My Interview with Arlett Vereecke (Former GNR Publicist 87-92)

[The Holographic Universe]

16 minutes ago, RONIN said:

We don't know that. It's one of several theories being kicked around. He may have wanted to only do the one-off shows in the Troubador and Vegas. He may have wanted to guest like Adler on a number of dates.

Or he may have wanted to rejoin full-time and do it right. My money is on this theory because the loot comment would make more sense in that context. Also - looking at it from Axl/Slash/Duff's perspective, if they don't have to cut in another co-founder into the spoils, it's more money for them. The tour only needs Axl and Slash. Duff would be 86'd in an instant if he wasn't a partner. 

These guys are greedy and don't have an iota of loyalty or gratitude. They've shown it time and again. At least Adler and Izzy have some integrity in that Adler does it for the love of the music and reliving his glory days while Izzy would do it because it's fun. The loot thing imho is more about respect since he's a co-founder who wrote a good portion of the back catalog. That's why he asked for a bunch of money to play with Nu Guns - pay me what I'm worth since you're out there cashing in on songs I wrote years ago. I don't believe Izzy is motivated by money given his history of shying away from fortune and fame. Slash? Yes. Duff post VR? Yes. 

Izzy can’t even be bothered to appear in the MYGNR banner.

[RONIN]

1 minute ago, The Holographic Universe said:

Izzy can’t even be bothered to appear in the MYGNR banner.

The man truly does not give a fuck. 

[Sosso]

On 11.12.2017 at 8:21 PM, killuridols said:

There should be a translation to it, though.... because what's the use for it to be only in Dutch?

Because that should probably encourage people to learn foreign languages?

Edited December 13, 2017 by Sosso

[The Holographic Universe]

23 minutes ago, RONIN said:

The man truly does not give a fuck. 

And that’s what makes him so fucking cool. He is his own man. 

[RONIN]

Some relevant excerpts from a great interview with Alan:

BraveWords.com: You were there in the beginning of Guns N' Roses. Do you look back at the last twenty years and think about all the missed opportunities had they only been able to keep their shit together? Or is it more a case of them being so messed up that it has created a mystique that has kept them in the spotlight all this time.

Alan Niven: “It boils down to personalities and when that dissipated… obviously Axl has certain personality traits that don’t necessarily lend themselves to a group situation. It went as far as it could. It’s ironic to me to watch the BBC footage (of the Leeds & Reading shows) and hear him singing about love in his heart… I’m really hard put to remember a single act of selfless love that he committed that I witnessed. Unfortunately, I can say I witnessed a lot of negative actions on his part. This is a guy who lives alone and who has not been successful as a family man, for example, and to my knowledge has no children and he doesn’t have a family entity about him. I think those are all salient and indicative circumstances. Absolutely, I look back and I know that one of my major functions with the band was to hold things together as well as protect them the best I could from themselves and the interest of those that were associated with them. David Geffen once wanted a soundtrack from them for a movie that wasn’t very good. Somebody else wants Axl to be in Vogue because one of Geffen’s executive’s wives is an editor at Vogue. You have to keep all these things at bay and you have to keep the spirit of the band alive. My desire for them was for them to be thought of as a ROLLING STONES for their generation. Obviously, they had nowhere near the output of THE ROLLING STONES. I don’t think THE STONES have done anything really relevant since Tattoo You.”

BraveWords.com: The reason I ask is that I get the impression that he is reaching out to all originally involved with Guns N' Roses and is seeking some kind of closure. [on Steven Adler]

Alan Niven: “I don’t think Steven wants closure. I think Steven wants his youth back. I think Steven wants the magic of that moment and heyday to be recreated which, of course, is absolutely not going to happen. Everybody’s older and moved on and in the extraordinarily unlikely event in which the band actually did a reunion – it would be different. You cannot re-live the past and you should, at least in a creative endeavour, have one foot in the present. If Guns N' Roses were to re-unify, I personally would dearly hope that it would be substantiated by valid and new creativity in the studio with a new record and that it wouldn’t just live off the past.”

