June 23, 2026 • 55 mins
Dr. Steven Thaxton returns to the podcast! We dive into how he ended up on tour with Guns N' Roses as their personal chiropractor during the epic Use Your Illusion era. Stories about riots, dinners with Axl, and much more!
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Our website: www.afdpod.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Every ten to fifteen seconds ues here that machine gun
going off, and then every ten to fifteen minutes usuer
a boom bomb going off somewhere around Bogatal.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to the podcast Appetite four Distortion, Episode number five
hundred and sixty seven. My name is Brando. Welcome back
to the podcast, Doctor stephen Thaxton. How are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh, I'm good. It's a wonderful day to be alive,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It is a good day to be alive. As we're
recording this, I don't know if you care at all
because you're down in West Virginia. My New York Knicks.
They have won their first championship in fifty three years,
and they went down the Canydon heroes. I did not go.
I watched it in the safety of my own home.
But regardless, it is a good day. It is a
(00:51):
good day.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
From what I understand. They came back from a twenty
nine point deficit in the previous game to staying in
the hunt and then win it in the last game.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, pretty much, you know, just largest comeback victory ever
for an NBA Finals team. And what I'm gonna do.
I've been posting this is gonna be the segue tie
into everything. I had a friend, I'm not a huge
AI person at all because it's like us for a
lot of we can go this because I think it's
good for medicine things like that. But there is a uh,
(01:24):
this Guns and Roses creator who does a great job. Honestly,
this is very He's a person behind it. He's not
just pressing buttons. So I did the Appetite for Distortion
cross with the Knicks players. I want to make that
into a T shirt too, the T shirt Appetite for
Championship or something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, that'd be a T shirt.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's a tie into everything. And there is a tie
into Guns Roses and everything, including chiropractics. So for those
who may not remember Doctor Daxton, he was an episode
one hundred eleven. I had to look at up.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Wow that long?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, I know, and I would be remiss and I
always give credit what credit to do that I would
not have met you. And he was my co host
for that episode. And that was Doug Goldstein, former Guns
Roses manager, and I've spoken about it on the podcast
and here you know, I hope he's doing great. It
was just that working with the book, it just took
(02:25):
a lot out of me, and just the way it ended.
It just it's like an ex girlfriend. I'm like, I
wish you well, I don't know if I can Maybe
in the future we can have I just I just
don't feel comfortable like if I had him back on
the podcast with that looming over. So I'm just being honest,
that's all. In case of people are wondering and you know,
how did you find doctor Thaxton even though you're in
(02:47):
the back of the User Illusion Tour book, right.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I am, yeah, And I think Axel told me I
would be in the liner notes after the first one
hundred thousand copies were printed because I joined the tool
were I think the tour started in February or March,
and I joined the tour in July.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Okay, Okay, so we're gonna we will rewind because the
episode that we did together was before I started doing video.
And I guess it would be cool to see you
because you're You're a fun interesting character as a look
at I not many I'm enbious of their facial hair,
but you are rocking that better than the Hulk Hogan
(03:28):
Fu Manshoe. What do you what do you call it?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I call it food. I had it in college and
thought I could never have it again, uh being a chiropractor.
So then I grew it out on the guns tour
and I loved a lot. But you know, you come
off tour and start private practice, shave it all off,
try to look normal. And five or six years ago
(03:53):
I went to school uh in Texas, uh at Abilene
Christian University, which I'm sure they're not very proud of
me there for reasons. But anyway, I got so used
to West Texas style. I mean, there was point in
my life hoping be caught dead anything but wranglers and
pro rodeo cowboy cut wranglers and cowboy boots outside of
(04:16):
my tracks bikes. But anyway, so I missed having my food.
So five or six years ago I said, what thatck?
I grew it out and hadn't seemed to affected my business.
Everything seems to be.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Fine right on. Yeah, it's funny I think back of
I went so much of my life without a beer. Now,
I the last time I shaved it, my wife like
almost left it. It was just like during COVID. I
was bored all those videos you see like wives reacting
to their husband. It's true, it is so true, and
so I will never do that again. I did it
because I was like making up for a radio show
(04:49):
three that morning, no one seeing me, who cares. And
then right like I like this, I don't want to
look professional. I want to look like.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
What I'm comfortable with. And that's what I've told a
lot of people. People. You know, I went through a
period there where I never wanted to look in the mirror.
I didn't like myself very much. And then once I
grew the food back out, I was like, yeah, I
kind of like this guy.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yes, that's why you belonged on that user illusion tour.
So the reason, you know, because we're I love seeing
your posts. We're Facebook friends, and you have so much
bike stuff in the back if you're watching this on YouTube,
because you're an interesting guy.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
In addition to the Guns of Roses lure that we
were the perfect crime documentary, these long rumored document documentary
about Guns of Roses during the User Illusion era leaked,
or I should say a promo version. I know. The
the G and R hardcore is like, it's not the documentary,
(05:44):
It's only a thirty seven minute promo. It's more than
a trailer, you get the it was like more than
a TV show, more than an episode of the Simpsons anyway,
So I quickly I don't Probably no one else noticed
it asn't watching this. It's right across you see act
on the tarmac in front of this giant jumbo jet
on well, getting his neck adjusted right you like what
(06:10):
in sight?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I saw it. By the way, Doug did send it
to me, God bless him, and I did. I did
catch that a little bit in there.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know, let's let's talk. I want to talk about
starting off with that story. You know, since I brought
that up, let's let's start off with you know what, No, no,
that's guys, I said. I was gonna go back. See
my head is all swimming everywhere, Becau. There's a lot
of stuff want to talk to you about. So in
case if people don't remember episode one eleven and what's
just happened on video, can you kind of just go
back to how you because of Doug, how you landed
(06:42):
on the g n R tour, Like, how do you
go from being a what the thing is? You weren't
really a chiropractor yet? Right, that was Yeah, yeah, tell
it just the beginning of how you got first got
on that tour. Then we'll get into specific stories.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Okay, my now ex wife, she had a big or
had a friend who was a big wig at the
STARplex Amphitheater in Dallas, Texas, where I was going to
chiropractic school. When I was almost done, I just hadn't
served my prison term. I called because h had to
be in a public clinic for three thousand hours and
I'd been in there like eighteen hundred hours. So anyway,
(07:19):
he would come over and she would cook him and
Ey dinner and herself, and he gives free tickets to
some shows, and I might have run an illegal chiropractic
occupuncture clinic out of the third bedroom of our house
that last year of chiropractic school, and I'd treat him
for free, hoping that if you ever needed a chiropractor,
(07:40):
I'd be the guy who think of the call. And
the first band that came through was GNR, which happened
to be my still is my favorite band, and he
called and said, hey, they want a chiropractor out here,
which was the next show after the Saint Louis Riots.
So everybody was stressed out and it sure didn't take
(08:02):
a great chiropractor to figure that out. And and so
so the first night I treated like four guys. Uh said,
we're just really stressed and busy. And so I gave
the tour manager, which was a guy named John Reese,
I gave him my card and said, you know, this
was my this is my student cards because I haven't
(08:23):
had my doctor cards up yet. I was the one,
but I didn't tell him that and said, if you're
rock and roll man, that's a great thing about rock
and roll. You can still do those things. Ben some
rolls and so so anyway, I said, call me if
you don't want me to come back, otherwise we'll be
back tomorrow night for the second show. And I came back,
and uh, I brought my wife with me, and she
(08:45):
counted like seventy people in like three hours that I treated.
And you know, it was crew guys and the band
and the band's wives and their girlfriends and uh, it's
just all these people and and so then the band went. Uh.
Axel's routine usually was stay at the hotel till the
(09:07):
last minute, then he'd drive to the show. They limoed
to the show and he would uh go in the
band dressing room and they would he would tell the
band the set list and they go on. And so
now when they went in, they all told him about
this chiropractor, and so he sent his personal assistant over,
Blake Stanton, and UH then and uh, and so Blake
(09:29):
came by and said, hey, man, can you stick around
and uh work on Axel after the show. And now
really like I had anything else on the plant that
was more important, So of course I stuck around and uh,
and he liked the work I did, and they went
on to Denver, and UH called a couple of days
later and said, can you meet us in Salt Lake.
We got a plane ticket waiting for you at DFW Airport.
(09:51):
So I flew to Salt Lake and and off we went.
I noticed somebody else had something today on Facebook about
Axel hot air balloon riding around Salt Lake. So there
was three of us or three balloons, and uh, the
massage therapist, Uh, Sabrina and I uh were in one
(10:12):
one balloon, and Axel and somebody else was in another,
and I think Doug Goldstein and somebody else was in
another one.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
If it didn't happen to you. It just sounds made up,
like if it did actually happen, it sounds yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Oh. You know. The hilarious part about it is I
was so broke. How broke was I? I was so
broke that I was below zero because I had everything
I was living on with student loan money. So I
was so frugal. And so my wife owned a yogurt shop,
so if I got starving too bad for lunch, I'd
(10:46):
run down there for for for yogurt for lunch. And
uh and so that was like three days prior to that,
and prior to the hot air balloon ride that evening. Uh,
Axel took us all out to this really nice French
restaurant in Salt Lake City. It's like a five star restaurant.
And he's ordering escargo and State tartar And in my hand,
(11:06):
I'm thinking, oh my god, three years ago or three
days ago, I couldn't afford to feed myself lunch and
I'm having Stay tartar with Axel rods. This is the
craziest thing in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's that's I love that. This is why I keep
doing this podcast. And I mean, I know I spoke,
I've spoken to you before. But it's those kind of stories. Yeah,
it's you know, we can talk about Axel and the music,
and we do, of course, but these things that you
would not know and the lives that have been changed
that you wouldn't even think about. I just think that's
so fascinating and I'm glad I kind of re listened
(11:40):
to some of our episode because as I don't want
to make the same joke again, being like I have
doctor Nick Riviera from the Simpsons, another Simpsons reference right
with the way bart Nick look at that.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, if I into it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I've always said, if I didn't do a g in
our podcast, maybe a Simpsons one. But yeah, just it's
just imagining you coming like just like like the rest
of them were, you know, it kind of like Rags
the Rich is kind of kind of a story. Yeah,
So I just I love that then.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It really was. It was like it was amazing how
things turned around and were changing in my life at
that time.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I will I will get to and let's we
can call I was thinking like this, sometimes let's treat
the story like a song. So perhaps your your greatest
hit might be the story that you have about Amy
Bailey and we'll say that to the end. I think
that perhaps could be the encore because uh, and we'll
talk about it more later later. Like I said that,
I made a short clip of that online like I
(12:37):
do with all my interviews. It has a million views.
