clients in the rock stars. And I still to
this day I get why he, you know, wanted to
look great in front of all of his bosses up
the ladder at Dr Pepper. But yeah, I was like, man, okay.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
But I didn't feel good about yourself. I'd never do that.
I don't like taking credit for anything that I don't do.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
I need help.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
That's why I don't take credit for this interview. I
give you all the credit you reached out to me.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Well, the only way I kind of subtly got back
is when I did end up becoming friends with Ron
and Frank and I had a nice relationship with the band.
They were always very nice to me. I always never
invited them to be part of it the clients, because
I was like, you know what, that was My one
payback was like, if this was your idea, how come
they're not calling.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
You hanging out with you?

Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, right on.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Oh yeah, I just said you only you're the only
one who got to the party. But tell us some
of the details that you know, getting this for people
to believe in this. Yeah, the small budget that you
were given, I mean to me, ten thousand dollars gonna
be a lot. But obviously now for an advertising campaign,
you still were able to find the original website that

(18:15):
still blogspot, that's still up, and you would go on,
it's it's a flashback in time.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Well here's what happened, Yeah, Brandon, what was crazy was this?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
So I still remember the date it went out, I
want to say March twenty, like six or something. So
when we went out with it the press release, everybody
thought and I took it to my GNR forum. First,
everybody thought it was an April fool's joke. I don't
know if the threads still there because they kind of

(18:47):
scrubbed me from that page, like I'm Moses or something.
And so everyone thought it was an April fool's joke.
And when you think about it, you saw that crappy
blog spot site. Everyone was like, there's no way a
company like Dr Pepper would put up a crappy website
like this. This whole thing is fake. This kid's gonna
get fired. He wrote this fake And then it was

(19:10):
so fun to watch it start to get covered in
all these legitimate media outlets and then they realized it
was real. Then Axl responded, so all that once Axel responded,
Brando Doctor Pepper basically got the unobtainable, which was a
public endorsement by Axel Rose, a man who never partners

(19:30):
with anybody, doesn't even let movies use his songs. He
didn't even let them, like when they made black Hawk Down,
they didn't. He didn't even let them use Welcome to
the Jungle, I believe, which is what the actual Seals
were playing when the black Hawk went down. And he
comes out and he's like he once he was cool
with it. And I will say this, the GNR camp
wanted to do even more to sort of leverage the

(19:52):
excitement that this campaign drummed up.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Unfortunately, we'll get to like how it ended that.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
That was not the intention of Doctor Pepper, and I think,
you know, they kind of were handed lightning in a bottle,
and I think they tried to see it as a
little bit of a cheap PR stunt versus something they
truly were into and wanted to fulfill upon.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Okay, yeah, because we know how it ended it, We'll
get to that where you know, ax was putting out
other statements on the release day and yeah, doctor Soda
is getting placed.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
The lawyers did essentially. When I when I finally met him,
we talked about that and he said something funny.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Okay, Okay, so let's let's what was the first Let's
just backtrack a little bit to some war of the scene.
What was the first an outlet that picked it up?

Speaker 3 (20:39):
You're like, it was New York Post page six.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
They got the exclusive on it, and then from there
it just started to like one ax wal respond, because
one Saxual respond, you're here on the front page of
Rolling Stone, like you're on the front page of like Yahoo.
I mean it was it was I still have a
lot of the media coverage, like Yeahoo's main page acts
Dr Pepper offered to Axel, and then it just takes off,

(21:03):
I think in the end, I mean there was thousands
of media stories. It got a lot of TV too,
a lot of local market TV coverage, a lot of
national TV coverage, and then yeah, everyone was just you
know what was great about it? It it made everybody
just curious because I always, as I said to the
Doctor Pepper folks, whether or not you like guns n'
roses or not, it made everybody in America have something

(21:28):
at stake, was was I going to get my free
Doctor Pepper?

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Like, would Axel get the album out in time?

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Because we had that nice tension of he had to
release it by the end of the year, and you know,
at this point the album had been sixteen fifteen years
in the making, so could we finally force his hand.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
That's what the funniest thing is going in my own
little time machine right now, and that's what this podcast
is so much of it is it's thinking about that
and just yeah, thinking about I don't even like Doctor Pepper,
but I want a free one. I want to see,
like what's what or who is going to be the
person to finally push this past? You know, soon is
the word to now, Like it's Johnny's democracy is now? When?

Speaker 4 (22:10):
So if it's the help of a soda, so be it.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
What was the most other than that, like actuals responding
and like what was the most surprising things that that
happened to maybe that we like we don't know about that.
Behind the scenes were certain offers made from other Doctor Pepper.
You mentioned somehow that G and R wanted to do
some things. What were the creative things that maybe didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yes, so Doctor Pepper is a big college football sponsor.
You probably see them if you watch any college football balls.
But they do a lot of paid media around college football,
and they really Guns and Roses really wanted Doctor Pepper
to kind of create TV commercials. Let's go all in
on this, Like if the album's coming out and everyone's
waiting to get their free Doctor Pepper, let us create

(22:52):
a moment together. What was so painful, Brando is once
this took off, I'll never forget the day I go
down to Plano, Texas Doctor Peppler Snappall Group and I'm
meeting with like their heads of their marketing and the CMO.
Who got to remember, this is a guy that wrote
a check for like thirty million to be a part

(23:12):
of an Indiana Jones movie that flopped. You know, this
is what he's used to in terms of a creating
cultural conversation. So I show him all the coverage and
he's like, wait, wait a minute, like all these people are.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Talking about my brand. I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
It was like, now's not the time to turn your
back on it or not fulfill the promise. And after that,
I could just sense that they didn't want to fulfill.
And it's crazy because it was such a valuable program
for them because it was all lead generation. You had
to give your name, your number, your home addressed, and
we were gonna mail you a coupon for a Doctor Pepper.

