"I've always loved touring": Uncirculated Izzy Stradlin 1993 Interview [The Tapes Archive podcast]

[ludurigan]

On 26/02/2020 at 10:45 AM, soon said:

Maybe Izzy would tour if he had management and financial backing from a legit promoter? Also maybe a song thats popping online?

He has spoken about why he took the stage with Nu Guns, saying that he wanted to 'get that feeling' of being in front of a huge audience. But of course he wouldnt be playing for large audiences if he toured starting today. So perhaps he's just not as keen on a Gilby Clarke style tour of small town pool halls? Izzy did a mini tour of Japan in the aughts, right? And aint that where passe rock acts are still big? "Big in Japan."

Izzy seems like a pragmatic business person who is concerned about the bottom line. He was, after all, an entrepreneur prior to Guns. So maybe a tour that would please him and be financially viable just isnt in the cards?

For example, on the AFD Show Ashhurst spoke about the abrupt ending of Ju Ju Hounds touring. He mentioned that Izzy was using his own money to fund the tour. And Ashhurst remarked something along the lines of 'thats not so fun after a while.' (heavily paraphrased. havent listened to that interview in ages).

So having watched Izzy join twitter and capitalize on the Guns reunion hype by releasing 2 new singles, one featuring Sorum, it leads me to suspect that Izzy would love to have a song chart, a promoter foot the bill and tour theatres in a nice bus.

 

you make very good points and i believe the reasons you give pretty much explain why izzy hasn't toured for so long

i would add that Izzy probably doesn't need to, since he must have made enough money to be secure financially for "this lifetime". he must have made good money while on GN'R and also after GN'R thanks to much-deserved royalties that never stopped coming. i heard that appetite sold 100 thousand copies every month in the planet about 10 years ago. this may have slowed down considerably on the last decade, and these days they are likely much smaller -- slash has complained about that recently on an interview -- but still there must be some money coming in every month there

I may be wrong about this but I feel like someone like Gilby, on contrary, probably needs to do those small tours to make whatever little money he can on them and mostly to keep his name alive "out there" so he can keep on doing other things that give him actual money like 1) producing bands, 2) get invited to do good-paying gigs like the Heart Tour, the Kings of Chaos gigs etc

Oh, and I just think that if Izzy wanted to "capitalize" on the fake reunion tour he would have joined that shitty circus for whatever little loot and shitty conditions "axel", slash and the financial expert bass player were offering him

I really think those songs he released were way more a "fuck you" to axel & the co-owners than anything

Edited February 29, 2020 by ludurigan

[ludurigan]

On 26/02/2020 at 1:40 PM, downliner said:

Thanks for sharing ludurigan, really cool hearing this The JJH album is a classic, will always be a favourite of mine so its nice to hear Izzy talking about how he came up with some of the songs

yeah i also had a blast listening to him talking about that! i am not a native english speaker so for me it is really hard to get the meaning of some songs if they are not really explicit like, say, in a Dee Dee song. 

[ludurigan]

On 27/02/2020 at 4:13 AM, Sydney Fan said:

Thats interesting because from what info is around, it was izzy who helped structure coma....without izzys way of putting the song together would it have made it onto the record......

izzy helped slash to write and structure locomotive, i think you must have confused that with coma, which by all acounts izzy had very little to zero input on

[ludurigan]

On 26/02/2020 at 10:45 AM, soon said:

So perhaps he's just not as keen on a Gilby Clarke style tour of small town pool halls?

 

Just found an interesting Gilby quote about touring these days

He gave that quote during his recent "Appetite For Distortion" interview, it is on the 41m45s mark, it should start automatically as you press play 

 

 

[Sydney Fan]

7 hours ago, ludurigan said:

izzy helped slash to write and structure locomotive, i think you must have confused that with coma, which by all acounts izzy had very little to zero input on

Nope it was definetly coma. I remember seeing a video from a sorum interview that was on youtube, since taken down, where sorum tells although slash arranged it was also with izzy. 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Sydney Fan

[Powderfinger]

On 2020-02-26 at 9:54 PM, SoulMonster said:

Because I have read what Slash has said.

I’d like to read what Izzy might say about Slash. 

