What happened to Steven Adler?

[DieselDaisy]

10 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Is it the fact that I am posting here that forces you somehow to take absurd, opposing stances? Let's try this out: Eating rocks are bad for your teeth. Will you now defend rock eating?

You replied to me!!

You were the first to disagree with me, with your ''at least they could play. I mean, if Steven was so far gone he couldn't keep time then they made the right decision, even if they weren't perfect either'' about one hour ago.

[SoulMonster]

3 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

How are we judging this?

The morality of sacking a serial drug offender? As ascertained, Hudson, McKagan and Stradlin were either notorious drug/booze addicts, or in the latter's example, had been drug addicts; Slash and Duff would continue being addicts - Slash, who would require a defibrillation, into the 2000s. Wasn't Slash pronounced clinical dead on a number of occasions?

Unreliability? Rose curtailed more shows than Adler. Rose cancelled more shows than Adler. Rose caused more riots than Adler through his petulance. Rose lost the band more money than Adler. Rose would continue to be as similarly unpredictable until relatively recent - the 2002 tour was a particularly bad example.

I haven't said anything about the morality of Steven being fired. But if he was as bad as they claim he was, then I see no ethical problem in it. According to their stories they went pretty far to accommodate and help Steven. He was the one who wasted every opportunity they gave him. He has only himself to blame.

And again you are making the flawed argument of looking at Steven BEFORE he was fired and comparing that to Axl. That makes no sense. We are not talking about Steven in 1987 or 1988, how he did back then is completely irrelevant to how he would hypothetically behave in 1991. Are you really not understanding this or are you just trolling? We are talking about whether Steven, with his deteriorating state, would have been a huge liability to the upcoming UYI tours, and -- again -- I only have to assume that the band was right in their assessment that he was.

6 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

You replied to me!!

You were the first to disagree with me, with your ''at least they could play. I mean, if Steven was so far gone he couldn't keep time then they made the right decision, even if they weren't perfect either'' about one hour ago.

Yes, but I don't seem to be losing my shit 

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, SoulMonster said:

I haven't said anything about the morality of Steven being fired. But if he was as bad as they claim he was, then I see no ethical problem in it. According to their stories they went pretty far to accommodate and help Steven. He was the one who wasted every opportunity they gave him. He has only himself to blame.

And again you are making the flawed argument of looking at Steven BEFORE he was fired and comparing that to Axl. That makes no sense. We are not talking about Steven in 1987 or 1988, how he did back then is completely irrelevant to how he would hypothetically behave in 1991. Are you really not understanding this or are you just trolling? We are talking about whether Steven, with his deteriorating state, would have been a huge liability to the upcoming UYI tours, and -- again -- I only have to assume that the band was right in their assessment that he was.

Like Rose you mean? Rose was a huge liability on that tour (we are not dealing with speculative history here but fact).

 

 

[IncitingChaos]

I miss 2016...Axl could sing RQ, Steven was showing up every now and then...those were the days!

[SoulMonster]

Just now, DieselDaisy said:

Like Rose you mean? Rose was a huge liability on that tour (we are not dealing with speculative history here but fact)

Yes, Axl was a liability. He started late, cancelled shows and caused riots. No one is saying otherwise. But for most part Axl got the job done and he could sing his ass off. That is a lot better than having a drummer on board who cant keep time and drum in a steady beat. I think so. But hey, if you dont mind arythmic, messy music then more power to you 

[-Jaro-]

13 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Yes, Axl was a liability. He started late, cancelled shows and caused riots. No one is saying otherwise. But for most part Axl got the job done and he could sing his ass off. That is a lot better than having a drummer on board who cant keep time and drum in a steady beat. I think so. But hey, if you dont mind arythmic, messy music then more power to you 

Why are you talking about Frank here? 

[RONIN]

What's interesting to me is how both Slash and Alan Niven state that Steven could not even play the UYI material. Him being fucked up beyond hope is basically a secondary issue when the material itself is beyond his abilities as a drummer. 

Does anyone have clarity on the dodgy business with Steven suing the band? According to Steven he was given a contract by Doug Goldstein which after he signed, ended up stripping away all his royalties/publishing and leaving him with next to nothing but a measly payout of a few thousand bucks. Considering what a snake Goldstein is and the way GnR members throw each other under the bus - anything is possible.

