Wes Orshoski, Film Director: Maiden, Motörhead, and Matt Sorum's Allstars | Ep. 566 - Appetite for Distortion

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I felt like these were guys who came out of
the gutter, who made me feel like anything was possible.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to the podcast Appetite for Distortion, Episode number five
hundred and sixty six. My name is Brando. Welcome filmmaker
director Ms. Wes Arstrovsky Orshrowski. I said this right before
the air, and I still get it wrong. Arshrowski, totally fine,
happy to be here. Yeah, I gonna call you Wes.
I can pronounce that. God, it's twenty years in radio

(00:28):
ten of this podcast. I still I don't know. I
think I had like an undisclosed, undiagnosed speech impediments when
I was a young kid, and I'm still trying to
get out of it. And I picked the right career.
Isn't that great?

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Perfect?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I should have been like you and been behind the camera.
That's the segue. I act like it's all planned right. Yes, Well,
then so Wes. If you're unfamiliar with his work, you
might be Actually you just might not know that. The
name perhaps, but it involves the damned you wish that
they were dead, The uh, the award winning lem Me

(01:01):
documentary and the brand new one. It's making a lot
of news and it hasn't come out. It's not out
yet officially. Yeah, a week from tomorrow, a week from today.
So we're recording this. I'll put it out next week,
so it'll be out the week that this airs. How
about that, uh, Deano the Iron Maiden's Lost singer. I

(01:22):
should say Iron Deano, Iron Maiden's lost singer. I want to.
I don't want to add an extra do in there?
About all about Paul Deano? And I just watched it
and you sent me a free link and it's incredible.
So congratulations. I know that was a long, long process
and uh, you know, rip Paul, so it must have

(01:43):
been very difficult to even complete it. And we'll get
into that, so but I just wanted to say, off
the back, congrats and it's it's great.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
So where you zooming in from if you don't mind
me asking.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm here in the city. Oh, it's right, you're we're
not We're not far from one another. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Maybe in the future I said this, and my wife
looked in horror when I was saying this that maybe
one day I'll have in studio or in apartment guests
to do that.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Maybe when Harrison gets older and you can be like
my little He's become my little helper monkey, a little
bit like Michael Homer, I know, like Homer Simpson and Mojo.
But I don't want to make him, you know, lazy.
And if you're familiar with that episode, as I'm looking
at him eating popcorn and playing on the iPad. So anyway,

(02:31):
we're both New Yorkers and we're both Guns and Roses
fans too, So you know, before we go into the
documentaries that I want to talk about them damned and
the Guns and Roses stuff. They talked. They spoke about
them there of course, and in the new Deano film,
let's just talk about your GNR history, which kind of
involves something. God, I don't know. I can't wait to

(02:53):
hear this story. So Matt Sorum, some of you may know,
had a twenty twelve rock and Roll All Stars tour
and it had Dolph Kilby and Mike and Naz from
Alse Chains and Ed Roland from Collective Soul, Billy Duffy
called Gene Simmons, Joe Elliot, Steve Stevens, I mean, Glenn Hughes,
Sebastian Bach. I mean, this was all stars. Some people

(03:16):
called it like their thing, an all star and it's
like a couple people that you may know this was
a true all star thing. So you were trying to
do a documentary about that and it went south pretty quickly.
Can you uh, can you kick us off with that story.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, I met Matt when he briefly was the drummer
and motorhead when I was working on the Lemmy film
Mickey D. I think Mickey D had had agreed to
be on like a TV show, a reality TV show,
and I think that's right. And so there were like
two weeks of dates in the States that that Matt

(03:51):
ended up doing, and uh, you know, being a GNR fan,
it was great to hang with Matt and hear some
of the stories. And so he put this like all
star collective together, and I think it came out of
him doing gigs in LA. There used to be this
thing called Camp Freddy. I don't know if you've ever
heard of it, but like, yeah, I think it involved

(04:13):
like Dave Navarro and different people, and so I guess
he kind of thought I'm going to take the Camp
Freddie idea on the road, and man, I thought it
was incredible. He announced the tour and it was like
ten cities in South America, and the tour ended up
only doing three and there were actually four shows. One

(04:33):
was a radio concert, and but yeah, the idea was
like ten countries, ten cities, and you know, an embarrassment
of riches of personality and charisma and songs and so yeah.
I pitched him on making a film about it, and
he had me out on the road with him and

(04:55):
we were literally in the air we had just taken off.
What I realized when someone told me that seven of
the shows had been canceled. And I don't know if
you know much about this tour, but it was.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Just very you know, tell me more, I want to
learn more. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, it was booked by a guy who ended up
going to jail, and don't you know, I don't want
to misspeak here, but a very controversial promoter. And the
most intense moment of the entire trip was and people
don't really know this. I haven't really spoken about it,

(05:35):
but Matt had the promoter, who I probably shouldn't name,
come to a conference room in Peru where he was
going to confront him, and he did on camera because
there was a like an enraged promoter. I think he

(05:56):
was from Ecuador, who who had paid the deposit of
the show, And then the promoter canceled the show on
him and kept his deposit. And there were people going
and saying and showing up with knives, and then he,
the promoter, entered the room. This is all on camera.

(06:18):
I have it all on camera. And the promoter, I'll
never forget. The promoter was wearing cowboy boots and he
keeps kicking his foot on the ground and he was,
I mean, he was seconds away from killing the guy.
I mean he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars
I think, you know, And so it was incredibly dramatic,

(06:41):
and Matt was at his wits end. And Matt, who
I think is the greatest dude, he confronted him and said,
what's going on? I think we were in Lima and
this promoter from Ecuador had flown there to confront him.
And if memory serves, the promoter was snuck out of

(07:06):
the country because he wasn't the he wasn't the only
guy looking for him, you know, the Ecuadorian guy wasn't
the only guy trying to find him and trying to
get their money. Back in and I think somehow there
was a loophole in the contract where the guy was
able to take the deposits. I mean we're talking massive

(07:26):
amounts of money, and but you know, in the end,
he got his comeuppance and went to jail I think
in Texas.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Geez, yeah, completely. I was gonna obviously ask why they
were canceled, like if they were ticket sales. No, it
was just a criminal stealing money, you know.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, I mean I didn't even like, I didn't even
get a straight reason why the other shows were canceled.
We're literally in the air leaving Lax and the guy
sitting next to me who worked for this is hilarious.
Jeans him, brought this guy on tour with him. His
whole job was selling the Gene Simmons bases and so

(08:06):
you know, and they're incredible, those incredible Gene basses, not
the one that had the blade, but I think it
was a different kind. I think he had two different models.
But the guy sitting next to me on the plane,
he set them up. He sold them for thousands of
dollars and would set up the meet and greet with
Gene in each city, and then Jean would sign the box,
the case, and sign the guitar. I mean, I totally

(08:28):
wanted one. Kiss was my entryway to lifelong love of music.
I totally wanted one, but like, I mean, thousands of
dollars they were going for. So this guy next to me,
he's like, yeah, it's a shame those those seven shows
got canceled. I was like what, because I would have
never I came out of pocket. You know, I was

(08:49):
funding this myself, and I was like, what are you
telling me right now? It's already too late. So yeah,
so I one day, I I I would like to.
I think there's a way that I could turn this
into a pretty compelling doc.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
You know, right, I was wondering if there was a
legal reason for you to preventing you. But I guess
you guys haven't found the right narrative yet.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well, no, I think the narrative is right there. I
just you know, it's right there, all the all the drama.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Or a legal narrative. I guess if someone went to jail,
I know, if you had to get permissions and I
don't know all that stuff, well.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
That would have to all be sorted. And I've been
too busy to really kind of get into that. But yeah,
and you know they're playing some of the biggest hits
of all time, and so all of that stuff would
have to be licensed too, you know, like you know, uh,
Paradise City and Tie your Mother Down and Joe Elliott

(09:47):
would sing that and uh, you know, uh hits from
you know, Alison Chains and Deep Purple and Kiss and
so it's pretty complicated, but it was. It was a
surreal experience growing up loving GNR to be on it
like private plane, you know, with not only Jean, who
was like my you know, my first favorite rock star, right,

(10:12):
but then with uh, with Jovie, Matt and Duff and
uh and so many incredible people, you know, Billy Duffy,
Mike Anaz, Uh, you know, Steve Stevens.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
I mean, that's like a fantasy camp and you were
kind of like the manager of that in a way.
And then they had to It's a nice precursor and
we'll get into, of course, the Paul Dano doc of
just finding things out before you really get going. And
but you have the resume now that I believe that
you'll get this done. You'll get that documentary when it's
time to get done. Yeah, you've put out some amazing things.

(10:46):
You know, you said, I think I read the first
started film. Look, I was looking at your instagram. The
first thing you shot it for the Paul Dano doc
was like ten years ago or nine years ago, something
like it.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
It was nine years ago. Yeah. The weirdest with the
Paul film as I I signed on to make the
film over twelve months. That's how I had to make
the money make sense. And you know, my hat's off
to Cleopatrick because who else was going to pay who
was going to fund a Paul Deanno film to be made? Right?
But the budget was tight, so you know, to make

(11:20):
this make sense, I was going to work on it
for one year and and yeah, immediately I realized that
Paul misled me. The first uh, the first minute I
met him was at the drop off area of his
local hospital in Sulisbury, England, And within an hour, you know,
Paul had we had spoken on the phone before I
kind of agreed to make the film, and Paul said,

(11:44):
oh yeah, you know, he made it seem like he
just had this minor operation in front of him and
that in like six weeks we would be on the
road in Brazil, you know, pl you know, I'd get
this incredible footage of him playing before South American crowds,
and within an hour of being at that hospital, I
realized that, you know, the doctors were telling him that
both of his knees had to be replaced and that

(12:06):
he could lose a leg in the process. He could
even die on the table. Small chance, but a chance.
And I was like, oh my god, what if I
got myself into you know.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's yeah, no, sorry, I was gonna say, that's just
the off air story, and the dock itself is really
I mean, I'm not obviously even the biggest Guns of
Roses fan and Axel wrote and all that stuff. So
I mean I like Maiden, Yeah, I like, but I
know their their hits if you can say the Maiden
is known for being popular despite not having like radio hits,