BraveWords.com: In the unlikely event that they did reunite – if they called you and said ‘hey Alan, you helped us out in the beginning. Can you help us out again.’ Would you consider it or would it simply be ‘no’?

Alan Niven: “I would only consider it after very long conversations with Axl Rose. It would hinge on that entirely and I don’t know if leopards can change their spots. There’s more in life than money and I would hate to think I was doing something just for the buck and not for the spirit, sense of adventure and not for the fun of it. If it was mean spirited and no fun, I wouldn’t want to do it.”

BraveWords.com: After the band fired you, you went ahead and worked with Izzy, Slash and eventually ‘the project’ (which would become VELVET REVOLVER).

Alan Niven: “Let me clarify that as far as ‘the project’ is concerned. I came into L.A. with my daughter and we had a dinner with Slash and Duff. Duff looked across the table and said ‘how about it Niv?’ I was very flattered to be asked, but it seemed to me that it wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t like the prospect of everybody, but Axl being involved. I thought that would raise an unfair bar and unreasonable expectations

for everybody, so that was something I felt very very nervous about.”

BraveWords.com: Is that why, in the end, you think Velvet Revolver failed (because everybody expected it to be Guns N' Roses)?

Alan Niven: “I don’t think you can consider Velvet Revolver as a complete failure.”

BraveWords.com: But they did fail…

Alan Niven: “Yes, but they did have a number one and sold over a million copies and that’s respectable. That was better than SLASH’S SNAKEPIT, for example. I think the weakness in Velvet Revolver was the material and writing. In that respect, I was really nervous about Scott Weiland too. I’m not sure what he’s got to contribute as a writer…”

BraveWords.com: Did that pick as a singer baffle you? You go from Axl Rose who’s a troubled singer to a guy with a reported heroin addiction who walked out on his band. Did it make any sense to you?

Alan Niven: “I thought it was an unfortunate compromise to make. I felt that there was an aspect of marketing behind the idea that could have worked, but you have to look at the individuals themselves and when one of them is turning up semi-coherent at rehearsal with a ‘minder’ it’s quite obvious that they are still using. That’s another reason why I was less than thrilled at the idea of Velvet Revolver. The other thing was… that the heart of the soul of Guns N' Roses was Izzy and a lot of those songs work well because of his musical intelligence and his feel. He’s got a beautiful rock n’ roll sensibility about him that informed and influenced everybody’s writing and without Izzy being fully involved in Velvet Revolver I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. I’ll be blunt, I think Slash is one of the best guitar players that has ever lived. I love his soul. I love his note selection. I love the way he plays - but he’s not a great songwriter. Duff won’t appreciate me saying this, but on his own, Duff, is not a great songwriter - brilliant at bass parts and drum structure but not a great songwriter. You only have to look at his first solo album to note that. Guns N' Roses was an amazing collective and a chemistry that worked and any successful entity can be looked at with the analogy of the molecule. You can take out the smallest part of a molecule and that molecule will collapse and that’s Guns N' Roses.”

BraveWords.com: Did you listen to Chinese Democracy?

Alan Niven: “One of the people who has sought me out in recent years is a rabid Guns N' Roses fan who lives in Australia and who appears to have a normal respectable life, other than being a Guns N' Roses fan, but over the years I have found him interesting and engaging. He was extraordinarily adept at copying me on all the tracks that got leaked out on the web. I was pretty aware of Chinese Democracy a long time before it came out. There was so much stuff floating about. It wasn’t like Chinese Democracy was released and on that day I had the opportunity to decide whether or not I was going to sit through it and evaluate it. I was pretty aware of what it’s content was before it's release. Does that answer your question or does that bring up part two of the question – what did I think of it?”

BraveWords.com: “Well, yeah. Are you ‘allowed’ to say?

Alan Niven: “I thought it was complex and difficult to get through, but it was pretty Axl.”

