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Our Interview with Doug Goldstein (Former GNR Manager)


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1 hour ago, Propaganda said:

Doug seems pretty accurate to me. He wouldn't have a reason not to be. 

Many things he says are probably true, hard for us to validate many of the insider stories though.

He did get fired didn't he, so he could bear a grudge... Not necessarily towards Axl, but others in the camp.

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1 hour ago, Spirit said:

Many things he says are probably true, hard for us to validate many of the insider stories though.

He did get fired didn't he, so he could bear a grudge... Not necessarily towards Axl, but others in the camp.

I remember a Doug pic embraced with Beta.

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Doug doesn't seem like a BAD guy. He just seems like a guy who wanted to be friends with a band rather than actually managing them. When you're dealing with major league egos, you have to pick a side, and he and Axl clicked the most. Dougie didn't break up the band through malice, but by not reigning in anyone's ego. He's like the parent who wants to be their child's buddy as opposed to a disciplinarian.

I do believe the MJ story. Slash played with MJ in 1995, after the first accusations (those happened in 1993). Axl and Slash were already feuding in 1995 over the Snakepit material and other issues that Slash playing with an accused pedophile might've seemed like a betrayal to Axl.

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On 3/31/2018 at 2:10 AM, downzy said:

Oh boy...  :facepalm:

I would highly recommend to everyone to take most of what Doug says with a grain of salt.  

A big part of Doug's problem, I think, is he still thinks it's 1992.  He seems to think the music industry operates today the same way it did in the late 80s/early 90s; that Axl/Slash/Duff are the same people now as they were back when he was the manager.  The total lack of awareness is shocking for as to why Doug thinks Axl doesn't want anything to do with him.  Most fans likely know by now that Axl, someone who is notoriously private, might not wanting anything to do with someone who spills his guts about his "best friend" to someone like Mick Wall (or is willing to talk for three hours about deeply personal stuff to random guys for a youtube podcast - no offence to Sid and co.)?  

Doug might also want to check the contracts he signed with Guns with respect disclosure clauses.  It was only a couple of years ago Doug clammed up pretty quickly after doing one interview, and from my understanding it wasn't because Axl asked him politely.   

It's also difficult to understand where Doug gets the nerve to question the performance of previous and successive management when he was present and oversaw the great unwinding of the band.  Under his management GNR went from the biggest band in the world to a band in name only within three or four years.  Not that it's all on the manager, but the fact remains the band totally fell apart under his watch.  He's not in any great position to level criticisms at others.  

The notion that Doug would do things differently with respect to the most recent tours is also nuts.  Bands as big as GNR generally are paid large upfronts these days and there's less consideration for audience targets, and hence there's less of a need for interviews and self-promotion.  For a guy so removed, how does he know what the band is being paid, whether attendance targets are considered, and the pay schedule should they hit said targets?  The truth is, he doesn't.  

I don't know where he's getting the assumption that the band doesn't do press because TB simply decided against it?  You'd think someone as smart as Doug claims to be would know that the smart move would be to mitigate any possibility of something being taken out of context in the press.  The band is making money hand-over-fist, why risk the operation when something could be said out of context or reported inaccurately? 

You also have to wonder how such a brilliant manager was apparently always the runner-up to manage seminal acts like Blind Melon, Smashing Pumpkins, Limp Bizket, and the Black Crows and has never managed anyone of note since managing Guns.  And somehow, the guy who, according to Doug, is single-handily responsible for Lies, GNR's cover of Since I Don't Have You, and Eminem is now sitting on a billion dollar shoe idea.  Okay.

I don't want to knock the guy too much.  It sounds like he has some worthy causes and since I don't know him personally I can't speak to his character.  But like the guy who caught a fish twenty years ago, there's a strong whiff of exaggeration in a lot of what he says.  

Finally, for those wanting to bad mouth or criticize present or former management, I'd ask that you first define what you think a manager actually does (hint: it's not promotion and getting artists to release music).   Management represents their clients, and as such, it's almost impossible to determine a manager's performance from a fan's perspective.  Unless anyone here actually works in the industry and knows what the going rate for a reunion show/tour with a band as big as Guns is, there's no way to tell whether TB is maximizing every earning opportunity for GNR with respect to the tour.  Again, tour promotion isn't really a manager's responsibility.  That's what bands pay tour promoters for.

We'll leave this thread open for a little longer but if I'm being honest, there's just so much nonsense it doesn't seem worth it.

 

:thumbsup:This post deserves a repost and a read by everyone, it is definitely on point with the caveat, and sums up the entire Dougie situation quite succinctly. 