(12:36):
but if you can call the hits uh. And I
was not familiar with with Paul growing up. It's a
it's interesting sometimes of just where you're born and then
when in your life what a band is and what like.
I admit with Guns and Roses, you know, I didn't
grow up with AfD at that lineup, you know, so

(12:57):
for them. They will always use your illusion, you know.
That was the line up, and then Chinese democracy and
all that stuff. So I go into the dot. I
just want to take a couple of steps back and
learn how you got into filmmaking.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, it all came out of you know. I was
a music journalist before I started making these music documentaries,
and uh, you know, I used to write a lot
about reggae when I when I was when I was
at Billboard Magazine, I'd started writing about reggae and I
got to meet the roots reggae artists. One of the
only ones still alive, Burning Spear, and one of the

(13:29):
kind of like godfathers of roots reggae. And he lives
in Queens too. He lives in Jamaica and part of
the year, and I went out there to interview him
and do a story on him, and and they told
me that there was somebody working on a film and
and I just one day, I was I was thinking

(13:51):
about it, and I was like, you know, I'd love
to get involved in that and if there's any way
it could help, you know. I called up his or
send an email to his his wife, Sonia, and I
was like, sonya if there's any way I could help.
And then I met Greg who I ended up making
the Lemmy film with, and yeah, so we were working
on the Burning Spear film and I had the idea

(14:14):
for the Lemmy film when we were in we were
in Ireland actually interviewing Shnead O'Connor for the Burning Spear
project and Burning Shaneva was a huge Burning Spear fan,
and we were just at a pub across the street
from the hotel and I was like, let's make a
film about let me. I have the perfect idea, you know,
the perfect subject. And so that was my first film

(14:35):
and it's just kind of snowballed from there.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
I want to give a shout out to a listener
when I said you were going to be on and
regarding to Let Me Doc, this goes out to Lars
not All. Rick Grelick says that let Me Doc is incredible.
Must have seen it ten to fifteen times.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Amazing. You know.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's tell me a little bit about that doc again
because I want to do a deep dive into the
new one, and that's what we're kind of promoting, the
one about Paul. But just how that, how that came
together and working with Lemmy and you know, slashes in
that and through the g n R tie. I mean
that I haven't watched it in a few years, but
it's it is an incredible documentary. It really is.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Oh thank you. Yeah yeah, Slash Matt and uh and
Duffer in that film. Actually yeah, yeah, I mean I just, uh,
it's the weirdest thing I've known. Uh. This woman who's
worked as a publicist for Motorhead for for decades, and
I sent her a one line email. I literally it

(15:36):
was like the luck of it all, I said. I
sent an email. Her name is Laurie. I said, Hey, Laurie,
is there any chance that that Lemmy and Lemmy's management
might be interested in making a film about him? And
and that started it all. And uh, within within a
few months, we were having a meeting with his manager

(15:58):
and and shooting with him. We we uh, we originally
shot some stuff at the Rainbow, just like some initial interviews.
And the funny thing about that is, uh, some of
the stuff he said when we basically tried out for him,
We said that we would put some stuff together and
and if he liked it, like we put like a

(16:19):
little teaser together and if he liked it, we'd shoot,
we cheot a little, put some stuff together with some
borrowed footage, and if he liked it, then we would continue.
And that's what happened. We we we shot some interviews
with him at the Rainbow, and the weird thing about
that was with no promise that it was definitely going
to continue. Lemmy was like more like vulnerable in those interviews,

(16:43):
and he said some things and in those interviews that
like spending five years with him and trying to get
him to open up after you know, we'd gotten to
know him, you would think it would be easier, but weirdly
enough it was. It was the opposite. And so yeah,
we we put that together. We shot some stuff with
his rockabilly trio which features Slim Jim Phantom from the

(17:05):
Stray Cats in Wisconsin, and we interviewed those guys and
then we put something together and and he liked it.
And it's the funniest thing I was. I was looking
for some photos for you and some images, and I
ran across this video of that I shot on my
phone when we brought the like first cut of the
film to him so he could see it in his

(17:25):
apartment and nobody loved Lemmy as much as Lemmy he
is loving himself well, you know, like there's a little
bit in the film where like he's cracking jokes, he's
telling jokes and he just loved it. And so it
was really it was an incredible experience because you know,

(17:46):
he he got a lot out of it, and so
did we. You know, it was it was an incredible experience.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
You know what you tend to do. And it was
in the in the Lemmy documentary and the Damned One
that I saw parts of you pointed me in the
direction of the guns and Roses when they're talking about
new roads and everything. But before that, you know, one
of the members is like crying, you know about like
they got they reunited, but nobody just wanted to play.

(18:14):
They had all the money and everything. So and then
with Lemmy and what he's going through, with what he
went through and his family and just and now with
with with Paul, which were again I keep teasing it,
you seem to really bring the best out of people
like or like I saw how I want to put it,
because you catch them at the most vulnerable. But they
got to trust you for that to happen because it's

(18:36):
not live. They can be like you know what, cut
that out after and this stuff, especially in the Paul one,
that's extremely uncomfortable, but it's that's what makes a good documentary,
and it helps you see these people more than just
the rock star the rock god that perhaps a lot
of people see them, and that's what a good documentary does.
You want to see them as a person. So I'm

(18:56):
assuming that's always your goal, is not just to celebrate
the music, but to see who this person, who these
people are.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, I mean with the with I mean I think
a lot of that. You know, it's funny the longer
you keep the camera on and if you just show
up sometimes you can get lucky like and it can
just be little minor things like like there's a moment
in a Lemmi film where he's a he hits a
triple seven. We just happened to be filming when when

(19:24):
he hits a triple seven on the slot machine. But
it can also be bigger, more emotional things. And the
poll thing was much different than anything I had worked on.
I mean it was I mean, I'm literally filming the
guy at some of the worst moments in his life
and I'm filming him in some of the very worst

(19:46):
moments in his life. And so, you know, there's there's
one scene in the film where he is being transferred
from his wheelchair to a stretcher and in this bus
loading ambulance loading area in France, and that was by
far the hardest thing I've ever filmed as a human being.

(20:09):
I am he was so scared, shaking, so upset. His
clothes are kind of like falling down. He's embarrassed, and
and I was like, what am I doing? Like what
am I doing? But at the same time, there's part
of my part, part of me. It was like, I'm
praying that my my camera doesn't shut off, that my

(20:29):
batteries last, and my you know, the card and the
camera last. And I don't make up, I don't make
any errors film any of this because I knew it
was incredible and I was feeling such a way filming it.
I knew it was special. And you know, here's this
guy who is the he's literally known as the Beast,
you know, iconic figure in heavy metal history, and he's

(20:53):
shaking and he says I'm scared, maybe like five or
six times, and it was like I'm like what am
I doing? Like? What am I doing? You know? But
the whole thing about the film and the whole thing
that I was trying to do that Paul knew what
I was always had signed up for as well, is

(21:14):
that when we weren't trying to make a film talking
about with people talking heads talking about how bad Paul's
life has become and how much he has to overcome,
I wanted you to see it, to feel it, you know.
I wanted to put you there. I wanted you to
know what it feels like to be Paul in those moments,
and so that you can appreciate the emotional swing when

(21:36):
he has a good moment, like when he performed for
the first time in seven a half years. That was
the first time I ever saw him live. When he's
performing in Zagreb, and it was incredible. He was incredible.
It was so hot, it was so uncomfortable in that room,
and sweat is just porn. You only get to see

(21:57):
little bits of it in the film, But Paul is
toweling himself off, but at the same time so happy.
He's healthier than he's been in years. Moves to Croatia
through the help of these fans, these angels and he's
in a place physically where his voices is perfect. And

(22:18):
you know, I brought this up to some other people.
He ended the show a little bit early because it
was just so hot. I was so uncomfortable, everybody was
so uncomfortable. But he ended the show with the Sex
Pistols cover. Huge punk fan, Huge Pistols fan, and that's
how he ended the night. And it had so much
bite and snarl, and so he had hit these like

(22:41):
high notes and these famous Maiden songs. He had done
all those kind of like kind of vocal kind of
like calisthenics, you know, and gymnastics, and then he ended
with a punk song which was just all snarl and
attitude and it was perfect. And so I went on
the tangent there, but like, you know, you experienced these lows,

(23:03):
but then you could experience these highs with them, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
That's what makes for a good doc. And again, as
somebody who and I appreciate when somebody comes on this
podcast and be like, oh, I'm not the biggest guns
of Roses fan, and that's so you know what you're
starting with. We know that you are, So that's that
you're not the he's here, me not being the biggest
Maiden fan and only really learning about Paul when he
came back into the limelight. And I'm saying I really

(23:29):
didn't know much about it. I'm like, he's you know,
we'll share what's his whole history? And I mean this
is a few years ago now, yeah, and he's he's
been he's been passed. I think awful passed away was
a year and a half ago, two years.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Ago, October twenty twenty four. Yep.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah. So uh but I find my I found myself
enthralled with this doc because you mentioned a few things
in there, one with these fans from Croatia helping him,
which is just mind boggling. And I couldn't help but
think about you know, what documentary should do or movie
should do, help you think about yourself. I'm like, wow,

(24:03):
something like that happened to Axel or there are sections
of fans that will do this, and like what good people,
you know to say, come here, come to Croatia, come
to our you know here in America, our our healthcare
system isn't that great. So it's it sucks that you
have to go to Croatia to do these things. It

(24:23):
shows you the power of music, and you see that throughout,
you know, even when he showed up at a Maiden show,
not the same, but you see people going up to
him and crying and like he meant so much to me,
and it's just it's incredible that all these years can
pass right and he may not be the same. He's
obviously in a wheelchair. It sounds good. Sometimes he sounded

(24:45):
good sometimes, Paul, like when you said, but the other
times when he's not, he wasn't taking care of himself
and he sounded bad, So it could be this, but
he's still that guy. So I just kept thinking about
Axel in a way just related to me. But I'm
glad you brought up that scene within being transported because
it's only been the last couple of years that I've
started to use a wheelchair for my disability. You know,

(25:07):
I've been using leg braces since I was around ten.
Some mutation in my nerve happened around that age, you know,
not hereditary that I have neurological disability, demiolinating peripheral neuropathy.
I have leg braces and only been using a cane
maybe the last fifteen years, because it just took a
long time for me to accept, want to be, to