I don't have anything like that a million, So I
don't know. I don't know if we can repeat that,
but regardless, it'll be fun to hear again. So to
go back to the docs, Yeah, I told you my
mind's everywhere. It's funny when I don't have my son here,
you know, during like an episode I told you, off
the areas out with a babysitter. My mine's still like
(13:01):
almost multitask and being like where is he? Where is he?
Oh yeah, not here? So it's a never ending end,
never ending thing. So when I was watching again the
perplect Crime documentary and seeing Axel, just so funny getting
is adjusted on the tarmac. How does that happen? Why
does that happen? I mean, is that the best place
(13:22):
for the spine to align?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Why?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There? I just find that very interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I don't remember that particular exact episode, but that was
so that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Wasn't a regular thing that happened. It wasn't like always
adjusting me when we get off the plane or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I don't remember it happening more than two or three times.
We would just be like my table would be stored
in the luggage compartment, so I didn't have easy access
to it on the plane. And but to me, when
I saw that, I thought, that is so descriptive of
(14:03):
the decadence of that particular tour. I mean, you've got
the lead singer getting adjusted on the tarmac in front
of the MGM Grand airplane, which was no like casual plane.
I mean, the thing had this massive living room in
the front, a nice bar in the center of it,
bedrooms behind the bar, and then well, I'm my high
(14:29):
club bathroom in the back. You know. It was. It
was an incredible plane. But that just showed like the
decadence of that tour in a g rated form. So
I don't remember the exact incident, but my suspicions are
we're on the plane, Naxil's like, hey man, my next
(14:49):
kind of stiff and my back's a little stiff. Can
you adjust me when we get off the plane? You know?
So yeah, I mean whatever takes to keep him happy,
and so uh, when the stairs come down from the plane,
run around back, they're pulling luggage off. I grabbed my
table and throw it out there on the tarmac. And
I guess the video crew they were around. I mean,
(15:11):
that's that documentary. The documentary crew those guys were and girl,
they were really hard working and they captured a lot
of stuff. So what what they'll actually releasing the documentary.
I have no idea, but they they were really on
top of their game, and they captured a lot of things.
And so apparently they captured that. And that's probably the
(15:34):
best explanation I can give you. Most of the time
I was adjusting him in his hotel suite.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But okay, it's a good example, like you said, of
the of the decadence and of everything. And yeah, I
don't know if they'll release it, because forgive me for
not I stort of mind GNR forum dot com. So
I'll credit that that medium for for finding this out.
And I am on Blue Ski or Blue Sky whatever
it is. It's there's millions social media. I don't like
(16:02):
being on them. If I was doing this podcast, I
quit them all. I know, we're on Facebook, but it's
like the alternate you know Twitter, but so Del James
is on there and someone asked him the question about
the release of the you know, do you know who
released the Perfect Crime documentary or the promo version of it?
You know, do you know anything about it? And to
(16:22):
kind of paraphrase, he says, I don't know, and they're
an asshole whoever leaked it. So I ain't do it.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
It wasn't my fault. I'm sorry for sharing and talking
about it, but I mean I lot have amazing things
were captured. So yeah, I just you were one of
the characters in there, so yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Which I'm flattered that they would put me in there.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So right next to the naked ladies in the spa
and all.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
You know, I think back about that tour, and I've
been on quite a few tours since then, no other
g and Our tours, but the decadence of ten naked
women setting in a hot tub around AXL, I mean,
that's that describes a lot of it. But you know,
I think back, that was a long time ago, Brando,
(17:13):
that was like thirty five years ago, and so when
I compare that, I'm thinking, well, you know, that'd be
like the Beatles, they you know, really took off, like
in sixty four, sixty five. By sixty eight they were
pretty huge. But thirty five years after sixty five, that's
like two thousand, nobody's talking about a Beatles tour in
(17:34):
two thousand, and then you think led Zeppelin, you know,
at the height of their fame seventy eight, seventy nine.
Nobody in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, or it was talking
about this incredible led Zeppelin tour that took place. But
yet here we are with guns thirty five years later,
(17:55):
still talking about this incredible tour.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
That's exactly what I say every time we bring it up.
You know, it's why do we talk about the albums
or the tour? Why are we still talking about them?
That's why I don't. I've never agreed with the one
album argument. Would we be talking about it? I mean,
I'm sure we would be talking about it, but just
it doesn't give us the layers talk about and with
this tour. That's my defense of why I think Gilby
(18:22):
Clark should have been in the Hall of Fame, because
to survive that tour that we're still talking about, that's
his hall of fame as it gets I don't care
if it wasn't an appetite. He was on this spaghetti incident,
and he survived the User illusion tour. That is enough.
Those are enough qualifications for me a fan. So that's
just my opinion.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Well, and you know, it sounds funny to saying survive
such a decadent wild tour, but there were some dangerous
situations in Bogata, Columbia and that whole South American leg
we did. It's a probably a ten minute story, but
there were some truly situations where it could have been
(19:04):
life and death. And just like with the riot in Bogatal,
I mean that was really nuts. But anytime riots it's
going to be nuts. But it was that that tour.
To get through that tour is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So you know what, let's since we brought it up now,
let's let's bring up that that Amy story.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
So as I'm looking at this, it's gotten one million,
three you know, thirty eight thousand views. But here's here's
the real kicker. And this is what people say about Spotify.
It doesn't matter how many how much money you're going
to earn, it's not going to be a lot. I
will say, because it has cocaine in the title, it
really doesn't have the full ad exposure. But just for kicks,
(19:46):
how much do you think this has earned me? Over
a one million views from YouTube? Just for kicks you have,
it's not going to be a lot. So just how
to keep that in mind?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Dude? I can't. I have no. I did my limitations
and social media.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
It doesn't should be built up like that. Sixty five bucks.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Sixty bucks you've made old sixty five bucks.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah, sixty five bucks. So I'm really swimming in
it here, ye.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Bucks for you, I know.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So it's it's a story that is. If you don't
know what, I don't want to spoil it. So yeah,
if you wouldn't mind talking to me about that harrowing
day within the Columbia, the riot, and how Axel's sister
played a part in it.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
How do you feel about me summing it or just
talking about that whole leg of that tour through South America.
It'll take about ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
It works for me, all right.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
So that tour I believe started in the fall of
ninety two. It could have been the fall of ninety one.
I can't remember exactly, but I'm just I'm thinking it
was ninety two. Anyway, So we started off in Rocus, Venezuela,
(21:01):
and prior to us getting there, a lot of the
stage of the staging and all of that arrived, and
a group of Venezuelans started praying for a massive rain
storm because they thought we were devil wishpers. So the
(21:23):
night before the show, so we fly in like the
night before and there's this huge storm and they put
tarps over the top of the stage, over the lighting
and things like that, but they didn't get them tied
down very well, and so it rained like four or
five inches of rain in like two hours, and that tarp,
(21:46):
of course, just filled up with water and collapsed the
stage in So that started that like started off like
how are they going to build rebuild the stage overnight
and the next day in time for these guys to
take this stage the next night. Somehow it got done.
So they do the show, and you know, it's a
(22:07):
great show, of course, and uh, and we're going to
fly like two hours after two or three hours after
the show, we're going to fly on to Bogataal. And
so we go back to the hotel shower and you know,
pack up and uh go out to the plane and
fly off. Well, as we're leaving, there is a coup,
(22:29):
a government coup or a military takeover of the government
in the countries of Venezuela. So we can't get our
equipment out of Venezuela until things calm down. So our
next show is to be in Bogataal Columbia, and so
(22:51):
that so we fly in there, that to Bogatal late
that night and uh the next day. My mother, I'll
just add this in on a personal basis. My mother
all always wanted to know what Bogata was, like, I
think because at that time Pablo Escobar was a pretty
big character all over world news and operating in the Bogatal,
(23:12):
Columbia area. And for those that are young didn't know,
Pablo Escobar was this massive drug kingpin who got elected
into the Colombian Senate. So he almost kind of legalized coaching,
which is just amazing, but it was this huge kingpin.
And so my mother said, when you get the Bogata,
(23:34):
call me. So we didn't have cell phones back then,
so I just called her from the hotel room phone
and she goes, what's it like there, And I'm like, well,
they told us not to really go in front of
the windows much. And she goes, really, it's that dangerous,
and I'm like, it's kind of dangerous, and she goes,
are you are you sure you're okay. I'm like, yeah,
it's fine. Here, hang on a second, And I opened
(23:56):
my window and I put the phone outside, and every
ten to fifteen seconds use here right that that machine
gun going off, and then every ten to fifteen minutes
usure a boom, you know, a bomb going off somewhere
around Bogatal. So I'd have my phone out there for
like thirty forty seconds. Let my mother listen to that. Yeah,
(24:17):
I was trying to do. That was horrible, Sun. I
can't believe you still claim to me.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, I'm fine. Here's some gunshots, don't worry about that,
and uh car honking down here exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
So, and they, you know, they didn't want us going out,
even going to the hotel lobby without bodyguards. So you know,
we were kind of all confined to our rooms. So
the so what so what led up to the riot
then was we were supposed to play I think on
Sunday night and Monday night, and so we got words
Sunday morning that the we were going to be able
(24:52):
to get our equipment out of Barracas, Venezuela, and we
would be able to set it up Monday and then
have Monday night show, but then we could have Tuesday
night show, I mean Sunday night show on Tuesday. So
that was what management Doug Goldstein John recent plan, and
(25:13):
so the Colombian promoter, I think it was cocaine out
of his mind, came and talked to Doug said, ah, nah,
we're just all gonna We're just gonna put them all
in there on Monday night. We'll just all the tickets
will be good for Monday night show. Well, it was
an eighty thousand seat stadium and he'd sold out both nights.
So you're putting one hundred and sixty thousand people in
an eighty thousand seat stadium. It's not gonna work. Doug's
(25:35):
wise enough to know it's not working, but this promoter
insisted on doing that. So of course tensions were high
and the show goes on and didn't take long for
those outside the gates couldn't get in the gates because
there was no not even standing room. Now they start rioting,
and it was in a little suburb of Bogatah. So
(25:57):
they busted storefronts and unfortunately, uh, the police rolling horseback
and a horse got killed. Uh, and it just it
got really ugly. But the story that we talked about
before was that so the riot then like becomes part
of the stage and you know, the uh the band was,
(26:19):
you know, they leave the stage. Uh, people were trying
to get monitors and speakers and things like that off
the stage, and drums and guitars and tar teks are
fighting off people to keep from guitars getting stolen, and
so backstage it's kind of chaos also. And Amy actual sister,
(26:42):
and it's such a wonderful sweet person. She's looking around like,
you know, there's bad things happening here, and uh, we've
got to be able to help. Well, Amy's a nurse,
and so she sees this shoulder, this soldier who's bleeding
profusely from his head, and she grabs him and pulls
him over towards me. He's like, Steve, can you sew
(27:03):
this guy up? And although uh, suturing or stitching people
up was not part of my training, I had done
plenty of it even on that tour, and uh, and
I carried a suit your kid and uh and some
lightocane with me and uh. So I look in my
bag and I realize I'm out of lyocane, and so
(27:24):
I tell Amy I can't. I don't have anything to
numb his his skin on his head, I don't have
anything to numb it up with. And she's like, Hey,
we're in Bogota, Columbia. We can uh, We'll just get
some cocaine to throw it down in there to numb
it up. I'm like, wow, that's a great idea. Okay.