BraveWords.com: For me, it was really more a question of is this what I waited fourteen years for? These songs could have been worked up in six months.

Alan Niven: “Here’s my pot shot about Chinese Democracy. Axl made two huge mistakes. One was releasing it and the other was Irving Azoff.”

BraveWords.com: Irving Azoff? Really? Why?

Alan Niven? “If I’d been in a responsible position to advise and counsel Axl, I would have done everything in my power to make sure that Chinese Democracy was something that people always talked about and wondered about, but never actually got to completely hear, that it would never be actually released. Recording went on for so long that there was no way in hell that the record he was putting together was going to meet expectations. The minute it was released Mitch it became just one more record. Before its release it was a myth. It was fascinating. People talked about it. People wanted to hear it. The third mistake was that he should have made sure to keep all his tapes and all his discs under his wing and under his lock and key, so, that there wouldn’t have been any leaks. Then he could have released the occasional track and he could have worked them 'live' for another ten years. That would have been more mysterious, more engaging, more fascinating…”

BraveWords.com: It has been said that the ‘anticipation is always greater than the get.’ That’s what Chinese Democracy was…

Alan Niven: “I would disagree. The "get" of my wife was much more than I could have anticipated.”

BraveWords.com: The Toronto Star interviewed me about Chinese Democracy’s release and my quote was that ‘Chinese Democracy – the myth would always be greater than the actual album’.

Alan Niven: “Absolutely and if Axl had gone out and toured when he needed to he could have played the occasional song from it live. There would have been a process there for him… the immediacy of performance really sharpens up a musical statement and releasing the whole album was a mistake. I think the release was done purely based on financial reasons. And Irving wanted to get it out of the way because he wanted the reunion. I doubt he was motivated to see it successful. He essentially got paid for it's release, not it's subsequent performance and the deal with Best Buy was set up that way. Going with Best Buy narrowed the market reach - Wal Mart would have been a better exclusive - they have a deeper reach into secondary and tertiary markets - but best of all would have been to let everyone have it. There is a sense that the deal was designed to maximize the immediate take - to grab that and run to the next point of agenda - a re-union. I don’t think Irving ever understood the unlikelihood of that reunion ever taking place and how deep feelings run.”

BraveWords.com: Irving has always been one to make things happen, to make reunions happen. Do you think there was an arrogance there that he would be able to make a reunion happen?

Alan Niven: “I couldn’t speak to whether Irving can be deemed arrogant, but I do suspect his middle name is Napoleon.”

BraveWords.com: When you were in the studio working on those songs – did you think ‘wow, we’ve got a seventeen million seller on our hands’ or do you think ‘well, we’ve got a few good songs here and hopefully we’ll do better on the second album.’

Alan Niven: “I’ll tell you what I thought and bare in mind that with Great White I was co-writer and producer. If you had said to me Mitch, you’ll be hearing Rock Me on the radio in twenty years. I would have said I want some of whatever you are taking Mitch. In that moment, I’m entirely into the music that is being recorded, the performance and invested in the moment and not looking forward because you cannot ever speculate who your audience is going to be or how long it’s going to be there and how deeply they are going to take you to heart. You have to concentrate on ‘is this song moving me’, ‘does it have a vitality’, ‘does it have a presence’, ‘does that guitar solo get me off’… That’s the only way you can create things that have longevity. So no, I didn’t anticipate hearing those songs on the radio today. I hear them throughout the week. Classic radio plays them all the time. With Guns N' Roses, I was very aware of what I was taking on. Tom Zutaut asked me three times separate times to come talk to the band and I turned him down twice. I had done some research on the band and my attitude towards Tom was ‘good luck. You’ve got a disaster on your hand with this crew’ and then he came to me and said ‘Alan, I’ve got a disaster on my hands. Eddie Rosenblatt is threatening to drop the band and I’m going to lose my job. I’ve got egg all over my face and this will be the end of my career. Please see if you can help.” I knew I was taking on something that was going to be very difficult. What I didn’t know at the time was that Eddie Rosenblatt had given Tom Zutaut a dictum that I had three months to turn the situation around and had to make it look professionally productive or the band was going to be dropped. That, Tom, did not tell me and my sense when the record was done was that they were not going to get airplay because they were too raw for what was on the airways at that time. It wasn’t that much before that that Great White were considered edgy and here’s Guns N' Roses. I thought that if I kept a minimalistic professional environment around the band… If I was able to keep them touring long enough around the first record then I thought there might be just a slight chance that they would reach the gold standard of 500 000 units sold. And that was a big ‘if’ to me. When we left on the first tour supporting THE CULT, those who knew the band all figured they wouldn’t last ten days on the road and they’d want to come home to be close to their dealers again. That was the perception that everybody had of GNR at the time and they’d earned that perception. Did I think it would be a huge album? It never crossed my mind. I thought they’d be hard work and only through hard work that we’d be able to move them through a quasi-underground state and slowly build them up. If anything, I had my eye on how METALLICA were developing and I thought ‘hmmm, if I can maybe keep this moving… maybe we’ll get lucky. We might be able to get this first record to gold and build from there. I had no idea it was going to explode like it did in 1988.”