(25:29):
want to be seen like that. I tried to hide
my disability. If I could hide in limping, you know,
people can start I was walking cool and that that
would actually happen. You're walking like you're in a hip
hop group. Like, no, I guess I've leg braces in
a limp. I'm not trying to be cool. I guess
maybe I am a little bit, but I'm not trying
to be so to see, and I think about I

(25:52):
hate using this term because I think it more than
that the content creator. You know, I have a radio
background broadcast journalism degree, but I create content and you
see what people do now and I will see disabled
parents or kids or just a person make content about
the struggles they have to go through every day. And

(26:12):
there's always a part of me I'm like, should I
do that? You know, the people, because I've had police
officers think I'm faking it. You know, some people think
I'm faking it that I'm not as handicapped as I am,
or you know why in a wheelchair sometimes or not.
So I'm like, maybe I should just feel myself crawling
around the floor with my son and all the But

(26:32):
that's a lot to really show yourself that vulnerable. I'm like,
I don't want to do that. I'm like, maybe I
don't know. It's still a debate that I have to
this day. Maybe should people should see it? But you
really showed it, and I felt that I really did
because to go from I had to tell my son
this morning, who wants me to be on the floor
with him playing with animals? And he wants me to

(26:53):
go up on the chair and do a puppet show
for him? Like, I just got on the floor, can
you give me a few minutes to kind of like
get my bearings and get up again? And it certainly
was not as graphic, for lack of a better word,
with Paul, who's, like you said, his shirts falling off,
He's like shaking and all that stuff. But I've had

(27:13):
those moments slipping on ice, falling in front of people,
being embarrassed. I've in many of those moments, and to
kind of I felt seen, if I can use that
phrase in that moment, I'm like, that's a guy completely
different background. He has health issues for other reasons, but
to really be he could have decided. I know he

(27:35):
passed before the film was over. But he could have
been like and he said, get the camera the fuck
off me. But he could said, you know what, that's
that's too much. I don't want that to be seen, right.
But he did he watch that after and say it's okay.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
He didn't get a chance to see the finished film.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Or that part. I mean, did he get to see
that part? Is that what I'm asking?

Speaker 1 (27:55):
You know, It's funny because we used to laugh about it.
The Cliff, his guitar player, his longtime friend. You know,
he knew him better than anybody that I knew. And uh,
and he used to say, I don't even think he'll
watch it. I think he'll watch the film. I So
we never got to that point. I wanted to say
a couple of things about what you said. You know,

(28:16):
I didn't know what you're dealing with until like just
a couple of days ago when you posted a photo
and you were in a wheelchair in that photo, and
I so I had already sent you the link by
that time, and I was like, oh my god, I'm
so happy that you had the reaction that you did,
because I was like, this could really trigger him, This
could be really upsetting for him. And and you know

(28:40):
it's so I'm so glad that you had that reaction thought.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
I appreciate you thinking that, And it was very vulnerable
for me to show that picture. For those who haven't,
I always say, the conversation continues on social media. Yea,
my wife's son and I we went to Brooklyn Ball
in Brooklyn, I mean there's an apparently there's a chain
of them. There's a few more like one in Vegas.
And so we went to the o g One where

(29:05):
Guns of Roses played back in the day. I forget.
I don't know where I was in my life. I
don't remember. I wish I saw them back then. It
was just like a dance party. Kids just run around
being idiots with music. It was nothing crazy. And I
see Scott from Weezer walk in and I'm right, and
I'm like, I hit my Scott Schreiner and I'm like,

(29:27):
hit my wife my cause she's liked what I'm like.
That's Scott from Weezer. You know, we wanted to see
them this summer. They're coming into the Barclays. We decided
on Jimmy World in addition to Guns of Roses and yeah,
uh so he he goes, I don't see him with
the kid, so he he walks in with his wife.
The wife, I realized later is the same wife that

(29:48):
had that standoff with the cops and got shot by
the cops.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
So she's fine.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
They're still together. I thought they got they were going
to get divorced according to the new Like, that's our business.
And yeah, I'm like, oh, are you Scott from Weezer?

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, do you mind if I take a picture with you? Sorry,
I'm that guy, especially especially when I'm in a wheelchair.
I'm like, I could to make a wish kid for all.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
You know, there's no shame in that.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, I mean this is a little I have a
little shame in that, but I admit it. I admit it.
So yeah, he he crouched down, took the picture, and
you know what, my wife was like, this is a
really good picture of you, you two, And I said, look,
I'm like, I don't this is the truth. I'm not
really that proud of it. I'm like, I look like
a schlub in my wheelchair sitting down. You know, I
could have got stood up with my cane, but I didn't.

(30:36):
I didn't want to at that point, She's like, no,
you look really handsome, And it was really hard for
me to accept that. So seeing things like that because
it's a real issue that he had. Yeah, his issues
were from not taking care of himself. There wasn't some
some neurological disability that he was born with. But regardless,

(30:56):
that is a real thing that happens, and it's not
you see all these performative That's what bothers me. Even
though people who are a handicapped or performative, I'm like,
don't be yourself. That's why when I fuck up, like
at the beginning of the episode trying to say your name,
even though I said it perfectly before I hit record,
whether I fall on my tongue or on my ass,

(31:17):
that's that's me.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
So yeah, I love that you posted it. Man. You know,
life is too short.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
You know some people are. That reverts back to and
we'll go back and see the story. Am I think
we have some good time of quietness. My my wife
took my son out to the park. It was when
we went to England a couple for his first birthday.
We crossed Abbey Road for his first birthday and I

(31:44):
was in the wheelchair. The entire time. I wish at
the time I had a motorized wheelchair because as my
wife pushed me across England, across the cobblestone and all
that stuff, it was a lot for both of us.
So I posted the picture of us. So we kind
of snuck into the look. The gate to the Abbey
Road studios was a jar, okay, people were taking pictures

(32:05):
through the gate. I'm like, no, are they gonna yell
at somebody in a wheelchair? And I'm like, I'm not
going up to the door. I'm not going inside. Let
me just go inside the area and take a you know,
a picture, not through the trees or whatever. So I
did and it was fine, and I still remember this.
Somebody posted a comment on that picture, being like, I'm
an embarrassment to handicap people like you shouldn't do that,

(32:28):
or I shouldn't take advantage, or they didn't think I
was really handicapped, because sometimes they'll see me, you know.
There's a picture I shared with me and Tommy Stinton
when I met him. Randomly I'm with my team, you know.
Or sometimes I put the cane to the side because
I don't want it in the camera because I'm self
conscious still, So I.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Think life's too short to be self conscious. You gotta
get rid of that. Man, I think you'd be a
much happier person trying very hard, don't worry about I mean,
there's always going to be a hater in every situation,
So like, who cares?

Speaker 2 (32:55):
You know you're right, So I go what I do?
Know I do? I used to have like a nice
little try to have a back and forth and be
like make them see that, like are you serious or
either like what's what's now? It's like, you know what,
You're not even worth my time? That's it not even
worth my time at all. So no, no, I'm glad

(33:18):
you brought that because that scene's going to live in
rent Free in my head.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
So you brought it up.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, I'm glad you thought about me during that time, because, yeah,
that might have been the first time people were like, oh,
he's handicapped because I don't talk. I've talked about it.
I've spoken about it. Yeah, like it's something I post
every day.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
You know, it's funny. You just reminded me of a moment.
I'm not trying to change the subject or anything. Speaking
a wheelchair.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Please let's leave.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
That's fine, No, I actually didn't have a pass. So
there's a moment in the film. One of the most
amazing things I was able to capture was after forty years,
Paul and Steve Harris, the guy who essentially fired him
from Iron Maiden, the founder of Iron Maiden, reuniting while
he was in Croatia, and technically I didn't have a

(34:01):
pass to get in, and I had to film that
on my phone because I didn't want to call attention
to myself, and so.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
You know, I didn't even tell. I couldn't even tell.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's funny. The only way I was able to get in,
I think, was because I was with Paul, you know,
with you know, with the guy in the wheelchair. Security
wasn't checking everybody's passes, and so you know, uh, you know,
I I prefer to to kind of go to the
Larry David route and see what you can get away with,
you know, the.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Bathroom scene and all that. I understand that. Yeah, Like
there are times that I need to make me seem
more handicapped than I am to get away with something
that I should get away with. And there are times
that's like, no, I really need help with this, just
because I'm not, you know, talking with the You know,
I don't talk like I have a mental disability, or

(34:57):
there are people who judge you because you like you
a handicap. You sound pretty good that doesn't need anything.
You could still be a handicap and speak well or kind.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Of well, I know what you mean. Like when I
was about to premiere the Damn documentary at south By Southwest,
I was literally finishing the film and I was taking
some hard drives out of a cab in Midtown and
I slipped on a patch of ice and I was like, ooh,

(35:27):
that didn't feel great, And within like hours, I couldn't walk.
I had broken my leg and I didn't know you
could even break your leg from like a slip, an
awkward slip. And so I went to south By Southwest
on crutches and to premiere that film, and man, I
got a real during that period of my life. I

(35:47):
got a real sense of how people do not care
they like the people on the street, especially in crowded places,
They'll just they see you moving slow, and they'll just
walk right in front of you because they feel like
they have enough time instead of taken taking one second
for the safety of that person, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
One hundred percent, and yeah, I almost man, I'm five six.
If I was six four, I would get into so
many fights I'll never forget.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
I saw that.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
It was like the first time I saw the food
fighters in Worcester, Worcester, Massachusetts. This guy's probably like six something.
Like everyone at a concert before I started using the
handicap seats would just like cut in front of me
because I'm the little guy, and I got a big
mouth and be like what the fuck, like, don't any rightfully.
He looked at me and kind of smarked because he
could probably destroy me, and he walked away. But I

(36:36):
was I would have got I would have punched him
in the nuts, like just don't do that. Or the
last on when I said fine, like I can't do
this anymore with the cane was guns and roses related
went to Austin City limits and it was just so
many things are just not handicapped accessible. So seeing that
stuff in the pall dock of just how this world

(36:59):
is not made. I mean, there are there are certain
venues that have gotten better, certain restaurants that get better,
but you know, like when I had to go visit
the Rock and what is it? The not the rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, the the hard rock there
we go the hard rock in the UK and then
go down to the stairs and see slashes, double talking,

(37:22):
jive guitar and see the November the outfit you or November.
I had to go down a long asset of stairs
and I couldn't even get up on like where there's
like they kept up on like a little platform. Jimmy
Hendrich's his bench and the guy's like, do you want
to sit down that?

