Blackstar

On 13/07/2016 at 2:20 AM, Frey said:

And then there's Duff. Don't forget Duff. Duff is still having a hard time getting noticed. He is a gentle, silly and delightful man, even when he is drunk, which nowadays seems most of the morning and most of the afternoon and a good part of every evening. Duff is having a hard time with life on the road. He is, frankly, getting sick and tired of fans who come up to him and, rather than fall all over him, ask, "Where's Axl?" Duffs wife, Linda, recently got him a tshirt that reads: 'No, I don't know where Axl is!'

Duff wishes Linda could be with him more often. He is 28 years old, and the fits of loneliness are starting to become fits of terror. "A lot of nights I wake up, and I'm, like, where am I, what city, and you run to the window and look out and try to figure it all out," he says. "You actually forget who you are. It's, like, I am completely blank. I end up a lot of times just sitting on my bed, and I'll find tears start coming out of my eyes and my heart is just aching. It's, like, please let there be another show soon. It's, like, can you get the next shot of insulin."

On 14/07/2016 at 3:48 AM, Lumikki said:

As for the part about Duff, OMG!!! I can't deal with the mental image of Duff crying all alone in a dark hotel room at night.

That's just to me. It's incredible how miserable most of them seemed while touring, though usually you just hear Axl talking about that.

Yeah, this is so sad  It's a miracle they survived that tour. They were unhappy and depressed most of the time. And yeah, Axl has often talked about it and said he didn't want to tour, but I think it's distinct in Duff's book, too (not so much in Slash's) that he was miserable. And the frustration Duff felt because the fans didn't care about him ; it's the bass player's fate to be and outshined and unnoticed. But he found his inner strength and it's so good that now is one of the most respected musicians...

...and the best looking member of the band

(I stole this from the Philadelphia thread)

On 13/07/2016 at 10:23 PM, Frey said:

I think the video might be a reference to the Axl suddenly freaking out and jumping out of a running car story?

Yeah, seems like it. It may have been something Slash said in that incident that brought up a traumatic memory from Axl's past and stroke him. When I read about it in Slash's book, I imagined it as a scene in a movie : Slash starts telling Axl gently to apologize to his grandmother, Axl looks outside, gradually Slash's voice becomes his stepfather's voice saying something like "apologize to your mother", Axl starts rocking back and forth and then jumps out.

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I looked for the interview where Axl said he was called the "Ayatollah" and in his mind it was the beginning of the "Axl-the-dictator" story. I couldn't find it, but I saw that Steven mentions it in his book (which I haven't read yet) and says Axl got "a little pissy" over the "Ayatollah" thing. There are also parts of it in Stephen Davis's book with some slightly ironic comments. It was 1986, just after they were signed. The interview, probably the first they ever did, is like the cartoons, so childish They were apparently drunk and/or on drugs. Axl was the only one who answered "seriously" to some questions, particularly in the part where he talks about his feelings while singing. Izzy ... he must have been quite a mess the time he was an addict.

Here are the excerpts from Davis's book:

In early April 1986, Music Connection, the L.A. weekly magazine, sent reporter Karen Burch to interview Guns. The band had been promised the cover of the magazine. (...) She found them still living at Vicky’s place, amid wall-to-wall amps, guitars everywhere, brimming ashtrays, garbage. (...)

Izzy would break in with sarcastic asides, cynical jokes, and open hostility. He would deflect her questions with: “Ask another,” “We don’t care about that,” “That’s a stupid question,” “No one gives a fuck about that,” “Next,” “Fuck you and your magazine.” (...)

She started by asking their ages, and it went downhill from there.

AXL: “Sure, we’ll reveal our ages.”

DUFF: “Yeah, we don’t care. I’m nineteen.”

AXL: “I’m twenty-four.”

SLASH: “No, Duff is twenty-two and I’m nineteen.”

IZZY: “This really does not fucking matter.”

SLASH: “Just fucking tell her.”