[zigzagbigbag]

Really, the interview is pure gold. 

[ludurigan]

12 hours ago, Sydney Fan said:

Nope it was definetly coma. I remember seeing a video from a sorum interview that was on youtube, since taken down, where sorum tells although slash arranged it was also with izzy. 

well that's new info, i would love to see that interview to get a confirmation. is it from the illusion era or more recent?

[bikka]

On 27.02.2020 at 6:58 AM, ludurigan said:

 

apparently he has actually another uncirculated izzy interview

should we ask him about it?

 

Do you mean the one they talked about? Yeah, if he's really done a longer one, I'd love to hear it...

[bikka]

10 hours ago, Powderfinger said:

I’d like to read what Izzy might say about Slash. 

Quote

Slash has accused you of turning in sloppily made demo tapes.

"That's not Slash talking. That's Axl talking and Slash repeating it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t570-1992-11-dd-musician-interview-with-izzy

Kinda sums it up for me...

[Blackstar]

I haven't found any other Izzy interview in the Indianapolis Star in the next few years (I suppose the other interview would have been for that newspaper, as was this one). So it's likely that it never happened. Shortly after this interview Izzy canceled the remaining Ju Ju Hounds shows and didn't go public for a few years.

[ludurigan]

37 minutes ago, bikka said:

Do you mean the one they talked about? Yeah, if he's really done a longer one, I'd love to hear it...

no, he said he never did that one.

he said to me in private email conversation that he has one other izzy interview that he did while izzy was on a tour bus.

he also said that he probably wouldn't publish that one because 1) he doesn't even know if he has kept the audio tape of that interview and 2) even if he has kept, he thinks the audio is too poor

my suggestion to you or anyone interested in listening to that one is go to the youtube page and ask him something like "hey have you ever done any other interview with izzy and do you plan to make it available"

i guess if enough people ask him about it then he may feel that it is worthy digging the interview, cleaning its sound and making it available for us

what do you think? 

22 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

I haven't found any other Izzy interview in the Indianapolis Star in the next few years (I suppose the other interview would have been for that newspaper, as was this one). So it's likely that it never happened. Shortly after this interview Izzy canceled the remaining Ju Ju Hounds shows and didn't go public for a few years.

wow thanks for doing that research

the a4d database that you guys are creating is increasingly becoming a go-to place for all things guns n roses, it's fantastic!

anyway, he said to me in private email conversation that he has one other izzy interview that he did while izzy was on a tour bus.

maybe he never used it to do another story at the paper for whatever reason, I am sure you know this happens a lot in journalism

he also said to me that he probably wouldn't publish that one because 1) he doesn't even know if he has kept the audio tape of that interview and 2) even if he has kept, he thinks the audio is too poor

my suggestion to you or anyone interested in listening to that one is go to the youtube page and ask him something like "hey have you ever done any other interview with izzy and do you plan to make it available"

i guess if enough people ask him about it then he may feel that it is worthy digging the interview, cleaning its sound and making it available for us

what do you think?

Edited February 29, 2020 by ludurigan

[ludurigan]

15 minutes ago, bikka said:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t570-1992-11-dd-musician-interview-with-izzy

Kinda sums it up for me...

e-fucking-xactly!

 

[lame ass security]

24 minutes ago, bikka said:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t570-1992-11-dd-musician-interview-with-izzy

Kinda sums it up for me...

Good article, loved what Johnny Thunders told Axl.😄

[Blackstar]

18 minutes ago, bikka said:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t570-1992-11-dd-musician-interview-with-izzy

Kinda sums it up for me...

I think Slash said too many things about Izzy (a lot of which didn't even have anything to do with whatever Axl had accused Izzy of but were Slash's own complaints, e.g. the rehearsals) to be considered that he was just "echoing" Axl.

Izzy and Slash had a meeting (to discuss the "logistics" of Izzy's departure) and talked to each other shortly before Izzy did those promo interviews for the Ju Ju Hounds album, and they had kind of reconciled on a human level, whereas Axl still wouldn't talk to Izzy, and in my opinion Izzy's sentiment for that was reflected in those interviews.  

14 minutes ago, ludurigan said:

he said to me in private email conversation that he has one other izzy interview that he did while izzy was on a tour bus.