So Amy goes out around the backstage area and anywhere
(27:46):
she can get where she's feeling safe out of the building. Uh.
I think she got out of the building even and
and she comes back like an hour later, and she's
totally dejected or shoulders are hunched forward or heads hanging down,
and she's saying, she said, I'm like, Amy, what's the matter.
And she just steve, We're in Bogatah, Columbia, and I
(28:08):
can't find cocaine anywhere. And the irony of that is
kind of mind boggling, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
It's ask the bands. That's like one of the number
one comments I see in that video. Did he did
she ask the band themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm assuming she did. But there's uh that even that
gets better because there were times when things got flushed
in hotel toilets because we got raided. Uh, So there's
more to these. There's a lot of stories like this.
But anyway, so that poor soldier sold his head up
(28:44):
without any antja. He was one tough kid. And and
so we eventually, uh police in the army got control
of the situation. We were able to get out of
the stadium and get back to our hotel, and so
we were due to fly out. Then we changed our plans.
(29:06):
So we're flying out like on Tuesday night. We go
to the airport. We get on a plane. We're going
down the runway and the Bogata airport's like at eight
thousand feet, so it's pretty high altitude and the pilots
didn't compensate for that. So we get almost to the
end of the runway and we're not achieving liftoff speed,
(29:26):
so they stopped turn the plane coming back. We're freaking
out on the inside because we're thinking the government has
stopped us because they're going to make us pay for
all this riot damage. But then the pilot comes on
and says, no, we're turning around. We've got to get
our engines revved up before we leave the main part
(29:47):
of the tarmac. So they brought some kind of machines
out to help rev the engines up more. And off
we went, and we flew into i think from Bogataw
we flew to Santiago, Chile was the next stop, which
will it was another interesting to play into this whole thing. Uh.
So we're there a day or two early from what
we were, and you know, we're having fun. We're joining
(30:09):
it's some beautiful hotel and it's uh, it's beautiful weather.
We're hanging out to pool. Really, you know, making the
best of a day off and maybe a couple of
days off. And so show day comes and and we
all get ready and uh, you know our routine was
Fanned would go into the show axel and uh, his
(30:29):
bodyguard and his personal assistant and the massage therapists myself
will stick back and and uh he'd have dinner and
then the massage therapist would work on him and I'd
work on him, and then uh we'd get in a
limo and I'd tape his ankles on the way to
the show, and so that's what we did. And we
get back to the hotel and we start calling each
(30:50):
other because every room has been ransacked and so the
Santiago FBI or whatever I guess thought we were smuggling
bugs in, so they had come in and ransacked everybody's room.
And uh, but you know, the show went off without
any problems, which was nice and uh, and so then
(31:11):
we went on to uh South Paulo. So we went
to South Paulo, Brazil from Santiago the next day and
and so we get to the show and it's rained
for like three days straight in salth Paulo, and it's
raining during the show. It's it's it's a muddy mess.
(31:33):
You know, fans are standing probably ankle deeper higher in mud.
It's it's a mess. And uh, we're mostly through the
show and some fan takes his shoe off and throws
it up and it's axel right in the crotch, you know, muddy, wet,
nasty shoe. It's him in a crotch. Well, of course
(31:56):
he was furious, and that was not good because these
slam some microphone and walks off stage and and they
riot in South Paulo. Uh, and so we had uh
we felt like it would be a lot nicer in Rio.
So we had planned to fly right after the show
that night. Anyway, so we left the stage and they're rioting,
(32:19):
but the police were able to get us out, and
so we got out to the plane and man, we
had pretty much all hands on deck. We were all
up there pulling guitars and amps and anything we can
get off the stage, help the back line crew to
get get the equipment out before the fans got to
the equipment, and uh loaded it all that we could
(32:42):
get and on to Rio limp so uh and then
we got through Rio pretty much, uh, riot free and
no drama. Uh yeah. But Axel had flown Stephanie Seymour
down for the Rio show, but she had to be
(33:03):
back in New York like the next day for a
for some modeling gig, and so Axel had planned or
worked it out. Doug of course made the arrangements to
put us on a red Eye flight from Rio to
New York City direct flight, but it left like it
at midnight, and so we had to be off stage
(33:27):
by like eleven thirty in order to get a helicopter
from backstage to land on the tarmac outside this big
commercial seven forty seven, a jetliner, and they did all
our customs right there at the bottom of the stairway,
and we ran up and got on a plane like
at two minutes till midnight, and off to New York
we went. So just that kind of crazy deck in it. So,
(33:51):
I mean, you couldn't even imagine, you know, a helicopter
and from backstage of guns and roses show straight onto
the tarmac fifty yards from a seven forty seven, and
it was nuts.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You can't recreate that stuff today. And that's why we
like talking at least I do talking about bands like this.
I mean, it would be fake, you know if someone
tried to do that today. But I mean that's the
fact that, like so many people could have been killed,
I think. So I'm also revealed later. I think it
was in his book that he was smuggling drugs. So
I mean they just didn't find it on sor.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were there. You just had to
look close enough, but they were there.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Did you ever with all this going on, and like
you said, you're not even like really in college yet
or you're not going to chiropractice. Does this become too much?
You know, it's obviously a lot of fun. You know,
the the airplane is a lot of fun. There's a
lot of cool that you get rock and roll every night,
free show for you every night. But with these riots
(34:52):
going on and you're helping the other crew take things
off the stage so fans don't steal it, I'm assuming,
Am I wrong? They crossed your mind being like, I
can't keep doing this. I just want to crack it back.
I don't put it mildly, Randa.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
All things come with a price. And the price for
me for that is it cost me my marriage, and
and and and she was a great person, and so
I hate that it worked out that way, But it
cost me my marriage. That was the price. But actual
and I became very, very close, and I love that man.
(35:28):
I would have stepped in front of a bullet and
a heartbeat for that man. I respected and admired him
as a person, and his integrity was second to nobody
as far as I was concerned. All these it's like
CNN seemed to just follow us all around the planet,
(35:50):
and they were always trying to make him look bad.
And it was frustrating because they anybody can make anybody
look bad if you tell it enough and slant it
the way you want it to be. But he was.
He was great to me, He was great to the
people that were involved with him. He did have a temper,
(36:14):
no doubt about it. But no, it never crossed my
mind to leave that tour to to do anything other
than figure out a way to make him a better
performer and a better singer. I mean, I look at
things now and I think Betta, who I think is
(36:34):
managing him, but she was his housekeeper. Beta has proved.
Betta and her kids and family have provided what he
always needed and wanted, which was a family. And they've
been able to provide that. And as best I can tell,
looking at things I see now, I see him smile
on stage. I see him sign autographs or pictures of
(36:57):
him sign autographs. He seems to genuine being enjoying his profession,
and he's happy, and and that makes me so happy.
I'm truly, genuinely, from my heart, I'm so happy to
see him happy. I don't think he's faking it. He's
not that kind of person to fake things.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's cool to hear you say that because it's one
thing for me a fan, you know that, really I
have no experience with the man other than what the
news say or but I listened since doing this podcast
for a decade, I listened to the fans. I listened
to the people I interview, And you're somebody who worked
very closely with him during a very infamous time, and
(37:38):
for you basically mirror everything that I'm saying. That it's
he's not what everyone else says. And the anger stuff.
I have anger issues, I mean, and so it's just
we're picking apart things. Look, the lateness. I asked this
my recent my my fans recently on social media, like,
what's the longest you ever waited for Gene R? Do
you still hold resentment? I mean, these are things that
(38:01):
happened at the time. I just don't think he ever
did anything maliciously. He's like, I'm going to make these
fans wait. It was going on.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
It was never liked that. It was never ever liked that.
He showed me prior to him moving to Malibu, he
had another house in the Hollywood Hills, and he showed
me a ceramic plate that had something written on it.
And what was written on it was this, and I
think he took it as absolute truth, and I think
(38:33):
he was right. It said time is the thief of
all creativity, and for him, I think he lived by that.
So he doesn't pay attention to time or watches or
anything like that. So if he was due to be
on at nine o'clock and he went on at eleven,
(38:54):
he's not paying attention to the time because he's in
his head trying so hard to come up with the
very best possible show that he could come up with.
And that's why he had him a sous around. That's
why I had a chiropractor around. We contributed to helping
him perform better and that was of paramount importance to him.
(39:15):
Time wasn't important to him, and not everybody lives like that,
but that's how he lived.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
And then if he's Axel, that's why he's accent. It's like,
you guys are the pit crew, and he's that's exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
What we were pit crew. Absolutely, I love.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
That, did you because, like I said, you had a
long day of doing this, so I appreciate your your time.
What year of this is this for you in chiropractice?
If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
I had passed my state board exams, my national board exams.
I'd done all that, like in May of ninety one,
I took off with him in July ninety one. My
day of graduation was September ninth, nineteen ninety one. But
since Doug and the band had no idea that I
wasn't legally a chiropractory yet, I sure didn't tell them.
(40:07):
But I did call the school's attorney, who was also
my jurisprudence professor, and and said, you know, I can't
be at graduation because we're due to be playing Helsinki,
Finland that day. And he didn't believe me. It took
a long time to convince him that I was actually
staying at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Strip. I actually
hung the phone up on him, gave him the phone
numbers and called his number back, ass for room thirty six,
(40:28):
or asked for Steve Thaxton and God blessed doctor Rod Phelps.
He called back, said, holy shit, you really are to
share tomorrow months and so he made sure I got
my diploma, and but I already passed on my board exam,
so it was just as I said I was supposed
to be serving my prison term three thousand hours in
the public clinic that I didn't have to do that.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well, that's it's so cool, I'm sure because you were
gonna and I appreciate it. We spoke off the air
about you going to try to do this in your
office all your guns are roses memorabilia around. Yeah, that
must be so cool though for your patients to go
in and you know, ask you stories and you seem
like still excited to talk about these stories. So that
must be kind of cool for them. The rock and
(41:13):
roll chiropractor, right, you used to advertise like that.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Well, I don't advertise, so I.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Shout out to Tim Tricoli because he sent me. I
should have sent this to you, like an advertisement that
said doctor Stephen Jackson, that said, you know, guns and
roses uses me so well.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
So Axel, when we did this co headlining tour with Metallica,
it was I think twenty three stadiums in North America,
and so what Axual wanted to do was he wanted
to make it like Loa La plusa if you remember
the La La Poluca tours from back then. Axel wanted
all this information to be out there and he's like, Axton,
(41:56):
you got to do something for chiropractic. And I'm like, okay,
why don't we put out a brochure and that talks
about guns and Roses us as a chiropractor to help
maintain their health and to improve their health and their performance.