Edited September 12, 2017 by RONIN

[DieselDaisy]

...the lawsuit which he won. More proof that it was a swizz.

22 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Yes, Axl was a liability. He started late, cancelled shows and caused riots. No one is saying otherwise. But for most part Axl got the job done and he could sing his ass off. That is a lot better than having a drummer on board who cant keep time and drum in a steady beat. I think so. But hey, if you dont mind arythmic, messy music then more power to you 

Some of my favourite albums were made on junk including Exile.

[SoulMonster]

23 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Some of my favourite albums were made on junk including Exile.

This is not about "just" being on junk, it is being so much on junk you cannot fulfill the fundamental aspects of drumming. He turned into a less than functional heroinist, unlike Slash, or especially Izzy, who never got in such a bad state they lost the basics of their musicality, although they, too, got affected and it shows. It is very much explicitly stated by the guys themselves, if you bother to read the quotes I posted.

[Modano09]

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Like Rose you mean? Rose was a huge liability on that tour (we are not dealing with speculative history here but fact).

 

 

If you don't understand why they tolerated Axl and didn't tolerate Adler, I don't know what to tell you. 

[Modano09]

4 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

How are we judging this?

The morality of sacking a serial drug offender? As ascertained, Hudson, McKagan and Stradlin were either notorious drug/booze addicts, or in the latter's example, had been drug addicts; Slash and Duff would continue being addicts - Slash, who would require a defibrillation, into the 2000s. Wasn't Slash pronounced clinical dead on a number of occasions?

Unreliability? Rose curtailed more shows than Adler. Rose cancelled more shows than Adler. Rose caused more riots than Adler through his petulance. Rose lost the band more money than Adler. Rose would continue to be as similarly unpredictable until relatively recent - the 2002 tour was a particularly bad example.

They've addressed the "morality" of it. They didn't care who was doing what as long as they could get their work done. Slash and Duff could, Steven couldn't, in the eyes of the people who were actually there at the time, attempting to get their work done with him. I don't even know what the argument is here anymore. That they shouldn't have fired him in 1990? They were there, you weren't, they determined they couldn't continue with him as their drummer. And what exactly has he done since 1990 to suggest they were wrong?

[DieselDaisy]

5 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

This is not about "just" being on junk, it is being so much on junk you cannot fulfill the fundamental aspects of drumming. He turned into a less than functional heroinist, unlike Slash, or especially Izzy, who never got in such a bad state they lost the basics of their musicality, although they, too, got affected and it shows. It is very much explicitly stated by the guys themselves, if you bother to read the quotes I posted.

Well, they, including Mike Clink, said he couldn't drum in 1990 and yet he drummed just fine on Civil War and Down on the Farm at Farm Aid - tripped over his drum stool mind. Slash sounds like crap on civil war if any band member does. Duff openly admits to booze affecting his performance, it occurring at a show in 1993.

And let's not forget that Adler successfully sued Guns N' Roses, so pertaining to jurisprudence he certainly had some sort of case.

3 hours ago, Modano09 said:

If you don't understand why they tolerated Axl and didn't tolerate Adler, I don't know what to tell you. 

You can tell me anything, but I've always seen Adler as integral as anyone in that band; have they ever sounded the same since his sacking? No. Sorum is a Bonham-esque metal masher while Frank is simply godawful. Only Brain came anywhere close to capturing Adler's groove and that was during the 'Newgnr ordeal'.

[Blackstar]

6 hours ago, RONIN said:

What's interesting to me is how both Slash and Alan Niven state that Steven could not even play the UYI material. Him being fucked up beyond hope is basically a secondary issue when the material itself is beyond his abilities as a drummer. 

Does anyone have clarity on the dodgy business with Steven suing the band? According to Steven he was given a contract by Doug Goldstein which after he signed, ended up stripping away all his royalties/publishing and leaving him with next to nothing but a measly payout of a few thousand bucks. Considering what a snake Goldstein is and the way GnR members throw each other under the bus - anything is possible.

Quotes from Mick Wall's latest book:

‘We were like, what do we do?’ recalled Duff. ‘We had a band lawyer, and it was like, okay, you’ve got to warn him formally. This will scare him. You’re gonna get six months and you’ve got to do this and that. The lawyer’s like, okay, we’ll try that. We really thought that he’d pull it back and he didn’t. All the way up to getting Matt Sorum to play on the record, we thought that would get Steven back. Then we realised, it’s just not going to happen. It’s just not. I wouldn’t be being honest if I told you I knew exactly the point. I don’t remember exactly when it was but it was right in there. I just thought for a while, he’s going to come through this cycle. I’m not sitting here twenty years later in judgement. We all had our battles.’

