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Blackstar
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This is what was said back in the day (there was a charge against Slash, too):
Axl: Being bad is a rush. One time this hippie chick wandered into our studio and she was fucking with our equipment, trying to break stuff. We wouldn’t call the cops – they’d turn the situation around and hassle us for picking on this poor girl. So eventually she wound up running down Sunset naked, all dingy, doesn’t even know her name. The firemen and the cops all came down on us, and I’m sitting in there hiding behind an amplifier. They got six or seven people lined up in there, and she identifies someone else as me. (He went to court and got off, by the way.) While the cops are there harassing everybody, asking questions, I’m with this girl behind the amp, going at it, and that was a rush! I got away with it! It was really exciting! [L.A. Weekly, June 27, 1986].
Axl: Everyone was trying to hide it from the record company. 'Rape charge? What rape charge?' The charges were dropped eventually, but for a while we had to go into hiding. We had undercover cops and the vice squad looking for us. They were talking a mandatory five years. It kind of settled my hormones for a while [Los Angeles Times, 1986.06.07].
Slash: That was no big deal. What happened is Axl and me were with these two girls, and they got in a sexual situation and they decided to file rape charges. Me and Axl had to borrow suits one day to go down to the police station and turn ourselves in over this crap – and when it came down to the wire, they dropped the charges because it was all bogus. We didn’t fucking do anything to them [Spin, May 1988].
Izzy: It turned out that our drummer had fucked one of their mothers, so it was a complicated story [Spin, May 1988].
Vicky Hamilton: There was a girl over there [at the Gardner place] one night, and she wouldn't leave Axl alone and he got pissed, so he ripped off her clothes, threw her out and locked the door. So she went to the cops and said he raped her [Musician, December 1988]. [In her book she says that was what Slash had told her]
Slash: Well, there were these girls who wanted to get laid, that were very severely frustrated because they weren't getting any. We gave one of them to a bunch of friends of ours, the other I took up to the bungalow to meet Axl one night, but I said, 'I'm drunk, I'll let Axl fuck you and I'll watch; then her boyfriend walked in, and they claimed it was rape. Me and Axl had to hide out from the cops for weeks and shit, and then we had to go to all these lawyers and go 'what the fuck do we do?' But it was a big mistake, because in reality it wasn't true, so when it came down to the wire and were down at the police station' getting questioned and I was getting my arms fucking checked for tracks and getting completely humiliated by the cops, when it came down to the end of it, when they had to testify and make something up, they didn't have the balls for it [Metal Hammer, February 1990]
http://www.a-4-d.com/t3967-the-history-of-guns-n-roses-in-their-own-words#14823
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It's interesting that Raz Cue says this now about the 1985 incident. I've read his book (which was released not long ago), and he gives a different version of that there:
About a week after the Roxy gig, at a more intimate gathering, some psycho chick who had stalked Axl for more than a year showed up. She usually sported knee-high suede moccasins, the type chicks with hairy pits love, so was often referred to as “That crazy bitch wearing the Dio boots.” Soon after Dio Boots wandered down the alley in search of Axl – who hadn’t been there all day – she was told to get lost. Eventually, someone led her by an elbow out to the street. But twenty minutes later, she returned with cops, claiming Axl had raped her. The cops made everyone come out of the studio, where Dio Boots pointed at Dizzy Reed from The Wild and said, “That’s Axl. He raped me.” As Dizzy got hauled off, people yelled at the cops, “That’s not Axl!” and, “That chick’s crazy!”
[...] After three months at Gardner Studio, the place was getting hotter than a super model singing torch songs in a kiln. With rent due, a growing number of the humped-dumped begging for more, plus a few too many psycho stalkers, the time felt right to get the fuck out of studio B. The guys scattered about Hollywood, or, as a last resort, hid away at Vicky’s apartment. [Raz Cue, The Days of Guns N' Raz's, 2017]
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A little known side fact is that there was a legal dispute over the name "Roadcrew" between Slash and Steven.