Did he by any chance mention if that other Izzy interview was before or after this one?

[ludurigan]

6 hours ago, Blackstar said:

Did he by any chance mention if that other Izzy interview was before or after this one?

no, and since you didn't find anything on izzy on his paper after the Feb 1993 story, I would say it is likely he did the interview before this one, maybe during GN'R days

bu who knows

it could have been later in 1993, maybe when izzy rejoined GN'R and that was somewhat big news and worthy talking to him again?

i am sure you can ask this and any other thing directly to him on the youtube page, he is very accessible and he answers pretty much everyone who posts a comment there

[soon]

On February 28, 2020 at 8:57 PM, ludurigan said:

you make very good points and i believe the reasons you give pretty much explain why izzy hasn't toured for so long

i would add that Izzy probably doesn't need to, since he must have made enough money to be secure financially for "this lifetime". he must have made good money while on GN'R and also after GN'R thanks to much-deserved royalties that never stopped coming. i heard that appetite sold 100 thousand copies every month in the planet about 10 years ago. this may have slowed down considerably on the last decade, and these days they are likely much smaller -- slash has complained about that recently on an interview -- but still there must be some money coming in every month there

I may be wrong about this but I feel like someone like Gilby, on contrary, probably needs to do those small tours to make whatever little money he can on them and mostly to keep his name alive "out there" so he can keep on doing other things that give him actual money like 1) producing bands, 2) get invited to do good-paying gigs like the Heart Tour, the Kings of Chaos gigs etc

Oh, and I just think that if Izzy wanted to "capitalize" on the fake reunion tour he would have joined that shitty circus for whatever little loot and shitty conditions "axel", slash and the financial expert bass player were offering him

I really think those songs he released were way more a "fuck you" to axel & the co-owners than anything

I think its possible that of the monies generated during the UYI era, Izzy may have fared the best by just cashing in before Axl emptied the coffers. No way to know for sure, but he's definitely set for life including the AFD royalties as you point out.

I bet you are right about Gilby needing to keep in the public eye. I think the shows are out of a love for rock and also to keep his name in the game for the reasons you say.

Tough to say what his intentions were with releasing those tracks. Tough to say why he deletes tweets! lol In my heart I believe that he wanted the songs to get as many ears as possible. And it seems clear he was itching to tour since he stated the reason he wasnt involved was "the loot." But at the same time he's not really the effusive type and 'played it cool' to see how it went with those songs. I dunno.

[soon]

On February 29, 2020 at 12:48 AM, ludurigan said:

 

Just found an interesting Gilby quote about touring these days

He gave that quote during his recent "Appetite For Distortion" interview, it is on the 41m45s mark, it should start automatically as you press play 

 

 

Thanks for this. Great interview. It sounds like he's saying both that he needs to see if theres any demand, plus he's not into grinding it out the way he did when he was younger. I saw him once and Im fairly certain that me and my friend were the only people in attendance who werent regulars at that bar. Like they would have all been there that night even if there was no concert. About 15-30 people.

I think you live in Latin America? (although I cant recall why i think that, lol). Ive seen some videos of Gilby playing solo shows to some rather large crowds there. I wonder if he still has some places were he draws a serious audience? 

He talked about biking around and booking shows based around where he bikes. So, how does the equipment even get around I wonder?

[Izzymacbeth]

I haven't heard it yet, but what's the Aerosmith Pump thing?

cheers

[lame ass security]

6 hours ago, soon said:

Thanks for this. Great interview. It sounds like he's saying both that he needs to see if theres any demand, plus he's not into grinding it out the way he did when he was younger. I saw him once and Im fairly certain that me and my friend were the only people in attendance who werent regulars at that bar. Like they would have all been there that night even if there was no concert. About 15-30 people.

I think you live in Latin America? (although I cant recall why i think that, lol). Ive seen some videos of Gilby playing solo shows to some rather large crowds there. I wonder if he still has some places were he draws a serious audience? 

He talked about biking around and booking shows based around where he bikes. So, how does the equipment even get around I wonder?

Damn, that was great for you to see Gilby in a bar like that but had to be a bit disheartening for him.  Did you get to talk to him?