‘In no way was it minor,’ says Alan Niven of the decision to put Adler on probation, and of the drummer’s inability to recognise the threat. ‘It was incredibly painful and frustrating. I’ve got to confess I’m still capable of a flash of red-hot anger with Steven at that. I have an understanding of why and what happened to him. But it was survivable. We spent a lot of time with Steven trying to get him through it and I resent the fact that he plays the victim, I think that’s bullshit. You know, own up, Steven. Be responsible for your own decisions and actions. You let us down, all of us. And we got to the point where putting him on probation didn’t work. This whole cockamamie thing about “they didn’t pay me my royalties” is bullshit. He was paid his royalties and in fact he was paid composer royalties that he didn’t deserve. That was a courtesy bestowed on him by the rest of the band in a sense of all for one and one for all. If everybody’s sharing the writing credits, nobody is going to be trying to foist bad ideas on another person. You can hold that creative magic together and not let that kind of argument undo it. When you start with a band, two things are going to fuck you up, and the first is fighting over composer royalties – mechanicals, as they’re known. The other is your girlfriends and wives. They’ll fuck you up worse than drugs.’

So, according to Duff, it was the band's decision to get Steven sign that contract, thinking that he'd get his stuff together in the prospect of losing everything. And, according to Niven (who apparently was also involved with the contract, as he was the manager then and not Goldstein), Steven wasn't owed any royalties.

The legal issue with Steven's lawsuit, which forced them to go for an out of court arrangement and pay him a large amount of money, was that he didn't have a lawyer of his own when he signed the contract.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Blackstar

[double talkin jive mfkr]

 

This is how it is in a nutshell

Adler's personality is too immature for joining GNR again 

Izzy's personality is too mature for joining GNR again 

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, DieselDaisy said:

Well, they, including Mike Clink, said he couldn't drum in 1990 and yet he drummed just fine on Civil War and Down on the Farm at Farm Aid - tripped over his drum stool mind. Slash sounds like crap on civil war if any band member does. Duff openly admits to booze affecting his performance, it occurring at a show in 1993.

So now you are going to use your opinion on Farm Aid as evidence that the decision to kick Steven out of the band was wrong because he wasn't as bad? Diesel, 30 years later knows better than the guys who had to work with Steven there and then. Such arrogance.

[trqster]

"Where's Adler?"

Axl: Adler is in my ass, that's where Adler is!"

 

[DieselDaisy]

54 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

So now you are going to use your opinion on Farm Aid as evidence that the decision to kick Steven out of the band was wrong because he wasn't as bad? Diesel, 30 years later knows better than the guys who had to work with Steven there and then. Such arrogance.

My opinion? Do you see any flaws in his drumming at Farm Aid? Yet we are led to believe that Clink pieced together his drum track; maybe Clink should have simply recorded his drum track at Farm Aid as he performs the song fine there.

You have to remember that,

A/ Guns N' Roses (and associates) lie. Axl and Slash are both habitual liars. 

B/ Guns N' Roses, as demonstrated by this partnership 'reunion hijack', are extremely savvy and ruthless businessmen.

I see no reason to accept an opinion emanating from Guns at face value, especially considering jurisprudence found in favour of Adler and not Guns.

 

Edited September 12, 2017 by DieselDaisy

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

My opinion? Do you see any flaws in his drumming at Farm Aid? Yet we are led to believe that Clink pieced together his drum track; maybe Clink should have simply recorded his drum track at Farm Aid as he performs the song fine there.

You have to remember that,

A/ Guns N' Roses (and associates) lie. Axl and Slash are both habitual liars. 

B/ Guns N' Roses, as demonstrated by this partnership 'reunion hijack', are extremely savvy and ruthless businessmen.

 

Heh, so why did they lie about Steven not being able to play? What's their motivation? If he could play, why would they want him out of the band and decided to concoct this elaborate lie -- which they stick to to this very day -- about Steven being too drugged out to be reliable? What's the endgame? You know that every good conspiracy theory needs some sinister motive. And was Steven in on the bluff and kindly decided to become an unreliable drug addict afterwards to make it even more believable?