And so I called the president of my school, doctor
(42:18):
James Parker, from Parker College Chiropractic in Dallas, Texas, and
he he said, Steve, I love it. And of course
I'm still in the doubt on the bottom side of zero,
because I'm still past broke. So doctor Parker, God blessed
you had these brochures printed up that said I think
(42:39):
when the cover it said doctor or guns and Roses
uses chiropractic care for him, doctor Steve Thaxton. But anyway,
he knew people in all twenty three cities, doctor Parker did,
so he contacted them. These were other doctors chiropractic, and
he had them set up a booth outside the stadium
so when fans were coming in they could talk to
them about chiropractic. And then they had a staff member
(43:01):
put one of these brochures in every seat in the stadium.
So these are like fifty to eighty thousand seat stadiums,
twenty three of them across North America. Uh, it was.
It was a pretty cool thing to do.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Okay, So that's what I am looking at it now
and I'll post it over in the video or you
know where I'm editing and stuff. Guns of Roses stays
healthy with chiropractic.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Okay, that's what it says.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, Questions and answers doctor Dee Thackston, a graduated Parker
College of Chiropractics, which was not true now yet. It
travels with Guns of Roses as their chiropractor and has
a bunch of information about how chiropractic help and care
can help you. It's just so right, right.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
I mean, and so like if I give a plug
for chiropractic, it's eighty percent of the US population will
have back pain at some point in their life. That
doesn't include next shoulder, knee pain, pain, whatever, but eighty
percent will have back pain. Yet less than ten percent
of US population sees a chiropractor. And that's just crazy
(44:04):
to me. But that's that's the actual statistics.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
It's been a long time. I need it. I definitely
need a sure picking up my son jumping on me
all that stuff. You were closer, we would make it happen.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I'd be honored to help.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
And just because I know you mentioned and this will
be the last thing. Unless that was the story you
told earlier, You're like, I wanted to tell the story
about axl on I going to dinner. Was that was
the first story you told?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I haven't told that one yet?
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Or is that okay, that's a separate.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Story about that separate story? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Right, So is that is that with that fit with
time constrained or is it like a half hour story,
ten minute story.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's it's a five to ten minute story.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
If you feel like it's worth it, let's share, you know. Okay,
you're here, all right.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So in February of ninety two, I'm sorry, February of
ninety three actually calls me up out of the blue,
or not out of the I mean, i'd been over
to his house that day and then went back to
my hotel, and so this is several hours later and
kind of caught me off guard. But he's like, hey, man,
(45:10):
let's go to dinner tonight, and then I want to
go see my buddy Dave Lank's band at the whiskey
a go go And I'm like, oh, man, i'd love
to and he's like, okay, cool, I'll uh, I'll pick
you up in like an hour. I'm like, oh, okay,
you want me to call Earl? Earl gabad On his bodyguard,
great guy, and so Earl he's like, no, no, no,
(45:34):
it's just you and me. I'm like, let me call
John Zucker at least have him like be just outside
the restaurant. He's like, no, no, we'll be fine. I'll
need security chew and me. And I'm like, you said
we were eating like one sunset right, and he's like, yeah,
it's across some tower records and we'll just we'll just
I'll pick you up. We'll park whatever restaurant the name was,
(45:56):
we'll park there and then we'll just walk up the
street to the whiskey. And I'm like, dude, you're saying
we're gonna walk up sunset. He's like, yeah, we'll be fine.
Please let me call or he's like nah na. And
I think, looking back at that, I think he didn't
realize how huge he had become, you know, because that
(46:17):
it wasn't overnight, but in certain ways, like appetite was huge,
but he wasn't known like he was by February of
ninety three for the Appetite and the illusion projects. It
just he I think he was. I don't think he
realized just how huge he was. So I'm like, okay.
(46:38):
So he picks me up and we go. H end
up parking in the back of the restaurant. No incidence.
Everything's fine, Go in the restaurant, order whatever it is,
we're gonna eat. Looking across out the window, I can
see Tower Records across the street, and he and he
and I are just talking and you know, you know,
we're buddies. And we finished, and he goes, well, we
(47:03):
probably had a head up there. I think. I think
they go on like at nine, so you know, it's
like eight twenty eight thirty. And I'm like okay, So
out the door we go. We cross the street and
we start up the sidewalk beside Tower Records and heading
up to the whiskey, which was five six seven blocks away.
And we're walking up the street and we hadn't taken
(47:27):
ten steps going up the street on the other side,
and somebody starts screaming from a car. That's Axel Rose,
that's Axel Rose, and within thirty seconds there was two
or three hundred people all around us, and some kid
(47:48):
like I just shocking. Some kid like within that ten
to fifteen second period, drops down on his knees and
starts doing you Are God, You Are God. And I'm like,
I'm kind of on the inside freaking because i can
see the crowd growing growing, like it's two or three
(48:09):
hundred people in a minute or something. Wow. And then
within a few more minutes it's in the thousands. Traffic
is stopped on Sunset, their cars setting on Sunset with
the doors wide open, where people got out and ran
over and joined this crowd. And I'm trying to protect
him and make room through the crowd to get us
up through there. And fortunately for us, I think the
(48:34):
security guys at the whiskey had kind of seen this commotion,
you know, four or five blocks down from the whiskey,
and they're like, Wow, what's going on down there? Well,
maybe we got to go down and because it's huge,
it's probably about this point it's two thousand people, wow,
And they kind of part the crowd and grab both
(48:54):
of us and get the crowd part enough to get
us back to the whiskey, and then we hung out
and watched his uh his buddy Dave Blank's UH band
and then UH and then got a ride back to
his car. He went to his house. I went back
to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Was there any of us you look at at at all?
Be like I told you so?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
No, you know I'm going to say that. But I
just think he did not realize how huge he was.
And and I because I didn't live I lived in
his world, but I didn't live in his head, so
to speak. I got glimpses of outside. You know, I
(49:40):
walk outside a hotel, or like in Argentina when we
flew to Buenos Aires from Santiago. During the night, the
crowd would shrink down to about five hundred kids outside
the hotel, singing guns n' roses songs. But during the
day that would swell uped over two thousand kids outside
(50:02):
the hotel in Buenos Aires. And and it's so loud
in the hotel you can't sleep. So he knew he
was huge in Buenos Rus, Argentina. I don't don't think
he realized he was that huge in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I respect and admire that kind of innocence in that degree,
because there there will be today in today's world with
streamers and influencers. They want that disruption. Oh look at me,
you know to do that. Let's when we go outside.
Let me see what I can do your cause and
cause a moment he just wanted to have. Was the
(50:39):
lunch good?
Speaker 1 (50:42):
And it was great. It was a great dinner a
big expensive restaurant. You know, of course it was great.
And that's what I've I've always said there are plenty
of other people in the music business that will do
things for that kind of publicity, But with Johns and Roses,
you got what you saw. They weren't doing any of
(51:03):
it for publicity. That's just who they were, right, and
and people found it interesting. You know, the music was
written from the heart, and it was obviously it was
written from the heart, and and they weren't ashamed or
afraid to show their emotions and and it was and
that's genuine that kind of quality and the genuine quality
(51:25):
of that people respected it. It was I think it
was part of the reason they they became so huge
and still are.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
So huge, why I became a fan. It's not just
the music. I've said that it's just being a genuine
I'm like that with people. Just be genuine and it's right.
You know, even in the excess is a genuineness to it,
which is just so interesting to me. Uh. And for
those who I mean, you've been listening to this podcast,
I'm sure you know Dave Lank co writer of a
Don't Damn Me Augustana. Are you planning on seeing them
(51:53):
this this time? Are they get to come anywhere close
to you when they returned to the States at all?
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Is that part of your lifestyle now, to see Guns
and Roses at all?
Speaker 1 (52:05):
I would love to see them. There's no way of
fans or butts about it. I admit my weekends almost
always are I'm racing a dirt bike nine or ten
months a year, nearly every weekend out of the year.
So that's a huge part of my life. It's a
(52:25):
long story why we're no longer speaking at currently. I
hold out hope that someday that we will speak again
and we'll talk again. But I'd like to go to
a show. I haven't made arrangements. West Virginia is a
(52:47):
really small place and nobody comes here and it's so
I haven't checked the summer schedule, but I suspect they'll
be in Charlotte or Pittsburgh or somewhere. But they're all
pretty good drives for me. But I would like to
It's just, honestly, Brando, it's it's hard being so on
(53:08):
the inside and then to step back away from that
and be one hundred or five hundred seats back from
the stage. And the truth is, I think that might
hurt a little bit, but maybe I just got to
suck it up and.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
Go, well, no, I mean I understand that, and I
appreciate your honesty, and I'll leave that story for you
or for a part three for you, you know, for
between us with the acts on anything, if anything, do
you look at his gait or you just like I
wish I could adjust him? Still nothing that come like
(53:44):
that I was being silly. You don't have to answer that.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
No, I would. I would love to adjust him again.
But I missed the friendship, that's the truth. Like being
a chiropractor to him, that was an honor, a massive honor.
But we became such good friends. And you don't get
those kinds of good friends like that many times in
(54:09):
your lifetime. You might only get one maybe you'll have
a couple and and we were very very close, and
I think a lot of people developed a lot of
closeness with Axel. But uh, one of the problems with
being rich and famous is everybody wants a piece of you,
(54:33):
and and the truth doesn't always. People can be very
deceiving in high places, so to speak. And I think
Doug Goldstein was not like that at all. Doug was
very genuine, he was he was not deceiving. But other
times people can be very deceiving, and I think that
(54:53):
has had a big effect. And anyway, it's a whole.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
There's a lot of whole other stories. I appreciate you
sharing some of them with me tonight. Just thank you doctor.
What do you prefer? By the way, do you prefer
doctor Thackston? Steve Flame? Because you're sexual, regular guy. I
don't know how do you?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Steve works great? My ego doesn't need the doctor part.
Steve's just fine.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Steve. It was really cool to talk to you again,
and thank you for sharing these stories. And look forward
to seeing you on Facebook and more on motocross. Uh,
you know, pictures from you and never shave it, never
shave it. We're never gonna need no shave club ah.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I love that plan all right.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
So that does it with this episode of appetite for
distortion when 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.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Thanks to the lad security. I'm going home.