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (37:40):
The one of the workers there, Claudio, who apparently still
works there because I thanked him in a post recently
because he was like the second I know me and
my Facebook anniversaries of he still works there and he
they notified him because I tagged hard rock and there.
He's a little guy like me. He like picked me
up like and put me on the bench because I
have like no strength my legs and holding a double

(38:01):
talk and drive guitar. So there's like a whole story
behind me that everyone sees, you know, smiling, happy with
the guitar, and it's the whole story I don't see
but you, but you show that story. So that's why
I appreciate I did again. I'll say it again, thank
you for thinking of me after like, oh my god,
just get a backfire. Is he getting offended by this? No,

(38:22):
because you did it tastefully, you did in a way.
You did in a way that it's meant to be
seen because it's it's it's those moments happen and I
can sense when someone you're trying to go this is
what it was. This is the moment that was funny
when you're filming, because you're filming a lot of it.
It wasn't just it wasn't all you, right, it was
was this So I don't know who it was. Maybe

(38:43):
it wasn't you. I think it was getting into the
ambulance and they're filming and he's having a hard time,
like pushing, he's like by himself, wheeling. I'm like, can
you put the fucking camera dad and help him?

Speaker 1 (38:55):
And then.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
And then you did.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Then you did it.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
It's like you heard me.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
That is fascinating that you pick up on that, because yeah,
he's that's at like four in the morning at his
apartment and we're about to get in a cab and
drive three hours to to the ferry to France, and
on the previous trips to England to shoot with Paul,

(39:24):
I had literally helped him from his wheelchair into the car.
And because when I first met him, and after I
surely after I agreed to make the film, he wasn't
doing a lot. I mean, the most exciting thing he
would do is maybe go to the pub for like
one beer and a couple of cigarettes, and then he

(39:45):
calls guy and have him take him back home. And
that was his life. So there was really nothing for
me to shoot. And I was like, I don't want
to make a talking head sort of historical film, and
so I tried to create scenarios in which, you know,
we could shoot stuff. And so the Q and A
that you see at the Iron Maiden Pub in London,

(40:07):
the birthplace of Iron Maid, in the car and horses.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
With the late Malcolm Dome, right, that's it.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Yeah, yeah, So I strung that throughout the film. I
set up that Q and A. I tried to create
moments where Paul could interact with people and leave the
house and have things to do. But to do that
I had to put him in the car myself. I
didn't have anybody to help me. There was nobody in
his life to help him. And I came back from
that trip saying to myself, I can never do that

(40:35):
again because I'm missing the whole story. I'm missing the
whole film. Like the film is the struggle that Paul's experiencing,
because I think early on it seemed like something that
Paul was going to be getting over very soon. But
this is, you know, this is defining his life, his
being in a wheelchair, not being able to stand, his legs,

(40:58):
his lower legs sliding behind his upper legs. And so
when I went back, and so the pandemic happened, and
so there was a big expanse of time before I
could go back, and I was not going to help him.
I was not. The whole point was that I am
just a fly on the wall now, like and and

(41:20):
that moment was the first horrible moment where that was changing,
and Paul is yelling at me. In that moment, I
had to cut around him yelling at me, and he's
like pushing himself underneath that lone street light and and
he's so angry at me. And but that's the struggle

(41:41):
that I had to capture because like every other day
of the year, no one is there, and this is
what would be happening, like you know. And then eventually
the guy that picked us up helps him and wheels
him into the back of the cab. And so two
days later we go from from Salisbury to Zagreb, Croatia,

(42:04):
and he needs to the first thing that needs to
happen over there for the doctors over there is that
he needs a new set of X rays. And you
see it in the film when we go to the
X ray place and he needs to be lifted onto
the table because his leg at that point because of
this limpidemia and because of they removed they removed one

(42:27):
of his knees, but he was never helpy enough for
them to finish the operation, so he just had what
he called medical cement. And so his leg was the
size of like an elephant trunk and it was just massive,
and so he was really heavy and he's screaming at
me to help them lift him onto the table. But
like if I put the camera down and I do that,

(42:49):
then the viewer has no idea. You're not experiencing what
his life is like.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
You know, you're missing you know, I completely understand that.
And there are times again lating to myself when I
need to ask for help when I could do it myself.
And I'm learning a lot about that. You know, when
I can't ask for help when I'm alone with my son,
you know now, like there's no one I gotta do it.
It's it's got to be me. And of course I

(43:15):
think about how big he was, and I'm like Dakota Fanning,
you know, it's one thing to pick me up. There
was a fire in my apartment like a month ago,
a couple months ago, like a couple floors down, like
three in the morning. One of the scariest things ever
we hear. We hear my wife wake up in the
middle of the night. I see my wife like looking

(43:37):
out the window. There's all these cars out here. I
hear alarm. I'm like, god's go back to sleep whatever.
She goes to check out, looks out the door and
she sees smoke got up all this. Oh my god,
we got to wake up my son. I don't have
my leg braces on. They actually do her by my desk. Now,
She's like, you got to keep them by the bed
from now on. I mean, and the being that apartment

(43:58):
was destroyed, the one down there, but everyone else was fine.
Not nothing crazy happened, but just to learn about these things.
And when we go back inside, the elevators are all
are out. You gotta wait till somebody turns them back
on because there's a fire and wasn't turned on until
the following morning. Because I'm like, all right, great, I'm
gonna have to climb these stairs. I always feel like

(44:18):
whenever I do that, I'm like the old Batman and
Robin show when they're climbing up the side of the wall.
That's like me climbing up, holding on one railing, trying
to pull myself up. That's actually how I started dating
my wife. She lived on the third floor, so U
But then some guy not maybe a little bigger than me,
he's put me on his he go up, put me
on his back and just took me up the stairs

(44:38):
because I you know, so it's there are people like
that will help you, but there are people who would
just walk past you. And just I've had to yellow
people you know what this is many years ago, some
guy actually accidentally knocked him me down and uh just
kept walking. I kept calling him a scumbag, and like
nobody was helping me up. I helped myself up and
his friend pulled him away. He's like, cause he's about

(44:59):
to fight me, Like you're fucking scumbag knocking over somebody
with a but they don't see me as a handicapped
person sometimes. So again, I felt seen in that film
what I didn't expect that at all. I was expecting
just to learn about the original Iron Maiden singer, which
I certainly did, and I feel like I'm a huge
fan of now all these years later. Something else we discussed,

(45:23):
which now would makes sense because it seems so abrupt,
the ending where you know, because he passed, but it
seemed like he was such a build up to something
and it's like, okay, he passed from heart disease. I'm like,
all right.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
I was hoping.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
I don't know if there'll ever be extras of this
after it comes out of people talking about him after
the fact, because everyone was talking about him as he
was alive, so it's just created a kind of a
different atmosphere and just being very sad, being like, here's
this guy. I knew he was screwed when he fell
in love again, I'm like, that's not gonna last. I
felt so bad like he just needs somebody in his life. Man.

(46:02):
And then when you talk about how you were the
only guy, I'm like, I just felt so bad. Yeah,
you really captured a lot in this movie. I mean
it clearly stuck with me. That's why I couldn't wait
to talk with all the guns rose and stuff great,
but I couldn't want to talk to you about this
film because it's a lot.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
It's a lot, and I think I think about you.
You know, you mentioned your wife and your son. You're
very lucky to have that in your life, like, and
you have to recognize that if your life gets to
that point where you're like Paul went from from limping
to a cane to a wheelchair and uh, you know,
most people that I know in that situation would probably
have moved closer to their son, across the country or

(46:40):
moved somewhere where they could get regular help, like you had.
You have it in your apartment.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
You know you now exactly.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
But what happened?

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Like, I mean he had family, I know, he had
ex wives, I mean, he had siblings. I mean why
was it upon you or fans from Croatia to help
this guy? I mean maybe and came in after like
later yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
I think I think it had a lot to do
with just Paul and his stubbornness. And you could see
in the film how he can he can you know,
torch relationships and and that catches up with you, you know,
and uh uh yeah, I mean it was. Yeah, it's
funny because we were talking about people who can pass

(47:24):
you on the street, knock you over and not even
see you as a human being, you know, so self obsessed.
And then there are truly wonderful people out there as well.
One of those is Castro, the guy who runs the
card and horses the Iron Maiden bar and and uh
and in London. You know, I told you about that

(47:45):
interview that I set up, and that was the first
time Castro and Paul had met. And a little time
goes on and Castor just starts to feel worse and
worse about the situation that Paul's in. Yes, there's a
free healthcare system in England, but it has its limits,
and Paul was kind of the doctors are telling him
that he was never healthy to complete surgeries or complete

(48:08):
his healthcare because he you know, he would have some
sort of infection here or there'd be something wrong with
his Urine on another date or something. And so the
idea was to seek private healthcare out of England because
they had kind of decided that they couldn't do anything
in England for him and so and he was irate

(48:31):
about it. He was like, what am I just supposed
to sit in this chair and die? And so Castro
and you know, he had been speaking to this guy,
Mike Chudley, huge fan, wonderful guy in London. They got
the idea to create a crowdfunding campaign and it was
through that crowdfunding campaign from Maiden fans around the world

(48:53):
where that enabled him to start treatment. And Stephan Euris,
who's a Maiden superfan who had written books about Maiden,
kind of begged Paul to come to Croatia where he
could get kind of world class healthcare for a fraction
of the cost. Really make that modest crowdfunding amount stretch.

(49:16):
You know, it was only like I think it was
thirteen pounds that was raised. It wasn't like some enormous amount.
It was enough to get the ball rolling and to
give Paul, like he says it in the film, you know,
you in the chair and you feel like there's no
hope and then he's surrounded by all these people that

(49:38):
finally he's happy to get up in the mornings. There's
sunshine in his life and positivity. And dude, I can't
say enough about all the people I met in Croatia.
I fell in love with the country over there, and
the people are so warm. I mean, it was like
I grew up in the Midwest. It felt like kind
of the midwest of Europe and like it. You know.