[Modano09]

Just now, DieselDaisy said:

My opinion? Do you see any flaws in his drumming at Farm Aid? Yet we are led to believe that Clink pieced together his drum track; maybe Clink should have simply recorded his drum track at Farm Aid as he performs the song fine there.

You have to remember that,

A/ Guns N' Roses (and associates) lie. Axl and Slash are both habitual liars. 

B/ Guns N' Roses, as demonstrated by this partnership 'reunion hijack', are extremely savvy and ruthless businessmen.

 

Farm Aid is the show he falls face first into his drum kit, right?

Okay, let's just assume for a minute that Adler was perfectly capable of recording and touring and was just nailing it in the studio. We'll also forget numerous incidents over the past 30 years. And Celebrity Rehab. It was all the rest of the band getting together and deciding to throw Adler out. Why? What motive is there to throw out Alder? 

[SoulMonster]

I can just picture Slash kicking Steven out of the band back in 1990: "Hey Steven, uhm, we want you out of the band because [insert sinister motive]. Really sorry about that, old friend. And we are going to blame it on you being a hopeless drug addict. Hope you won't mind that. It's all for that [sinister plan]. And would you mind actually becoming a hopeless, unreliable drug addict for the rest of your life, just to tie it all in, so it all makes sense? Great, you are the best."

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, SoulMonster said:

Heh, so why did they lie about Steven not being able to play? What's their motivation? If he could play, why would they want him out of the band and decided to concoct this elaborate lie -- which they stick to to this very day -- about Steven being too drugged out to be reliable? What's the endgame? You know that every good conspiracy theory needs some sinister motive. And was Steven in on the bluff and kindly decided to become an unreliable drug addict afterwards to make it even more believable?

Rose didn't like him from the beginning; Slash and Duff were gross hypocrites and frightened of offending Axl so cowardly threw him to the wolves.

2 minutes ago, Modano09 said:

Farm Aid is the show he falls face first into his drum kit, right?

...and then proceeds to play perfectly. Does he play like a guy who required drum tracks to be stitched together from one-hundred parts. If that was the case, the song would have just collapsed after thirty seconds. It doesn't.

[SoulMonster]

Just now, DieselDaisy said:

Rose didn't like him from the beginning; Slash and Duff were gross hypocrites and frightened of offending Axl so cowardly threw him to the wolves.

Haha, I knew it! It is Axl Rose again! You are amazing.

[Blackstar]

Adler’s own recollections of the moment are fractured, perhaps understandably given the state he was in. “Man, I was fucked up, and I have never denied that, I couldn’t really deny it because it was pretty fuckin’ obvious…” he says. “But I wasn’t the only one. I remember one day Slash called me to go to the studio and play Civil War, I think it was. I’d been given an opiate blocker by a doctor. I still had opiates in my system and it made me so sick. I must have tried, like, 20 times to play it, but I couldn’t. I was very weak and I didn’t have my timing. Slash and Duff were shouting at me and telling me I was fucked up.

http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-09-17/the-chaotic-crazed-story-of-guns-n-roses-use-your-illusion

 

[Modano09]

21 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Rose didn't like him from the beginning; Slash and Duff were gross hypocrites and frightened of offending Axl so cowardly threw him to the wolves.

...and then proceeds to play perfectly. Does he play like a guy who required drum tracks to be stitched together from one-hundred parts. If that was the case, the song would have just collapsed after thirty seconds. It doesn't.

People in the studio say Alder couldn't perform due to the drug problem he proceeded to spend 25 years proving he had. People who were actually there. Yet you find it more believable they just threw him out for evil unfair reasons? Wasn't Axl the only guy to visit Adler when he OD'd? 

4 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Adler’s own recollections of the moment are fractured, perhaps understandably given the state he was in. “Man, I was fucked up, and I have never denied that, I couldn’t really deny it because it was pretty fuckin’ obvious…” he says. “But I wasn’t the only one. I remember one day Slash called me to go to the studio and play Civil War, I think it was. I’d been given an opiate blocker by a doctor. I still had opiates in my system and it made me so sick. I must have tried, like, 20 times to play it, but I couldn’t. I was very weak and I didn’t have my timing. Slash and Duff were shouting at me and telling me I was fucked up.

http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-09-17/the-chaotic-crazed-story-of-guns-n-roses-use-your-illusion

 

Oh clearly Adler's lying because he was in on the conspiracy to throw Adler out of the band!