(23:49):
The value in that Lee generation for them. So it
was just interesting how like the GNR camp like the
badasses a rock and roll who sue everybody right Axel Rose,
It's like he's legal.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
They were like, let's play ball.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
It's almost like they called Doctor Pepper out on a
bluff in a way, and Doctor Pepper like lost the hand.
And you know, in the end, I was kind of
happy to see it blow up in their faces because
they took what I loved and they had such a
great moment to conclude the story in which all these
Americans are getting their Doctor Pepper and they like legitimately

(24:24):
did not want to really fulfill on the offer. And
you know, I think everyone learned a good lesson. I
got kind of depressed for a couple of years after
that because I was like, oh, man, like, do I
really want to do this anymore? Do I really want
to give what I love to brands and have a
lack of control? But later in life I learned to
forgive and move on and I'm very content with even

(24:46):
having got it out into the world.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
I appreciate that perspective, and yeah, I could feel that
way too sometimes I just did internalize it. I give
so much to a radio station or a project and
like it not turn out the way you want or
it's it can be very, very frustrating. But the perspective
you have, now, this doesn't matter what other Doctor Pepper
what they say, it's their idea rock band.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
I no know, we know, we know what happened.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
It's all documented, whether I mean maybe it's scrubbed from
my G and R forum.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
I'm sorry, man, they hate me.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
They hate me over there every time. What did you
do over there? It's more of like I don't like everything. Look,
I was on there for like a decade and for
a lot of the hyper posters there.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
You know, it's like a little dysfunctional family of people
that are like overly invested in this thing. I mean,
this album lived rent free in our heads for a
third of our lives almost right, so I know, and
we all, just like you, went through waves of criticizing
acts all his decisions, personally insulting his wardrobe, getting you know,

(25:54):
getting excited again when I met him.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
I ended up meeting him after the campaign had hit.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
I was at one of their little shows at John
Barbado's store which is CBGB's which is now the John
Barbado Store. And you know, the first thing he said
to me was like, are you Canada? And I'm like,
oh no, Like he's gonna he's gonna remember like you know,
all the times I was like an a hole and antrol,
but he was like really nice and he said to me,
He's like, look, I fired all those lawyers who got

(26:21):
mad when they when the fulfillment problems happened. It was
right around Thanksgiving and November twenty third. I'll never forget
that date, right, that was the date November twenty third,
twenty fifth of.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
When Chinese demography, Oh is you? November twenty third, November
twenty third, I'll never get.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
It was front page of New York Times. It was
like ax Or like, you know, mad at doctor Pepper,
like right smacked up. But he's like I fired all
those lawyers. He was just really nice. I think we
ended up talking about like college football for a little bit,
and then I got a photo with him, which I
just you know, it is it's a rare thing. If
you've ever been around the GNR camp. I don't know, Brandon,
have you've ever been like around No, It's just like

(27:01):
we were all downstairs, Cause you get invited into these
concerts and it's really fun.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
You're hanging out. There's like celebrities there, everyone's drinking.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
This is this tiny little venue and then all of
a sudden security walks in and it's like axles here,
everybody get out and I mean, they're not just kicking
us out, they're kicking the band out like it's everybody
else was just like he's coming, and it's almost like,
you know, like a god is about to enter and
and that's it. You just get shoved to the side,

(27:31):
regardless of who you are, you know, and so, but
you know whatever, it's rock and roll kind of right.
And then they played the most amazing concert ever in
this tiny little venue and I'll never forget.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
It's like two in the morning. The door's open, and
he's like.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Like blasting sweet Child of Mind is the encore of
the final song, which he doesn't normally end with, and
people are walking by thinking they're just seeing like a
Karaoki act going on, and it's like Axel Rose and
the venue was empty because it was all like youngs
week people got invited.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
This is the only thing I never really liked about
these like intimate gigs.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
They always end up like inviting people don't appreciate guns
and roses, and the diehard fans are usually like rarely there.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Because it's more VIPs.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
But that bothered me about that recent thing. That's I
think I was who was I talking about that with?
Maybe with with with James that Slash did and Duff
did with the Young Blood and Eddie Vedder. I'm just like,
are those fans there are those just like rich people that.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
Work at a job that were able to whatever.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I don't mean to digress too much, but so
what's what's backtrack though to that before that actual meeting
where it went pleasant? Yeah, because that day, you know,
I remember that day, October twenty third, And I've said
it before. That's the actual album that I bought in
best Buy and held it up.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
By best by. The only loser in all of this
is best Buy.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, they didn't come out looking great, you know, but
I don't.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Know whoever ain't that deal as a genius because they
got hosed and and and who would buy an exclusive
album when everything was digital?

Speaker 4 (29:01):
Well before that, I believe it was a C d
c's Black Ice that did well when that was Walmart.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, I think they there.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
They set a president there, because that's also in James's book,
But there are more Walmarts than Best Buys, and there
are more things to buy in Walmart. So this is
just like it's just not apples to Apple situation there.
But yeah, it was just a bad a bad deal.
But I mean I also remember at that time because
I had a friend that worked at best Buy.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Best Buy was was big, but ac DC promoted their
album The Sad when finally came out, as Axel acted
like he could care less it was out.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
That's the big That's one of the big questions that
the book didn't answer, and I think only Axel can answer,
you know, why didn't he?

Speaker 3 (29:44):
And is this was it?

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Because it wasn't finished? Was there something wrong? What what happened?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Because if they're reaching out to you and thanking you
for Doctor Pepper and there could have been commercials, there.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Could have been promotion there.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
It was there the hard it didn't even happen.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Harley Davison Black Sheep with better commercial that like see
what happened?

