Alone: An Interview with Brooke Ellis

[SLCPUNK]

At the end of May, Brooke Ellis came forward with an open letter accusing former GNR drummer Steven Adler and his associates of essentially screwing him out of a book deal. Ellis is professional writer, avid music fan, and was the founder/administrator of Adler’s site for nearly a decade. His work has been featured in publications such as Classic Rock Magazine, Skinnie Magazine, Culture Magazine and for music merch retailer, Hot Topic. Ellis’s allegations leave very little to the imagination: A deal was made in which he would write Steven’s autobiography, and after submitting the initial draft, team Adler washed their hands of him and took credit for the work. The book, “My Appetite For Destruction, Sex, Drugs and Guns N’ Roses” went on to become a New York Times best seller with credit to Steven Adler and Lawrence Spagnola.

Unfortunately Steven Adler’s management has declined a follow up interview in regards to this matter, or offer an official statement. They did however inform me to “be careful”of what I print, a veiled threat of sorts, and pointed out that there was no pending lawsuit as a means to validate his innocence and dismissed Mr. Ellis’s claims. In turn I remind our readers that a lawsuit is not necessarily an indication of guilt, no more than a lack of one attests to a person’s innocence. While Adler’s management group claims this is merely a frivolous matter, I feel Mr. Ellis is entitled to his story and have provided him a platform to do so through this interview. To be clear, both sides were given equal opportunity to provide their version of events and only Mr. Ellis stepped forward. I still welcome an interview with Steven Adler to address this if he becomes willing and ready at a later date.

The GnR Syndicate: How did you transfer from fan to friend and then eventually admin of Adler’s website?

Brooke Ellis: Well, I was at a NAMM event in 1999 at the Whiskey in Hollywood. Adler made an appearance there, and when I saw him outside, I told him I was a big fan, and he was totally gracious and happy to talk with my friends and I. When he heard me say I had all these GNR bootlegs, he was like, “Dude, give me your number!” I made him copies of everything with custom covers, brought them to him, and he said, “this is the coolest thing anyone has ever done for me.” After that, I was pretty assertive about getting him out of the house and we were friends ever since. Plus he kept losing the videos, so he always wanted me to bring new copies. I met him in January of that year, and he didn’t have a website at the time, so in July I uploaded mine.

The GnR Syndicate: Whose idea was the website?

Brooke Ellis: I asked him if he wanted me to do one, and he said, “yeah.”

The GnR Syndicate: During the years you ran the site, did Adler ever contribute to the financial requirements of maintaining his site or compensate you in anyway?

Brooke Ellis: No it wasn’t entirely necessary. Hell, I gave him money. But I used free software. It was never hi-tech, I’m not a techie, but I always maintained the content professionally and it became the primary source of Adler news for years. But I put a LOT of time into it, and I’d pay a guy here and there to help me realize my concepts for the site. One of my designs Adler used as his band logo for years. Plus back then, you know, gas, film etc., costs like that. Then nine years later, after he regained control of his money, he started paying me $600 a month. Y’know, as much to reciprocate for the years of work I gave him as it was to help me out. I eventually hired a web designer and started making the site look pretty much high- end. We had some animation, some really cool copy and paste banners, I got paid for three months before the book crap began.

Read the entire interview here:

http://www.thegnrsyndicate.com/index2.php

[dalsh327]

Can't wait for Adler's mom to come out with her book. And we know why she put him on an allowance. Guaranteed he gave her some good bullshit stories over the years trying to wrangle money out of her, even though it's his money.

Even if Axl is pissed off that Slash or Steven wrote books, they said nothing really bad about him. Slash hinted to some bad behavior, but never said what.