IZZY: “Axl isn’t really twenty-four. He’s a million years old! He’s seen fucking everything!”

VICKY: “C’mon—go with the real ages here.”

IZZY: “What’s the bullshit with the ages? That shit doesn’t matter to us.”

SLASH: “Izzy is twenty-three and Steve’s twenty-one.”

IZZY: “Just print that for the Rainbow so they’ll let us all in.”

SLASH: “Please—just don’t ask us where we’re from.”

IZZY: “Yeah, fuck that. There’ll be no shit in there about me being from Indiana, which deserves fucking nothing. It was a worthless fucking city. It’s shit.”

SLASH: “Can you print, like, ‘Indiana sucks’?”

IZZY: “The fact that I’m from Indiana has no business being in my career.”

(...)

She asked about songwriting. “We all write,” Axl answered. “I write the majority of the melodies, and we work on everything else.”

Slash said that Axl wrote all the lyrics and they all collaborated on the rest.

Axl continued: “We write in vans on the way to shows. We write songs when we’re hanging out on the corner waiting for someone to buy a bottle. Yeah—waiting for alcohol.”

“If I can speak for everybody,” Slash said, looking around at his already bored bandmates, “the whole point is that we want to reach a lot of people. We want to be a . . . worldwide exhibit! We don’t have to be accepted, we just wanna be a band that’s fucking out there.”

Slash’s inspiration sent Axl into a self-defining soliloquy: “I live for the songs,” Axl said. He paused. His tone changed, darkening. He seemed in a trance. The rest of the band woke up and leaned in to listen. “If I go through a bad time . . . well . . . anything I have to go through is worth it if I can get a song out of it. If I slept in a parking garage, and I hated it, and I wanted to give it all up . . . but I just kept going . . . and I got a song out of it, from the experience . . . then I’m so glad that I had to go through a ton of shit. . . . “When I’m onstage, that’s when I take what I’m worth to the public. I bring out everything I’ve worked on for the past month, show the people my songs, and give that feeling to them. “When I’m singing a line, I’m thinking of the feelings that made me come up with the song in the first place. At the same time, I think about how I feel singing those words now, and how those words are gonna hit the people in the crowd.”

Axl described the toll these feelings took on his body and mind. The band had all noticed how he would tremble after good shows. “I usually have to have someone stand beside me when I come offstage, because I can’t even tie my own shoes. I’ve gone through so many thoughts onstage.” He described looking out at a crowd of 700 and knowing 300 of them. He loved some, hated others, was in debt to this one, had slept with that one—ten times. “You see all this stuff, plus—you’re thinking about the feeling in the music. I put every possible thought I can, into every performance and every line.”

The room was quiet. They were listening carefully. Time stood still. “And that’s why I might be known as . . . histrionic . Because I go all out.”  (...)

Vicky came up with some cash and Steven and Duff left on a Marlboro run. Karen Burch went to the bathroom. While she was out of the room, they recorded some vulgar sexual suggestions on the tape for her to discover later. When she returned, she was shocked to find that Axl had broken her cassette recorder. He explained that he was going to leave a message on the tape, but he pushed the wrong buttons and the thing is fucked. Sorry. Vicky came up with another machine, and the interview continued.

DUFF: “We’re doin’ what we wanna,” glug glug, “and we’re pulling it off.”

IZZY: “We sell out every fuckin’ club in L.A. that we play.”

SLASH: “Listen, I don’t care if you think I’ve got a bad attitude, or if I’m being big-headed about it, but this is the only fuckin’ band that’s come of L.A. that’s real —and the kids know it.” Karen asked how the band got along with each other. Slash said that they didn’t have many friends outside of the band.

AXL: “We’re a family.”

DUFF: “When we go out, there’s nobody else we would have more fun with. If someone’s not there and then they show up, it’s like . . .”

AXL: “Great—you’re here! Let’s go! Rape! Pillage! Destroy!”

IZZY: “That’s our motto.”