Speaker 3 (30:05):
You know? And again I don't want to go down
this road too much.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
But unfortunately Axel just when it comes to like the
marketing and the people surrounding him, he didn't have the
machine he had back in the day, and you almost have.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
To work twice as hard to create that. But just
simple things. There was no music video, there was no
interviews with him.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
He just kind of appeared interview he disappeared.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, well I think, but I think I think Guns
n Roses music brando like it needs the context of
music videos too. If you think about how this band
launched in culture, you have an indelible connection to the
Jungle video, the Sweech on the Mind video, November Rain,
Don't Cry. Boom's strange. So you're gonna work for an
album on seventeen years and you're not going to wrap
any context around a beautiful song like Street of Dreams

(30:50):
or the Blues whatever we call these days or Chinese Democracy.
He gave no context and so all we ended up
getting was a crappy if the world playing during the
credits of some Leonardo DiCaprio movie, some Shelved Harley Davis,
there was he Jack goes Revenge on rock bands. Yeah,

(31:10):
like everything was just like amateur hour then and it's
and again, It's just like I feel like in his mind,
once he let.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
It go, it was like the weight was off his shoulders,
like have with it, world, say what you will. I
don't care. I'm still done Rose. I just I just
feel he doesn't care, like and I kind of respect
that in a way.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
And and I think for the fans It's hard to
accept that because I think a lot of fans want
Axel to care about them as much as they care
about him in perception.

Speaker 4 (31:42):
I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
I never agree with people like that's they actual doesn't
care about the fans or care about the music of
the people, even when he was late. Yeah, oh, he
didn't care about making fans wait that long. I think
in his mind, his mindset, he does care. He's just
operating on a difference.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah, well, I said as much.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
When you think about Axel, no human being can absorb
the amount of energy that was coming towards him since
they became big, right, it couldn't pH anywhere like and
and his fans are not normal either. Like I remember
when I they did the Hammer Stigns ballroom shows, Remember
those in New York City?

Speaker 4 (32:20):
One?

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, and you were And I remember dudes, younger dudes
who I knew, never saw the band back in the
heyday are all there, like all tatted up with GNR tattoos.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
And I know you're probably one of that was me,
I know. And I'm like, I'm like, man, these and
these guys.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Like there's like there's but there's something about getting into GNR.
It's much more like I don't want to say, like
toxic masculinity, but it's like music that allows men to
somehow like live out their alter ego kind of confidence
and swagger. It's this misogynism mixed with like ballads and

(32:56):
beauty and like, look, it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Like the dichotomy of guns and roads are what maybe.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
But his fans can be like a little crazy, a
little obsessive, and he makes them that way a little
bit because of how untouchable he was. I mean, he
was like at the top of the world and people
were recognize him more than the president. Even you know,
Axe Rose walks into a room and he's probably the
one everyone's leaving their.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Date to go talk to, and it probably just exhausts,
you know, a guy like that.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Oh yeah, I often like the site the one positive
thing I got Alan Niven to say, And that's like
having to get up to be Axel Rose every day.
And there are some people who don't understand that. They think, all,
you chose that life. No, you chose to make music.
I mean, yeah, he wanted to be more perhaps famous
and rich and famous and is he was not like that.
But you don't ask for it to be treated like

(33:46):
a certain way, or it doesn't mean you're untouchable, doesn't
mean you can't.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Be nobody else in the band.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
I remember once, this is years ago before China's Innoctually
came out. I'm in a hotel in New York City.
I think it's the Dream Hotel down in like the Westville,
and I'm just I look over guys checking in and
I'm like, yeah, are you Slash And he's like, yeah,
it's just you know.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Slash with the half backwards.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Nobody's coming up to him, no no fanfare, you know,
and he can he can sort of disappear easier into
the crowd than Axel can.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
You know, Axel just it's hard.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
So take me through that day though, you know, I
know we can talk to Chinese democracy, and I love
it talking with our fandom, and I love having guests
on to have even though we will promote your podcast
that I'm here to promote something specifically, let's just talk
about the fandom and everything we have fun going on?

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Uh that day up to November twenty third.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, well you expecting what were you expecting? When did
it go?

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (34:44):
I knew right now Axel's on board too. Yeah, so
here here's what happens. I knew going in.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
I knew more going into that day than anyone else
probably out there that I knew that the internal communications
at Doctor Peper was that they weren't going to invest
more getting the servers ready to handle a lot of traffic,
their anticipated traffic. They were thinking, ninety thousand people in

(35:13):
total over the day, we're going to try to redeem
a Doctor Pepper, to which I reminded them that this
band has sold something like sixteen million albums. More right,
And I'm like, and even if you don't like guns
and Roses, we promised three hundred and something million people
to free Doctor Pepper, So cool, go with that ninety

(35:33):
thousand number. And I knew they weren't going to get
the servers ready. So what was really depressing is the
way it worked at midnight on November twenty third, So
like literally November twenty second, twelve oh one, boom, the website.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Went live, and then within.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
In ten minutes it went down, and within the first
hour they had ninety thousand people trying to redeem in total.
They didn't end up giving this many coupons out in total,
they had I believe between two to three million people
trying to log on and get a coupon.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
So but again go back to that.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Number of like thirty million dollars for a Indiana Jones
movie that flopped. Three million people that will be fans
of Dr Pepper for the rest of their lives, that
are you know that have a commemorative Dr Pepper coupon
based on Chinese smocracy and just having the story end
in a great way, it wasn't worth it. The money
they saved was not worth the crisis they put themselves into,