Edited by RazorGunner
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Great interview - Just for a day 1 fan brings back a lot of bad memories of the best band in the world  breaking up over nothing -- AXL and Slash  its on u 2 the most - But IMO AXL  takes the majority of the blame  for being a flake , he  thought he was bigger than SLASH and the band and us DAY 1 fans that love AXL AND SLASH knew better - AXL U won u fucked up the best band of all time -- Now u can't get in shape enough to sing a new gnr album - thanks for fucking us again - still love you as the singer of my favorite band - get your shit together motherfucker - if u cant sing well enough to record -then Retire -if u kill it on a ACDC album and have the voice back and dont record withGNR -fuck you again 

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2 hours ago, TMAC20 said:

Great interview - Just for a day 1 fan brings back a lot of bad memories of the best band in the world  breaking up over nothing -- AXL and Slash  its on u 2 the most - But IMO AXL  takes the majority of the blame  for being a flake , he  thought he was bigger than SLASH and the band and us DAY 1 fans that love AXL AND SLASH knew better - AXL U won u fucked up the best band of all time -- Now u can't get in shape enough to sing a new gnr album - thanks for fucking us again - still love you as the singer of my favorite band - get your shit together motherfucker - if u cant sing well enough to record -then Retire -if u kill it on a ACDC album and have the voice back and dont record withGNR -fuck you again 

Axl and Guns have already proved the doubters wrong with the NITL tour. 

And breaking up over nothing? Creative differences were just the tip of an iceberg, there were alot of things that caused the split. Everyone contributed to that in thier own way.

Edited by Order of Nine
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7 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I think Doug did much more than that. He was largely, even though not solely, responsible for the miscommunication in the band, as he came to the point to decide on his own whom Axl should see and what he should hear. He boasts about it in the interview.

Just a couple of days before this interview, we heard Roberta Freeman on the Appetite For Distortion podcast saying how she was treated by management. She told a little story, which I think is indicative of Doug's role: Doug told her that Axl didn't like what she was doing on KOHD and that she had to stop it; then she bumped into Axl, who told her how much he liked what she was doing!


It sounds like he felt protective of Axl more than anything else. Again not malice, but a guy who wants to be his employer's buddy rather than do his job, basically. Like a well-intentioned gate-keeper who was in over his head, basically. Remember, when Dougie took control, GN'R were not only at the height of their popularity but also the height of their personal excess. A hard job for anyone, much less a guy who was, if we're being honest, a glorified security officer only a few years prior. GN'R in 1991 needed a Peter Grant. A tough guy to keep them all in line. Dougie instead seems to have immediately clicked with Axl and almost had this protective sort of bond with him.

Is it possible that Axl, being pretty crazy back then, complained about Roberta's performance to Dougie, and Dougie, being the good Lord Chancellor/Oliver Cromwell type, did his Master's bidding by telling her to stop it - but then bipolar Axl changed his mind and decided he liked what she was doing?

What I'm saying is you had 4 addicts and a mentally ill guy all using this guy as a means of communicating with each other and others. Miscommunication was bound to happen. Dougie seems to me to have been the type better fit to being someone's personal assistant - not the manager of a multi-million dollar rock band full of drugs and egos.

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2 hours ago, Fashionista said:


It sounds like he felt protective of Axl more than anything else. Again not malice, but a guy who wants to be his employer's buddy rather than do his job, basically. Like a well-intentioned gate-keeper who was in over his head, basically. Remember, when Dougie took control, GN'R were not only at the height of their popularity but also the height of their personal excess. A hard job for anyone, much less a guy who was, if we're being honest, a glorified security officer only a few years prior. GN'R in 1991 needed a Peter Grant. A tough guy to keep them all in line. Dougie instead seems to have immediately clicked with Axl and almost had this protective sort of bond with him.

Is it possible that Axl, being pretty crazy back then, complained about Roberta's performance to Dougie, and Dougie, being the good Lord Chancellor/Oliver Cromwell type, did his Master's bidding by telling her to stop it - but then bipolar Axl changed his mind and decided he liked what she was doing?

What I'm saying is you had 4 addicts and a mentally ill guy all using this guy as a means of communicating with each other and others. Miscommunication was bound to happen. Dougie seems to me to have been the type better fit to being someone's personal assistant - not the manager of a multi-million dollar rock band full of drugs and egos.

I can't say what BPD does exactly or if it's what Axl suffered from. I've read that one of its main aspects is mood changes, but I can't imagine it would make someone change their mind about a song or a performance just like that.

Quite a few people have said that Axl was cut off from the world and that his perception of what was going on depended on what the few people in his inner circle were telling him. I think the accounts are too many to be ignored. I also think it's highly possible that Axl's susceptibility (due to the various issues he was dealing with) to being "protected" and having people around who he could trust was taken advantage of and those people seized the opportunity to play power games.