BraveWords.com: When you heard the final product. Did you think ‘these are all great songs’ or was it a case of we have three good songs and we’ll see what happens’?

Alan Niven: “I thought we had a very consistent and very good record. I love to fuck with people when I hear them discussing Guns N' Roses; I’ll mumble under my breath, but loud enough for everybody to hear, ‘it’s an over-rated album’.”

BraveWords.com: You may have a point. The album is more myth at this point and let me tell you my experience with Appetite. I read in Metal Edge’s ‘Rock on The Rise’ section that Guns N' Roses was going to be the band that defines the ‘90s. So, I picked up the album and I hated it. I thought it was noise, but sometime later Sweet Child Of Mine was released as a video and then I saw the band open up for AEROSMITH in Saratoga Springs, NY. The band became ubiquitous and somehow got into my system and I was hooked. Now, I think the album is an absolute classic, but there was a time that I thought I had wasted my money and that it was terrible. I thought the singer ‘sucked’ and the songs were poorly written and weren’t that good…

Alan Niven: “Mitch, don’t feel bad about that because most of the industry and radio concurred. The majority of the industry and especially album radio agreed with you. Flip your mind back and remember how that raw intense record was set up in terms of its peer group at the time. You have Aerosmith making ear candy for John Kalodner. I love Aerosmith to death, but after the first three or so albums they got kind of lost… well, you know to me that’s Aerosmith.”

Alan Niven: “Let me be clear on a couple of points. That was a tremendous tour and I’m absolutely forever in debt and grateful for their hospitality on that tour and I really enjoyed my interaction with the band members on that tour. They were really really cool guys. They were all trying to be sober and Geffen had bullied GUNS N ROSES on to the bill. That was the only tour GNR could get on that they hadn’t screwed up or compromised. To get back to your question, Appetite was a very raw sounding record for that moment in time. That was deliberate. One of my responsibilities was to let the band be the band and to protect them from the John Kalodner and David Geffen mindset and to let them be who they were. One of the reasons Duff decided that I would be ok as a manager was because I had a SEX PISTOLS silver single on my wall from when I was working at Virgin. The one thing Mike Clink did brilliantly was record the band as they were.”

BraveWords.com: That’s the problem with Chinese Democracy. It’s been Pro-Tooled to death.

Alan Niven: “Pro-Tools is the devil and with Chinese Democracy there are so many guitar parts and players on there that it’s my understanding that the people who played on the album are not quite sure who played what. I always lived by the ‘don’t read your own press’ rule, but there was one Great White review that I do remember that said ‘this band’s studio album is more live than some band’s live record.’ And my response to that was ‘yes! That’s exactly the point.’

BraveWords.com: Which reminds me – Guns N' Roses Live Like A Suicide album was not recorded live. It’s a studio album with crowd noise mixed in, right?

