Original subtitles

In

the late 1980s, a groundbreaking group of L.A.

musicians took the music scene by storm, winning over thousands of rockers worldwide.

We're just a rock and roll band now on the road.

Fueled by increasing supplies of drink and drugs, their bad boy antics and acts of

public indecency made headlines everywhere.

In turn, creating one of the most outrageous rock acts of all time.

The band's reputation isn't the only notorious factor.

Tensions, feuds, lawsuits and eventual departures within

have left only one original member still standing.

But has this Indiana country boy got what it takes to carry

the mantle of one of the most outrageous bands of the 80s?

Los Angeles is an interesting city.

Most of the people here are from somewhere else.

People who live in L.A.

even if you're not in a band, everybody in L.A.

thinks they're in a band and acts like they're in a band, right?

So when you're talking about the music scene,

people gravitated here from all over the world.

When in the 80s, there was a huge scene up here on Sunset Boulevard.

People were being discovered.

People were becoming famous.

People were making albums.

L.A.

was very, very happening.

Everybody that was going out in a music scene and it was just live bands was,

you know, at the smaller clubs was the place to go.

There was Melrose Street and there was Sunset Boulevard.

People would go to the clubs and not go inside.

The whiskey in the 80s was more fun on the sidewalk than inside.

You come out of the rocks, you know, there's whiskey in the people all up and

down Sunset Boulevard, just walking back and forth.

And you would go up to the Sunset Boulevard not necessarily to go into a

club, but just to hang out on the sidewalk.

This street used to be crowded.

It was almost like wall-to-wall people on the sidewalk.

It was a big place to hang out for all the rockers.

It was a very local scene.

I mean, if you, if you knew people, you just saw the same people over and over.

And it wasn't a big deal.

It was just, they were just, they were the same as you were.

The music scene has always been huge in L .A.

attracting musicians and groups from across the country.

So why did it become the rock capital of the world?

Before Guns N' Roses, it was more of a post-punk rock scene.

It was after the punk rock came out, the sex pistols and all that.

And then the punk scene here got really big.

And then after that it followed with kind of post-punk, which was still more punk,

but more slightly different.

And the metal scene was kind of like old at the time.

It was all the old hippies with the long hair and the bell bottoms.

And they were all obsolete and old.

And heavy metal wasn't what it was back in the Led Zeppelin days.

It had gotten stale.

And the kids nowadays were more into punk and

they were going into the after-hours clubs.

And then right about the time Guns N' Roses

came out is when the metal revival came back.

L.A.

also has a history, a legendary history of bands that started here.

Legendary clubs that everybody knows about all over the world.

You've got the whiskey, you've got the rocks, you've got the troubadour,

you've got the rainbow, now you've got the wiper room and the gig.

But you know, people know about this.

They've read about it through history.

And that's why there's a draw to L.A.

L.A.

has always had a draw ever since the movie industry started here.

And people came here to chase for a dream.

Well, musicians do the same.

Most musicians that come here and try to make

it, find it to be pretty difficult nowadays.

It was much different during Guns N' Roses days.

Izzy Stratton was born Geoffrey Isbell in 1962 in

the small religious town of Lafayette, Indiana.

Fully aware of the low prospects and social limitations of his hometown,

after graduating college, Izzy decided a radical change

of scene was needed if he wasn't to end up stranded.

Tempted by the bright lights of L.A., this one time country lad packed his bags

and headed straight for the capital of rock and roll.

Izzy over and over in almost any interview I've

ever read keeps saying, right down Indiana sucks.

Apparently he didn't enjoy it there.

It was here in L.A.

The 18-year-old Stratton met two friends and fellow wannabe rock stars,

Tracy Ulrich, better known as Tracy Guns, and

Christopher Weber, both students at Fairfax High School.

They too had seen L.A.

as a place to realise their dreams of fame and fortune, and like many other rock fans

were drawn to L.A.'s infamous sunset strip.

It was now the famous rainbow bar and grill where the three used to meet for

nights of drinking and debauchery, eventually hooking up with another

hometown boy, Billy, otherwise known as Axel Rose.

Axel was a clever guy, but his childhood was not an easy one.

Brought up in a Pentecostal family, he was suffocated by

small-town life and the strict upbringing of the church.