Every ten to fifteen seconds ues here that machine gun
going off, and then every ten to fifteen minutes usuer
a boom bomb going off somewhere around Bogatal.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to the podcast Appetite four Distortion, Episode number five
hundred and sixty seven. My name is Brando. Welcome back
to the podcast, Doctor stephen Thaxton. How are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh, I'm good. It's a wonderful day to be alive,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It is a good day to be alive. As we're
recording this, I don't know if you care at all
because you're down in West Virginia. My New York Knicks.
They have won their first championship in fifty three years,
and they went down the Canydon heroes. I did not go.
I watched it in the safety of my own home.
But regardless, it is a good day. It is a
(00:51):
good day.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
From what I understand. They came back from a twenty
nine point deficit in the previous game to staying in
the hunt and then win it in the last game.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, pretty much, you know, just largest comeback victory ever
for an NBA Finals team. And what I'm gonna do.
I've been posting this is gonna be the segue tie
into everything. I had a friend, I'm not a huge
AI person at all because it's like us for a
lot of we can go this because I think it's
good for medicine things like that. But there is a uh,
(01:24):
this Guns and Roses creator who does a great job. Honestly,
this is very He's a person behind it. He's not
just pressing buttons. So I did the Appetite for Distortion
cross with the Knicks players. I want to make that
into a T shirt too, the T shirt Appetite for
Championship or something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, that'd be a T shirt.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's a tie into everything. And there is a tie
into Guns Roses and everything, including chiropractics. So for those
who may not remember Doctor Daxton, he was an episode
one hundred eleven. I had to look at up.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Wow that long?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, I know, and I would be remiss and I
always give credit what credit to do that I would
not have met you. And he was my co host
for that episode. And that was Doug Goldstein, former Guns
Roses manager, and I've spoken about it on the podcast
and here you know, I hope he's doing great. It
was just that working with the book, it just took
(02:25):
a lot out of me, and just the way it ended.
It just it's like an ex girlfriend. I'm like, I
wish you well, I don't know if I can Maybe
in the future we can have I just I just
don't feel comfortable like if I had him back on
the podcast with that looming over. So I'm just being honest,
that's all. In case of people are wondering and you know,
how did you find doctor Thaxton even though you're in
(02:47):
the back of the User Illusion Tour book, right.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I am, yeah, And I think Axel told me I
would be in the liner notes after the first one
hundred thousand copies were printed because I joined the tool
were I think the tour started in February or March,
and I joined the tour in July.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Okay, Okay, so we're gonna we will rewind because the
episode that we did together was before I started doing video.
And I guess it would be cool to see you
because you're You're a fun interesting character as a look
at I not many I'm enbious of their facial hair,
but you are rocking that better than the Hulk Hogan
(03:28):
Fu Manshoe. What do you what do you call it?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I call it food. I had it in college and
thought I could never have it again, uh being a chiropractor.
So then I grew it out on the guns tour
and I loved a lot. But you know, you come
off tour and start private practice, shave it all off,
try to look normal. And five or six years ago
(03:53):
I went to school uh in Texas, uh at Abilene
Christian University, which I'm sure they're not very proud of
me there for reasons. But anyway, I got so used
to West Texas style. I mean, there was point in
my life hoping be caught dead anything but wranglers and
pro rodeo cowboy cut wranglers and cowboy boots outside of
(04:16):
my tracks bikes. But anyway, so I missed having my food.
So five or six years ago I said, what thatck?
I grew it out and hadn't seemed to affected my business.
Everything seems to be.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Fine right on. Yeah, it's funny I think back of
I went so much of my life without a beer. Now,
I the last time I shaved it, my wife like
almost left it. It was just like during COVID. I
was bored all those videos you see like wives reacting
to their husband. It's true, it is so true, and
so I will never do that again. I did it
because I was like making up for a radio show
(04:49):
three that morning, no one seeing me, who cares. And
then right like I like this, I don't want to
look professional. I want to look like.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
What I'm comfortable with. And that's what I've told a
lot of people. People. You know, I went through a
period there where I never wanted to look in the mirror.
I didn't like myself very much. And then once I
grew the food back out, I was like, yeah, I
kind of like this guy.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yes, that's why you belonged on that user illusion tour.
So the reason, you know, because we're I love seeing
your posts. We're Facebook friends, and you have so much
bike stuff in the back if you're watching this on YouTube,
because you're an interesting guy.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
In addition to the Guns of Roses lure that we
were the perfect crime documentary, these long rumored document documentary
about Guns of Roses during the User Illusion era leaked,
or I should say a promo version. I know. The
the G and R hardcore is like, it's not the documentary,
(05:44):
It's only a thirty seven minute promo. It's more than
a trailer, you get the it was like more than
a TV show, more than an episode of the Simpsons anyway,
So I quickly I don't Probably no one else noticed
it asn't watching this. It's right across you see act
on the tarmac in front of this giant jumbo jet
on well, getting his neck adjusted right you like what
(06:10):
in sight?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I saw it. By the way, Doug did send it
to me, God bless him, and I did. I did
catch that a little bit in there.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know, let's let's talk. I want to talk about
starting off with that story. You know, since I brought
that up, let's let's start off with you know what, No, no,
that's guys, I said. I was gonna go back. See
my head is all swimming everywhere, Becau. There's a lot
of stuff want to talk to you about. So in
case if people don't remember episode one eleven and what's
just happened on video, can you kind of just go
back to how you because of Doug, how you landed
(06:42):
on the g n R tour, Like, how do you
go from being a what the thing is? You weren't
really a chiropractor yet? Right, that was Yeah, yeah, tell
it just the beginning of how you got first got
on that tour. Then we'll get into specific stories.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Okay, my now ex wife, she had a big or
had a friend who was a big wig at the
STARplex Amphitheater in Dallas, Texas, where I was going to
chiropractic school. When I was almost done, I just hadn't
served my prison term. I called because h had to
be in a public clinic for three thousand hours and
I'd been in there like eighteen hundred hours. So anyway,
(07:19):
he would come over and she would cook him and
Ey dinner and herself, and he gives free tickets to
some shows, and I might have run an illegal chiropractic
occupuncture clinic out of the third bedroom of our house
that last year of chiropractic school, and I'd treat him
for free, hoping that if you ever needed a chiropractor,
(07:40):
I'd be the guy who think of the call. And
the first band that came through was GNR, which happened
to be my still is my favorite band, and he
called and said, hey, they want a chiropractor out here,
which was the next show after the Saint Louis Riots.
So everybody was stressed out and it sure didn't take
(08:02):
a great chiropractor to figure that out. And and so
so the first night I treated like four guys. Uh said,
we're just really stressed and busy. And so I gave
the tour manager, which was a guy named John Reese,
I gave him my card and said, you know, this
was my this is my student cards because I haven't
(08:23):
had my doctor cards up yet. I was the one,
but I didn't tell him that and said, if you're
rock and roll man, that's a great thing about rock
and roll. You can still do those things. Ben some
rolls and so so anyway, I said, call me if
you don't want me to come back, otherwise we'll be
back tomorrow night for the second show. And I came back,
and uh, I brought my wife with me, and she
(08:45):
counted like seventy people in like three hours that I treated.
And you know, it was crew guys and the band
and the band's wives and their girlfriends and uh, it's
just all these people and and so then the band went. Uh.
Axel's routine usually was stay at the hotel till the
(09:07):
last minute, then he'd drive to the show. They limoed
to the show and he would uh go in the
band dressing room and they would he would tell the
band the set list and they go on. And so
now when they went in, they all told him about
this chiropractor, and so he sent his personal assistant over,
Blake Stanton, and UH then and uh, and so Blake
(09:29):
came by and said, hey, man, can you stick around
and uh work on Axel after the show. And now
really like I had anything else on the plant that
was more important, So of course I stuck around and uh,
and he liked the work I did, and they went
on to Denver, and UH called a couple of days
later and said, can you meet us in Salt Lake.
We got a plane ticket waiting for you at DFW Airport.
(09:51):
So I flew to Salt Lake and and off we went.
I noticed somebody else had something today on Facebook about
Axel hot air balloon riding around Salt Lake. So there
was three of us or three balloons, and uh, the
massage therapist, Uh, Sabrina and I uh were in one
(10:12):
one balloon, and Axel and somebody else was in another,
and I think Doug Goldstein and somebody else was in
another one.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
If it didn't happen to you. It just sounds made up,
like if it did actually happen, it sounds yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Oh. You know. The hilarious part about it is I
was so broke. How broke was I? I was so
broke that I was below zero because I had everything
I was living on with student loan money. So I
was so frugal. And so my wife owned a yogurt shop,
so if I got starving too bad for lunch, I'd
(10:46):
run down there for for for yogurt for lunch. And
uh and so that was like three days prior to that,
and prior to the hot air balloon ride that evening. Uh,
Axel took us all out to this really nice French
restaurant in Salt Lake City. It's like a five star restaurant.
And he's ordering escargo and State tartar And in my hand,
(11:06):
I'm thinking, oh my god, three years ago or three
days ago, I couldn't afford to feed myself lunch and
I'm having Stay tartar with Axel rods. This is the
craziest thing in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's that's I love that. This is why I keep
doing this podcast. And I mean, I know I spoke,
I've spoken to you before. But it's those kind of stories. Yeah,
it's you know, we can talk about Axel and the music,
and we do, of course, but these things that you
would not know and the lives that have been changed
that you wouldn't even think about. I just think that's
so fascinating and I'm glad I kind of re listened
(11:40):
to some of our episode because as I don't want
to make the same joke again, being like I have
doctor Nick Riviera from the Simpsons, another Simpsons reference right
with the way bart Nick look at that.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, if I into it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I've always said, if I didn't do a g in
our podcast, maybe a Simpsons one. But yeah, just it's
just imagining you coming like just like like the rest
of them were, you know, it kind of like Rags
the Rich is kind of kind of a story. Yeah,
So I just I love that then.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It really was. It was like it was amazing how
things turned around and were changing in my life at
that time.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I will I will get to and let's we
can call I was thinking like this, sometimes let's treat
the story like a song. So perhaps your your greatest
hit might be the story that you have about Amy
Bailey and we'll say that to the end. I think
that perhaps could be the encore because uh, and we'll
talk about it more later later. Like I said that,
I made a short clip of that online like I
(12:37):
do with all my interviews. It has a million views.
I don't have anything like that a million, So I
don't know. I don't know if we can repeat that,
but regardless, it'll be fun to hear again. So to
go back to the docs, Yeah, I told you my
mind's everywhere. It's funny when I don't have my son here,
you know, during like an episode I told you, off
the areas out with a babysitter. My mine's still like
(13:01):
almost multitask and being like where is he? Where is he?