I agree with the last sentence. To give credit where it's due, there was one thing Doug was good at: handling situations like when Slash was out of his mind on drugs and run naked through that resort (or whatever it was), when Axl was in trouble with the cops for stupid reasons, and so on. But that was before he became manager, when he was road manager.

Edited by Blackstar
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2 hours ago, Fashionista said:


It sounds like he felt protective of Axl more than anything else. Again not malice, but a guy who wants to be his employer's buddy rather than do his job, basically. Like a well-intentioned gate-keeper who was in over his head, basically. Remember, when Dougie took control, GN'R were not only at the height of their popularity but also the height of their personal excess. A hard job for anyone, much less a guy who was, if we're being honest, a glorified security officer only a few years prior. GN'R in 1991 needed a Peter Grant. A tough guy to keep them all in line. Dougie instead seems to have immediately clicked with Axl and almost had this protective sort of bond with him.

Is it possible that Axl, being pretty crazy back then, complained about Roberta's performance to Dougie, and Dougie, being the good Lord Chancellor/Oliver Cromwell type, did his Master's bidding by telling her to stop it - but then bipolar Axl changed his mind and decided he liked what she was doing?

What I'm saying is you had 4 addicts and a mentally ill guy all using this guy as a means of communicating with each other and others. Miscommunication was bound to happen. Dougie seems to me to have been the type better fit to being someone's personal assistant - not the manager of a multi-million dollar rock band full of drugs and egos.

 

Axl stated during the 2008 chats he was not bipolar, you cannot diagnose or label someone with a mental illness by what you read in the media. 

Now that is truly crazy :crazy:

 

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5 hours ago, TMAC20 said:

Great interview - Just for a day 1 fan brings back a lot of bad memories of the best band in the world  breaking up over nothing -- AXL and Slash  its on u 2 the most - But IMO AXL  takes the majority of the blame  for being a flake , he  thought he was bigger than SLASH and the band and us DAY 1 fans that love AXL AND SLASH knew better - AXL U won u fucked up the best band of all time -- Now u can't get in shape enough to sing a new gnr album - thanks for fucking us again - still love you as the singer of my favorite band - get your shit together motherfucker - if u cant sing well enough to record -then Retire -if u kill it on a ACDC album and have the voice back and dont record withGNR -fuck you again 

The band imploded, it was a collective effort and not simply the fault of one person. 

Nobody has "fucked" you at all, you apparently have formed an emotional attachment to the band and are not seeing things from a balanced or rational perspective. 

NITL has been very successful, the second top grossing tour in 2017, Axl is doing great.

It is completely his and Angus' decision to continue ACDC, he doesn't owe you an explanation, an album, or anything.  :facepalm:

Edited by RazorGunner
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5 minutes ago, RazorGunner said:

Axl stated during the 2008 chats he was not bipolar, you cannot diagnose or label someone with a mental illness by what you read in the media. 

To be exact, he said he wasn't diagnosed as being bipolar.

He had taken a test (according to him it was a questionnaire) in the 80s, which he didn't acknowledge as a diagnosis.

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Just now, Blackstar said:

To be exact, he said he wasn't diagnosed as being bipolar.

He had taken a test (according to him it was a questionnaire) in the 80s, which he didn't acknowledge as a diagnosis.

I'm very aware of what was said -Here's the actual quote- to avoid any semantic-based disagreements. 

 

Dexter wrote:

"Of course but in the world of sports and litigation....

I've not been diagnosed as being bipolar though many misconstrue statements I made earlier as alluding to such and unfortunately there's been an abundance of misguided or unqualified speculation of various events but I definitely can relate to needing my own space.

In my world all bi polar means (and not to offend or make light of those suffering from a genuine condition or involved with those who are) is that someone can try to take cheap uneducated shots or try to claim I'm bipolar thus justifying why they should get paid a financial settlement for whatever nonsense they're up to. Fortunately that hasn't proved successful."

 

 

I agree that a fill in the dot test isn't an accurate way to diagnose a mental illness, nor is reading media accounts and deciding to label people you don't know with one.

The internet seems to be full of e-promoters, e-managers, so e-psychiatrists emerging aren't all that surprising, but none of these self-styled experts should be taken seriously. 

 

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13 hours ago, Fashionista said:

Doug doesn't seem like a BAD guy. He just seems like a guy who wanted to be friends with a band rather than actually managing them. When you're dealing with major league egos, you have to pick a side, and he and Axl clicked the most. Dougie didn't break up the band through malice, but by not reigning in anyone's ego. He's like the parent who wants to be their child's buddy as opposed to a disciplinarian.

I do believe the MJ story. Slash played with MJ in 1995, after the first accusations (those happened in 1993). Axl and Slash were already feuding in 1995 over the Snakepit material and other issues that Slash playing with an accused pedophile might've seemed like a betrayal to Axl.