So, quick on the heels of his old friend Izzy, he too

jumped on a Greyhound bus and headed for the lights of L.A.

Axel and Izzy came from Indiana to L.A.

to be in bands, actually.

As did the other players, only one was an L.A.

native and I believe that was Steven.

Slash was born Saul Hudson in Stoke-on-Trent, England in 1965.

He had a totally different upbringing to many of his band members to be.

He lived on both sides of the Atlantic, Stoke-on-Trent, and Laurel Canyon,

L.A.

At the age of 14, he literally bumped into fellow student Steve Alder of Bankcroft,

Jr. High School.

The pair hit it off after what had been reported as a rather impressive skateboard

crash, and after finding a musical link, the pair began to jam together,

in turn forming their own band called Road Crew.

L.A.

is a musical mecca, full of wannabe rock stars and music industry shakers.

Bernard Bauer has been covering the L.A.

scene for over 12 years.

Music Connection was always involved with the scene here in Los Angeles.

The magazine did play a part in the formation of the band.

Slash met Duff through Music Connection.

They have ads for musicians to hook up.

That's why it's called Music Connection.

And he met Duff through there.

Slash was already in a band with Steven.

I think it was called a Road Crew or something like that.

And so they hooked up there.

Izzy and Axel were always a team.

They were friends from childhood on.

They both grew up in Indiana, so they worked together.

Axel and Izzy were in a couple of bands I don't

recall the name of, but eventually joined L.A.

Guns with Tracy Gunn.

After that, the story gets a little conflicting.

Vicki Hamilton, who was one of the first people to notice Guns N' Roses and be

their head cheerleader and pseudo manager and house mother.

She had the boys live with her.

Tells one story about how the two sides got together, whereas Slash tells another.

Slash's story is that he was out in the clubs.

He saw Axel and he knew we had to play with him.

Apparently there was a little bit of a problem there because Axel wanted Izzy to

and Slash didn't want another guitarist, but I guess they worked it out.

Vicki's story is that she introduced them and that she knew all the bands,

and it's possible that she did because Vicki Hamilton was a promoter and a booker

at various floods, and so she knew a lot of the bands.

And in fact, during that period of time, she was involved

with probably three of the biggest bands of that era.

Guns N' Roses, Poison, and Fast Replicac, and in one aspect or another.

And so it's possible that Vicki's story is true.

It certainly sounds credible, but sort of

splashes, so I'm not sure what the truth is there.

But the band that Slash saw Axel in was L .A.

Guns, in which Izzy had joined as well.

What essentially ended up being Guns N' Roses were two bands, L.A.

Guns and Hollywood Rose.

Those became Guns N' Roses.

And eventually they just hooked all up together.

They claimed because they were the only people as

crazy in as wild as they were that they could find.

A lot evolved during that period of time.

Fans got together and broke up within two weeks.

I mean, it was amazing.

There were players bouncing from one band to another until they found the right

dynamic and the right chemistry, whatever it is they were looking for.

With the band finally formed, their next challenge was to get their music played in

one of the happening clubs that dominated the L.A.

scene at the time.

In Los Angeles, up and coming are young bands.

Play places like The Troubadour and The Wispy and Club 88 in Santa Monica.

And it's an odd sort of a thing because at The Troubadour every Tuesday you bring in

a tape at 10 o'clock in the morning and the owner sits down and listens to your tape.

And if he likes your tape, then he puts you on Monday night at 8 o'clock.

His bookers would have booked him on a Monday or a Tuesday, then they moved to a

Wednesday, then it got Thursday night, which was very cool.

And then when you're bringing in and you can

fill the club, you get Friday and Saturday.

The first time I saw Guns and Roses was at The Troubadour on a Tuesday night.

So the L.A.

scene has a lot of opportunities for young rock and roll bands, and they have these

sort of showcase clubs, and there are lots and lots of them.

Before, people would put posters on telephone poles and trees and stuff all

over town, but then the city outlawed that.

But then they were fliering and everyone would fly.

And I realized this was when Pay-to-Play started at the same time.

And everyone criticized Pay-to-Play.

The Pay-to-Play was the band had to buy tickets if they wanted to play the show.

They had to buy the tickets in advance.

And everybody criticized that.

Yeah, that was one of the things that really because it made the band's work.