Alan Niven: “Absolutely. It was done at Pasha. I mixed it with Hans Peter Huber.”

BraveWords.com: It’s hilarious to know that Axl’s doing all this stage banter on the album, but he was actually standing in a vocal booth in downtown L.A.”

Alan Niven: “It is hilarious and there’s even a funnier twist than that. I had done an independent EP with Great White, which was the platform to them getting their first record contract. I did an independent full album with them, Shot In The Dark. Berlin’s first record was an independent. MÖTLEY CRÜE’s first album was done independently… I had learned the point and purpose of doing an independent release to provide a platform for your first release on a major label, so with Live Like A Suicide it was put out as an indie record and there were 25,000 units of it pressed up. I told Eddie Rosenblatt that there can not be a single Geffen Records’ marking on it nor can there be a single Warner’s marking on it. It has to look like it’s a total indie release. But it wasn’t - the band was already signed to Geffen. And yet, I got to put out my ‘indie record’ of Guns N' Roses and nobody seemed to notice.”

BraveWords.com: It’s a total swindle (laughs)…

Alan Niven: “Yes, a total swindle. I’m fond of those tracks. There’s some good playing on those, but it’s a complete and utter rock n’ roll swindle!”

BraveWords.com: Final question – Do you have any anger left at Axl Rose or Jack Russell?

Alan Niven: “There was a time not so long ago, I would have willingly beaten the living crap out of Jack. Today, I’m really really worried about his health and I’m really concerned for his condition. With Axl, I’m simply disappointed. Not surprised, just disappointed. He seems to have gotten stuck in a time capsule. It seems like his muse still depends on anger and confrontation and he’s still going on about the cops, the promoters, the managers and everybody is ruining his life. I would have liked to see him develop. When he did Civil War, I thought he was going to become a statesman of rock n’ roll, but instead he became the court jester.”

BraveWords.com: At least he’s still in the palace…

Alan Niven: “He’s still in the palace and it’s his palace and everybody else just has to bend a knee in it.”

http://bravewords.com/features/industry-vet-alan-niven-working-with-guns-n-roses-great-white-in-exclusive-bravewords-com-interview

Edited December 13, 2017 by RONIN

[Blackstar]

10 hours ago, killuridols said:

That's probably because his reputation was that of a violent guy. By that time we didn't know of wife beating accussations but he had already been arrested many times for getting involved in fights, so probably Niven thought that kind of thing fitted Axl's character.

Yes, that kind of promotion was awful but you are saying this because you are a woman. I never knew of the dog incident back then and I'm sure I wouldn't have liked it. I didn't like bands like AC/DC or Ozzy back then, basically because of the things they were related to (devil worshipping, dark obscure shit) but I reckon I found them ugly because I was just a 12 years old snowflake.

I'm aware that older fans and more especifically, older male fans, loved that kind of shit and were into that so I dont think they would have found it odd or any different than what other bands of the moment were rumoured to be doing as well.

I was about 16 back then and I wouldn't call me a snowflake; I liked some dark and goth stuff among other things, but I wouldn't have liked that kind of thing. Yeah, many male fans liked it, but I think there was also a good portion of them that didn't.

Axl himself didn't like to be promoted in that way; he's been complaining about that "dog killing" story since 1987, lol. He certainly liked his macho "outlaw" image, in the early days at least, and bragged about getting in fights, having encounters with the cops and whatnot, but didn't want to come across as a metal dude of that sort. He hated that kind of 80s metal.

6 hours ago, RONIN said:

Interesting theory on Alan and Axl. I don't necessarily disagree with your thoughts here. Assuming your theory is correct, in your opinion, should the band have continued to keep Alan Niven on as a manager of the band? 

Even if Alan Niven truly detested Axl - that's imho just one facet to his complex relationship w/ Axl. He wasn't going to appease Axl's whims and let Axl run the show - that's really the core subtext behind the feud imho. Axl wanted control of the band and wanted to run it his way and Alan saw Axl as just 1/5 of GnR. It always seemed like a power struggle between those two and the contract renegotiation w/ Geffen gave Axl all the leverage he needed to dump Alan.