(50:02):
It wasn't like, you know, a country that felt too
cool for school, like France or something. You know. It
was like, here's a bunch of super modest people who
are just incredibly warm and incredibly selfless. And so he
was surrounded by these people and Zagreb and they kept
coming into his life and it was just incredible to

(50:24):
see what they would do for him, you know, complete stranger,
you know, and it gave him hope, which he had
been missing for years, you.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Know, and he felt that through the screen, and that's
why it was just so tragic at the end where
he's just finally getting all the helping needs and Maiden
stepping up, and you know, in retrospect, I mean when
you see him smoking cigarettes all the time and he
was in the hospital vaping before the surgery. I'm just like,

(50:51):
I don't know, you can't. I hate to say it,
because it was I had to say it about myself,
like are you really that serious? Like my therapist would
be like, are you serious about getting sober? You can't
not just drink alcohol. You have to not smoke weed either,
if you're you're really serious. So if you're really serious
about your health, you got to stop doing all that stuff.
Right where were you when you found out about it?

(51:13):
Because it kind of is passing because you weren't expecting
that to happen.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, I had already finished the film. It had a
different sort of ending, and I got a phone call
from Cliff, the guy that I mentioned earlier, Paul's longtime friend.
He's in the film Guitar Player. And he called me
and somebody had called him, and and it was weirdly enough,

(51:40):
I mean, I know, you see the film, and you
see the way he lives, and you see Paul time
and time again kind of shooting himself in the foot,
even when people are helping him. You know, you're still smoking.
And and then he didn't keep up with his exercise
routine and and his health started to go backwards. And uh,

(52:01):
despite all that, I didn't he seemed healthy, uh aortically
you know. His Uh. I didn't think his ticker was
the problem, you know. And so it kind of caught
me off card. And I'll be completely honest with you,
I am I Uh, I don't know if I because

(52:22):
Paul had just been such a huge part of my life.
It was just weird, I am. You know, we all
we all process things differently, right. I had a weirdly
emotional moment a couple of weeks ago when I went
to see the Iron Maiden documentary, the Burning Ambition film.
I knew that Paul was going to be in the film.
I knew before it was made. Uh, it was available

(52:44):
to the public that he was going to be in it.
And so the film starts and they're talking about the
beginning of the band and uh, Paul's voice comes on
and I uh, I was like, like, I had a
little pang, a little emotion there, and I was I
was kind of caught off guard by it. I was like,
because Paul and I, you know, we could have screaming matches,

(53:06):
and Paul could be you know, he could be a
demon sometimes and you know one of those fights. I
actually I kept pieces of it in the film. But
you know, we had one fight once where I called
him up and I said, years later, I'm going through
the footage and he's really I had only signed on

(53:30):
to make this film over twelve months, and here it
is dragging on for years on end with no end
in sight. And so I was flying to Croatia with
an agenda and I was, you know, presenting is a
big worth these days. How do you present? How do
you present? Right? I think I was presenting and bringing
all that into all my interactions with him, and it's

(53:52):
kind of like, fuck you, dude. That's probably what he
was thinking, you know, like fuck you and your energy
and your agenda. Like I'm and he told me in
this moment, he's like, I'm, for the first time in
my life focusing on me and getting better. And that's
the part that I keep in the film. You don't
know that there's a fight on each side of it.
And and I called him up, and I you know,

(54:16):
we were fighting about a bunch of different things, but
I called him up, and he was in Mexico at
the end of this long South American tour, and I said, hey,
I owe you an apology. I really want to apologize.
You were right about everything you said, and and he
couldn't care less and I you know, bless these people
in your life that will let you off the hook,

(54:37):
you know, and forgive you. He was more interested in
what he was going to order for lunch. You know,
he was like talking to me about tacos and so
kind of sorry, I'm going on tangent here, but that's
what I do best. All good.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
I mean, he could maybe he's just not an emotional guy,
and just like that was his way of accepting it,
being like, all right, let's just move on.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Yeah, I mean he was emotional when to get angry.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
That like, that was the emotion that he had.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I was the one the weaponized. So you know, I'm
in the movie theater watching Bernard Ambition and they just
use his voice. You don't actually see him on the screen,
and I was like, it was weird. I had this
moment where it was nice to hear him again. It
was nice to hear It wasn't footage that I was editing.
It was new. It was like I was hearing Paul
talking again, and it was sad that I didn't get

(55:22):
to see him, you know, kind of it was like
I was kind of looking forward to see him seeing him,
and yeah, so it was. It was It's bizarre, you know,
you know, and I feel horrible for all they aren't
Maiden fans that they're not hearing Paul do these interviews,
like who wants to hear from me? But I was
really lucky. Uh So Paul died and and the next

(55:44):
day Iron Maiden. Iron Maid was touring in America. The
next day they had the day off and the next
night of all places, and this I didn't even realize
this until recently. They played Saint Paul. That was where
they played Saint Paul. And the day after Paul died
and breaking from what we know of Maide and they

(56:07):
had a moment of silence for him in the middle
of the show. And they called me the next morning
and said, we want to give you this footage, and
you know, I was floored, and it was amazing that
they did that and so cool of them and so
kind and and you know, I augmented their kind of

(56:30):
like static cameras at the front of the house with
footage from people, you know, in the last row and
the pit holding up their cameras and their phones, and
so I'm very proud of that kind of moment. I
feel like you really feel like what it was like
to be there and during that moment of silence.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
You know, that was That's another moment that sticks out
to me in the film because God, it's like he
could have had a really cool full circle moment, but
that was he just wasn't there for it. And it's
an appreciation of Bruce. I mean, God, talking about that
in that film. There's so many examples of somebody who

(57:10):
leaves a band and then they blow up after that,
and Maiden was already kind of successful, but just to
blow up like that after the fact and just everything
he had to deal with. So I mean, really, I
really do recommend it to anyone, because, like I said,
I'm not the biggest Maiden fan, And there was so
much I took away from that film before I mean,

(57:31):
I get you out of here, because I knew there
was gonna be so much just about I never knew
I would want to talk this much about Paul Diano. Yes,
I mean that's increasing it took me just a little bit,
a bit about the damned We'll talk about gen R.
We'll end it there, but it's damned film because I
don't think people realize because Brian James was talking about

(57:53):
how much money and they were really dependent upon the
Spaghetti incident coming out, and they didn't know it was
sure coming out. They knew they recorded it, and like
anything in Guns of Roses World, even back then, you
don't know what's gonna happen with it. And so when
people like I didn't enjoy when Alan Niven said on
this very program, and I'm I I like Alan. I

(58:15):
know he's could be ornery for some people at times.
He's called it a shitty punk covers album. It's not
a the music is great, based upon good music. G
and R did a great version of it. But what
they did covering these songs to help these artists, yes,
some maybe have needed it more than others, but they
hear that from the damn themselves, these punk rock icons.

(58:36):
It was so cool and a song that they still
played today New Rose. So I don't know anything on
the cutting room floor, just talk about the damn gn
R tie or maybe what you think of the spaghetti incident.
Just again, just like Paul Deano, I didn't hear about
him growing up. I hadn't learned about it after the fact. Yeah,
it's like, no one wants to hear that record. It's

(58:57):
called covers. Years later, I'm like, what's why I sleep?

Speaker 1 (59:01):
It's funny. I hadn't watched the damn film in a
long time before I sent it to you the other day,
and I rewatched that scene and it's just, I mean,
what happened in that moment was so Brian James, who
had written New Rows, was contacted by Gene R's camp
and told that they were probably going to cover this

(59:22):
on their next record. And gin I were the biggest
band in the world, you know, and one of the
biggest bands in the world, and and so this was
going to be a huge financial windfall from him. He
was the only songwriter on that track. And so you know,
it just encapsulates their dysfunction the original four. You know,

(59:45):
Brian is, Brian needs this, Brian, Brian is looking forward
to this. And Captain Sensible goes on stage and he
introduces New Rose and he says, this is a song
written by Guns and Roses. It's just, you know, Captain
is like an absurd kind of clownish type figure, and
I don't the audience probably didn't have any idea what
he was talking about, right because the album hadn't come

(01:00:07):
out yet, But it really it upset Brian to the
point where he ended up He ended up in that moment,
leaving the stage and ending their reunion tour in nineteen
ninety one. And what was really said was they hadn't
played together, the four of them since that moment and

(01:00:27):
until they reunited three years ago, four years ago, i'm sorry,
just before Brian passed away. And so there was this
decades long rift at that cost. And it's so weird
that GNR is at the center of it. You know,
it's like, you know, Duff and GENR is just trying
to do something to salute their heroes and for it

(01:00:49):
to be this weird kind of part of The Damn's
history is it's just, you know, so much about The
Damn's history is bizarre. But yeah, I mean, that's that's
kind of the story in a nutshell.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yeah, a g n R joke breaking up the Damned.
I mean, it's uh, damned if you do, damned if
you don't. I mean, I guess, I mean that is
really that's it's insane. Yeah, what Unzero's is causing controversy
when they don't even try. They're not even in the room,
they're not even involved.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Wasn't involved, he wasn't late here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
You know, yeah, exactly, just that incredible. Let's let's let's
talk about your guns Roses experiences because you have plenty
and you, I know you were excited to talk about them.
You saw You're lucky enough to see Izzy back in
the day. You know some of the shows. Tell me
about some of the shows you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I mean, I I you know, I I was so
young growing up outside the Cleveland area that there are
so many shows that that I wish I had gone to.
I I didn't have a car, I couldn't drive, but
wasn't old enough to like go to like a a
club show or even in an arena show. So there's

(01:01:55):
so many gigs from like the Replacements and and you
know the to gn R that I that I that
just killed me that you two at at clevelandis Cleveland
Municipal Stadium on the Joshua Tree tour haunts me. But
but nothing really haunts me like the GNR shows like
the UH and knowing that I was gonna speak to you.