And it made the band's promote.

And all of a sudden, the band has 50 tickets at $10 apiece.

That's $500.

Now, if they want to get their $500 back, they got to sell those tickets.

And where do they sell those tickets on the Sunset Strip?

So everyone went to the Sunset Strip every Friday and Saturday night, and they sold

all their tickets to all the fans right there on the sidewalk.

So how do you get to play in L.A.?

Your fan base.

Creates a situation for you.

So if your clever or unique are interesting, your first exposure is via a

cassette, and your second exposure is your fan base and those little tickets that

have your name on them that go in the little box at the showcase class.

Remember back in the 80s and the early days when Guns N' Roses first came out?

And you could see them.

You could basically go to a club or you just had to be in the know.

I mean, if you were going out a lot and you were in the scene, and there would be

rumors going around that, you know, Sunset

would be jamming at this concert or whatever.

And you could show up and you could see slash, you know, playing with warrant.

Or you could see, you know, I remember seeing Michael Monroe

jam with Guns N' Roses at one of the gigs that we went to.

So you could pretty much, you know, know where they were going to be.

And they were just everywhere.

They were all around town.

They started building the following.

And every show they played, they would build the following.

And more people would hear about how good they were and come.

So every show would have more people than the next.

And that's how people do it.

But Guns N' Roses played Northern Showcase clubs.

They played parties.

They played living rooms.

They played non-parties.

They didn't have places to rehearse early in the game.

So they rehearsed in people's living rooms, in people's

backyards, just in pop to concerts, if you will.

And their hardcore group of fan base was there.

It was their living rooms that they were playing in.

And their backyards that they were playing in.

And they weren't even parties.

They were rehearsals.

Because they couldn't afford rehearsal space.

They couldn't afford studio time.

Guns N' Roses was part of the scene.

They were integrated in the scene.

They knew everybody on the scene.

They hung out at the clubs.

They hung out at the parties.

There was this big mansion in Laura Canyon where

they used to hang out and have parties all the time.

And everyone used to go there every Saturday and have big parties all the time.

And all the other bands were all friends of theirs.

And all the cute girls and all the dancers.

And everybody was all friends.

And it was a scene.

I remember the first time I met Axel.

We actually just had an argument over a Titzypop.

I mean, we were in a club.

And they had one of those little cigar cigarette girls.

And she had Titzypops.

I mean, she was selling these.

And so a friend of mine introduced me to them.

And I had a strawberry one and a cherry one.

And he said, I said, this is Axel.

This is Karen.

And I said, it's nice to meet you if you want to Titzypop.

And we got in this little argument over which one he got to have.

So it was like, yeah, we were fans.

But they were just, they were, they hung out with us, you know, at the club.

So it was just, that's the way it was back then.

Music connections started becoming aware of them when they hit the third day night.

And eventually what they did is they did an interview and put them on their first

cover, just their first cover, that Guns N' Roses ever had.

It's also the only cover in the 25-year history of music

connection that an unsigned band has made the cover.

By the time this issue hit the stands, however, Geffen had signed them.

And so they were signed by the time this became public.

Well, we were the first magazine to actually give them good publicity.

We publicized them and put the pictures in the magazine and exposed them to all these

underground people that had never seen it and were into metal.

And they would never go to the troubadour and they would never go to gazaris because

the troubadour and gazaris would only book heavy metal bands.

And they were all the old heavy metal bands that wore

spandex and the old style and all burnt out old hippies.

And so these new generation punks wouldn't go to these old generation clubs.

So they would never see Guns N' Roses if we hadn't put them in our magazine.

And we put them in our magazine and distributed it to all

these post-punk kids so that they could see Guns N' Roses.

So we brought that kind of how our connection and

that's probably why they thank us on the album.

The newly formed band set off on the aptly named Hell Tour, a collection of gigs left

over by the breakup of their previous bands.

Guns N' Roses saw the opportunity and set off on

the road to disaster on their very first tour.

I've heard some people refer to it as the Hell Tour and what it was is that when

they first got together finally formed as Guns

N' Roses is the axle slashed up in Steven.

The bands that they left behind had gigs set up up north of Seattle, Sacramento,

San Francisco, something like that.

But since they left the band, they left those bands and alerts.

Those bands could not fulfill those obligations.