(36:33):
and it was a crisis. Then I had a deal
brand of going into work, see working in PR, I
gave a creative idea that was meant to bring joy
and then I had to witness a nightmarish end to it.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
And it was terrible because I had literally.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Had to be in meetings where I knew they were
trying to spend the messaging of oh dude to overwhelming demand,
and what they they you saw there was another press
release We're going to reopen the site for twenty four
hours after they they knew they had something like seventeen
people answering phones. When they knew millions of people were
trying to get a coupon seventeen people like on it.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
What sancel hit would have been that they were trying
to not do They just didn't want to spend the
money because it was just like literally what would have
been do you know what this is?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, so it would have been basically like probably like
a dollar fifty to two dollars per person for fulfillment,
because you got to think the coupons are all prepaid.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
So Doctor Pepper at that.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Time was probably around a buck at every bodega or
supermarket in America, so they had to prepay that dollar, right,
So it's like basically like handing something like a one
dollar Dr Pepper voucher.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Then they had to mail it to you.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
So the cost of mailing it to somebody, what is
that twenty five to thirty five cents, and then you
know whatever organization you have to pay to do the
fulfillment right to put all the addresses on an envelope,
And they just didn't want to do that.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
They they literally they loved getting all that coverage at
the beginning, but in the end they didn't want to fulfill.
But the reason you got all that coverage at the
beginning Doctor Pepper was because of the promise. You know,
I think they think they really forgot that part or
they were just betting against it happening.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
But again, all these years later, it's still a miracle
that they ever said.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yes, it's still made a lot of fans happy, because
when you keep someone from their Doctor Pepper, they're not
really that mad at you.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Like, no one's really you know, no one's still to
this day is like I never got my Doctor Pepper.
You know, it's it's a serious face, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
So in the end, I think, you know, look, people
were like a little annoyed, but especially in today's world,
was so much happening that that was just like a
trivial thing you didn't get fulfilled upon.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
But you know, I think you could get over it
pretty quickly because you got the album.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
You know, in the end, like every fan got the
album out that they were able to finally enjoy all
the ingredients that thought would make a perfect album.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
That's incredible when you say they, I'm always interested and
it could be they, depending upon what conglomerate you're talking about. Yeah,
was it like a whole here in funal panel, they
all conspire together and be like all right, no, no, no, I'll.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Tell you what like this you know this really like
I don't, And again I don't blame anybody.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
This came out of left field for most of the
people in the Doctor Pepper marketing department. You got to remember,
if you give like a PR agency ten thousand dollars
budget to just do something that's going to get some press,
and you don't really you don't. You're not even aware
of it. Like at the CMO level, they're not aware
that this is happening, you know, they're they're they're just
like all right, cool, Like my comms guy is god
his agency and their job is to, you know, help

(39:43):
my brand get into the press.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
They're not running ideas like this up the food chain.
The thing is, once it.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Got to the top of the food chain, it was
like unavoidable, and then it became they were more like
annoyed because you gotta imagine, right, it's like I put
all my money. It's like if you have kids, you
have kid right now, right, you have one child? Yeah,
invest everything in this one child, right, You send them
to the best schools. You put all the money into
their education. That's what the other marketing campaigns were like

(40:10):
for Doctor Pepper. And then your other kid who you
didn't even know like was capable of much just all
of a sudden turns out to be like the next
Steve Jobs, and he just he has like the brilliant idea.
And you know, they wanted the stuff they were investing
in to be the stuff everybody talked about.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
Yea, not want this.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
They did not want Doctor Pepper to be seen as
the world's biggest Guns and Roses.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Fan like for a lot of them that came out
of left field.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
I got you.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, that's the mindset I think you get of a
lot of conglomerates. Or I always make sports analogies where
it's the you invested all this money into this one quarterback, yeah,
and he's sucking, but the backup.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Is really good.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Yeah, but you thrown the number one guy, the guy
you drafted out there because you invested all the time
and money in them.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:56):
So no, I get that completely.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
And by the way, I found shows you how my
memory is my only reason I remember going to the
show Hammerstein. I went to the May twelfth show. Yeah,
there was a few, like three shows I think it's four.
I have no memory of it, no memory. I was
going through my tickets. I go ask my friends, I'm like,
who went to this with me?

Speaker 1 (41:15):
I made the mistake of like the first show I
went to it because I went to two of them.
I went real early and grabbed the railing at the
front and it was like the worst concert of my life.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Couldn't move, couldn't.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Move, and you're getting You're getting pushed the whole time.
And then I'm like next next night, I'm like, you're
just like forty feet back. I mean it's a tiny venue.
And then you could dance. I had the best time ever.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Okay, see I got to be different since I'm handicapped.
I now I go in a wheelchair, but back then
it was just in my leg braces. I don't even
know if I was getting a cane at the time.
But when I went to see Velvet Revolver, I think
I have tickets in here too. I I held on
to the gate here here, yeah show and tel day
I should start land ball Room.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Yeah yeah, then Belvet was I held out as much
ruckus going on? You have pieces there was.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Not for all the pieces Sucker train Blues that was nuts.
But no, Yeah, I guess if you want to answer,
you're going back. Favorite concert may have been just to
see Slashing Axle for the first time, though in twenty sixteen,
so it's either between two because it was my first
time seeing Axle whatever. Yeah, So, I mean, it's kind
of I understand. It makes me a little a little

(42:29):
sad that you're you're done with the g in our experience,
because I just don't know how much longer are they.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Going to do it?