 

It's not easy to speculate how things would have developed with Niven remaining as manager, so I can't say if they should have continued with him (I can say though that Doug Goldstein should have never been manager). Probably it would have been better than with Doug Goldstein, but then again it could have been the other way around and Axl could have quit the band.

Axl wanted control of the band, yeah. As far as Niven goes, however, it's clear to me that it wasn't just that he saw Axl as 1/5 of the band; he didn't like Axl, and, like I said, he fed his insecurities. Imo there needed to be some balance in the way Axl was approached/treated by management; not being a yes man telling him he was the most or the only important one (like Goldstein did), but not putting him down either, like Niven did by handing him lyrics, being judgemental about his creative work and insensitive about his personal problems ("he forgot to take his meds today"), telling him "yet another thing you have failed at", etc.; moreover Niven comes across as a kinda authoritative type and that couldn't have worked well with Axl.

Quote

I didn't catch that bit about Arlett and Brynn possibly not liking each other but I suppose in a way that makes sense. A shame though. I always thought Brynn was an integral part of GnR's success during the glory days.  I remember vaguely an anecdote she shared about Axl during the chinese democracy days about how he thought Courtney Love had "bad vibes" and was disturbed by her recording near the Chinese Democracy sessions - Brynn seemed to suggest that Axl had some bizarre ability to sense things about people. Vibe sniffing? 

Yeah, I had that Courtney Love story in mind (and another one Bryn had shared about Axl's reaction on Kurt Cobain's death).

5 hours ago, RONIN said:

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah - I remember chuckling when I read that. There's some innuendo from Slash iirc that suggested Niven sort of secretly wanted to be a rockstar/musician and fancied himself as a sort of sixth member of the band. That intrusiveness seemed to be tolerated by the band since they found it oddly endearing (aside from Axl). On the flip side, there was a limit to the intrusiveness of a manager - it was extremely annoying for Slash (and co) when Doug Goldstein would tag along on band vacations/events and try to partake in their perks. Axl seemed to tolerate it. I guess everyone has limits but I could understand Axl's negative reaction to Niven's suggestions. As you said - the idea of it is a bit repulsive. I don't recall what Izzy's take on the situation was...will have to dig through the archives a bit...

Niven was a co-writer in Great White (and thought of himself as a good one ) and wanted to do the same with GnR. I think Slash did mind a bit, although not as much as Axl.

I don't think Izzy has said anything about that. There was an incident when Niven took initiative to mix Mr. Brownstone himself along with a member of Great White. He called the band to hear the mix and only Izzy showed up (and according to Niven he liked the mix). The rest of the band was pissed and Axl in particular was furious.

Doug Goldstein was with them all the time when he was bodyguard and road manager, and he continued to do so when he became manager. He was smart enough not to interfere in the creative department and that made Axl trust him.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Blackstar

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

@Blackstar Am I mistaken or did Izzy take on Niven as his manager after he left Guns? Might explain why he never said anything against him? Don’t know if I’m right about that though. 

[Tori72]

Just now, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

@Blackstar Am I mistaken or did Izzy take on Niven as his manager after he left Guns? Might explain why he never said anything against him? Don’t know if I’m right about that though. 

You are right. He did.

[KiraMPD]

11 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I don't think Izzy has said anything about that. There was an incident when Niven took initiative to mix Mr. Brownstone himself along with a member of Great White. He called the band to hear the mix and only Izzy showed up (and according to Niven he liked the mix). The rest of the band was pissed and Axl in particular was furious.

Interesting... iirc in the liner notes for the Ju Ju Hounds album Niven was credited for mixing and production for some of the songs.

[Blackstar]

7 hours ago, KiraMPD said:

Interesting... iirc in the liner notes for the Ju Ju Hounds album Niven was credited for mixing and production for some of the songs.