They weren't getting new players.

These guys are left.

So they figured, hey, these gigs are set up.

They're paying gigs.

We can get a few hundred dollars every time we play.

We're going to go up there.

And so as the story goes, I heard a little bit of it from from Slack.

They break down in the middle of nowhere.

They have their equipment.

They have to hitch to where they're going.

And their first gig is Seattle because I think Duff is from

there or something and tells them, you know, it's a great place.

They get up there.

They play the show.

There's hardly anybody at the show and they end up not

the rest of the gigs ended up being pretty much the same.

They didn't get the money that they needed.

Some of them gave them food or some beer.

But they never got the paying gigs because

when they showed up, no one had done promotion.

No one had done anything.

And there were no people in the houses.

So the owners and bookers wouldn't pay them.

And you know, Slack said they were lucky that they could make it back to L.A.

Because what they wanted to do was get out of L.A.

You found out that the grass isn't greener.

It was worse outside of L.A.

But what that tour did besides put them through misery

and trial and tribulation is that tour bonded that band.

It was almost like men going to war.

They bonded through all the hassle, all the

difficulties that they had to go through on that tour.

And when they came back to L.A.

they were a band.

So what was life like for the band in L.A.

before they were famous?

Well, until they hit it big, they had a tough life in L.A.

I mean, they used to mooch off girlfriends.

They scrounged what they could.

I remember Slash telling me that he used to panhandle money on Hollywood Boulevard.

They always seemed to have enough to live on and eat.

But it was pretty bare bones.

It was pretty basic.

And that's why when Vicki Hamilton finally came across them, she put them up in her

house because they really had no other place to go.

Once they started making some money from the club gigs, because in those days,

bands actually got paid.

If they brought people in the door, they got money.

Nowadays, they don't get paid anymore, not in Los Angeles.

But in those days, they did.

And they were able then to get a house.

I think it was on Gardener Street or something like that.

Then they lived in the plate.

I think a couple of them lived in a place called Hell House.

And they used to rob girls that would come and steal their money.

Well, I remember again, back in the early days when they weren't, they were just in

the nightclubs, the Guns N'N'Rzes from the nightclubs.

And I lived about 30 minutes outside of Hollywood.

So I came in a lot.

But my boyfriend had some friends with a band

called Johnny and the Jaguars, I believe.

And they were out from Colorado.

And a DZ from which was in Guns N'N'Rzes was Gardener off of Sunset.

I may be wrong, but it was off Sunset.

And they had a studio.

And all the guys, there was like five guys living in this one studio.

Living there, playing there, everything.

And then there was one studio next door.

And that was where Guns N'N'Rzes lived.

And it was pretty much the same thing.

And then they had like one bathroom across the parking lot.

And it was kind of secluded.

It was like in the back of this huge parking lot.

And they'd have parties out there.

And I actually remember the police giving me a ride to the party one night.

And it was just raging.

And they just kind of looked at each other and dropped me off and kept going.

I mean, why they dropped me off?

There's a completely different story, though.

Their life in L.A.

was focused primarily on the shows.

That's what they did.

That's when most of the bands from that era did.

They focused on the shows.

The shows were going to be an event.

They promoted the hell out of them.

They were out there on the scene talking to people, getting people, handing out

flyers, doing whatever they could to get people to their shows.

The first time I saw them was at the troubadour.

And it was the lineup that you're familiar with.

And they were phenomenal.

They were remarkable.

Not that they were excellent musicians.

They were not excellent musicians.

In fact, they were probably pretty loose.

So their shows were inconsistent.

They weren't all great.

But what they was great is that they were always exciting.

Even if the music was so special, I think I referred before it.

They were like a comet through the night.

You couldn't take your eyes off it.

Some people referred to them as a bad rock and

roll accident that you couldn't look away from.

And that's exactly right.

You could not look at these guys.

Yeah, had to watch that.

So, you know, as a musician, I was like, wow, this is kind of cool what's happening.

You know, my friends were definitely fully gassed on this band.

They came back just like, they're running Los Angeles.

By late 1985, they had certainly made a name for themselves.

But they were still far from the fame and fortune they had dreamed of.

In the meantime, they worked where they could.

Excellent slash used to work across the street at the video store.