Oh yeah, not here? So it's a never ending end,
never ending thing. So when I was watching again the
perplect Crime documentary and seeing Axel, just so funny getting
is adjusted on the tarmac. How does that happen? Why
does that happen? I mean, is that the best place
(13:22):
for the spine to align?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Why?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There? I just find that very interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I don't remember that particular exact episode, but that was
so that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Wasn't a regular thing that happened. It wasn't like always
adjusting me when we get off the plane or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I don't remember it happening more than two or three times.
We would just be like my table would be stored
in the luggage compartment, so I didn't have easy access
to it on the plane. And but to me, when
I saw that, I thought, that is so descriptive of
(14:03):
the decadence of that particular tour. I mean, you've got
the lead singer getting adjusted on the tarmac in front
of the MGM Grand airplane, which was no like casual plane.
I mean, the thing had this massive living room in
the front, a nice bar in the center of it,
bedrooms behind the bar, and then well, I'm my high
(14:29):
club bathroom in the back. You know. It was. It
was an incredible plane. But that just showed like the
decadence of that tour in a g rated form. So
I don't remember the exact incident, but my suspicions are
we're on the plane, Naxil's like, hey man, my next
(14:49):
kind of stiff and my back's a little stiff. Can
you adjust me when we get off the plane? You know?
So yeah, I mean whatever takes to keep him happy,
and so uh, when the stairs come down from the plane,
run around back, they're pulling luggage off. I grabbed my
table and throw it out there on the tarmac. And
I guess the video crew they were around. I mean,
(15:11):
that's that documentary. The documentary crew those guys were and girl,
they were really hard working and they captured a lot
of stuff. So what what they'll actually releasing the documentary.
I have no idea, but they they were really on
top of their game, and they captured a lot of things.
And so apparently they captured that. And that's probably the
(15:34):
best explanation I can give you. Most of the time
I was adjusting him in his hotel suite.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But okay, it's a good example, like you said, of
the of the decadence and of everything. And yeah, I
don't know if they'll release it, because forgive me for
not I stort of mind GNR forum dot com. So
I'll credit that that medium for for finding this out.
And I am on Blue Ski or Blue Sky whatever
it is. It's there's millions social media. I don't like
(16:02):
being on them. If I was doing this podcast, I
quit them all. I know, we're on Facebook, but it's
like the alternate you know Twitter, but so Del James
is on there and someone asked him the question about
the release of the you know, do you know who
released the Perfect Crime documentary or the promo version of it?
You know, do you know anything about it? And to
(16:22):
kind of paraphrase, he says, I don't know, and they're
an asshole whoever leaked it. So I ain't do it.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
It wasn't my fault. I'm sorry for sharing and talking
about it, but I mean I lot have amazing things
were captured. So yeah, I just you were one of
the characters in there, so yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Which I'm flattered that they would put me in there.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So right next to the naked ladies in the spa
and all.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
You know, I think back about that tour, and I've
been on quite a few tours since then, no other
g and Our tours, but the decadence of ten naked
women setting in a hot tub around AXL, I mean,
that's that describes a lot of it. But you know,
I think back, that was a long time ago, Brando,
(17:13):
that was like thirty five years ago, and so when
I compare that, I'm thinking, well, you know, that'd be
like the Beatles, they you know, really took off, like
in sixty four, sixty five. By sixty eight they were
pretty huge. But thirty five years after sixty five, that's
like two thousand, nobody's talking about a Beatles tour in
(17:34):
two thousand, and then you think led Zeppelin, you know,
at the height of their fame seventy eight, seventy nine.
Nobody in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, or it was talking
about this incredible led Zeppelin tour that took place. But
yet here we are with guns thirty five years later,
(17:55):
still talking about this incredible tour.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
That's exactly what I say every time we bring it up.
You know, it's why do we talk about the albums
or the tour? Why are we still talking about them?
That's why I don't. I've never agreed with the one
album argument. Would we be talking about it? I mean,
I'm sure we would be talking about it, but just
it doesn't give us the layers talk about and with
this tour. That's my defense of why I think Gilby
(18:22):
Clark should have been in the Hall of Fame, because
to survive that tour that we're still talking about, that's
his hall of fame as it gets I don't care
if it wasn't an appetite. He was on this spaghetti incident,
and he survived the User illusion tour. That is enough.
Those are enough qualifications for me a fan. So that's
just my opinion.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Well, and you know, it sounds funny to saying survive
such a decadent wild tour, but there were some dangerous
situations in Bogata, Columbia and that whole South American leg
we did. It's a probably a ten minute story, but
there were some truly situations where it could have been
(19:04):
life and death. And just like with the riot in Bogatal,
I mean that was really nuts. But anytime riots it's
going to be nuts. But it was that that tour.
To get through that tour is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So you know what, let's since we brought it up now,
let's let's bring up that that Amy story.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
So as I'm looking at this, it's gotten one million,
three you know, thirty eight thousand views. But here's here's
the real kicker. And this is what people say about Spotify.
It doesn't matter how many how much money you're going
to earn, it's not going to be a lot. I
will say, because it has cocaine in the title, it
really doesn't have the full ad exposure. But just for kicks,
(19:46):
how much do you think this has earned me? Over
a one million views from YouTube? Just for kicks you have,
it's not going to be a lot. So just how
to keep that in mind?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Dude? I can't. I have no. I did my limitations
and social media.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
It doesn't should be built up like that. Sixty five bucks.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Sixty bucks you've made old sixty five bucks.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah, sixty five bucks. So I'm really swimming in
it here, ye.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Bucks for you, I know.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So it's it's a story that is. If you don't
know what, I don't want to spoil it. So yeah,
if you wouldn't mind talking to me about that harrowing
day within the Columbia, the riot, and how Axel's sister
played a part in it.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
How do you feel about me summing it or just
talking about that whole leg of that tour through South America.
It'll take about ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
It works for me, all right.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
So that tour I believe started in the fall of
ninety two. It could have been the fall of ninety one.
I can't remember exactly, but I'm just I'm thinking it
was ninety two. Anyway, So we started off in Rocus, Venezuela,
(21:01):
and prior to us getting there, a lot of the
stage of the staging and all of that arrived, and
a group of Venezuelans started praying for a massive rain
storm because they thought we were devil wishpers. So the
(21:23):
night before the show, so we fly in like the
night before and there's this huge storm and they put
tarps over the top of the stage, over the lighting
and things like that, but they didn't get them tied
down very well, and so it rained like four or
five inches of rain in like two hours, and that tarp,
(21:46):
of course, just filled up with water and collapsed the
stage in So that started that like started off like
how are they going to build rebuild the stage overnight
and the next day in time for these guys to
take this stage the next night. Somehow it got done.
So they do the show, and you know, it's a
(22:07):
great show, of course, and uh, and we're going to
fly like two hours after two or three hours after
the show, we're going to fly on to Bogataal. And
so we go back to the hotel shower and you know,
pack up and uh go out to the plane and
fly off. Well, as we're leaving, there is a coup,
(22:29):
a government coup or a military takeover of the government
in the countries of Venezuela. So we can't get our
equipment out of Venezuela until things calm down. So our
next show is to be in Bogataal Columbia, and so
(22:51):
that so we fly in there, that to Bogatal late
that night and uh the next day. My mother, I'll
just add this in on a personal basis. My mother
all always wanted to know what Bogata was, like, I
think because at that time Pablo Escobar was a pretty
big character all over world news and operating in the Bogatal,
(23:12):
Columbia area. And for those that are young didn't know,
Pablo Escobar was this massive drug kingpin who got elected
into the Colombian Senate. So he almost kind of legalized coaching,
which is just amazing, but it was this huge kingpin.
And so my mother said, when you get the Bogata,
(23:34):
call me. So we didn't have cell phones back then,
so I just called her from the hotel room phone
and she goes, what's it like there, And I'm like, well,
they told us not to really go in front of
the windows much. And she goes, really, it's that dangerous,
and I'm like, it's kind of dangerous, and she goes,
are you are you sure you're okay. I'm like, yeah,
it's fine. Here, hang on a second, And I opened
(23:56):
my window and I put the phone outside, and every
ten to fifteen seconds use here right that that machine
gun going off, and then every ten to fifteen minutes
usure a boom, you know, a bomb going off somewhere
around Bogatal. So I'd have my phone out there for
like thirty forty seconds. Let my mother listen to that. Yeah,
(24:17):
I was trying to do. That was horrible, Sun. I
can't believe you still claim to me.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, I'm fine. Here's some gunshots, don't worry about that,
and uh car honking down here exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
So, and they, you know, they didn't want us going out,
even going to the hotel lobby without bodyguards. So you know,
we were kind of all confined to our rooms. So
the so what so what led up to the riot
then was we were supposed to play I think on
Sunday night and Monday night, and so we got words
Sunday morning that the we were going to be able
(24:52):
to get our equipment out of Barracas, Venezuela, and we
would be able to set it up Monday and then
have Monday night show, but then we could have Tuesday
night show, I mean Sunday night show on Tuesday. So
that was what management Doug Goldstein John recent plan, and
(25:13):
so the Colombian promoter, I think it was cocaine out
of his mind, came and talked to Doug said, ah, nah,
we're just all gonna We're just gonna put them all
in there on Monday night. We'll just all the tickets
will be good for Monday night show. Well, it was
an eighty thousand seat stadium and he'd sold out both nights.
So you're putting one hundred and sixty thousand people in
an eighty thousand seat stadium. It's not gonna work. Doug's
(25:35):
wise enough to know it's not working, but this promoter
insisted on doing that. So of course tensions were high
and the show goes on and didn't take long for
those outside the gates couldn't get in the gates because
there was no not even standing room. Now they start rioting,
and it was in a little suburb of Bogatah. So
(25:57):
they busted storefronts and unfortunately, uh, the police rolling horseback
and a horse got killed. Uh, and it just it
got really ugly. But the story that we talked about
before was that so the riot then like becomes part
of the stage and you know, the uh the band was,
(26:19):
you know, they leave the stage. Uh, people were trying
to get monitors and speakers and things like that off
the stage, and drums and guitars and tar teks are
fighting off people to keep from guitars getting stolen, and
so backstage it's kind of chaos also. And Amy actual sister,
(26:42):
and it's such a wonderful sweet person. She's looking around like,
you know, there's bad things happening here, and uh, we've
got to be able to help. Well, Amy's a nurse,
and so she sees this shoulder, this soldier who's bleeding
profusely from his head, and she grabs him and pulls
him over towards me. He's like, Steve, can you sew
(27:03):
this guy up? And although uh, suturing or stitching people
up was not part of my training, I had done
plenty of it even on that tour, and uh, and
I carried a suit your kid and uh and some
lightocane with me and uh. So I look in my
bag and I realize I'm out of lyocane, and so
(27:24):
I tell Amy I can't. I don't have anything to
numb his his skin on his head, I don't have
anything to numb it up with. And she's like, Hey,
we're in Bogota, Columbia. We can uh, We'll just get
some cocaine to throw it down in there to numb
it up. I'm like, wow, that's a great idea. Okay.