Axl said that he thought the band would stay together as long as there was a spark between them.

IZZY: “Till we die, and then some.”

Steven said that even after they died, they would still be together.

SLASH: “Yeah, I mean . . . I loved my dog. . . .”

IZZY: “But then he died, and now you have Steve.”

STEVEN: “Hey—fuck you!”

AXL: “And we don’t share girlfriends.”

This set Slash off. He explained that they had girlfriends, somewhere in the past, but they had gotten rid of them when the band started to happen. “They’re a pain in the ass,” he opined about the girlfriends they’d had. “They take up too much fuckin’ time, and they have their own ideas which they’re constantly throwing in your face.”

Asked if they were as “bad” as people said they were, Slash replied, “We are.”

Duff added, “We have no choice.”

Axl concurred: “Trouble? All the time.”

The reporter gave everyone one wish.

Steven wished for peace of mind. Izzy said he wanted a Maserati. Slash wanted an endless supply of Marlboro cigarettes. Duff just wanted to have the GN’R record out, and to be on the road.

Axl was more prophetic. “I think that . . . I don’t like that question. It’s ridiculous because we are working on getting everything we want. If I had my wishes, I’d want all the money there is. I’d want power and control over everything there is, and third, I’d want all the wishes there are to have.”

Slash summed this up. “Axl is just another version of the Ayatollah.”

The other version of the Ayatollah then tried to spike the interview. He had hated the whole thing. He tried to sabotage the photo session for the promised cover story. He began calling Karen Burch. (...) When the story was published on April 14, 1986, it carried a disclaimer: “This issue’s cover [photo] and cover feature are running against the wishes of Guns N’ Roses, according to W. Axl Rose.”

Then Axl wrote a long, angry letter to the magazine, that was published a few months later.

Steven says that Axl was pissed off with the magazine because they spelled his name "Axel" and that the interviewer ended her article with "Well, fuck you and your band" in response to Izzy's "Fuck you and your magazine"

Axl said in the 2011 Eddie Trunk interview and in China Exchange that it was Izzy who called him "Ayatollah", but it was Slash. Maybe he confused it with the first Rolling Stone extended article in 1988:

 Even the other band members describe Axl in terms of a Jekyll-and Hyde dichotomy.

"He does a lot of weird shit no one understands," says Slash, "but I love the guy. I mean he's a real sweetheart." It's funny that Slash used this word
 "He can still be a tyrant," says Izzy, "but then he can turn around and be the nicest guy in the world."

http://www.slashparadise.com/media/interviews-slash/the-hard-truth-about-gnr-rolling-stone-november-1988.pdf

http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/rollstone88.htm

I reread that Rolling Stone article. There is a lot of interesting stuff in it, and I think it was the first time the bipolar issue was brought up.

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@Andy14, I hope they don't

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And Axl's joke last night ...

Before Jungle, Axl said: "I'm very happy you came here tonight to see us. I would understand if you didn't. Very glad to see you".

4 hours ago, RONIN said:

No way would Navarro have joined gnr back in '91. Guns were seen as a corporate act by a lot of mainstream bands by then. Joining guns would have shot Navarro's cred as a musician.

Apparently he stood up Slash like 4 or 5 times when he was supposed to interview for the job.

This is true for bands that had come from the underground/indie rock circuit (Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc); they were anxious to emphasize that moving to a major label didn't change them.

I don't think this was Navarro's issue. Jane's Addiction's beginnings were similar to GnR's. They were both on major labels. JA's first video was played on MTV (at least in Europe) more often than Jungle had been played when it was released; Guns' videos went on heavy rotation only when Sweet Child became a hit. JA didn't do bad with sales (their first album went platinum and the second double platinum), they just didn't make it big.