Yeah, Niven was credited as co-producer on one song and for mixing the album along with Izzy and Eddie Ashworth.

In the case of Mr. Brownstone they were pissed mostly because Niven had involved Great White.

[StrangerInThisTown]

1 hour ago, Blackstar said:

Yeah, Niven was credited as co-producer on one song and for mixing the album along with Izzy and Eddie Ashworth.

In the case of Mr. Brownstone they were pissed mostly because Niven had involved Great White.

Who was actually pissed? I've never heard of that. Slash and Duff were friendly with Jack, they hung out and even played him a song GW later recorded, jammed at shows with him etc. Only Axl had a beef with Jack, and it wasn't even Jack who was the mixer. Axl told Jack he thought his band was cool and then Jack made some dumb remark toward Axl and that's where that came from.

[Blackstar]

46 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Who was actually pissed? I've never heard of that. Slash and Duff were friendly with Jack, they hung out and even played him a song GW later recorded, jammed at shows with him etc. Only Axl had a beef with Jack, and it wasn't even Jack who was the mixer. Axl told Jack he thought his band was cool and then Jack made some dumb remark toward Axl and that's where that came from.

It must have been on either an Alan Niven interview or on an AFD tribute article. I'm trying to find it.

Slash said in his book that he (and the band) hated Great White.

[DieselDaisy]

According to Niven, Rose had a problem with Niven moonlighting for Great White. 

[The Holographic Universe]

26 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

According to Niven, Rose had a problem with Niven moonlighting for Great White. 

You fault Axl for a lot , but surely you can’t fault him for that. Alan Niven was a turd for not listening to the concerns of GNR about this issue.

[DieselDaisy]

3 minutes ago, The Holographic Universe said:

You fault Axl for a lot , but surely you can’t fault him for that. Alan Niven was a turd for not listening to the concerns of GNR about this issue.

I disagree. He was managing Great White before Guns. They shouldn't have hired him if they had a problem (with his managing of Great White). As far as I can tell he balanced the two very well. 

[The Holographic Universe]

22 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I disagree. He was managing Great White before Guns. They shouldn't have hired him if they had a problem (with his managing of Great White). As far as I can tell he balanced the two very well. 

That’s silly as fuck. The band didn’t hire him. Tom Zutant begged him to manage GNR because they were impossible. GNR has issue because great white is a band with no artistic integrity and GNR was the new zeppelin/stones. Peter grant surely wouldn’t manage a shit band with zeppelin on his hands. Niven likes he influence he had in Greta white. He was a silly fuck and dispatched as such.

[DieselDaisy]

3 hours ago, The Holographic Universe said:

GNR was the new zeppelin/stones.

Absolute cobblers.

3 hours ago, The Holographic Universe said:

great white is a band with no artistic integrity...a shit band

Subjective. 

 

[Blackstar]

According to Slash, at first they didn't know that Niven was managing Great White.

[StrangerInThisTown]

11 hours ago, The Holographic Universe said:

That’s silly as fuck. The band didn’t hire him. Tom Zutant begged him to manage GNR because they were impossible. GNR has issue because great white is a band with no artistic integrity and GNR was the new zeppelin/stones. Peter grant surely wouldn’t manage a shit band with zeppelin on his hands. Niven likes he influence he had in Greta white. He was a silly fuck and dispatched as such.

..and because being a new version of an older band has much more artistic integrity? This post is a contradiction if I ever saw one..rofl. Completely ridiculous. With your logic (that I dont agree with), GW were ripping off nobody while GNR was, which to be frank, is what "being the new stones" really means.

This is what happens when someone talks out of their ass - GW did the opposite of selling out..they went for the more bluesier GNR sound before AFD even came out. They deliberately choose artistic integrity over commercialism in 1987 with their 3rd album unlike many other bands that went the pop metal route, and you really believe GNR had an issue with Jack because of what they produced musically? Hilarious..they didn't care about that. In fact Axl thought the band was cool before the fallout with jack.

