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Axl Rose On Why He Shouldn't Have Been On the Use Your Illusion Tour


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today i wanted to take a look at the 2011 interview axl did on that metal show where he talked about not wanting to be on the road in 1991 for the uyi albums. i thought it was an interesting quote but if you read into some of axl's early 91/92 interviews he brought this point up a few times saying he wish he would have had more time to work on himself before hitting the road. 

i always wondered how a manager could book a tour without getting sign off from the band.

 

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In a perfect world Axl would've been able to postpone the tour but we all know what drives these decisions.  But it does seem that the prudent and logical thing to do would've been to not begin the tour until after the albums were released.  But "prudent" and "logical" have been a scarcity in the history of Guns.(until the NITL tour that is)

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I don't think Axls voice was ready in some way, its really weird to try to explain but I think his voice wasn't ready to tour, by the 91 ritz show his voice was already getting strained, especially towards the end of the show. This may be because his voice itself wasn't ready or because axl himself wasn't ready mentally and that had some impact on his voice 

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33 minutes ago, IncitingChaos said:

Management at the time were struggling to finish the album, they couldn’t get Axl anywhere on time or where they needed him. He went off the radar for long periods of time and the label wanted results. So management went ahead and started booking for a massive tour, essentially told Axl it’s going to bankrupt him if he doesn’t show, and the blame will be on him. 

Slash and Duff and Izzy were losing their minds in drugs as they had no idea what to do with their free time. So it was reported to Axl that his “break” was killing his band mates and so he also got blamed for their addictions. 

So without much preparation Axl started the tour and did each show on his terms. He held everyone hostage to his demands seeing as nobody cared about his well being going into the tour and early on damaged his voice. So the UYI tour limped on with a super pissed off Axl. 

Well, if that was the case, blaming Axl for Slash and Duff's addiction issues was just wrong.  They were both adults and ultimately responsible for their own actions.  And if that was used as a ploy to motivate Axl then that's even worse.

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15 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

He wishes he had MORE time?!  Fuck me Axl, if everyone did everything based on whether or not they felt 100 million percent comfortable then nothing would ever get done, you think fighters feel 100% comfortable during a ring walk, or football players 5 mins before kick off?  Of course not but y'know what they show up and put a shift in cuz of this word called professionalism.  

'work on himself', fuck that new age hippie shit, the way you work on yourself is you work and then after a lifetime of said work you have a body of work to look back on so when its REALLY time to reflect, in the nursing home with the pissbag strapped to your thigh, you can cast your mind back and go, OK, what was all that about?  Then turn to the body of work and cultural contribution and go 'right, yeah, THATS what that was about'.  

And that applies for everybody, from lead singers to shelf stackers, we're all fuckin' cogs in the overall machinery of society, if every shelf stacker in the world wanted to sit inside with a big bag of weed and a TV lisence to 'work on' themselves before they felt right to go out and fuckin' put a shift in there'd be some empty fuckin' shelves across the planet in much the same way that if every artist worth his salt stayed indoors working on themselves and reached their fuckin' 60s having released what amounts to 3 full albums (albeit one quite large one out of that) and an EP well then our culture would be a lot less richer one.  

 

I understand what you're saying but if a person has substantial mental issues then it goes much deeper than just "working on yourself". I'm not pretending to know what Axl's mental state was at the time but by his accounts he was struggling with it. 

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3 minutes ago, lame ass security said:

I understand what you're saying but if a person has substantial mental issues then it goes much deeper than just "working on yourself". I'm not pretending to know what Axl's mental state was at the time but by his accounts he was struggling with it. 

Then perhaps just chuck it in altogether?  That sounds a lot to me like not enjoying your work in general.

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@ 3:21, I laughed really hard.  He gives that long, deep explanation and at 3:21 he like, "And then... I just.. I lived right behind my school and couldn't make it to class in grade school"

 

I'm not sure why that tickled me so hard, it seemed so honest, sans any pretense or bullshit.  "It might have been this 10 minute complex explanation of all of the moving parts of my life and spirituality... blah blah <pause at end> Or maybe it was because I was always fucking late."

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8 hours ago, RussTCB said:

Axl's ability to make up excuses for everything in the world is simply unparalleled. A tip of the hat. 

LOL.  Yeah it's like he just makes shit up and says it.  Revisionist of history.  Wasn't he quoted (back when he was in the cold war with Slash) of saying "Slash should have left (GnR) or never been in the band in the 1st place"?  Some stupid comment like that I remember reading.  maybe it was in on of his/TB's "statements" that were released. 

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I reckon its all bollocks and excuses for what amounts to a lack of talent.  The Beatles never had no fuckin' 5 year break while they stroked their fuckin' bollocks and waited until they 'felt right', they just fuckin' went and did it, same with The Stones, same with most of the great bands.  Not having inspiration or whatever cuz your mates weren't nice to you is a load of fuckin' shite.  Marlon Brando once said that an actor only has some many faces i.e. so many peformances in him and thats what I think about Axl and the boys, they only had one cracking album and EP in em and then a very good couple of albums and thats it.  The rest is just fuckin' excuses, i weren't feeling well, on the scale of things that stacks up about even with faking a stomach ache to get out of school sports day...you think The Stones life was fuckin' easy when they was looking at doing some serious bird over those drug charges?  Or what about the fuckin' Beatles when that whole Bigger than Jesus bollocks was kicking off?  Fuck that, just the normal day to day grind of being a Beatle was more pressure than anything 99.9% of bands will ever approach experiencing...but they fuckin' bit down and did it cuz they were the fuckin' lads. 