Speaker 3 (42:34):
There are but I don't. I just I'm good. You know,
I have so many good memories. I have so many
good memories, and that's fine.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
And when I go now, it's it's more just like
looking around the crowd even and it's kind of like
a reminder that we've all gotten really old, and you know,
and everyone's thinking about the last train out, you know,
to get back home. And I've got kids, and it's
it's and and I'm just so content with all the

(43:02):
memories and I just don't need any new ones, you know.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
My GNR tank is full. Oh I like that.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
No, it's fair.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
I wonder how I would feel too, if I didn't
have my my two and a half year old son
who would be who will be three by the time
gn Ruh tours, And I can't wait to go with him.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
I mean I don't.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
I mean maybe it'll be his first memory ever and
when he gets older, who knows. But just the fact
that I want to go to a you know, I've
into some concerts with him, but my concert that's what age?

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Are you going to bring him? I mean, is it?
I've never e three three this year? I know he
has had phones. Where are they going? Met Life? Uh?

Speaker 4 (43:39):
They are, But I don't want to go there again.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
I hate that.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
I don't like that venue either. I've been there too
many times and it's just look, you're you're in New Yorker, right,
so you know, I mean it's not like New Jersey's
far far away, but when it's traffic and when you come.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Home, it's not good there. MSG is always the best
or yeah, no MSG.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
But my wife likes to travel, So we're gonna go
up to Saratoga. I'm she's seen Dave there. Of course,
maybe we'll go to Hershey Park and have Harrison go
to play at Harshey Park too that weekend because they're
so we'll see. But we're going to Saratoga for sure,
and met Life's in the middle of the week and
I work, so I don't know, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
He'll love it.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Kids every kids love everything. They're so open minded to everything.
That's why I love children.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
I'm trying to live in as we live in the moments,
like live in these moments where guns and roads is.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
It's going to relate.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
You have those moments, right, you remember them, that's when
they really existed. Be in that and enjoy it now today.
I know people get it frustrated about even though Slash
gave us an update today as we're recording new music
or about.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Oh did I say that the beginning of this Yeah,
that okay, that they're going to do stuff after they're
done with the next two.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, well left tracks. These these what did he call
them rehashes? I think that's the term he used, Uh,
that that this is the last of those two rehashes,
which I don't know what that means because there's so
many other song titles out there.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Uh. I know you, I know you've liked the new
stuff I've heard some of.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Yeah, it's I just feel like they're they're just I
feel bad for those guys, because like, come on, like
it's not guns n' roses.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
I get it, it says guns and roses. But this stuff.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
You know what's interesting When Chinese marxray came out, remember
the like there's three albums and it's like thirty six tracks.
It's Russian espionage, Chinese democracy, German warfare. Like people had
all these like scenarios mapped out where like the General
is gonna hit so hard, it's the next civil war
strength all this stuff, and then the truth was the
best stuff is on Chinese democracy by far.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
By far.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Nothing that nothing that I've heard since should have kicked
anything off.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
In my opinion, there's a couple.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I mean, even though I've learned to uh appreciate like
scraped or something like that.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
You know, I like hard school.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
I know I'm in the minority.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
I don't know why I like absurd I do, but
perhaps you know, it's just I've never been able to
connect with it.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
The General is I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
Being part of the cat is absurd.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
It is absurd that that is the first track they
launched when the bang and that's that's what they There's
something crazy genius.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Why would they do it's it's just.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
It wasn't even mixed, right, the embarrassment of like they lose,
there's like a mix that's off on it. When his
vocals come in and literally the dude at a computer
being like, Okay, I gotta get absurd out, I gotta
moon slash his parts here, take out bucketheads.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Come on.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Everybody knows even like anything where Bucket did the original solos,
everybody wants to hear that version, right, he didn't sol
those on shacklers.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
This, you know, absurd like silk worms.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
But that these nat We're like, what, no, no, just
I ain't like it's weird. I didn't like silk worms
but a'bsurd. I don't know what it is, but I
understand you can. I'm not going to defend it.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
I don't don't.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
It's not a hill.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
He's just capable of such greatness that to me, it's
just these are just different iterations of my world that
I get that he wants to say stuff differently, And
I think axel where you just want to be harder,
you know, you want it like industrial.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Like nine inch nails, like he just wanted to kind
of that was like his.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
New interpretation of like, this is what hits, this is
what's harder, you know, and I already did all that
other stuff, so this is but it's it's not guns
and roses.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
The carrot, though, is monstrous. I don't know what that's about.
That's meat that of course I've heard it.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
It leaked with the General, right, so you're like listening
to all it's like a twelve minute and you're like, oh,
this is really good, and then the generals, like the
wheels come off.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
I don't, I don't.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
I maintain I maintained that Chinese should have been more
than one album. I don't know why it was only
fine toothed down to one because it's like, that's all
we can get out of this guy. And I think
if we heard these songs in the context of three
albums along that ride, which people don't enjoy the ride
of albums anymore. It's not to say that like I'd

(48:15):
be like, oh, yeah, the general and being like toe
tapping and snapping my fingers. But I think I always
have a different appreciation for it as a piece of
music rather than like a song I'm gonna hear on
the radio, And none of these songs are radio hits
on then maybe Hard School and that's also yeah, I
can't compare anything to appetite or use your illusion. I
swear to God if I hear one more, where's izzy?

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Yeah, it's also just not mixed, none of them.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Like the mix is always what kills me in a
lot of it, Like even Hard School, you listen to it,
it's like mixed low, like the vocals are not coming through.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Because when you go listen to like Sweet Child of Mind.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Right, listen to the mix, it's like he's front and center,
like old GNR.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Music, just it just hits you and goes through you.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
The new stuff just feels a little bit more produced, right,
It feels a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Maybe he needs to do that with his his voice now,
And that's something I never want to go up and
in on him, because what can you do you have
one voice?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
I think, I know we could talk about for hours,
But there's twenty elements of the new tracks that like
when you're trying to like piece it together, I think
it's probably a sound engineer's nightmare to be like, wait,
so how many instruments and how many like sounds are
we're trying to?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Like I can only imagine the layout of that how many?