Slash applied to register the name to himself in October 1991.
Then, in December, Steven tried to register it to himself (although in an interview published in October 1991 he claimed that he had already copyrighted it):
Slash won the registration with the Trademarks Office and he owned the Roadcrew name until 1999 (then he probably didn't renew the registration).
Slash said that the name Roadcrew was one of Steven's demands in the lawsuit he had filed against GnR in 1991:
Slash: Okay, Road Crew was a name that I came up with. It was a while before Guns N’ Roses even started and before I even met Axl. And there was different versions of it, you know, I could never find a singer, so it didn’t do that much. And there was one point when I did have a singer when we played a bunch of places. I’d known Steve previous to that and he was in the band for a couple of weeks; when we first met Duff and we rehearsed together, we had a big fallout and we broke up. [...] Anyway, just recently I find out that Steven has started a new band called Road Crew and I was like, he had nothing to do this; and I’m like, where does he get off? [...]. I trademarked the name and everything. [...] So my message to Steven is just leave it alone, don’t – because he doesn’t want to mess with me. Steven knows that. He doesn’t want to get started. And I haven’t hassled him at all. So it’s, like, time to think of a new name, because it’s something that it’s just... You know, I don’t want to go “It’s mine, mine, mine.” It’s just, like, real personal to me, and I think he should go out and do his own thing anyway, you know? […] and it’s a cool name too. It’s, like, perfect for a heavy metal garage band that I want to, like, sort of do, you know, on the side or something. So that’s my feelings on it. I got a fax from his attorney saying - One of the contentions in this lawsuit that Steven and Guns N’ Roses have been going through was, “... and I want the rights to the name Road Crew.” You know, anytime somebody comes up to you and challenges you like that, for me, it makes me just want to go out and fight. It’s part of my nature, so if that’s what he wants to do, then fine. [...] [[I have trademarked the name], that’s why he was forced to ask, you know, or demand the rights in this deal that he was trying to come up with, so that we can settle on the whole breakup story [...]. [MTV, July 20, 1992]
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3 hours ago, RONIN said:
The question is was Izzy legally obligated to sell his share of the partnership to exit the band or did he have the option of retaining his shares and leaving a la Duff/Slash. My impression was that it was the former - he had no choice. If he had the option to keep his share but opted out anyway, I think your point has merit that he's not entitled to an equal slice of the pie. We don't really know under what conditions he was bought out of the partnership. Izzy was being advised by Alan Niven during his exit from GnR and I can't imagine Alan would have told him to sell off his shares in the (then) biggest band on the planet. @Blackstar
There is no way to know. It could be either. The partnership agreements before 1992 were never made public and there's no information alluding to them (especially the amendment between Steven's departure and the 1992 agreement).
3 hours ago, RONIN said:Izzy was very concerned about GnR's finances - it doesn't make fiscal sense to dump your shares of a brand that is exploding upwards - he got out right before the release of UYI, one of the most anticipated albums of its day. The only logical explanation I can think of for voluntarily relinquishing his shares would be if he thought the band was going to be bankrupted by their myriad lawsuits. It would make sense on that note to remove any legal ties to the band.
I think this is a very plausible explanation - although, like I said, we can't possibly know if he had no choice but sell his share anyway.
Despite of what the 1992 partnership contract says, Izzy resigned officially in November 1991, after the release of the Illusions.
The buyout was likely settled (or at least discussed) at a meeting between Izzy and Slash in mid-July 1992 (Axl was in St. Louis on that day, after he had been arrested).
Slash [Rockline, July 13, 1992]: I’m gonna talk to [Izzy] tomorrow about some of the so-called logistics having to do with the situation that we’re dealing with, so we’ll take it from there.