I used to go over there and rent videos from Axel.

Slash used to work at the newsstand.

He used to work at the newsstand at Melrose and

Fairfax selling newspapers and he played guitar.

And he was just nobody.

You know, he was just another bum on the street.

We used to have a guitar store next door and Slash was an employee there.

That store closed down and he moved into our place, worked for us for a while.

Until he got fired.

The problem with Slash was he was, I guess, working very hard on his band and

it caused a lot of phone calls to come in for him.

And the band would come around and his groupies of the band would hang out.

So it was a big package for us.

He was always up all night.

He'd come in the morning really tired.

He used to play a lot of local clubs.

It was really late at night.

He was just very soft-spoken.

He was not an extrovert.

He was very quiet, very soft-spoken.

He just was a gentle song.

Now their name was around town who would manage this band and take them to the top.

Well, Vicki Hamilton thought she was.

She was their fourth supporter.

She was the one who booked them into all of these clubs.

She was the one who got them their gigs.

She was the one who also started shopping them or

at least letting record companies know about them.

And they came out to see them.

And it just so happens that at that time, David

Geffen wanted a band that was like Motley Crue.

And he hired the guy who found Motley Crue to Geffen from Electra.

And Vicki Hamilton knew him.

He came out to see Guns N' Roses and they ended up signing.

Guns N' Roses apparently liked him because he got them.

A lot of other guys, I guess, that came out to see

them because they were seen by every label in town.

A lot of them they just didn't relate to.

Some were afraid of this band.

I mean, it was a band that you could instantly tell it was volatile.

They were exciting but you were waiting for them to explode.

And that's what made it so compelling to watch them.

Because you didn't know if they were going to

break apart on stage in the middle of a set.

They were so on edge.

They were so edgy and so volatile that it did scare away some people because record

companies don't want to throw money at somebody then have them break up.

You know, it's three months down the line.

No one knew how long this band was going to last.

They just knew they were hot.

Geffen signed them up and then I remember after that Geffen had signed them and they

got big that all the record industries were slapping around

their A&R people saying, how come you didn't sign them?

They were on the scene playing for six months in this town.

Why didn't you sign them?

You are A&R rep.

You saw them.

How come you didn't sign them to our label?

And all the A&R reps then all of a sudden were

under a lot of pressure because they blew it.

They missed the biggest band in town.

And so what did they have to do?

They had to sign all the next biggest bands.

Faster Pussycat, LA Guns, James Addiction, all the ones that came after because they

were trying to make up for missing out on Guns N'Ruses.

The question is why do you think you guys have hit this point?

It's a hard question to answer.

I think one of the main things is that we sort of like filled, you know,

that gap in music was what I'm starting to have because for the last, since 1970,

1980, it's been pretty bland as far as rock and roll is concerned.

And so at least if nothing else, the attitude of the band has come over and

people are like, yeah, because I mean that's

sort of like what rock and roll is all about.

It's sort of that freedom kind of thing.

It wasn't that there wasn't a lot of sympathy.

I mean there's all the Aerosmith and ACDC were still around.

They're great bands.

But I think kids, you know, on the late 80s here didn't really have a band who

were their peers to cling onto or whatever, you know?

In August of 1986, Tom Zort had signed Guns N'Ruses to the Gefan label.

But to make sure they were the band the public

wanted, Gefan released live like a suicide.

All 10,000 copies sold immediately.

They put out a self-produced EP, which wasn't very good.

Live like a suicide was their first recording.

And that was one that I understood that they pretty much did on a shoestring.

And they sort of put it together themselves.

It was like their demo record.

And that wasn't the record that Gefan wanted.

And it was nice that the boys could record.

But really, what got them signed was their live show.

Their live back got them signed.

The fact that they created as much of a stir as they did.

That they had the fan base that they did.

That people were going crazy for them.

And that they could put on a show so exciting

that people were going nuts in the audience.

That's what really got them signed.

And then they put out a professional CD a couple

months later, which was appetite for destruction.

I mean, the appetite for destruction so much.

They brought out what it was really like to be on the streets.

What it was really like to be on the scene.

It was a dirtier rock.

Basically, it was just straight ahead rock and

roll, which not a lot of people were playing that.

Everybody was on like some metal band wagon, or some glam band wagon,

or, you know, pop-ish rock.