(01:02:15):
I kind of did a little bit of research and
and found out that before the show I saw them do,
they only played twice on Appetite in Cleveland, and it
would have been incredible scene Steven Adler from Cleveland on
that tour, Like you know, weirdly enough, my memory is
a weird thing, Like I remember thinking that they opened
for Zodiac Mind War, but of course they weren't opening

(01:02:38):
for Zodiac Mind War. Where the the show at Musical
on Cleveland coincidentally where Ozzie recorded some of the tribute album.
They they played uh with Zodiac Mind War and Udo
opening up, and then they came back. And I don't
know how I didn't beg somebody to take me to this.
And I realized this when I was looking things up
for you, that when they do the Aerosmith tour Sweet

(01:03:01):
Child of Mine, if memory serves, they had Welcome to
the Jungle. Then they put Sweet Child out and they
became massive, but they had already committed to the Aerosmith tour,
And if memory serves, it definitely felt like to me
as a kid that GNR was the bigger band, the
bigger draw, and so they were fulfilling these Aerosmith permanent

(01:03:22):
vacation dates, and and then I've ran across an article
the other day saying that Falcon Presents, which was the
live nation of its time in Cleveland, experienced a record
walk up number when when GNR opened up for Aerosmith
at the Richfield Coliseum, they set a record for walk

(01:03:42):
up And that had to have been GNR fans from seeing,
you know, the Sweet Child of Mind video kept, you know,
gathering steam. I don't know if Paradise City was out yet.
You know, one thing I wanted to tell you was,
I have this distinct memory. I mean, I love that
band so much. They are definitely one of the bands

(01:04:03):
for me that I like, I fell in love with
that changed my life. You know, I tried to I
bored Deff with this one, and uh, you know it
was probably just like whatever. You know, He's heard it
a million times, but I had this distinct memory. M
TV had been hyping the release of the Paradise City
video for days and and we were Cleveland was in

(01:04:24):
the middle of a snowstorm, and my my sister and
I were home alone and uh parents working latch key kids,
and I was outside getting firewood and uh, she opens
up the door. I'm getting firewood underneath our deck around
our house, and and uh she says it's on, and like,

(01:04:44):
you know, I had to get there to record the VCR.
I had to, you know. And and I could still
hear the sound of the logs falling on the steps
as I'm like sprinting through snow to get in there
to press record, And uh yeah, I mean that, like
the the Appetite band they represented to me. And I
don't even know if this is fair, but it just

(01:05:07):
I felt like these were guys who came out of
the gutter, who made me feel like anything was possible,
that like you could find your guys, you could form
your own gang, and anything could be possible. And that's
what they represented to me. I loved that album so much.
It was such a Duff did tell me. You probably

(01:05:28):
know this already, but when I interviewed him for the
Lemmy film, he said that Motorhead was on a cassette
that they had made, and I think Prince might have
been on it too, of what they wanted Appetite to
sound like, and it was a collection of things and
I don't know where that tape was going. I don't
know if it was given to a producer or an
A and R guy or what, but he mentioned that

(01:05:50):
there was a tape and Motorhead was a part of
that mix. They were going, they were shooting for something,
and my god, did they achieve it. You know, they
achieved something that was punk, it was blues, it was metal,
it was rock, it was you know. To me, it's
I hear the sex pistols in it, and I hear
l Smith in it, you know, And yeah, I didn't

(01:06:13):
get to see him finally until that tour they did
before the Illusions record came out June June and nineteen
ninety one. I had just graduated high school and uh,
you know, uh at that time, my mom would have
to go to and stand in line at Sears to
buy tickets. I would be in school, so my mom

(01:06:34):
would go and buy the ticket for me. She'd she
chew up with the sears at the mall and buy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
When you been telling that to a kid today, that
he had to go series to buy tickets concert tickets,
like oh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Yeah, And it was the weirdest thing because those people
would stand behind those machines and it would be like
dot matrix printing, you know, ing, ing ing, and like,
you know, I literally saw them take some of the
best seats. Like tickets went on sale today, they print
out ten seats and they'd move them to the side
for them and their friends. So you know, I was

(01:07:07):
lucky to get on the floor. I got on the floor.
My mom got me a ticket, I'm sure, and skid
row opened and it was I got to see Izzy.
One of the things I was searching for the last
couple of days was I took a photo in the
parking lot of Isy's tour bus. So if you remember
is he was traveling separately. The rift was kind of

(01:07:28):
already there, and his German shepherd is sticking out the window.
And I had this photo of his dog. And for
the life of me, man, I could not find it.
But I will find it and I will send it
to you. And I didn't know what it was. I
just was like, you know, I had a little disposable
camera or whatever, and I was like, oh, this is funny,

(01:07:48):
you know, this dog sticking out of the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Anyway, yeah, yeah, no, that's a great little story.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
I'm jealous of those more, I guess, I don't know why,
more than the Appetite Tour is the user Illusion Tour.
I'm just I was too young. I was only eight
in nineteen ninety one. I was I think I saw,
which I've said, my first concert ever was the teenage
Nutu Turtles coming out of their shelves Radio City Music Hall,

(01:08:15):
and I think, like nineteen ninety and I mean that's
nothing to shake a stick at or shake a Dontello
boat at. But I mean it was still yeah, yeah, so,
but it was. It's very cool. I like reliving these moments,
and that's part of this podcast is reliving these moments
through fans like yourself, who who became a filmmaker. This
a little kid. You know, even back then, you knew

(01:08:36):
what you were looking at was cool. Before you were
a filmmaker, you had the eye for it. You were
like at a dog and a bus. That's something, that's
something that was the foreshadowing to being a filmmaker. I mean,
I'm assuming it's crossed your mind to do something on
guns or roses, but I've had to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Do I tried before, Like I mean, I would do
it in a second, drop anything.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
You know, what have you tried?

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
What's happened well through Bumblefoot. I reached out to Axles,
like you know, contact during that era, and you know,
I'm not even sure if I got a response or
I didn't really go anywhere. You know, one thing I
was going to tell you said, I'm sure you saw
the news that some sort of illusion era documentary.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
This week bringing that up. So it was the long
rumored Perfect Time documentary filmed by Robert John right and
the Dell and.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
I didn't know who shot it. But yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
If someone can correct me on that. But I mean,
that's that's I think that's who who made Robert John
and Dell. But it's a thirty seven minute promo because
there have been some people correcting me. It's not the documentary.
It's thirty seven minutes. It isn't like it's a two
minute trailer. Enjoyed the thirty seven minutes. Oh my god,
it's incredible, I think, Oh yeah, No, I mean it's

(01:10:01):
still online. See that's the thing. Someone posted it randomly.
I don't know who it is, and I'm like, this
is like everything ginal Heart's going to be taken down,
which it was, but taken down not by the copyright owner,
by the user and it's still someone else posted it
a lot of G and R fan sites, including myself.
I mean, I ain't save the whole thing, and I

(01:10:22):
have some clips that I posted on my social media. Yeah,
it's back online with no issues.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
I mean to look for it because I saw the
link and it had already been removed.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
I'll send you the new link. I mean, I'm assuming
it still up, but I'm surprised it's up because A
there's nudity in there, you know, top of chicks and
a in a hot tub and dancing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
So funny you say that, because when Matt did that
tour with Motorhead, I remember him telling me. We were
in Austin and he was telling me about it and
he said they filmed everything and he mentioned nudity and
he he said, yeah, it's spend like an a vault
for ages, and uh yeah, I mean like so I
was like, oh my god, they're like you know, as

(01:11:08):
a filmmaker, that is a dream to be able to
possibly make a film about gn R and have that
at your disposable disposal, like you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Were saying, disposable cameras, that's why.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Yeah, But like I mean, just imagine GNR was such
a massive band, like Alan could probably speak to this.
They must have like so much content, so like and that's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
That's king with the fans though, That's what the fans
are frustrated with, like why why is it taking these years?
And it leaks this band has so much stuff at
their disposal and I don't know, I don't know. They're
a mysterious band.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Oh I would kill I mean, I I would kill
it to be involved in any way. Yeah, I mean, like, uh,
but it does break my heart that that is the
and Steve and I mean I never got to see him,
and I never got to see that that that gang,
you know, and I'm so proud that Steven's from Cleveland,
you know. Weirdly enough, Gilby is too. And but man,

(01:12:07):
I would I just love to climb into a time
machine and see that that you see that the Ritz show,
the famous Knocking on Heaven's Door MTV concert. You know,
I meet people in the city that that event, that
we're at that show, and uh, you know it's I
think it's even in the venue. They even have it
framed somewhere. There's some mention of it. But I mean,

(01:12:29):
it would be cool if g and I went back
there and did a recording, you know, did an There's.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
A lot of thing I mean they which they don't do.
They apparently recorded the comeback at the Troubador, you know. Yeah,
I mean I really don't know. I mean, I don't
want to be one of those like, oh it's all
Axel's fault. I don't know if it has to do
with lawyers. I just don't know. And that's what hopefully
documentary would reveal. Thank you for at least trying to

(01:12:54):
do something, because like this has said, there's never going
to be a Guns of Roses movie. Slash has said
that whether and I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
Sure because like, yeah, I mean like Axel would have
to agree to it. You know, Axel would have to
let go of the reins and and and allow somebody
to do a three sixty.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
You think how long it took for you to do
a Paul Deano doc Almost a decade and Chinese Democracy
obviously took a decade and a half. How long were
a documentary?

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
It's funny I call it my own personal Chinese Democracy,
the film.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
It's become a phrase I talk about. I've said that,
like with these episodes, I don't like to be nippick
an edit because it's becoming my Chinese democracy, because put
it out there in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Yeah, you know, I did. I did want to tell
you one other thing, one little short story. So I
started writing about music in college, and one of the
very first things I ever did again, I was digging,
digging for stuff for you. I found an article that
I wrote from my college newspaper about is He coming
to town with the ju Ju Houndes, and this is it.

(01:13:55):
I'm not going to zim in too far because it's
got awful. This is it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Take a picture. I'll post it online. I'll post it
over the as we're talking, So if you could take
a picture of that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Oh dude, I don't want people reading my horrible friggin
writing from nineteen ninety three, but.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
I'm always posting articles from ninety three. You're not excused.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Well, I mean, like I barely I knew how to
write it all, but I but so weirdly enough, I
go to the show that night and and is He
lets me interview him. I got to interview is He
on the tour bus and I you know, I think
I had showed up with the advance in my hand

(01:14:38):
and dude, look at this, yeaht one point sign. That's
my article. And but I have just like the most
the fondest memory of being on the bus. And I
just remember for some reason, I remember because like you know,
I didn't I didn't have you know, we didn't have
a lot of money growing up. And I just remember
there was like super expensive cheese. There was a super

(01:15:01):
expensive cheese plate and he was eating cheese and crackers
and then you know, cutting pieces of cheese off this
this this block of cheese. But I will send you
this on the table. And the tour bus he had
the set you know, he had the setlist written out
by hand on isy straddling letterhead with like contact details

(01:15:26):
for Izzy and and I I asked him, can I
have that? And he gave it to me. It's like
a treasured possession. And they went on that night, dude,
and they were incredible. The Juju Hounds were incredible. I
still remember the out of Sight vibe. They were incredible.
Rick Richards, Jimmy Ashurst, I mean like and I still

(01:15:47):
remember them doing pressure drop and shuffle at all. I
love that song so much. And uh, but I just
remember that the club was packed. It was the club
called Rock Sands and Toledo. I was going to school
the University of Toledo. That's what this comes from, the
collegiate at the University of Taleda. And look at our
yellow now a.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
I wrote for my high school, the Thunderbird at half
holl Hills High School East and Dix Hills, and I
was I wanted to be a sports writer. I remember
right about Mark McGuire's seventieth All bron I mean, I
look back, I listened to old episodes that I do
and I cringe. I'm sure, I'm sure it's a lot
better than you think it is. But now that's that's incredible.
So that now maybe not a guns and roadses documentary.