As mentioned, Navarro had a serious drug problem. He didn't say "no" from the start, he agreed to go rehearse with Slash but he didn't show up. Slash didn't want him anyway, not because he didn't like him as a guitarist, but because he thought he wasn't suitable for Izzy's spot as a rhythm guitar player (and he was probably right). Navarro probably wasn't able to commit for such a big job. He may also have been afraid of dealing with Axl.

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Warner Bros. gave Jane's Addiction a list of producers to choose from. The group chose Dave Jerden, whose work as engineer on the David Byrne and Brian Eno album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts frontman Perry Farrell appreciated. Jerden said he "jumped" at the chance to work with the group.

During the recording sessions [of the first Jane's Addiction album, "Nothing's Shocking"], Farrell stated he wanted 50 percent of the band's publishing royalties for writing the lyrics, as well as quarter of the remaining half for writing music, adding up to 62.5 percent total. Bassist Eric Avery said he and the other band members, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins, were stunned by Farrell's demands. Farrell refused to compromise. One day Jerden drove up to the studio to find Farrell, Navarro, and Perkins leaving; Farrell told him that the band had broken up and that there would be no record. Warner Bros. called an emergency meeting to resolve the situation. Farrell got the royalty percentage he sought, and the other band members received 12.5 percent each. Avery said the incident had a profound effect on the band, creating an internal fracture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing's_Shocking

So Perry was less a team player than Axl. GnR's royalties percentages for AFD and Lies were 25% for Axl, 20% for Slash, Izzy and Duff and 15% for Steven.

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They look very good for their age.

Axl, Slash and Duff were big fans of Jane's Addiction.

3 hours ago, dalsh327 said:

"I've always been a fan of Dave Navarro, to the point that when we got signed, I had a Jane's Addiction demo tape [laughs] and was actually trying to convince the record company, "No, no, no, no, I suck. We suck. These guys rock!" And I was trying to get Tom Zutaut, at the time [at Geffen], to sign Jane's Addiction, and he was actually in negotiations to sign them at one point. I was just into Jane's Addiction." - Kurt Loder interview, 1999

From the same Axl interview:

Rose: That's (MTV airtime) really what finally got the public to find some interest in Guns N' Roses, and there was a lot less [interest] for Jane's Addiction. Where now, I think, we would consider Jane's Addiction one of the great rock and roll bands in the last however many years. They were a great band, they were a bit ahead of their time. I was a very big fan of them, and Dave.

Whatever anyone can say about Axl's ego, he has always been humble regarding other musician/bands he considered worthy, while Perry Farrell unfortunately comes out here as jealous. [They have acknowledged you, Perry, you could just reference that].

I liked Jane's Addiction a lot. I consider them and Guns great bands in a different way. What they had in common was, as Duff said, that they both didn't fit in the L.A. music scene of the mid-late 80s, i.e. they were neither hairmetal nor part of the remains of the early 80s punk scene (although Guns were visually closer to the former); they were also both signed by big record companies for their debut albums, so they were theoretically at the same state in terms of promotion and they had equal chances to make it. Musicwise they were different. AFD wasn't groundbreaking musically, it was a brilliant blend of classic rock 'n' roll influences performed with punk rawness and authenticity, and it was this combination that made it appealing to large audiences. JA was more advanced and innovative, hence more difficult for the mainstream rock audience at the time; they also had a more underground mentality, even though they were a big company act, while Guns were closer to the conventional perception of what rock 'n roll is about (drugs, debauchery, "bad boy" attitude, etc).

- Didn't you say you loved him in what -- '06?

Axl - No. I said "loved," as in past tense. It was a misquote by a writer I mistook as a fan.

spinner.com Axl interview by Del James, 2009  (the same where he called him a "cancer")

15 hours ago, Frey said:

The GnR road trip series is pretty funny too.

I don't know where part 2 is. It's not on her site... but I found it on youtube. It's just Izzy driving without saying anything lol

 

That's her vimeo channel btw. She's got some more there (and also a really funny one about Jarmo, but I don't know if we're allowed to post that here without getting into trouble )

https://vimeo.com/channels/gunsnrosescartoons/page:1

Part 5 is hilarious. Izzy: "Keep going. Drive!"