But nobody was playing kind of dirty, older, sort of American sounding rock and roll.

So, you know, if you're an American kid, you know, it sounded

like something your friends might play, which is cool.

Yeah, they brought the experience straight from the street to the radio.

That music, like Paradise City, you know, and some of those songs.

I mean, you could just feel that that's what was happening.

You know, that you could feel it.

This was Paradise City, you know, and you could just feel it in their music.

Welcome to the jungle was a street thing.

It was an awareness of what LA was all about.

For me, especially the first album just had an energy.

It had like this really angry energy to it,

but it wasn't angry, if you know what I mean.

It was just really intense.

It was just really fun music, but it had a definite edge.

And that day that the appetite for destruction

came out was the day of the LA earthquake.

And the LA earthquake hit that morning and busted windows all through Los Angeles,

knocked down buildings.

Everyone's nerves were shattered.

People were scared.

It was like the most power that you have ever felt.

If you've ever been in an earthquake, it's the most awesome

and most scariest power you've ever felt in your life.

And that was the day appetite for destruction came out.

And that was an oleman that the appetite for destruction

brought out some of the energy of that earthquake.

This earth-shattering album sold well over 20 million copies.

But the original cover was as controversial as the band itself.

The original cover was banned because it was a rape scene.

And what if you have that?

Yeah, it was a girl against the side.

Yeah, it's like a girl.

She's on the sidewalk and she's laying against the fence.

And her shirt's kind of all open and torn and her underwear down around her ankles.

And she just kind of looks like all beat up.

And there's this big giant red monster with... I can't even remember if it's got

many arms, but it's just this weird red monster thing coming

up over the fence that looked like it's about to attack her.

And she's just kind of laying there with legs spread and everything.

It was really graphic.

They still kept it on the actual CD, but it's inside instead of the cover now.

In 1988, the notorious Guns N' Roses Lies was released, making them the only band at

the time to have two albums in the top five at the same

time, with appetite for destruction and Guns N' Roses Lies.

I thought one of their best memorable songs was one in

a million the most controversial song that they had.

It seemed to me the first time I heard it like it

was actually three different songs patched together.

But it was Epic and Scope.

It talked about a lot.

And I'd like to provocativeness of the lyrics.

I like the controversy of the lyrics.

I think, you know, the way Axel approached that and what he

wrote is not unlike what Eminem was going through more recently.

I think with Axel, he was just being his genuine, honest self.

I don't think he was being malicious about it with Eminem.

I don't know.

But I think one in a million is one of my favorite songs, yeah.

After the phenomenal success of the previous albums, the fans were eager for more.

And three years later, Guns N' Roses were back in the

studio once more to record the double LP, Illusions 1 and 2.

Well, hi.

My name is Buddy Brundo.

I own Conway Studios and the heart of Hollywood, I guess.

And then welcome.

Guns N' Roses, they were here in the 80s and we were

working on the illusion album, the double album.

It was done here.

Some of it was recorded, but mostly mixed.

We are hard workers, you know, when it comes down to it.

We can't have focus and drive, yeah.

We do.

We do.

We do.

We can't.

A lot of times, you know.

When we have to.

We play and when it comes to playing, we're really diligent about it.

We're very, I don't know, when it comes to to

musicality and stuff, we're right into what we're doing.

We want to do what we think is right, you know, what we think feels right.

The first time I met them, they all came in with

plaid Bermuda shorts on and they were valley boys.

And it was interesting because what I thought was one

thing and what they appeared to be was totally different.

So it was not like when Marilyn Manson walked in here with metal headrests and

six inch boots, you know, they were like valley guys.

And they talked like they're from the valley.

Well, Mike Clink was the producer of the record and Mike

is such a calm, beautiful man who would never meeting him.

You never guessed that he was producing guns and roses.

He's just a great guy.

And I think Mike Clink added a nice element to this record.

I mean, Alex and Slash really set the tone, but you know, Mike Clink,

the producer, he certainly added a lot to it also.

The illusions albums were another huge success, climbing the charts and winning

prestigious awards for Best Video and Most Wanted song.

The guys couldn't be here tonight because they're on I'd

like to thank Billboard for this award that we just got.

This is the day after the show we did in Argentina last night.