(01:16:29):
You just gotta find Izzy. Oh that could be half
the documentaries you find it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Do you know about this documentary that was announced called
Where's Izzy?

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
I mean, it sounds like it sounds like something that
would be that exists, but is it real? Like guess
someone's actually did that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
It was started and it was filmed and I have
the footage. It's a friend of mine named he goes
by Tommy. Rockstar is his name, and Tommy I met
him once at the Rainbow working on the Lemmy film,
and the sky walks in wearing like a shirt with
cut off sleeves, and on his arm he's got like
autographs of all the original members of Guns and Roses

(01:17:10):
except for Izzy Straddling and and I'm like, oh my god,
that is fascinating. And so he did. He had a
couple of filmmakers film him, and he was going on
this quest to find Izzy and to complete the tattoos.
I think when I met him he might have been
missing one other one. He might have been missing Axel too.

(01:17:31):
And so he goes on this quest and he he
finds Izzy when he sat in with gn R in
Las Vegas, and he had I think he had paid
people off to tell him in the hotel where if
they see him, And so he actually meets him. And

(01:17:51):
you just reminded me that maybe I should you know,
for whatever reason, that didn't go forward, but that may
appear at some.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Okay, okay, all right, all right, well I because that's
what you could tell. Your passion is in your projects,
right with the Damned with Paul, with with Lemmy, and
you obviously have a G and R passion. So I
want to see that on the screen. Because so let's
let's wish it into existence. Okay, because God, I think

(01:18:21):
about the definitive.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
The definitive documentary. That's what we have to wish to
do existence. All your listeners, let's do a prayer together,
that's all. And I want to make it. I want to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
I mean, hey, look, anything I could do to help.
I mean, my my behind the scenes partner, Graham, did
a di y documentary about Izzie. But he just included
interviews that were done with him, you know, audio and
including uh like Jimmy asher ashers interviews that I did,
and just using their words over the pictures that he found.

(01:18:56):
And he didn't care that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
I would love to see that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Go on a fdpod dot com and it's a it's
there and on YouTube it has like hundreds of thousands
of us he did. He did a great job doing documentaries.
Is look in the Netflix era, everybody could do a documentary.
Everyone thinks that their life deserves a documentary. Only a
select I mean, look, we're all special in the eyes

(01:19:22):
of the Lord of the Spaghetti Monster in the sky.
If I want to sound corny or whatever, but uh yeah,
I mean you picked some really cool people to talk
about and bands to talk about, and uh, it comes
across and I look, I know the Paul Ones new
I can't wait to see what's what's next? I mean,
are you working on anything next on the Pike or
all this You're finally getting missed off your chest.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Yeah, I'm finishing up a film right now a friend
of mine. So while while I was working on the
Paul film, I started shooting, Uh, a very special doctorate,
different from any that I've made before about the Memphis
soul and fun group the Barcas. And most people have
no idea who that is, so don't feel bad if
you don't. But it kind of centers around the Otis

(01:20:09):
Redding plane crash, and Otis Redding's plane crash in nineteen
sixty seven in Wisconsin. It's kind of like the most
famous rock and roll plane crash that we don't really
know much about. He was on that plane with five
members of the bar Case. Four of them died with him,
and they were famous in their own right at the time.

(01:20:29):
They were also on Stacks Records, and they had a
hit with the song that you know, whether you realize
it or not, called soul Finger, and they had a
hit record out on the chart hit single and that
original band, they were a band of teenagers. All but
four of the six members died in that crash. One

(01:20:50):
was pulled out of the water, and one could not
fit on the airplane. One of them had to sit
out on different flights and take a regular their flight.
And so he's the only one still alive and he
keeps the band alive to this day. But my kind
of connection to it is that a friend of mine,
his cousin, was on that plane. And so a couple

(01:21:11):
of years ago he came to me and he said,
you know, I have you known this about my family
for years, and I want to make a film remembering
those guys that have been kind of lost to history.
So we've spent the last couple of years doing just
that and we have we have a really special film
that is going to hit people on a lot of

(01:21:33):
emotional levels. And yeah, so we tell the story of
the original band, but we tell the story about the
guys who kept it going. Like I'll give you a
little little teaser, like we were lucky enough to interview
the guy who pulled Ben Coley, the trumpet player in
the bar case. So the way that that tour worked
was the Barcades would come out first and then they'd

(01:21:55):
stay on the stage and Otis would come out. So
they were kind of the warm up act. And was
his backing Ben, and they were on fire at the time.
They were teenagers. And you know James the bass player,
I don't even think he had finished high school yet.
The other ones had just graduated anyway. So Ben was
the only one pulled out of the water. And he's

(01:22:17):
in the cop that we spoke to a couple of
weeks ago. He's like eighty years old now. He said
the impact was so powerful that guitar strings were threaded
through his clothes and they pulled him into the boat
and this is December in Wisconsin, and he was so

(01:22:38):
freaked out that he was trying to jump back in
the water. He had no idea where he was and
what happened, and they had to handcuff him into the
boat and he was in such a state of shock.
And Ben would live to I think he died in
twenty fifteen, and he'd have this big family and he
was always kind of on the verge tiers talking about it.

(01:23:00):
It haunted him his whole life, and yeah, that's just
one of the storylines. James the bass player is still around,
still carrying the torch, and he's he's a lovable guy,
and he's kind of the hero of our story.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
You know, how to find those those hard strings to Paul,
you know this of the guitar strings. I mean, so
I look forward to learning about that. And yeah, that's
how these special stories are preserved through documentaries or podcast
That's what we do as human beings. We continue to
tell the stories even for the people who are no
longer here. So thanks Wes for what you do and

(01:23:38):
for coming on and washing this GNR doc into existence. Otherwise, yes,
you're always invited here to talk about him. You're always
welcome to come to talk about him a little.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
I feel like I feel like you've done so much
of the legwork. I mean, some of the interviews I
saw recently, like with Vicky and the girl from the
Rocket Queen recording, I mean, Alan Been, I mean, I
really appreciate what you do. I love hearing about the
history of the band, and I love interviews, especially with
those people. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
I'm I'm lucky. You know, Vicky's cool that you've been
on a few times. Last last time I had her on,
we spoke about the Jennifer Perry event that Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
Cool that have been. You know how cool would have
been at that show? Oh my god? You know right?

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
So I figured, I'm not there, most fans weren't there.
Let's try to relive it through her eyes and learn
about Jennifer who we didn't know. So learn about against
somebody who can't speak for themselves, who had a major
role to play in the music and band that we
bands that we love.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
So I loved that tainy sing with those guys because
it was so like, I love that sweet spot, that
kind of dirty, sleazy sunset strip, jet boy junk yard,
Faster Pussycat appetite like that. I love that vibe so much.
And I thought that was so cool that that Tamy
got up there and sang with him.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
You know, no, it was I haven't I want to
get Teamy back on the podcast, but I haven't heard.
I'm sure he's super busy. Faster pussy Cat is touring.
Uh as I wrap up here as Baby Brownstones back
and from the Park, and I mean, I've we've been
going overtime anyway. I just enjoyed talking with you uh
getting back on the podcast to get more rare weird interviews.

(01:25:23):
Doctor Stephen Thaxton the he was on once with Doug Goldstein.
He was the touring chiropractor for Axel Rose during Usual Elusion.
His clip of I made a clip of him telling
a great story about Amy Axel's sister, who's a nurse
during the riot in Colombia, her trying to help numb

(01:25:45):
this Colombian soldier who was cut open but during the
riot and they didn't have any medication there, so she
was trying to find cocaine in Colombia with guns of
roses and she found nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
How is that possible?

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
So they had to sew up the guy with no
numbing agent. So the clip of that story and it's
just audio, has a million views on my YouTube channel,
which is crazy. So let's get the way we can
create some recreate some magic. Stephen, a doctor Thaxton, i
should say, is going to come back on it in
a few weeks. And also a guy I've been trying
to get for a few years, finally connected with Steve Thompson,

(01:26:21):
who was the engineer during Appetite. Oh my god, it's
funny cause you mentioned Adriana the Rock and Queen who
I had a few weeks ago and her mom Mama
Rock and Queen. I guess she's Facebook friends with Steven
Steve Thompson and when she shared the interview, like he
commented on it and I was like, he's like, oh,

(01:26:42):
I remember this, And I was like, do you want
to come on? I spoked him on the phone years
ago and he's from Long Island, so I'm like, we gotta,
we gotta make this happen.

Speaker 1 (01:26:51):
So I mean, yeah, you think about it, like, you know,
there are so many legendary stories that we know about,
like the band, but there were so many people around
him whose stories we don't know, who remember things that
those guys may not even have been in the right
headspace to remember recall, you know, like there were other
people in those rooms that have stories. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
That's why I've been doing this for ten years plus.
And yeah, it's a wonderful hobby.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
Frando, Can I ask you? Yes? I meant to I
meant to ask you. So has the band reacted to
your podcast? Have you interacted? Like are you going to go?
Like I would hope that you'd be on the guest
list for the What is it Met Life show coming
up soon.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
I'll say this because I don't know. I was nervous
by the way Harrison is. I will get back to that.
How smart he is. He knows how to turn on
Alexa and get to YouTube and watch his show. So
he's talking to it and it's taking practice because he's
on Alexa in his little voice. You know what the
remote is.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
You know how to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
You're smart, three year old.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
This is what I deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
Le Me wrap up here, buddy, this is part of
the show. I'm not going to cut any of this out.
So I was delaying in that, like I don't want
to say announcing this or just saying this out loud,
because I'm one of those whenever I got like a job,
like I didn't like saying I got the job until
papers were signed, you know, Or when I got a girlfriend,
I didn't enjoy saying it and told I'm like, all right,
she's not gonna dump me after a month or whatever.