So Amy goes out around the backstage area and anywhere
(27:46):
she can get where she's feeling safe out of the building. Uh.
I think she got out of the building even and
and she comes back like an hour later, and she's
totally dejected or shoulders are hunched forward or heads hanging down,
and she's saying, she said, I'm like, Amy, what's the matter.
And she just steve, We're in Bogatah, Columbia, and I
(28:08):
can't find cocaine anywhere. And the irony of that is
kind of mind boggling, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
It's ask the bands. That's like one of the number
one comments I see in that video. Did he did
she ask the band themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm assuming she did. But there's uh that even that
gets better because there were times when things got flushed
in hotel toilets because we got raided. Uh, So there's
more to these. There's a lot of stories like this.
But anyway, so that poor soldier sold his head up
(28:44):
without any antja. He was one tough kid. And and
so we eventually, uh police in the army got control
of the situation. We were able to get out of
the stadium and get back to our hotel, and so
we were due to fly out. Then we changed our plans.
(29:06):
So we're flying out like on Tuesday night. We go
to the airport. We get on a plane. We're going
down the runway and the Bogata airport's like at eight
thousand feet, so it's pretty high altitude and the pilots
didn't compensate for that. So we get almost to the
end of the runway and we're not achieving liftoff speed,
(29:26):
so they stopped turn the plane coming back. We're freaking
out on the inside because we're thinking the government has
stopped us because they're going to make us pay for
all this riot damage. But then the pilot comes on
and says, no, we're turning around. We've got to get
our engines revved up before we leave the main part
(29:47):
of the tarmac. So they brought some kind of machines
out to help rev the engines up more. And off
we went, and we flew into i think from Bogataw
we flew to Santiago, Chile was the next stop, which
will it was another interesting to play into this whole thing. Uh.
So we're there a day or two early from what
we were, and you know, we're having fun. We're joining
(30:09):
it's some beautiful hotel and it's uh, it's beautiful weather.
We're hanging out to pool. Really, you know, making the
best of a day off and maybe a couple of
days off. And so show day comes and and we
all get ready and uh, you know our routine was
Fanned would go into the show axel and uh, his
(30:29):
bodyguard and his personal assistant and the massage therapists myself
will stick back and and uh he'd have dinner and
then the massage therapist would work on him and I'd
work on him, and then uh we'd get in a
limo and I'd tape his ankles on the way to
the show, and so that's what we did. And we
get back to the hotel and we start calling each
(30:50):
other because every room has been ransacked and so the
Santiago FBI or whatever I guess thought we were smuggling
bugs in, so they had come in and ransacked everybody's room.
And uh, but you know, the show went off without
any problems, which was nice and uh, and so then
(31:11):
we went on to uh South Paulo. So we went
to South Paulo, Brazil from Santiago the next day and
and so we get to the show and it's rained
for like three days straight in salth Paulo, and it's
raining during the show. It's it's it's a muddy mess.
(31:33):
You know, fans are standing probably ankle deeper higher in mud.
It's it's a mess. And uh, we're mostly through the
show and some fan takes his shoe off and throws
it up and it's axel right in the crotch, you know, muddy, wet,
nasty shoe. It's him in a crotch. Well, of course
(31:56):
he was furious, and that was not good because these
slam some microphone and walks off stage and and they
riot in South Paulo. Uh, and so we had uh
we felt like it would be a lot nicer in Rio.
So we had planned to fly right after the show
that night. Anyway, so we left the stage and they're rioting,
(32:19):
but the police were able to get us out, and
so we got out to the plane and man, we
had pretty much all hands on deck. We were all
up there pulling guitars and amps and anything we can
get off the stage, help the back line crew to
get get the equipment out before the fans got to
the equipment, and uh loaded it all that we could
(32:42):
get and on to Rio limp so uh and then
we got through Rio pretty much, uh, riot free and
no drama. Uh yeah. But Axel had flown Stephanie Seymour
down for the Rio show, but she had to be
(33:03):
back in New York like the next day for a
for some modeling gig, and so Axel had planned or
worked it out. Doug of course made the arrangements to
put us on a red Eye flight from Rio to
New York City direct flight, but it left like it
at midnight, and so we had to be off stage
(33:27):
by like eleven thirty in order to get a helicopter
from backstage to land on the tarmac outside this big
commercial seven forty seven, a jetliner, and they did all
our customs right there at the bottom of the stairway,
and we ran up and got on a plane like
at two minutes till midnight, and off to New York
we went. So just that kind of crazy deck in it. So,
(33:51):
I mean, you couldn't even imagine, you know, a helicopter
and from backstage of guns and roses show straight onto
the tarmac fifty yards from a seven forty seven, and
it was nuts.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You can't recreate that stuff today. And that's why we
like talking at least I do talking about bands like this.
I mean, it would be fake, you know if someone
tried to do that today. But I mean that's the
fact that, like so many people could have been killed,
I think. So I'm also revealed later. I think it
was in his book that he was smuggling drugs. So
I mean they just didn't find it on sor.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were there. You just had to
look close enough, but they were there.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Did you ever with all this going on, and like
you said, you're not even like really in college yet
or you're not going to chiropractice. Does this become too much?
You know, it's obviously a lot of fun. You know,
the the airplane is a lot of fun. There's a
lot of cool that you get rock and roll every night,
free show for you every night. But with these riots
(34:52):
going on and you're helping the other crew take things
off the stage so fans don't steal it, I'm assuming,
Am I wrong? They crossed your mind being like, I
can't keep doing this. I just want to crack it back.
I don't put it mildly, Randa.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
All things come with a price. And the price for
me for that is it cost me my marriage, and
and and and she was a great person, and so
I hate that it worked out that way, But it
cost me my marriage. That was the price. But actual
and I became very, very close, and I love that man.
(35:28):
I would have stepped in front of a bullet and
a heartbeat for that man. I respected and admired him
as a person, and his integrity was second to nobody
as far as I was concerned. All these it's like
CNN seemed to just follow us all around the planet,
(35:50):
and they were always trying to make him look bad.
And it was frustrating because they anybody can make anybody
look bad if you tell it enough and slant it
the way you want it to be. But he was.
He was great to me, He was great to the
people that were involved with him. He did have a temper,
(36:14):
no doubt about it. But no, it never crossed my
mind to leave that tour to to do anything other
than figure out a way to make him a better
performer and a better singer. I mean, I look at
things now and I think Betta, who I think is
(36:34):
managing him, but she was his housekeeper. Beta has proved.
Betta and her kids and family have provided what he
always needed and wanted, which was a family. And they've
been able to provide that. And as best I can tell,
looking at things I see now, I see him smile
on stage. I see him sign autographs or pictures of
(36:57):
him sign autographs. He seems to genuine being enjoying his profession,
and he's happy, and and that makes me so happy.
I'm truly, genuinely, from my heart, I'm so happy to
see him happy. I don't think he's faking it. He's
not that kind of person to fake things.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's cool to hear you say that because it's one
thing for me a fan, you know that, really I
have no experience with the man other than what the
news say or but I listened since doing this podcast
for a decade, I listened to the fans. I listened
to the people I interview, And you're somebody who worked
very closely with him during a very infamous time, and
(37:38):
for you basically mirror everything that I'm saying. That it's
he's not what everyone else says. And the anger stuff.
I have anger issues, I mean, and so it's just
we're picking apart things. Look, the lateness. I asked this
my recent my my fans recently on social media, like,
what's the longest you ever waited for Gene R? Do
you still hold resentment? I mean, these are things that
(38:01):
happened at the time. I just don't think he ever
did anything maliciously. He's like, I'm going to make these
fans wait. It was going on.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
It was never liked that. It was never ever liked that.
He showed me prior to him moving to Malibu, he
had another house in the Hollywood Hills, and he showed
me a ceramic plate that had something written on it.
And what was written on it was this, and I
think he took it as absolute truth, and I think
(38:33):
he was right. It said time is the thief of
all creativity, and for him, I think he lived by that.
So he doesn't pay attention to time or watches or
anything like that. So if he was due to be
on at nine o'clock and he went on at eleven,
(38:54):
he's not paying attention to the time because he's in
his head trying so hard to come up with the
very best possible show that he could come up with.
And that's why he had him a sous around. That's
why I had a chiropractor around. We contributed to helping
him perform better and that was of paramount importance to him.
(39:15):
Time wasn't important to him, and not everybody lives like that,
but that's how he lived.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
And then if he's Axel, that's why he's accent. It's like,
you guys are the pit crew, and he's that's exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
What we were pit crew. Absolutely, I love.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
That, did you because, like I said, you had a
long day of doing this, so I appreciate your your time.
What year of this is this for you in chiropractice?
If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
I had passed my state board exams, my national board exams.
I'd done all that, like in May of ninety one,
I took off with him in July ninety one. My
day of graduation was September ninth, nineteen ninety one. But
since Doug and the band had no idea that I
wasn't legally a chiropractory yet, I sure didn't tell them.
(40:07):
But I did call the school's attorney, who was also
my jurisprudence professor, and and said, you know, I can't
be at graduation because we're due to be playing Helsinki,
Finland that day. And he didn't believe me. It took
a long time to convince him that I was actually
staying at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Strip. I actually
hung the phone up on him, gave him the phone
numbers and called his number back, ass for room thirty six,
(40:28):
or asked for Steve Thaxton and God blessed doctor Rod Phelps.
He called back, said, holy shit, you really are to
share tomorrow months and so he made sure I got
my diploma, and but I already passed on my board exam,
so it was just as I said I was supposed
to be serving my prison term three thousand hours in
the public clinic that I didn't have to do that.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well, that's it's so cool, I'm sure because you were
gonna and I appreciate it. We spoke off the air
about you going to try to do this in your
office all your guns are roses memorabilia around. Yeah, that
must be so cool though for your patients to go
in and you know, ask you stories and you seem
like still excited to talk about these stories. So that
must be kind of cool for them. The rock and
(41:13):
roll chiropractor, right, you used to advertise like that.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Well, I don't advertise, so I.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Shout out to Tim Tricoli because he sent me. I
should have sent this to you, like an advertisement that
said doctor Stephen Jackson, that said, you know, guns and
roses uses me so well.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
So Axel, when we did this co headlining tour with Metallica,
it was I think twenty three stadiums in North America,
and so what Axual wanted to do was he wanted
to make it like Loa La plusa if you remember
the La La Poluca tours from back then. Axel wanted
all this information to be out there and he's like, Axton,
(41:56):
you got to do something for chiropractic. And I'm like, okay,
why don't we put out a brochure and that talks
about guns and Roses us as a chiropractor to help
maintain their health and to improve their health and their performance.