Slash [MTV, July 20, 1992]: [...] I saw [Izzy] for the first time here in New York. We met in a neutral place, a neutral hotel. And it was great, because there’s so much red tape and so much politics involved, that you don’t communicate at all as people. You go through, you know, management calls so and so and so and so, calls the accountants, messages go back and forth. Everything snowballs and you get to a point where it’s so out of hand, this whole split. [...] And we talked about how we want to make this a clean break without going to court, without having to make it, you know, insanely public and bicker back and forth in the press; which is really easy, because attorneys can send out letters and they print them in the press, and then we, you know, the band or the members of the band, see it and go, “How can he say that?” and it’s really not what came out of his mouth. And that builds up after a while and then you tend to misjudge somebody altogether. I mean, as long as he’s happy it’s cool, as long as we have an amicable split on the technical side, then everything will be fine. [...] We had a great time. We, sort of like, took all the fax papers, sort of put it aside, and just talked amongst each other. You know, and then there was that point where it’s like, okay, we need to bring the subjects up again and make notes and so on.
Coincidentally, a few days before, GnR was sued by Lloyd's of London for the cancelled shows. The cancellations occurred after Izzy had resigned, but if Izzy still held a share in the business entities that were sued, he would be affected too. And more St. Louis lawsuits kept coming after Izzy left.
I wouldn't even put past Niven that he advised Izzy to sell, as he had preferred a "clean"/one-off settlement for himself, too.
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On 6/26/2019 at 8:08 AM, RONIN said:Might be totally off here but I vaguely recall reading that in "watch you bleed" - the gist of the anecdote being that in the midst of leg 1 of the Illusion tour, the trio had a group huddle before a show where Axl and Slash decided to officially demote Izzy. Reportedly, Duff really didn't like the decision and had serious misgivings but was cajoled into agreeing. The catalyst for this being (allegedly) Izzy's demand that Axl should pay the band's curfew violation fees since he was always delaying shows.
I don't think that book had this story. The writer just quotes from some of the known Axl and Izzy interviews, and nothing more.
But it stems from some Slash interviews of the time, in combination with what Axl and Izzy said in various interviews, also at the time. From those interviews it doesn't seem that Duff was at the meeting where Axl and Slash decided to demote Izzy (more accurately, to threaten to demote Izzy).
@SoulMonsterhas gathered all those quotes and has been writing the story here:
http://www.a-4-d.com/t3967p150-the-history-of-guns-n-roses-in-their-own-words#14955
and here:
http://www.a-4-d.com/t3967p150-the-history-of-guns-n-roses-in-their-own-words#14963
http://www.a-4-d.com/t3967p150-the-history-of-guns-n-roses-in-their-own-words#14964
In short, the series of events (always based on those interviews) seems to have gone like this:
- In September 1991, after the first European leg of the UYI tour, as per Izzy, he calls a band meeting and demands that Axl pays fines from the delays etc. Then also, according to Axl, Izzy sends a letter with his terms and demands about what should be changed so that he continued touring. Moreover, Izzy doesn't show up to the shooting of the Don't Cry video. During that month the press reported that Izzy might stop touring with the band and be replaced by Dave Navarro, but "sources" close to the band indicated that Izzy would continue writing even if he stopped touring, and the Jane's Addiction camp said that Navarro was asked only to replace Izzy for the next leg of the tour and not to become a GnR member.
- In October-early November, the band rehearses for the next NA leg, and Slash auditions horn players and backup singers. According to Slash, Izzy didn't show up at those rehearsals, and towards the end of that period, he finally shows up but also goes to the band's accountants asking for reports on the finances. Shows that were scheduled for October and November are postponed (this comes from an interview of the time with Soundgarden, who were the opening band), most likely due to the pending Izzy situation.
- In November, Axl and Slash decide to threaten Izzy that he wouldn't be an equal partner if he didn't do certain things. So Axl and Slash have a meeting with Izzy and tell him that (as per Izzy, he didn't like the "numbers" that were presented to him). According to Slash, Izzy didn't say anything to them, but instead sent a resignation letter to "the office" the next day.