(01:28:16):
So when I said I know where I wanted to
go this year, I really didn't want to go to
MetLife again. So Richard, thankfully, he said, if you want
to go to the Hershey Park show or the Saratoga show.
I Got You Covered awesome. I'm going to go to
Saratoga with my wife and son because of Richard Forrest.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
So I'm hoping. I'm hoping that Got You Covered also
includes some some passes, and I hope we all get
to see photos of you guys together. You know, Oh
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
I mean, I don't expect anything. Well, I didn't expect
this to begin with. And I said, thank you, you know,
and I said, just so you know, And I feel
weird saying it, like you didn't know I was handicapped
until you saw that picture. I was like, just so
you know, thank you, but just it can't be nosebleeds,
not because I'm a snob. I need an ady a
anything like I got you, I got you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
And I said, well, but you're gonna have amazing seats.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
There's seats I could not afford honestly because yeah, yeah,
I mean it's their eighty eight seats. So they're not
gonna be right up front anyway, because God forbid to
give a handgap person. They're like, well, I shouldn't say that.
Like when I want to see it depends on where
you go. If there's like no seating. Maybe they'll put
you up front. It depends, uh, but yeah, I so Saratoga.

(01:29:31):
Thank you Richard Fordyce so much for that. Again, I've
just been really I wanted the day to come and
be like, oh, thanks Richard. And because I don't know,
maybe I would say something on this podcast and be like, ah,
fuck this guy, I'm gonna take that's the way I think.
I think that away about my wife one day. She's
that's just my problem. So I has nothing to do

(01:29:51):
with Ford. This has to do with my issue.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
And in getting over things, Well, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
Gotta be weird, like to be in GNR and to
have like so much like written about you, a podcast
about you, But I think there's probably your podcast probably
also creates moments where Duffin and slash Axel they might
not remember things, and there's got to be good with
any bad that they might perceive or you know, from

(01:30:18):
being a public person and I have so many people
talking about you, I assume I assume that it's bad,
you know, right, Well, there's probably got to be great
memories revealed as well.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
You know, there are great memories revealed for sure, and
I try to focus on getting those positive stories. But
then unfortunately I get Alan niban On and Alan likes
to say those negative stories, so they I don't know,
it gets back to me that are not I mean, look,
that's why they're they're suing. Alan hasn't gotten his book
out yet because they'resuing, so they don't like you know, Alan,

(01:30:51):
I mean, I can't speak to that. I only know
how Alan treated me, even though I fell out with
Doug a little bit. I mean, he was always nice
to me. It was just always very hurt over that
book situation, which would have taken me nine years, like
that documentary, it just would have taken a long ass time.
And Richard did say, I mean that that venue is
hard to meet up. So I don't know if I'm

(01:31:11):
going to meet Richard there, but whether I do or not,
I'm grateful. I didn't expect it. I didn't ask for it. Yeah,
so yeah, I really I've told people, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
You deserve it. You deserve it. Man, I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
I feel like I deserve nothing. That's my my my problem.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
I guess I'm seeing a therapist again. I feel like
I deserve nothing, but no, I I it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
Means as I mean, I think they're doing okay. I
think they you know, they can give a few seats
to a guy who's, you know, who's done so much
for the fan culture around guns and Roses.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
You know, I appreciate that, and I appreciate when fans
like you and say that to me. And I'm not
gonna be like, hmm, yeah, might deserve it. It's just
it makes me feel good that I'm like, all right,
the last ten years hasn't been a waste that I'm
doing this hobby for. You know, there have been moments
I'm like, is this it? I want to quit? Does
anybody care? But then there's always somebody I really want

(01:32:09):
to talk to. There's always a moment that happens. It
wouldn't have happened if I quit a couple of years ago.
This interaction with Fordes would going to have happened. Who
you know, I'm more I take more away from not
just like him giving me and my family tickets for
when he initially reached out and just saying I like
what you do. But maybe I feel good about what
I just mentioned about the Doug stuff that I felt

(01:32:31):
really bad and embarrassed about and I hated how it ended.
He's like, don't feel that way. You did nothing wrong
all that stuff, and hearing that from him made me
feel really good about myself because I was down that
I was down to myself. So it's those moments that
like I didn't need any of that. When I get
upset about not getting a Slash or Duff interview, it's
always about the way the not damn. But like a

(01:32:52):
manager or a boss or someone conveys the message to
me that I take it too hard, and it's like, oh,
like man like, like I just want to talk to
them about dinosaurs and the Seattle SuperSonics, Like what's wrong
with me?

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
I feel like it's gonna happen. I mean, like, why
wouldn't it happen? I mean, I'm even.

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
If I know I may have burned a bridge with
their I don't know. Sometimes I try too hard, and
I think I might have tried too hard with their
radio rep, and I'm just.

Speaker 1 (01:33:19):
I'm leaving it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
I'm leaving it. I'm trying to leave it and just
enjoy what I get now. I'm enjoying this conversation with Wes.
I'm enjoying it. I'm going to a concert because of Fordis.
I'm just enjoying it. So I'm just trying. It's ten
years and I'm thinking about when my son's gonna be
my co host. You know, maybe may start making little
films himself. He knows that he knows how to use

(01:33:42):
the phone, knows that to use a remote. Maybe he'll
be a filmmaker. I don't know. We gotta be a
little ukulele so's he calls it a guitar. So right,
we'll see what. There's so much more to do. There's
so much more for you to film. There's so much
more for me to record. This is so much more
to do to end here, though. Is that a Guardians
hat you're wearing?

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
You know it? You know, don't even get me started.
I Uh, I feel pretty good today because we clavered
the Yankees. But uh but uh, I'm not. I'm not
a basketball guy, to be honest with you. You know,
here's the thing. I'm from Cleveland. I'm realistic about our
sports teams. Lebron got us a championship. I don't care

(01:34:24):
if we ever get another one. I was alive when
we won the finals. Right, that's all we need. We're good,
That's very good. Yes, I'm speaking completely as not a
real authentic basketball fan, but uh, you know, I would
love the tribe of the Guardians to uh to win
the World Series in my lifetime, you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Know, right. And I know, not the not the tribe anymore.
That's offensive, but it's yeah. So I know, my Yankees
fan or whatever, I've seen them win in my lifetime.
But here's the thing, so I haven't seen this. I
relate this to Guns and Roses.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
And then well I did the research here. So the Knicks,
who as we're recording this kick off the NBA Finals
tonight against the Spurs. I don't know what the when
this episode comes out, what's going to be, but I'm
enjoying this ride, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
The Knicks haven't been to the finals themselves since nineteen
ninety nine when they lost to the Spurs. Just so
how long has that been. Guns and Roses Live Era
came out that year. Oh my God, Oh my god, yes,
Oh my God came out that year on the end
of Day's soundtrack. The first single in five years, Slash
his Snake Pit. They were doing warm up gigs before

(01:35:37):
with Rod Jackson before eight Live Grand would come out
the following year Duff in nineteen ninety nine was supposed
to have this solo album, Beautiful Disease come out, and
then it was shelved by the record label and it's
still unreleased. Yes, some of the songs were real.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
We have it. I have a copy.

Speaker 2 (01:35:54):
You have the promo copy. I mean, I think it's
because it was not officially released. I know he did
and we record some stuff. We're loaded, but it still
never came out. Is he put out right on? I
don't think I've ever listened to that record. I should
and Steven I forgot about. This was with the Bullet
Boys for like a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
Oh my god, that's so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
So that's how long it's been since my New York
Knicks were in the NBA finals? Bring it home. What's
gonna come first in Knicks NBA Championship or a new
Guns and Roses record?

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
What do you think? Probably hard to say, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
So anyway, I mean, that's that's cool man. Obviously, so
much to talk to you, Wes. I mean, I knew
we were gonna go along. I didn't expect this long,
but there's still so much more to talk to you about.
Let's save it for part two. You're always welcome back,
and just let me know. Just let me know, and
we'll make it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
And genuinely, man, I really want to thank you. I've
been trying my best to spread the word on this.
I've been working on it for like nine years, and
so it means a lot to me. You're helping me
spread the word, you know, let people know it's out.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
I mean, I know I have a guns of Roses
centered fan base. Uh, some of them feel a certain
way about Iron Maiden, but the story itself is incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
And I saw Eddie Trunk is doing. I mean, he's
bigger than me. He's talking about it, so he'll help
you way more than I go. Get an Eddie Trunk show.
You're a great interview. Get an Eddie's show to make
that happen.

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
I'm gonna do it next week. I thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
Good, good, All right, right on, all right good. I'm
gonna put out my interview before he interviews you, so
i'll have That's why I do. Sometimes we'll get like
the same guests. But obviously he's way bigger than me,
and I'm like, and it bothers me because he had
I think he had Glenn Mattlock on.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
I wish I asked him about See it's great for
me as like as a fan a consumer. I love
Glenn and so I listened to both interviews.

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):
You know, sure, sure, but you reminded me. I mean
sometimes I kick myself, like with the doc or a
long form interview like this, I'm like, oh, I forgot
to ask about this all right, more time. I wish
I got to ask Len about Appetite for Destruction. I mean,
I don't know if today I'll get him gone again.
He's just one of those guys that's hard to get with.
But you made some comparisons with the sex, pistols and

(01:38:09):
guns and roses, and you're right, So I mean, yeah,
so anyway we can keep going. We can keep going.
But anyway, Wes, that does it for this episode of
Appetite for Distortion. I'll see you soon. When will the
next one come? Well, in the words of Axel Rose
concerning Chinese democracy, I don't know as soon as the word,
but you'll see it thanks to the lame ass security.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
I'm going home.

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Wes Orshoski, Film Director: Maiden, Motörhead, and Matt Sorum's Allstars | Ep. 566

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Wes Orshoski, Film Director: Maiden, Motörhead, and Matt Sorum's Allstars | Ep. 566