Speaker 4 (49:31):
How many?

Speaker 3 (49:32):
You know, there's there's that moment. Yeah, like in Chinese
Democracy song, he's like, dude, dude, like why is he
doing that? Actually? Why are you saying that? Stop? Just
sing the lyric.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
I know, there's a lot of things I often say
for people who still refuse to listen to Chinese Democracy.
It took me three listens in my CD player because
I still the better arguably one of the fan favorites
on that album in the beginning part.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
No One, Yeah, fuck is this?

Speaker 2 (49:56):
This isn't Gunza rows Is And now we we love
it and it's a fan favorite. So that's why it's
it's cool that this is still a band that I
think fans they have their hits, these timeless hits. More so,
I think that a lot of other classical rock bands.
And why did this podcast? Because we welcome to the
Jungle Paradise City. These songs will be heard in the

(50:17):
sports arenas and movies we saw them mind for years
and years and years to come. It's not like Kiss,
and it's not like even Aerosmith, because we're fans really
asking for new Aerosmith music. We're Aerosmith fans really excited
for this stuff with young Blood or people really asking
for people don't care about new Poison music, and they've

(50:39):
said that people want new stuff from Axel Rose and
or probably end Guns and Roses. And that's why we
could talk about it, because he put out these works
of art that are more than just the eighties hit,
the nineties hit.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
The music video.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
And why we're still talking about it at least why
I'm still talking about it today and why you know,
it's so cool that you were able to incorporate your
fandom into your job, which is exactly what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Isn't that a cool thing?

Speaker 3 (51:06):
That's amazing?

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Absolutely absolutely, and I'm happy Brando that you're you're carrying
the torch of GNR. And it's just I think doing
a podcast is great and you know, giving the fans
like a much more like positive place to come hang
out and think about GNR every week, you know, because
the message boards can get negative and I think sometimes
when you when you sort of overanalyze it, like on

(51:29):
the Internet, it takes away from what it should be.
And I think people sharing their stories and talking about
their love of GNR is really the right vibe.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
These days.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, for anything, because it's easy to be negative. I
am my factory setting is negative. You know, a complaining
Jew from Long Island. I'm really living the stereotype, aren't I?

Speaker 3 (51:54):
But I don't.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
I don't want to be that, especially now around my son.
I don't want to be that kind of a person.
So I don't want to go on with what you said, though.
I don't want to be the sick of pantic. This
is positive things, and you say anything nocause that's not
living in reality either. So that's like how I look
at Axless voice. I know the reality of it, but
I'm not gonna take away from it. This is It

(52:16):
doesn't take away from anything he's ever put out there
or given, doesn't make him less of a person.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
It just makes this is just life. This is just life.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Where As we're adding grays losing hair, it sucks. I mean,
Slash can upgrade a guitar. He might have to deal
with like Keith Richards. I think he's dealing with arthritis
right now. Those are things you have to deal with.
Of course, you could be open and honest like bon
Jovi is, like Lou Graham was, Thank Lou Graham putting
out a solo record, which is cool, you could be honest,

(52:46):
but there's enjoy them while they're here. I will say
this because I don't I don't know if it's a
good or bad idea for me to put it out
there with not full info. But Tom Zutant, he's he's
a funny guy. You know who he is, right, Yeah,
of course, of course, yeah, Lockers gave us the leaks.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
I'm talking to a super fan, but I'm just making sure.
So he does tiktoks, right, that's so, Which is just
funny of a sixty fifth, sixty sixty year old guy
doing tiktoks. Not he's doing dances, he's just telling stories.
He doesn't want to tell them on this podcast because
he wants money.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
But that's I don't. I Don'm not doing that.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
He claims that this year is gonna be the last
year touring for both gn R and Niki six and
Martley Crue.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Rather, it may not be the end of like the shows.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
They could do one off shows and things like that,
maybe festivals, but he's claiming that this is the last
full fledged tour for Guns and Roses.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
And I've heard I had.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Another listener reached out to me saying, oh I heard
did he read tell me that of the show. I
don't believe in that stuff. So that's why I don't
want to build into this. But if Tom is putting
that out, then in the universe, see these bands, see
these artists. I've been saying it for years. Anyway, while
you can if you have your your guns and roses
film and that's cool, but if you're debating it, and

(54:07):
if you have the means, I know concerts are expensive today,
go because you don't know when the last time is
going to be.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
Yeah, whatever, human.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Being, every human being who's been alive since nineteen eighty
five ten twenty twenty six, should hear ax Rose live
at least once. I mean, he has the greatest vocal range.
I mean, it's been scientifically documented and I'll never forget Brandon.
I took my dad to see Axel lead ACDC at

(54:38):
MSG and it's like, you just don't get he was
amazing during.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
That that I don't have to take a sub of that,
but I was there.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Yeah, that was he went all in amazing, like he
felt the pressure to like deliver and he delivered.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
But it's just the thing. Yeah, and I agree.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
I agree, And look, Slash is still hitting the notes
easier for the guitar players because the instruments don't lose
their range, even though you.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Might not be able to play us fast. I mean
these things, but we have to.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Really, you're not gonna go to a Dunge and Roses
show and not have a good time. If you do,
there's something dead inside.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
That's the thing.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
You're gonna have a good time regardless. Look around, see
the people. Yeah, all the memories you have.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
So they sound so much better live too, you know.
I agree. We probably all make that defense. They're just
a it's a live band.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
They were always a live band, and they they were
capturing the live energy was always what gin R was about.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
And thank god Gevin Records did I know.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
And it sounds like a defense when I say that, Yeah,
they sound better live, but it's it's just true. It's
not telling you to not believe what you hear and
see on YouTube, but I'm telling you not to really
put your your stock completely into that. Yeah, because it's
it's just not the same. But before we we run,
I gotta get some more stories out of you. You

(55:58):
apparently gave a Del James a vacuum cleaner?