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He was also talking from the stage about Niven having booked the tour early, as well as about not being in the mood to play:

Axl: I know you guys don’t wanna hear a lot of bullshit raps, so I’ll explain real quickly what we’re doing with these shows here. Due to the pressure from my – how should I say it – ex-manager, who wanted to make sure we toured and didn’t give a fuck to watch about when the record was done - so we’re out here before the record is done. But it’s a good thing. And we want to make sure that we are not ripping you people off and when we come out you get the most [...] [Richfield, OH, USA June 4, 1991]

Axl: Due to an over-excited manager we’re out on tour. But that excited manager is now fired, so... I don’t mind so much being out on tour, but I would’ve liked to get my record done. And since we’ve all waited such a fucking long time, we figure we’ll play it on the tour whether you’ve heard it or not [...] [Landover, MD, USA June 20, 1991]

Axl: We’ve been pairing the old and the new [songs], since we are out on this tour since we had an over-excited ex-manager, or rather greedy ex-manager. I love that word, “ex”. Ex-wife, ex-manager... [...] [Costa Mesa, CA, USA July 25, 1991]

Axl: Have you ever been let down by – I don’t know – family, friends, something you wanted... or maybe just life in general. You know the mood I’m talking about; when something you like - maybe your friends were over or something you like comes on fucking TV... something you like, but you don’t care, cuz you’re just not in the mood, it doesn’t matter, you’ve been let down. I mean, it’s kind of like, this band, Nirvana, why this "Teen Spirit," why is this song such a success? People relate to being let down. 
They say, “Oh, why are you always late?” I don’t know, maybe I’m always in a bad fuckin’ mood about something. This is my life, this is my love, and sometimes it doesn’t mean anything to me, cuz I’m just too fucking bummed out. You know how that feels? You know how that feels, right? Sometimes there’s a lot of people trying to help make sure that you’re so fucking bummed out, that you can’t do something like have a rock show.
[Chandler, AZ, USA February 1, 1992]

 

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They did practically nothing in 89 and 90.  4 shows with the Stones in LA(didn't even have to travel) 1989, 2 songs at Farm Aid 1990.  It was starting to look like they'd never get a new album out, or if they kept prolonging it GnR would go down in popularity.  It was a smart business move to get out on tour, whether Axl liked it or not.

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4 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

I reckon its all bollocks and excuses for what amounts to a lack of talent.  The Beatles never had no fuckin' 5 year break while they stroked their fuckin' bollocks and waited until they 'felt right', they just fuckin' went and did it, same with The Stones, same with most of the great bands.  Not having inspiration or whatever cuz your mates weren't nice to you is a load of fuckin' shite.  Marlon Brando once said that an actor only has some many faces i.e. so many peformances in him and thats what I think about Axl and the boys, they only had one cracking album and EP in em and then a very good couple of albums and thats it.  The rest is just fuckin' excuses, i weren't feeling well, on the scale of things that stacks up about even with faking a stomach ache to get out of school sports day...you think The Stones life was fuckin' easy when they was looking at doing some serious bird over those drug charges?  Or what about the fuckin' Beatles when that whole Bigger than Jesus bollocks was kicking off?  Fuck that, just the normal day to day grind of being a Beatle was more pressure than anything 99.9% of bands will ever approach experiencing...but they fuckin' bit down and did it cuz they were the fuckin' lads. 

Well, Mick Jagger pretty much lost it when he was faced with jail time.  Fainting and crying, the whole bit.  Keith on the other hand viewed it as an adventure and pretty much took it in stride.  But the really serious drug charges against Keith in Toronto in 1977 really shook him, understandably so.  He was facing some serious hard time.

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10 minutes ago, lame ass security said:

Well, Mick Jagger pretty much lost it when he was faced with hail time.  Fainting and crying, the whole bit.  Keith on the other hand viewed it as an adventure and pretty much took it in stride.  But the really serious drug charges against Keith in Toronto in 1977 really shook him, understandably so.  He was facing some serious hard time.

Didn't result in any 50 years break in music production is my point :lol:

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42 minutes ago, Nintari said:

It's easy for some of us to sit behind a screen and type that sort of oorah stuff, but a lot harder to put it into practice. Now, let me preface what I'm about to say by admitting that I prescribe to the whole "confront and conquer" way of doing things. It's the way I've always done everything in my personal life. But I also understand that genetics and life circumstances play a heavy roll in my ability to do so.

Axl Rose was an un-medicated, manically depressed teenager/young man who was raped by his father and persecuted by most of his family. He dropped out of high school and hitchhiked across the country before he was even a legal adult. Raised by the streets. Did gallons of drugs... you get the picture. He was about as far away from "mentally sound" as a person can get. By all accounts, he shouldn't even be alive. The guy even tried to kill himself once (could have been more, we don't know) by swallowing a bucket of pills. He was a mental headcase, with an itch for death.

People like that? People who are mentally fucked up beyond all recognition? They don't see things like you do. Their reality is vastly different. It's not possible for most of those people to "wake up" and get their shit together. If they do, it's usually a case of luck.

Out of likes  but YES- thanks for ur post

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