- Then Axl called Izzy on the phone, and, as per Axl, the phone call lasted four hours. According to Slash, Axl told Izzy that it was fine if he didn't want to tour and that he could return to the band and write with them (this is also confirmed by a later Izzy interview from 2001), and "Izzy was cool and it was real amicable" (Slash). Izzy, talking about the phone call in one of the interviews he gave in late 1992, said that Axl tried to make it better for him, too; in another interview of the same time, though, he said that Axl didn't accomplish anything with the phone call.
- Then, according to Slash and Axl, Izzy went to the other band members and told them that he was pushed/kicked out of the band. That made Axl very angry (because he apparently thought that the phone conversation had kind of sorted things out) and, when Izzy went over to Axl's house ("he didn't know we knew" [what he had told Duff and Matt] - Slash), Axl told him to go to hell.
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3 hours ago, MaskingApathy said:
Can you both elaborate on these 2 points? I don't think I've heard about this.
It's at about 1:20:00 minute mark of this podcast. This guy met Slash with Antony Bozza backstage at a NITL show.
"And [Slash] is like, 'We talked about it, we love Izzy, but, let's just put it this way, Izzy wanted everything to be like it was back in 1987 and that just wasn't gonna happen, man. And so, we put a fair offer on the table [...] but it just didn't work out. But, who knows, maybe he'll come out for some of the shows. We'll see, we'd love that.'"
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Brian Hiatt: I had to say one thing and this is probably, you know – listening to this record, I had to say it. I was like, ‘You know who’d really like this record? Izzy.’ I had to say, and unfortunately he wasn’t part of this reunion.
Duff: Yeah.
Hiatt: It didn’t work out. I mean, what’s your take on all that? It is undeniably unfortunate.
Duff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and it wasn’t from us not trying, for sure. I don’t know if I have a take beyond that. I know what we tried to do, and how hard we worked at that touring. And a big rock band is not for everybody, that’s my take on that. It’s a thing - you know, like, this is a thing.
Hiatt: He said it came down to money, which is... interesting.
Duff: Yeah, I don’t even know... At the end of the day, I just couldn’t figure out.
Hiatt: I mean, cuz he’s been known to agree to things and then not do them anyway - knowing your whole story, the number of times he comes in and out. I mean, people don’t know how he was almost part of Velvet Revolver - well, there’s a lot of coming and going.
Duff: Yeah, there’s a lot of coming and going, like... So this was one more chapter of that coming and going. I don’t want to say anything that’s untoward, because I love that guy. And Slash and I are sober guys and we went out with some solution-based – you know, like, ‘Let’s make this work.’ But it just didn’t, and, who knows, maybe some other time?
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I think this might be a case where each party tells their part of the truth – or part of their truth – and no one is technically lying.
Apparently Izzy wasn’t happy with what was offered and he considered it unfair. Maybe it wasn’t just the loot, but that he wanted a “real” reunion; meaning that he wanted them to start over from where they were when he left or even before, and/or that he didn’t want such a big production tour - there fits a quote attributed to Slash talking to a fan backstage: “Izzy thought it could be 1987 again. That’s not gonna happen.” And maybe all that had to do with the partnership, too - or not; it’s just speculation.
But it also seems highly possible that Izzy didn’t give them a definite answer and didn’t say that he wouldn’t do it. Duff said in the other interview that they waited for him to turn up at the rehearsals, and he didn’t. I don’t think Duff would’ve just made this up. In this context, what Axl said in the Brazilian TV interview makes some sense. And, in that situation, they had to have Fortus there, as they couldn’t rely on Izzy.
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Del was listed as tour manager in the NITL tour program, but it's unknown what he does exactly. He is around when the band rehearses before a tour leg. Maybe he takes care of the gathering and transportation of the gear, etc. Maybe he also is in charge of taking care of the accommodation, booking hotels and so on.
My understanding is that Angie Warner is the connection with Live Nation, i.e. she isn't a "personal" tour manager.
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The band (and management) fired Steven, not only Axl. It just happened that during that particular time period Axl wasn't the problem - the band had gotten back together and was functional, except for Steven who had issues.