21 minutes ago, Andy14 said:

I think it depends (on the country maybe). If I ask my friends about GNR, they all say Don't Cry, November Rain, WTTJ, Heaven's Door and Sweet Child. I never hear Patience anywhere...

They should play both songs like they used to...

Yeah, it probably has to do with each audience's cultural backgrounds. I think Patience is very popular to the American audience due to its gospel-like feeling in vocals and lyrics.

1 minute ago, cheesecake said:

Linkssssssssss?????

Another one working for now: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1lDxLeBpqRmKm

1 minute ago, danijel00 said:

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1lPKqzvXNzeGb

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1ynJOPMBbPWxR

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1rmxPpvYMnExN

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1zqJVpdXQVdKB

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1lDxLeBpWRbKm

1 minute ago, Blackstar said:

https://www.periscope.tv/IWannaGo2Vegas/1BdGYXZnyRXKX

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1rmxPpvYMnExN

https://www.periscope.tv/IWannaGo2Vegas/1BdGYXZnyRXKX

6 minutes ago, BackOffBitch! said:

need wolfmother periscope

I can't find one now. They sounded good, judging from this 7 minute stream: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MnxnzPQYRdxO

Too bad they played for such a small crowd.

3 minutes ago, EvanG said:

My point was, it's lame to wear a shirt of your own band, especially when your band is that famous... at least that's my opinion. I like what the Nirvana guys did back in the day, they purposely wore shirts of ''indie'' bands they liked so that their fans would go check out those bands and to give them free publicity. 

But even during concerts he sometimes wore pants or shirts with his bands name or logo on it... I don't know... each to their own, I guess, to me it just always seemed kinda an ego thing to do.

He rarely did that. On the contrary, he often did something similar with Nirvana, he wore shirts or cups of new or older bands he liked (NWA, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Bauhaus, Red Hot Chili Peppers etc)

Wolfmother:

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MnxnzPQYRdxO

8 minutes ago, BackOffBitch! said:

NEED A WOLFMOTHER STREAM

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1BdGYXZeeQyKX

(They aren't on stage yet)

43 minutes ago, Original said:

No that's a great shirt. Love that he wore it.   He was young n fun and probably didn't have a "wardrobe" person.   He/they just dressed how they wanted.  

Actually the shirt was designed by Versace. They (Axl) had sort of contract with him to design shirts for each show for the band and crew members.

19 minutes ago, EvanG said:

He really shouldn't have worn a shirt of his own band... that's just silly.

I guess the police didn't notify him that he would be busted at the airport so he could change his "silly" travelling clothes.

5 minutes ago, Modano09 said:

I haven't seen that before. The Axl Rose I thought I knew would've beat the piss out of him.

It was only the 1991-93 Axl who would do this. Although he could be violent before, he never beat a fan (he only beat security guards who beat fans) and iirc he didn't do it after. Unfortunately most people formed their opinion of Axl from his behavior during the UYI tour.

8 minutes ago, scooby845 said:

NOT.AT.ALL.

Axl says at 0.14 seconds - 'it's a good person...that's all he fuckin is..' a joke on Adlers behalf... I  don't know whats that supposed to mean but there's no talk of sign in any way whatsoever..

I heard "It's a good question ... (laughs) that's all you gonna get". I think the fan who had the "Where's Izzy?" sign said she showed it at that point.

5 hours ago, SerenityScorp said:

Is there any interview that Slash said tehres a song about Axl on it?

It's in his book.

3 hours ago, highvoltage said:

5 hours ago, Blackstar said:

These must have been about Axl, too:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/take-it-away-lyrics-slashs-snakepit.html

Slash isn't listed as a songwriter on this one.

I saw here http://www.slashparadise.com/discography/albums-slash-snakepit-1995-its-five-o-clock-somewhere.php

and in wikipedia that he is.