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Did he did? Did he did he confirm that?

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Oh no, I haven't asked him.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Did I tell you that? Yeah? No, It's funny. You
know Del James has one, Axel got one. They all did.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
So when I worked at Ketchum, my other client was
dice in vacuum cleaners, and I was just it was
amazing me, like they're like, yeah, like you guys want
to dice in them? Like yeah, sure, I mean if
they were like four hundred dollars vacuums. And I think
I was just stuck in this moment where I was
so elated that I had personal connections to all these
individuals that I just wanted to like say thank you

(56:33):
anyway I could, which is the weirdest way humanly possible
to thank someone with a dice in vacuum.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
But you know, I had all their addresses, Axel's address.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
I would always be mailing them like doctor pepper cases
and whatever I could as just a way to say thanks.
And you know, they'll never know what it meant to me.
I think, you know, I got to know Ron better
and you know Frank at certain times. But it it's
just the little kid in me when the campaign went live,

(57:04):
was just doing backflips inside my head.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
And you know that's you know, throughout life.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I mean, we all just sort of chase that feeling
that we had when we're young and the things we
grow attached to, right, And I think for your son
and my boys, I hope one day they can geek
out the way you're geeking out with GNR, the way
I can geek out with GNR and Pimball. The people
who have hobbies are the happiest people, and to have
a hobby like this, it really makes you wake up

(57:33):
and you have a community. Because the number one epidemic
BRANDO is loneliness. And as long as you're into something,
you'll never be alone. There's millions of guns of Roses
fans that are still waiting for a new album.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
They're just never going to get it.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
That's really well said, and I've said that that this podcast.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Yeah, I work in radio with my career.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
You know, it'd be nice to make some money from this,
and you'll make a little of social media and the
very kind patrons that I have and things like that.
But it started out of loneliness and depression and trying
to find a community and I did, and doing this
for you know, may Overen ten years is insane. So
I look forward to doing the even though I don't
do a podcast every day, I look forward to going

(58:13):
online and all the I always say, the conversation continues
on social media, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all those YouTube
applying to comments every day, I look. I look forward
to it. Yeah, there are those trolls that annoy you.
I had somebody the other day who I posted, uh going.
I make a lot of like short highlights, you know,

(58:35):
And I did one of Tracy Guns telling me the
origin of G and R or how it started.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
And some guys like, what is this.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
Fool talking about?

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Because Tracy's talking about how it when Axel was fired
from LA Guns and they started this thing called guns
and Roses and like it started from there.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
And he's like, what is this full talking about?

Speaker 3 (58:53):
It started from.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Hollywood Rose and guns are roses And I'm like, yeah,
but that's part of the story. Like you're going to
try to correct the guy who created it, and the
person responded, are you stupid? And I'm like I can't
deal with that. Bands Yeah bye, goodbye bands like you can't.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
Have a block people all the time now too, and
my my Facebook podcast people, Yeah it's brand. It's your house,
your house, your rules.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
I always tell the some people, and you got to
know how that there's an art patrolling where you don't
want to get banned. Sometimes I forget that, but you
you want to still be in on the conversation and
the debate with the fans.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
You don't want to go too far and calling someone.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Names, but you can question something without being a piece
of ship totally.

Speaker 4 (59:39):
So I mean that's I always say.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
I only band people when they start, you know, I
give them opportunities to like, don't don't use those words,
don't talk to me or my guess a certain way
we could talk.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
So anyway, I like, I digress.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Get ready for some pinball fans the comment when this
is a block the ball, I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
I got to get Paris in a pinball machine or
and be like a little one.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
I get you a deal. I know some people.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Okay, I bet you do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
One more story though he told me to remind you
of and this does relate to guns and roses. Remind
me to tell the story where I flew to Paris
to impress a girl.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Oh yeah, well this is when I was able to
get on a list as they call it, which is
one of the band members would put you on their list,
which was always nice. It gets you a ticket to
the concert, and then you would be able to go
backstage afterwards. Sometimes ax would be there, sometimes not. So
I was trying to impress a girl I was working with.

(01:00:40):
Flew all the way to Paris, frances because I'm like, well,
what would be the greatest, like excuse to go to
Paris and go see Guns n' Roses. And we go there,
We're having the best time at the concert. Hopefully my
wife doesn't hear this part. And then we go to
go backstage, which is like, you know, kind of like
the real Flex was like, oh, we're gonna go meet
the band, and then all the security is like everybody

(01:01:03):
get out, like they wouldn't even let you in.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
And that was the night.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
The next we're like, what happened? Why are they treating
everybody like jerks? The next day you read in the
newspaper that was the night the model that snuck into
Axel's dressing room and stole all of his jewelry, And
it was like two hundred thousand dollars I think, or
something in his jewelry and he just like just lost it,
and I as I would, I mean, any you know,

(01:01:27):
all his stuff got jacked and he wanted nothing to
do with any afters or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
So I'm like, oh, man, I like to go all
the way to why couldn't it happen in like East Rutherford,
New Jersey. It happened in Paris, France.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Yeah maybe your wife ear muffs? Did he close the
deal anyway? Or no?