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20 hours ago, gnfnrs1972 said:
Except for the reunion part it was basically a bash Axl documentary. I'm sure he wouldn't like it if he watched it.
Yeah, I got to watch it, and this pretty much summarizes it.
I think Alan Niven's comment about Axl pissing away his prime was actually one of the least harsh ones in the documentary - and not really inaccurate.
15 hours ago, thunderram said:Also, not sure the way they depicted SLASH and DUFF signing the legal papers AXL wanted them to is 100% accurate. As AXL himself has made mention many times, SLASH and DUFF were out of it most days back then and AXL felt he was protecting the brand name. Their collective memories of what went on aren't very reliable.
Yes, there have been different versions about the circumstances under which it happened, and the documentary presented one of them.
15 hours ago, thunderram said:Lastly, I noticed a common thread among all the 'Breaking the Band' episodes I watched. They definitely liked to place blame.
I watched some of the other episodes and I thought the GnR episode was the poorest one. At least in the other ones there were more people interviewed. There was surely a lot of stuff edited out from the interviews, especially from the Marc Canter one. Marc didn't get much air time.
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I also didn't find the dramatizations particularly entertaining - maybe it's because some of them were spoiled for me
. The reenactment of the hell tour was total cringe.
I noticed that the narration avoided mentioning Doug Goldstein's name - they referred to him twice as the "tour manager" (who then became manager).
And, of course, they totally forgot Dizzy
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Imo the best GnR documentary, in comparison, was the 2016 BBC one. At least it had some unseen before footage from Marc Canter's archive and a couple of stories that we hadn't heard before.
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4 hours ago, lame ass security said:
Well, it wasn't too bad. The part where Slash was running naked through the golf course was hilarious. I had always envisioned that happening at night but they portrayed it happening during the day. The look on the actor's face, playing a stunned golfer seeing Slash in all his glory, was really funny. Niven said that he thought "Axl pissed away his prime."
I guess that since Niven and Mick Wall were, as it seems, the biggest contributors to the script, the story was told from their point of view. But yeah, from the descriptions I've read, these dramatized scenes must have been entertaining to watch. And also I find the idea of the psychiatrists talking about Axl's and Slash's relationship hilarious
4 hours ago, lame ass security said:I don't know if I was aware that Niven had a couple cops go to Axl's apartment and quasi arrest him, they actually put him in handcuffs, to get him to the LA Coliseum for the first Stones show in '89.
Yeah, Niven has told this story before. He said he had told the cops to handcuff Axl if necessary, but I don't think they actually did.
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The Los Angeles Times article about the lawsuit that is about to be filed by a number of artists:
(I'm posting the web.archive link because the L.A Times website blocks IP's from EU countries)
It's interesting to see if GnR will participate in the lawsuit. The main law firm that handles it is run by the legal team that worked with GnR in the past, but I think GnR works with another law firm now.
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From a newly released Slash interview (but actually older than the one in the OP of this thread, as it was recorded in April, so probably before he went to Axl's house):
https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/slash-interview-guns-n-roses-future-guitars/
Rock Cellar: You recently made news. You said in an interview a month or so ago, there’s probably enough songs for a new Guns N’ Roses album, is that true?
Slash: No, you know, by the time it gets to the place where anybody’s read it, it’s morphed into something more than what I directly said. There is material that Axl’s been working on for a while. It could be enough for a record if we put it all together.
The whole thing of Guns N’ Roses getting in the studio and getting this record done — with myself and with Duff (McKagan) and all that — it’s really just getting started. So it’s really hard to say.
Everybody’s got demos, and everybody’s got material, and this that and the other, for whatever it could be. It’s just a matter of us focusing on it.
So it’s really hard to answer questions on the next Guns thing.-
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23 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:
Here is what the new Guns N' Roses album will sound like,
This actually could be a good idea, as it would give the fans the freedom to play their own dreamed GnR album in their heads, like dirty rocky tunes co-written by Izzy or epic Buckethead solos. They could even create an avant-garde GnR album from the sounds of their breaking stuff and cussing as they put the CD on the player and realise that it contains 80 minutes of silence
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3 minutes ago, Gambit83 said:
Oh, the WHOLE process. Something I can ask next time one of them comes on.