[soon]

39 minutes ago, lame ass security said:

Damn, that was great for you to see Gilby in a bar like that but had to be a bit disheartening for him.  Did you get to talk to him?

Yeah it was so fun! And loud!!

I didnt get to talk to him. I dont think that even crossed my mind, I really should have.

You know, he seemed completely content and at home with the turn out and venue. They did an encore and everything. This was in a small town that was close to many larger cities, so he must have chosen that, I guess?

I kinda had to convince my friend to go and they were just standing there, arms crossed and disengaged during the start of the show. And we were in the front row, right in front of Gilby. Between one of the first songs, Glibly handed them a guitar pick with his signature printed on it and gave them a big smile. It was very sweet and he complete won my friend over. We had a blast!

[ludurigan]

20 hours ago, soon said:

Thanks for this. Great interview. It sounds like he's saying both that he needs to see if theres any demand, plus he's not into grinding it out the way he did when he was younger. I saw him once and Im fairly certain that me and my friend were the only people in attendance who werent regulars at that bar. Like they would have all been there that night even if there was no concert. About 15-30 people.

I think you live in Latin America? (although I cant recall why i think that, lol). Ive seen some videos of Gilby playing solo shows to some rather large crowds there. I wonder if he still has some places were he draws a serious audience? 

He talked about biking around and booking shows based around where he bikes. So, how does the equipment even get around I wonder?

yeah, i have seen some youtube video the other day with 30 people watching gilby. he gave a good show nonetheless so good for him

i suppose he has a bit more decent following in argentina and chile

about the equipment, my guess is that someone brings the equipment on the car right behind motorbikin' gilby?

[ludurigan]

20 hours ago, soon said:

 

Tough to say what his intentions were with releasing those tracks. Tough to say why he deletes tweets! lol In my heart I believe that he wanted the songs to get as many ears as possible. And it seems clear he was itching to tour since he stated the reason he wasnt involved was "the loot." But at the same time he's not really the effusive type and 'played it cool' to see how it went with those songs. I dunno.

 

oh sure i agree, i am pretty sure he does want his songs to reach as many people as possible

why he deletes tweets? Probably it has to do with wanting to be as free from things that can haunt him in the future -- or that have the potential to bother him in the future -- as humanly possible. have you seen how many people -- celebs, politicians etc -- get "caught" because of things they say in the past? izzy is likely very aware of that and doesn't want people asking him about a tweet that he wrote years ago. if you ask me, he is being more clever than the rest of mankind.

also, the only concrete reason i can think of for the twitter account was to answer the lies of axel and the blonde financial expert on that interview for brazilian TV. they just fucking lied on TV and izzy didn't want to leave that garbage unanswered.

funny thing is that no one has ever denied the loot reason that izzy gave on twitter

the only answer to that has come now in some of the blonde new york times best-selling author interviews where he repeats the same bullshit

"Touring and a a big rock band is not for everybody", says the blonde king of yoga

"You have to train like a pro athlete. You gotta have the mindset, you gotta have the fighter’s mindset", and "I guess he just didn’t want to tour this big and for so long", says the blonde kickboxing enthusiast here

I mean, seriously... Pro athlete? Has the blonde bass player ever looked in front of him and checked how much like a pro athlete does the owner of his band look like?

the touring excuse again... and when confronted about what izzy said about money, the blonde seattle man just says "oh, i don't know about that"

that's the joke of the century

besides, you have to be a fighter to tour when you are no one and your band is unknown and you have to travel your own car and book your own show and carry your equipments and play to people that don't know you and your songs

this circus fake reunion tour is the easiest fucking tour in the rock n' roll business

so congrats to the blonde martial arts enthusiast for telling us "the truth"

i am sure izzy would be in GN'R if they have treated him right, which basically means getting back his place (bye bye ricky boy) and getting the same loot as the other guys

i am pretty sure ricky boy didn't want to leave. i have stated here countless times that that would have been the decent thing to do -- specially after ricky boy led a dream life for 10-plus years thanks to the songs written by izzy and the other guys

that's the least the guy could have done

but as they say in my country, "you know that guy who you never expected anything good to come from him, so, yeah, that's exactly what happened"