And I think there's a couple hundred kids that were down at the gig last night that

would want to show their appreciation for the award

themselves and speaking on behalf of the band.

When the two illusion albums came out, we had a midnight sale.

Flocks of people came down here to buy those two records.

So we put them on sale, you know, at midnight of the day a release,

you know, instead of like when we opened at nine o'clock.

And what they didn't know when they were coming

in to buy it was that the band was actually here.

They weren't out on the floor.

They were in back looking through the one-way year

that we used to try and catch shop lifters with.

And they were all back there watching people buy this stuff up.

You know, they were they were here.

Nobody knew it.

Spaghetti incident was their worst selling record.

It was mostly covers or I think maybe even all covers.

And it just didn't do much.

It just didn't really resonate with the public.

Spaghetti incident.

We'll just forget about that one.

That one is like the one you always find in like the $3.99 you see even.

It's all covered.

It's not their stuff.

So that's solid.

But and then they have the live era one, which of course is amazing because it kind

of just reflects their whole, you know, with it exactly.

The image and style of the band is almost as famous as their

music and their tattoos played an important part in this.

Axel's infamous cross on his forearm replaced

the band appetite for destruction cover.

The man in his tattoo shot.

The celebrity thing came through a very odd doorway.

I had grown up and went to school with somebody

who became a roadie for rock and roll band.

And because he was a friend of mine, he ended up with a bunch of tattoos.

That's what happens when you have friends that put pictures on people.

And through that gateway, I got an awful lot of rock and roll people.

Ooh, probably in the late 70s, people started coming to me that surprised me.

Tattoo people like Ozzy Osborn, for example.

The boys and Motley crew came to me sort of through the same doorway.

Rock and rollers and other left-of-center people are people that are seeking their

own way through life that aren't following the conventions of society.

Those people discovered tattooing as well as other

forms of modifications to make themselves more unique.

Well, I tattooed Duffy and I tattooed Slash.

I don't know, I tattooed them all.

And when they changed drummers, I tattooed the new drummer.

They came to me based on the results of the tattooing that they saw on Axle.

I did some pretty impressive tattoos on Axle.

And I did the cross on Axle's forearm and the Celtic style

with the band members and skulls and all that bullshit.

And I did the heart with black and red and the rocker and all that shit.

And I did the victory or death patch on his arm.

And all of his tattoos met something really powerful and important to Axle.

And none of the images that I put on them came off the wall.

None of them would be what I would consider a stock image.

Some of the images I drew.

Some of the images I stole.

Some of the images were brought to me by outside artists.

For example, the Celtic cross on Axle's arm.

That tattoo was a very important tattoo for Axle.

That was the first tattoo on his forearm.

That was the in-your-face out front confirmation of

more than just his manhood and the group as a band.

That was the living symbol of their unity as a group.

Their punk glam image was inspired by the local scene in LA at the time.

They also drew from bands of their childhood growing up in the 70s.

Musical influence.

I think all of us are basically the same one form or another.

I mean, of course, 70s.

We weren't influenced by the 70s behind English

stuff and then like California hardcore.

Guns and roses to me was kind of like the end of the glammy area.

I mean, even though they were glam, they didn't really do make up so much.

It was just more of the style the way they dressed.

And just their whole image was huge.

I just remember school elections people would try to win their campaigns by

dressing up like Guns and Roses and everything.

I mean, Slash was good because he wore the top hat,

you know, and that gave him a good visual thing.

And but as far as the performance, it was all axle.

Axle is just unbelievable.

He's first of the perfect body and then he's the perfect dancer.

So, you know, he's got the perfect moves.

And then he's good looking and then he comes

out on stage and nothing but a G string, right?

Which is unheard of at the time.

This was unheard of.

This offended guys.

But girls loved it.

It was axle in the tight leather pants and tight shirts.

And you'd see him also in like, you know, the tight

biker shorts and the white vinyl or leather jacket.

I think it's also kind of something that stands out.

And then of course Slash is just always remembered by just having the cut off,

you know, jean jacket with it's all open and just,

you know, his hair just hanging out and everything.

It's just like this massive hair just everywhere.

And just the scarves, I think that was it.

Like one of them used to wear like, you know, the scarves.

Which was also, I mean, it's still big in LA.