That would be great! And maybe if they remember about when the recording took place.
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I think they said that Axl (through management) gave instructions on how he wanted his cartoon self look like? (I didn't catch that part well). If so, maybe you could ask them if Axl wanted to be depicted as blond-haired.
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8 minutes ago, Gambit83 said:
They said the recording itself took 3 hours. The song was approved beforehand. Seemed like the dialogue script was read first at the recording by the way they described some of Axl's reactions.
I assume that an amount of time is needed to produce the episode after the voice-over is recorded, i.e. to make the animation and sync it with the vocals.
According to this post, the recording of the voice-over is one of the first stages of creating an episode, and the stages that follow take longer:
https://www.studiopigeon.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-produce-an-animation/
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3 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:
What? The 2018 European shows ended in late July, they didn't do anything else until November and the Looney Toons episode leaked around Christmas.... how do you figure he didn't have enough time?
I meant that the time window might have been small for the production the show, not for Axl. But I don't know how much time it takes to prepare a Looney Tunes episode, so you may be right.
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1 minute ago, MaskingApathy said:
Like month and year? Like did it happen within the last year before that song came out, or was it a long time ago?
They said it was sometime after GnR returned from their European tour, so it was probably late 2017-early 2018 (I think it's less likely that it happened after the 2018 Euro festival dates - the time window is too small).
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A clip:
https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/jIgrLFUD-640.mp4
Mick Wall (oh well) and Alan Niven are interviewed.
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7 minutes ago, Tom-Ass said:
I just remember reading it on wiki or something so not sure if 100% accurate. It lists him on Soma City Ward
It's most likely a mistake of wikipedia. Izzy is not listed on the album:
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1686618-1419609667-5632.jpeg.jpg)
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I think there's no issue of a rock band being "contemporary" and "reflecting of the times" today, as rock isn't hip and there are no particular "trends" in it - it's an "anything goes" situation and the new bands just play various combinations of past decades' rock. The good aspect of it is that it's liberating, as a rock band -GnR in this case- doesn't need to be up-to-date, musically speaking, and they can make the music they want.
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As a reminder: It was the media and other people (and the fans on the internet later) that made a case of Axl being mentally ill more than Axl made a case for himself (and didn't even present it as a mental illness). Magazines made profiles of him with stories from old friends, acquaintances, band mates etc. saying that Axl was crazy, something chemical was going on in his head, he was diagnosed psychotic in Indiana, and so on. It was also reported that he was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and taking medication, and Axl disputed that the medication could help him. Then he did some interviews in 1991-92 saying he was sexually abused as a kid (he had already talked about physical abuse since 1986), probably prompted by the kind of therapy he was undergoing where therapists advise their clients to "open up" about their issues. He didn't talk again after that. And then there has been discussion on message boards where people "know" or have an opinion about what Axl has (some even "know" what kind of treatment he should have) or equally "know"/have an opinion that he has nothing.
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I think there is a slight possibility, considering the history - even the recent one.
Apparently there were negotiations about the reunion that failed because, as Izzy put it, they didn't manage to find a happy medium (mostly about the "loot", I guess). But, based on what Duff said recently, it seems that Izzy didn't say flat-out "no" and he left it open to turn up, and that's why they waited for him at rehearsals.
So, as recording an album is a different process than touring and also doesn't involve "splitting the loot" in the same way as touring, maybe they'll work something out for, say, a couple of songs.
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. The reenactment of the hell tour was total cringe.
Raz Cue - An Open Letter To Duff McKagan
in THE JUNGLE
Posted
My impression is that Raz Cue doesn't really give a shit about the abused girl (to throw someone on the street naked -which seems to be the true part of the story-is abuse) who was "scarred for life," the same girl who he calls a "psycho chick" and a "bitch" in his book. He only cares about supporting Trump.