===

i am not sure izzy wants that bad to promote his songs. if he wanted that he would have reached for his money years ago to hire a top producer for one of his albums and done a killer video for, say, sweet caress

there hasn't been one person -- specially women -- who hasn't asked me "who is singing that" every time i play that song.

it doesn't fail

that's a hit single right there

and izzy has a few more of them

16 hours ago, Izzymacbeth said:

I haven't heard it yet, but what's the Aerosmith Pump thing?

cheers

he introduced some drum music to steven tyler and steven tyler used that on one of the songs

[soon]

9 hours ago, ludurigan said:

why he deletes tweets? Probably it has to do with wanting to be as free from things that can haunt him in the future -- or that have the potential to bother him in the future -- as humanly possible. have you seen how many people -- celebs, politicians etc -- get "caught" because of things they say in the past? izzy is likely very aware of that and doesn't want people asking him about a tweet that he wrote years ago. if you ask me, he is being more clever than the rest of mankind.

True. And you've reminded me of the story when Axl and Izzy met and Izzy says Axl had a notebook with him and was listing things Izzy did and said, going back years. That alone might make someone prone to delete their tweets!

9 hours ago, ludurigan said:

also, the only concrete reason i can think of for the twitter account was to answer the lies of axel and the blonde financial expert on that interview for brazilian TV. they just fucking lied on TV and izzy didn't want to leave that garbage unanswered.

funny thing is that no one has ever denied the loot reason that izzy gave on twitter

the only answer to that has come now in some of the blonde new york times best-selling author interviews where he repeats the same bullshit

"Touring and a a big rock band is not for everybody", says the blonde king of yoga

"You have to train like a pro athlete. You gotta have the mindset, you gotta have the fighter’s mindset", and "I guess he just didn’t want to tour this big and for so long", says the blonde kickboxing enthusiast here

I mean, seriously... Pro athlete? Has the blonde bass player ever looked in front of him and checked how much like a pro athlete does the owner of his band look like?

the touring excuse again... and when confronted about what izzy said about money, the blonde seattle man just says "oh, i don't know about that"

that's the joke of the century

Izzy was definitely pissed and taken by surprise. Id think it takes a lot for someone like Izzy to join twitter and correct that claim!

And again with some of these Duff quotes I note the most subtlest, passive aggressive, undermining of Izzys sobriety. Its just a hunch I get sometimes and couldnt prove. Almost like Duff is calling him a 'sober drunk.'

9 hours ago, ludurigan said:

i am not sure izzy wants that bad to promote his songs. if he wanted that he would have reached for his money years ago to hire a top producer for one of his albums and done a killer video for, say, sweet caress

there hasn't been one person -- specially women -- who hasn't asked me "who is singing that" every time i play that song.

it doesn't fail

that's a hit single right there

and izzy has a few more of them

FP Money couldve done well if promoted. But Matts playing on it is not Matts best imho. Izzy even emailed Rolling Stones like general use phone line and left a message to talk. And when RS finally found the answering machine message Izzy left they reached out to him for an interview. Iirc they never heard back from Izzy!  Headline would've been "Izzys back, and he's dishing on Guns. New single featuring Matt Sorum on drums, out now!" That would move some units!

Instead they made this cartoon to try and get some mileage out of their 'Izzy sighting.' I cant seem to find it online now. Im certain you know the one Im talking about. They just animated Izzy leaving the actual phone message.

 

 

[Blackstar]

Izzy had joined twitter before that. He created the account in early 2016, to address the speculation about whether he would be part of the reunion or not. Many people thought that the account was fake. Then Izzy confirmed it was really his account to Rolling Stone in March 2016, also confirming that he wouldn't be part of the reunion.

------------

Speaking of uncirculated Izzy interviews, there are a few here that most of you probably haven't read before, as well as many other GnR articles and interviews that haven't been circulating online (in addition to the known ones):

https://www.a-4-d.com/t2861-interview-and-article-index

(Click on the date of each article to read it)

This one is the most recently added Izzy interview (we added it today) from a German magazine in 1989:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4501-1989-09-dd-metal-hammer-germany-revolution-calling-izzy

Edited March 2, 2020 by Blackstar