[RONIN]

@Modano09, we mostly agree on Adler but you're not able to be objective about the guy mate. He's got his faults and they are many, but your take on events is pretty one-sided. There was a lot more going on to effect his ouster if you look at the situation with an unbiased lens.

In light of some of the recent posts from Blackstar and others, my take is simply this:

*The guy was too deep into drugs to clean up for the new records. Even if they had waited another year it's anyone's guess whether Steven would have cleaned up in time. It seems to me, he was too far gone.

*Steven was too immature to see the gravity of the situation towards the end when most people in his place would have gotten their shit together. He just didn't take the gig seriously enough and this is something he continues to not take responsibility for. Even his NITL interviews continue the "woe is me" schtick. He put the band in a bad situation and it was unfair to them and he paid a heavy price. 

*He couldn't play the material. An even more significant part of the story than simply drugs. Adler could not adapt to the new direction of the band and Axl's vision. Axl's vision would eventually alienate Slash later on when he drifted towards other styles of music in the mid 90's. But it starts here with writing material that Steven could not adapt to. I'm not a drummer so I have no idea whether Illusion material is beyond Adler's abilities (he sounds great on YCBM) but his playing ability is questioned by Niven and Slash. Niven's tight with Duff, Izzy, and Slash - so it's hard to say whether he's being objective or covering for Sluff.

*The lawsuit situation has me leaning towards the band's side even though I want to give Steven the benefit of the doubt given the scumbaggery of the others. 

All that being said, I don't think Steven would have gotten kicked out of the band if..and this is a big if....he was on better terms with the others. I think there would have been more effort to work it out with him - the guy was just unceremoniously tossed out. We don't even know if they even considered having him sit out Illusions and returning for a future album or maybe sharing drum duties with Sorum on the tour. Seems like none of that was on the table given past interviews. He was literally erased from the band. And the lawsuit just sealed the deal as far as ending that relationship completely. It does seem weird for a band of brothers to toss one of their own out in the cold without even a chance for reinstatement.  

Axl delayed Illusions for several years and this is confirmed plenty of times by Izzy who had submitted some of his tapes two years in advance. The same Izzy who said Axl screamed at him and told him "There is no schedule!" when he asked about the recording delays for UYI. Axl also missed most of the Chicago sessions and only showed up right at the end. Let's not pretend Steven, as messed up as he was, delayed the album anywhere near as much as Axl. The truth is, the band was working on Axl's schedule and when Axl was ready to go, Steven wasn't and so the axe fell on Steven's neck. Simple as that. History would repeat itself when Duff would quit in '97 over the same reason - Axl not showing up and constant delays with the new record because of Axl being unwilling to stick to a schedule. If we're going to point out Steven's bad behavior, then it's only fair we do the same with Axl. 

Steven's problem was that he was completely alienated from the band by '89 and 90. He's said in interviews before how Duff and Slash stopped hanging out with him or would ditch him at parties towards the last few years of his time in GNR. There's actually a great article about the Chicago sessions that I posted last year which mentions how Duff/Slash would ditch Steven at the local chicago bars to party together. And then there's Axl - a person who did not get along with Steven from the start. Someone who had a very real dislike for him by the end due to the Erin Everly speedball incident. 

I don't think the guy had friends in the band towards the end (weren't they all ignoring him those last few months?) and I don't think any of them fought hard enough to keep him - I think they basically gave up and washed their hands after a certain point as Duff basically admits. The only guy who may have stuck up for him (Izzy) was deep in detox and barely around. So couple the bad behavior of Steven with the general apathy of the rest of the band and it's no surprise to me how things ended up. 

But can anyone imagine the same scenario with Slash and Axl's bestie Duff being a wasted mess who can barely play getting kicked out the way Steven was? Perhaps it might have happened the same way but it does make you wonder. I don't think Duff would have been treated this way but that's just conjecture on my part...

As I said in a previous post, when it comes to Steven....things just don't add up with the version of events we're given by the band. I don't doubt that Steven was a mess and that it was perhaps bad enough to get fired. I'm just skeptical of the band politics that led to his ouster.

Edited September 13, 2017 by RONIN