They had issues with the guys in the band (Axls encounter with Jack, and apparently Slash didn't like Jack either, even though he and Duff hung out with him sometimes and even jammed with him, showed him songs, paradox life of a drug addict). They didn't care how GWs music was, they hated Jack, and that Niven was managing him alongside GNR ticked them off. Everything else is bullshit. And GW being a shit band isn't even right for fucks sake, many bands from that era would kill to write songs as good as Congo Square or release albums such as Hooked or Psycho City. GW was 2nd to none in the genre in terms of quality and sound, and they choose that sound before GNR even became known.

Edited December 16, 2017 by StrangerInThisTown

[The Holographic Universe]

1 hour ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

..and because being a new version of an older band has much more artistic integrity? This post is a contradiction if I ever saw one..rofl. Completely ridiculous. With your logic (that I dont agree with), GW were ripping off nobody while GNR was, which to be frank, is what "being the new stones" really means.

This is what happens when someone talks out of their ass - GW did the opposite of selling out..they went for the more bluesier GNR sound before AFD even came out. They deliberately choose artistic integrity over commercialism in 1987 with their 3rd album unlike many other bands that went the pop metal route, and you really believe GNR had an issue with Jack because of what they produced musically? Hilarious..they didn't care about that. In fact Axl thought the band was cool before the fallout with jack.

They had issues with the guys in the band (Axls encounter with Jack, and apparently Slash didn't like Jack either, even though he and Duff hung out with him sometimes and even jammed with him, showed him songs, paradox life of a drug addict). They didn't care how GWs music was, they hated Jack, and that Niven was managing him alongside GNR ticked them off. Everything else is bullshit. And GW being a shit band isn't even right for fucks sake, many bands from that era would kill to write songs as good as Congo Square or release albums such as Hooked or Psycho City. GW was 2nd to none in the genre in terms of quality and sound, and they choose that sound before GNR even became known.

Pfftttt

[ludurigan]

On 11/12/2017 at 6:18 AM, Lio said:

I'm still baffled at the posters thinking he'd be able to pull the NITL tour off. Has he ever in his life been able to pull a thing like that off?

 

obviously not, since freddy mercury was the drummer for guns n roses 1986-1990

[Live Like a Suicide]

On 12/13/2017 at 5:11 AM, Top-Hatted One said:

Yea she's a life long publicist you bet she's smart and chooses her words wisely

Yep. She would be used to this type of shit. It was a part of her job, lol.

[Lio]

7 hours ago, ludurigan said:

obviously not, since freddy mercury was the drummer for guns n roses 1986-1990

You forgot 

I wasn't aware of a two year long world tour of 3+ hours shows without any hiccups between 1986 and 1990.

[BorderlineCrazy]

7 hours ago, Lio said:

You forgot 

I wasn't aware of a two year long world tour of 3+ hours shows without any hiccups between 1986 and 1990.

How many two year long world tours of 3+ hours shows without any hiccups did Axl pull off between 1986 and 2015?

Yeah, that's what I thought...

[Lio]

18 minutes ago, BorderlineCrazy said:

How many two year long world tours of 3+ hours shows without any hiccups did Axl pull off between 1986 and 2015?

Yeah, that's what I thought...

Ha, that wasn't my point though. (I'm sure most of us were surprised by the drama free tour.) I said it baffled me people still think Adler could pull that off, and asked if he has ever been able to pull that off. Ludurigan talked about 1986-90, hence my comment.

I still stand by my original point. When literally everyone has said or implied Steven couldn't do it, except for Steven himself, it seems a bit optimistic of fans to assume that he can pull it off.

As a sidenote, something else that struck me in this interview that wasn't about GNR. The interviewer said how Scott Weiland was offered drugs on some party or event just two weeks before he died, while everyone knew he was trying to recover. So awful it makes me mad. How despicable can you be? It made me realize ex-junkies and recovering alcoholics must have an iron will and/or a really good entourage that prevents them from being lured back into that negative spiral again. It sure can't be easy for them out on tour.