I think the Doug situation is a bit more complicated as Blackstar touched on earlier. He's someone that has fallen out with nearly everyone within the GnR camp which I think speaks volumes. If you want some insight into how Doug operates, check out Duff's book. ;)

As for MJ, Slash played with him before '95 - he's on Dangerous which came out in 1991. He also shot a video with MJ for Give in To Me in 1992 when he was on the Illusions tour. If Axl had a huge issue with that, there's no way he would have flown out with Gilby and Teddy Zig Zag to shoot a video with MJ. Slash has also said that this story from Doug was BS. 

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Slash Labels Former Manager’s Guns N’ Roses Breakup Theory ‘B.S.’

by Dave Lifton April 4, 2015 9:44 AM

 

It turns out that Michael Jackson didn’t help break up Slash and Axl Rose. In a new interview, the guitarist refuted a recent claim by Guns N’ Roses‘ former manager that his decision to perform and record with Jackson in 1991 was the catalyst for the split between the two.

Speaking to Elliot Segal, the longtime morning DJ on Washington, DC’s DC101, he said, “I’ve been hearing a lot about this particular interview from a lot of people that he really pissed off. And I’ve heard that. And I don’t think there’s any truth to that. I mean, obviously, the band stayed together for years after that whole thing. And it wasn’t a big deal at the time. And if it did piss anybody off, it was something that went away. So I don’t think it had anything to do with the original Guns N’ Roses demise […] I don’t wanna read or hear that guy’s B.S., so I just avoid it. That way I stay sane.”

Two weeks ago, Doug Goldstein, who managed Guns N’ Roses from 1991-2008, suggested that Rose never got over Slash’s decision to play on two songs from Jackson’s album Dangerous, “Black or White” and “Give It to Me,” because of the child abuse allegations against Jackson at the time. “I told him not to do it,” Goldstein said, “because Axl was molested by his father when he was two, and he believed the charges against Michael Jackson. He thought Slash would support him and be against all abuse. From the point of view of Axl, that was the only problem. He could ignore the drugs and the alcohol, but could never the child abuse.”



Read More: Slash Labels Former Manager’s Guns N’ Roses Breakup Theory ‘B.S.’ | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/slash-michael-jackson-axl-rose/?trackback=tsmclip

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you guys remember Axl came out and listed Michael Jackson as one of his favourite singers a few years back?

 

""If I had to say who I thought the best singers were, I'd say first that I don't know there's a definitive answer as in my opinion it's subjective, and second that my focus is primarily rock singers," he told Spin. "That said, I enjoy Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, [Nazareth singer] Dan McCafferty, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Roger Daltrey, Don Henley, [Electric Light Orchestra frontman] Jeff Lynne, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, [jazz singer] Jimmy Scott, Etta James, Fiona Apple, [Pretenders frontwoman] Chrissie Hynde, Stevie Wonder, James Brown and a ton of others (predominantly Seventies rock singers) and would rather hear any of them anytime rather than me!""

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/axl-rose-responds-to-list-calling-him-worlds-greatest-singer-20140528

Edited by sidman69
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In my opinion it's possible that Axl had an issue with MJ back then - I can't think of another plausible explanation for his speech in the 1992 VMA. But I don't think it was that crucial to be the reason for the band breaking up, as Doug claims.

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37 minutes ago, sidman69 said:

you guys remember Axl came out and listed Michael Jackson as one of his favourite singers a few years back?

 

""If I had to say who I thought the best singers were, I'd say first that I don't know there's a definitive answer as in my opinion it's subjective, and second that my focus is primarily rock singers," he told Spin. "That said, I enjoy Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, [Nazareth singer] Dan McCafferty, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Roger Daltrey, Don Henley, [Electric Light Orchestra frontman] Jeff Lynne, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, [jazz singer] Jimmy Scott, Etta James, Fiona Apple, [Pretenders frontwoman] Chrissie Hynde, Stevie Wonder, James Brown and a ton of others (predominantly Seventies rock singers) and would rather hear any of them anytime rather than me!""

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/axl-rose-responds-to-list-calling-him-worlds-greatest-singer-20140528

In one first page in this thread i post that Slash said that Doug said about Michael Jackson was BS, i want you know @sidman69you Doug interview was post in Ultimate classic rock👏

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47 minutes ago, Ratam said:

In one first page in this thread i post that Slash said that Doug said about Michael Jackson was BS, i want you know @sidman69you Doug interview was post in Ultimate classic rock👏

yup it's blowing up! It got posted on Ultimate Classic Rock, NME.com, a portugese, irish and some south american site, UpRoxx, Alt Nation and Consequence of Sound!

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