And so I called the president of my school, doctor
(42:18):
James Parker, from Parker College Chiropractic in Dallas, Texas, and
he he said, Steve, I love it. And of course
I'm still in the doubt on the bottom side of zero,
because I'm still past broke. So doctor Parker, God blessed
you had these brochures printed up that said I think
(42:39):
when the cover it said doctor or guns and Roses
uses chiropractic care for him, doctor Steve Thaxton. But anyway,
he knew people in all twenty three cities, doctor Parker did,
so he contacted them. These were other doctors chiropractic, and
he had them set up a booth outside the stadium
so when fans were coming in they could talk to
them about chiropractic. And then they had a staff member
(43:01):
put one of these brochures in every seat in the stadium.
So these are like fifty to eighty thousand seat stadiums,
twenty three of them across North America. Uh, it was.
It was a pretty cool thing to do.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Okay, So that's what I am looking at it now
and I'll post it over in the video or you
know where I'm editing and stuff. Guns of Roses stays
healthy with chiropractic.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Okay, that's what it says.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, Questions and answers doctor Dee Thackston, a graduated Parker
College of Chiropractics, which was not true now yet. It
travels with Guns of Roses as their chiropractor and has
a bunch of information about how chiropractic help and care
can help you. It's just so right, right.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
I mean, and so like if I give a plug
for chiropractic, it's eighty percent of the US population will
have back pain at some point in their life. That
doesn't include next shoulder, knee pain, pain, whatever, but eighty
percent will have back pain. Yet less than ten percent
of US population sees a chiropractor. And that's just crazy
(44:04):
to me. But that's that's the actual statistics.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
It's been a long time. I need it. I definitely
need a sure picking up my son jumping on me
all that stuff. You were closer, we would make it happen.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I'd be honored to help.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
And just because I know you mentioned and this will
be the last thing. Unless that was the story you
told earlier, You're like, I wanted to tell the story
about axl on I going to dinner. Was that was
the first story you told?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I haven't told that one yet?
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Or is that okay, that's a separate.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Story about that separate story? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Right, So is that is that with that fit with
time constrained or is it like a half hour story,
ten minute story.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's it's a five to ten minute story.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
If you feel like it's worth it, let's share, you know. Okay,
you're here, all right.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So in February of ninety two, I'm sorry, February of
ninety three actually calls me up out of the blue,
or not out of the I mean, i'd been over
to his house that day and then went back to
my hotel, and so this is several hours later and
kind of caught me off guard. But he's like, hey, man,
(45:10):
let's go to dinner tonight, and then I want to
go see my buddy Dave Lank's band at the whiskey
a go go And I'm like, oh, man, i'd love
to and he's like, okay, cool, I'll uh, I'll pick
you up in like an hour. I'm like, oh, okay,
you want me to call Earl? Earl gabad On his bodyguard,
great guy, and so Earl he's like, no, no, no,
(45:34):
it's just you and me. I'm like, let me call
John Zucker at least have him like be just outside
the restaurant. He's like, no, no, we'll be fine. I'll
need security chew and me. And I'm like, you said
we were eating like one sunset right, and he's like, yeah,
it's across some tower records and we'll just we'll just
I'll pick you up. We'll park whatever restaurant the name was,
(45:56):
we'll park there and then we'll just walk up the
street to the whiskey. And I'm like, dude, you're saying
we're gonna walk up sunset. He's like, yeah, we'll be fine.
Please let me call or he's like nah na. And
I think, looking back at that, I think he didn't
realize how huge he had become, you know, because that
(46:17):
it wasn't overnight, but in certain ways, like appetite was huge,
but he wasn't known like he was by February of
ninety three for the Appetite and the illusion projects. It
just he I think he was. I don't think he
realized just how huge he was. So I'm like, okay.
(46:38):
So he picks me up and we go. H end
up parking in the back of the restaurant. No incidence.
Everything's fine, Go in the restaurant, order whatever it is,
we're gonna eat. Looking across out the window, I can
see Tower Records across the street, and he and he
and I are just talking and you know, you know,
we're buddies. And we finished, and he goes, well, we
(47:03):
probably had a head up there. I think. I think
they go on like at nine, so you know, it's
like eight twenty eight thirty. And I'm like okay, So
out the door we go. We cross the street and
we start up the sidewalk beside Tower Records and heading
up to the whiskey, which was five six seven blocks away.
And we're walking up the street and we hadn't taken
(47:27):
ten steps going up the street on the other side,
and somebody starts screaming from a car. That's Axel Rose,
that's Axel Rose, and within thirty seconds there was two
or three hundred people all around us, and some kid
(47:48):
like I just shocking. Some kid like within that ten
to fifteen second period, drops down on his knees and
starts doing you Are God, You Are God. And I'm like,
I'm kind of on the inside freaking because i can
see the crowd growing growing, like it's two or three
(48:09):
hundred people in a minute or something. Wow. And then
within a few more minutes it's in the thousands. Traffic
is stopped on Sunset, their cars setting on Sunset with
the doors wide open, where people got out and ran
over and joined this crowd. And I'm trying to protect
him and make room through the crowd to get us
up through there. And fortunately for us, I think the
(48:34):
security guys at the whiskey had kind of seen this commotion,
you know, four or five blocks down from the whiskey,
and they're like, Wow, what's going on down there? Well,
maybe we got to go down and because it's huge,
it's probably about this point it's two thousand people, wow,
And they kind of part the crowd and grab both
(48:54):
of us and get the crowd part enough to get
us back to the whiskey, and then we hung out
and watched his uh his buddy Dave Blank's UH band
and then UH and then got a ride back to
his car. He went to his house. I went back
to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Was there any of us you look at at at all?
Be like I told you so?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
No, you know I'm going to say that. But I
just think he did not realize how huge he was.
And and I because I didn't live I lived in
his world, but I didn't live in his head, so
to speak. I got glimpses of outside. You know, I
(49:40):
walk outside a hotel, or like in Argentina when we
flew to Buenos Aires from Santiago. During the night, the
crowd would shrink down to about five hundred kids outside
the hotel, singing guns n' roses songs. But during the
day that would swell uped over two thousand kids outside
(50:02):
the hotel in Buenos Aires. And and it's so loud
in the hotel you can't sleep. So he knew he
was huge in Buenos Rus, Argentina. I don't don't think
he realized he was that huge in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I respect and admire that kind of innocence in that degree,
because there there will be today in today's world with
streamers and influencers. They want that disruption. Oh look at me,
you know to do that. Let's when we go outside.
Let me see what I can do your cause and
cause a moment he just wanted to have. Was the
(50:39):
lunch good?
Speaker 1 (50:42):
And it was great. It was a great dinner a
big expensive restaurant. You know, of course it was great.
And that's what I've I've always said there are plenty
of other people in the music business that will do
things for that kind of publicity, But with Johns and Roses,
you got what you saw. They weren't doing any of
(51:03):
it for publicity. That's just who they were, right, and
and people found it interesting. You know, the music was
written from the heart, and it was obviously it was
written from the heart, and and they weren't ashamed or
afraid to show their emotions and and it was and
that's genuine that kind of quality and the genuine quality
(51:25):
of that people respected it. It was I think it
was part of the reason they they became so huge
and still are.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
So huge, why I became a fan. It's not just
the music. I've said that it's just being a genuine
I'm like that with people. Just be genuine and it's right.
You know, even in the excess is a genuineness to it,
which is just so interesting to me. Uh. And for
those who I mean, you've been listening to this podcast,
I'm sure you know Dave Lank co writer of a
Don't Damn Me Augustana. Are you planning on seeing them
(51:53):
this this time? Are they get to come anywhere close
to you when they returned to the States at all?
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Is that part of your lifestyle now, to see Guns
and Roses at all?
Speaker 1 (52:05):
I would love to see them. There's no way of
fans or butts about it. I admit my weekends almost
always are I'm racing a dirt bike nine or ten
months a year, nearly every weekend out of the year.
So that's a huge part of my life. It's a
(52:25):
long story why we're no longer speaking at currently. I
hold out hope that someday that we will speak again
and we'll talk again. But I'd like to go to
a show. I haven't made arrangements. West Virginia is a
(52:47):
really small place and nobody comes here and it's so
I haven't checked the summer schedule, but I suspect they'll
be in Charlotte or Pittsburgh or somewhere. But they're all
pretty good drives for me. But I would like to
It's just, honestly, Brando, it's it's hard being so on
(53:08):
the inside and then to step back away from that
and be one hundred or five hundred seats back from
the stage. And the truth is, I think that might
hurt a little bit, but maybe I just got to
suck it up and.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
Go, well, no, I mean I understand that, and I
appreciate your honesty, and I'll leave that story for you
or for a part three for you, you know, for
between us with the acts on anything, if anything, do
you look at his gait or you just like I
wish I could adjust him? Still nothing that come like
(53:44):
that I was being silly. You don't have to answer that.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
No, I would. I would love to adjust him again.
But I missed the friendship, that's the truth. Like being
a chiropractor to him, that was an honor, a massive honor.
But we became such good friends. And you don't get
those kinds of good friends like that many times in
(54:09):
your lifetime. You might only get one maybe you'll have
a couple and and we were very very close, and
I think a lot of people developed a lot of
closeness with Axel. But uh, one of the problems with
being rich and famous is everybody wants a piece of you,
(54:33):
and and the truth doesn't always. People can be very
deceiving in high places, so to speak. And I think
Doug Goldstein was not like that at all. Doug was
very genuine, he was he was not deceiving. But other
times people can be very deceiving, and I think that
(54:53):
has had a big effect. And anyway, it's a whole.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
There's a lot of whole other stories. I appreciate you
sharing some of them with me tonight. Just thank you doctor.
What do you prefer? By the way, do you prefer
doctor Thackston? Steve Flame? Because you're sexual, regular guy. I
don't know how do you?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Steve works great? My ego doesn't need the doctor part.
Steve's just fine.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Steve. It was really cool to talk to you again,
and thank you for sharing these stories. And look forward
to seeing you on Facebook and more on motocross. Uh,
you know, pictures from you and never shave it, never
shave it. We're never gonna need no shave club ah.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I love that plan all right.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
So that does it with this episode of appetite for
distortion when 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.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Thanks to the lad security. I'm going home.
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