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Okay, no, we I'm yeah we were.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
We've been broken up for many, many years and I
have the most amazing wife ever, who who does She
does enjoy guns n' roses and she's irish off the boat, Brenda.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
She's the best and all nice. Yeah we love we
love a little guns and roses every now and then.
Oh so now you got to go to her neck
of the woods. Yeah, I'm going there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
I will tell you if you haven't heard this album,
then I'm going to give one plug of a great
album that came out this past year. Is And I
know it's I hesitate to say this artist being a
G and R fan, but Mgk's Lost Americana album is
fin amazing. So if you like a good album from
song one to the last track, and he wrote it
like when he went on he like checked himself in

(01:02:30):
the into like rehab and he wrote it in like
two weeks. It has like that energy of like an
album that was just written in his living room and
he just dropped it. And I'm gonna go to Dublin
to see him.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Maybe when he goes there, we'll see Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
I was like, where is this tying in?

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Yeah, that's the nice little tie in. I think G
and R is playing in Dublin. I think on their
world tour, I think they're going to stop by Ireland again.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Okay, okay, yeah, probably I would love to go abroad
in one of those eventually, assuming they keep touring, I
will go see them in more places.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Yeah, if you mentioned Machine Gun Kelly, so it will
be nice tie up here shout out to I know
Rick Dunsford is a fan of both gen R and
m J Kay and Rick did not know he.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Was going to be in that book. Did you know
you were going to be in this book?

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
By the way, and then the IDI I talked to him,
so I knew that was going in because he had
like direct quotes.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Did he have direct quotes of Rick and Rick didn't
talk to him? Yeah he had. I think he he had.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
He took quotes from the Rolling Stone article. I believe
that's where he took it from. I mean, Rick is
even though there was something mad.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
I feel like he and he mentioned with gn R
and he's he wasn't mad.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
He wasn't mad.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Actually the one who was mad was Dustin from uh
Guns and Guns and Radio. Uh if you watched the interview,
because they talk about what they got the book got
wrong about Rick in one of their episodes, and Dustin
was pretty angry and Rick, I'm just happy to be
in a book. Yeah, they got stuff wrong. I'm kind
of annoyed by it, but I'm just happy to be
in a book. So I mean you to be in

(01:04:00):
a book, that must be a this is the first
time in a book or.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
No, I think so okay, maybe some pinball books and
maremm never heard of nice.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Nice I'm all the way in the in the glossary
of one of my brain Appetite for Distortion brain interviews cited,
So I'm thinking in a book. So Chris Canada, thank you.
I Hope Harrison Harrison Rex, do you want to play
pinball later?

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
Okay? So that's okay, kind of like that name. Yeah,
we went through it. We didn't want to go with
what are your kids' names?

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Any musical?

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
So Killian after Killian Murphy and then Cassie in after
Cassie and and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
Or the leader of the rebellion in Star Wars.

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
If you're you're the you're the nerd.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
Okay, I like, yeah, back to back. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
So we didn't want to go with My wife has said,
even though we're not planning on another one, she's like,
for the next if we have another boy, we really
need to consider Axel Matthews.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Right, I couldn't do it. And then if it comes
on the show, let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
What we need to do is use the media, be like,
man will name baby after Axel rose Man Man who
hosts world's number one Guns and Roses podcast, We'll name
baby after Axel if he does his show. That's the
kind of positive pressure we could put out in them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
That's what I need your help for. That's okay, come
on Axel. And then everyone's like, come on, Axl, make
it happen.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
And then I see those Instagram posts where people are
like all my husbands said, he'll take me on a
Hawaiian vocation if somebody from Saved by the Bell comments
on my fucking something stupid like that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
So, uh, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Oh and by the way I see it, this will
bet I am in marketing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
If you go to aft pod dot com, you can
buy Apple disortion.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
T shirts nice and donate it and donate it so
I can I don't know, I can set up the
Baby Brownstone hard school funds.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Let's get We'll get some pinball people donating. They're very
generous with their money.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I'm sure with the quarters at least. All right, this
was awesome. Come back anytime, man, I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Yeah, let's hang in the city. I'm in there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
We'll definitely let's go get a coffee or something and
chet Ginge are in real life? You're you're aware now
in Brooklyn or.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
I am in Forest Hills. Queen's the home of the Ramones.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
All right, let's do it. I'm in the in the
city all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
Oh, right on, come, I'm going to give people.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Oh absolutely, Uh why does this guy ask him how
to turn out now this is I'm responding because I
was about to before I say, before I get out
of here, I want to give you some teasers about
who's coming up. I'm scheduling an interview with Ryan Roxy,
who has been has not been on the you know
It's getting This was episode five forty nine. He was
episode forty seven or something like that. It was like,

(01:06:40):
and that's how long it's been. It's been like seven
years since Ryan Roxy. Of course, from Alice Cooper and
Slash the Snake Pit will becoming Nice Tail Gunner new
metal bands out of the UK that their new album
I believe is produced by KK Downing and he calls
them the next big thing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
I haven't.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
I want to do another appetite for the Discover I
haven't done those in a while, like the next big
Thing and see what G and R connections they have.
Of course, and Chris Webber, he reached out to me,
of course from Hollywood Rose. He wants to come back
on the show and talk about some Hollywood rods. So
those are coming up, most likely next month, most of them.

(01:07:18):
I'm trying to do my best schedule around this kid,
who thankfully thank you to my wife, who kept him
away from the screen for almost an hour and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
I appreciate that man anytime. Okay, gosh, you're making me
want a pinball machine so badly. That thing glowing up
in the background, amazing, that's so cool.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
So that does it fit this episode of appetite forward distortion?
When will we see the next one?

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
In the words of.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Axo Rose, concerning Chinese democracy, I don't know as soon
as the word, but you'll see it thanks to security.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
I'm going home