It's still kind of part of the staple of the LA rock scene is like wearing the

scarves and then the black, you know, band t-shirts that all fade in and,

you know, tight, tight has to be tight things

or tight leather pants or vinyl or whatever.

It's got to be tight.

As long as their pants have got to be tight.

And I think the whole reason the glam part came so popular at that time was because

that was the time they invented the videos.

They never had music videos before.

And you could only hear the music on the radio.

And all the songs became popular on the radio.

And all the rock stars were ugly because no one ever had to look at them.

Before you just heard their music on the radio and you didn't have to look at them,

so rock stars could be as ugly as they wanted to be and it didn't matter.

All of a sudden they invented the music video.

And all of a sudden you could turn on TV and see music videos.

And now people started to be concerned about what

the bands looked like for the first time in history.

And that's why glam became so popular.

It's because people wanted the band to look

good because now music videos were all arranged.

There's like a local video show that's like one out of Orange County.

And they would play the stuff that you wouldn't see on MTV.

They'd sometimes play the videos before even MTV got it.

And I remember seeing Welcome to the Jungle and it was like, is this the same thing?

Like you know with Motley Crew and all those other bands, they

were just full on dressed up with the makeup and everything.

And here comes Axel.

Not really much makeup, but just the big hair,

just the way he moved and the image and everything.

It was still kind of glam but it was more, I don't know, dirty, I guess you could say.

And it was just kind of like, it was something completely different.

And that's why ever since then it's just kind of like, you've always kind of stayed

with Guns N' Roses since like, you can see first what you have to because

it's like, it was just something completely different and they really did,

you know, revolutionize the LA rock scene at that time.

Guns N'

Roses have always been more than just image and music.

Their performances on stage were phenomenal.

With Axel's outspoken antics and getting arrested

on stage, each show certainly was unique.

When I first saw Guns N' Roses when the buzz started in the

late 80s and they did a few opening slots for some major tours.

They opened out here for the pump tour with Aerosmith and that was kind of the

first exposure in the bigger arena level that they had out here in California.

And when we went and saw them in the crowd,

saw them, it was just a vibe they just set up.

They just came out and just locked you in and they were just some hard rockers.

I mean, they just put on a great show and the vibe just caught and it just kept on a

roll and they just continued this role that just led them into

the next few years as the premier hard rock band out there.

They were entirely different.

Over the years, I've discovered that is not unusual.

It was a little bit surprising at the time.

Axel was very mild man and he was soft-spoken.

Slash was almost shy but very funny when he did speak.

He had a great sense of humor.

He did get pretty sloppy drunk but he had a great sense of humor.

But when they got on stage, they transformed.

They were entirely different on stage.

And I've noticed since then that a lot of musicians do that.

They may be just terribly, terribly shocked off stage.

And you could never imagine what they're like.

But when they hit that stage and those lights

go on, there's somebody entirely different.

Superman comes out.

And most of the shows that we went back stage too was, you know, guest list,

record people.

And it was a tight security situation to get back.

But you would see, you know, the Who's Who crowd in Los Angeles.

I mean, you'd see stars floating through the backstage area, you know, VIPs.

And it was just a real big deal to get backstage.

And many of the times you got back there and it was like, you know, they may show

up for a couple of minutes, walk through and they're gone.

But just the whole thing to be there was like, if you're

backstage at a Guns N' Roses show, you're somebody special.

And everybody just like, it was like a mission just to get backstage.

It was great.

It's a good time.

Good people.

Good party.

And it was a lot of fun.

When they opened up for the Rolling Stones at the

Coliseum, I believe it was a Stone Steel Wheel store.

It was also the first time I saw an outburst for Maxwell backstage and a

manager trying to calm him down and get him on

stage because Axel didn't want to take the stage.

And when he finally did, that's when he did his infamous speech about members

dancing with Mr Brown Stone and Guns N' Roses may not exist after that.

One of the things that happened at the concert was, as he was running back and

forth across the stage, he fell off the stage and he's stunned.

He's just sitting there.

His eyes are closed.

He's got the microphone in his hand.

And I'm going, wow, does anyone know what's going on here?

And the crowd, everything's just going on.

People, I guess, couldn't see him too well.

But he snapped to in about 30, 40 seconds, got up, got back on stage,

started running back and forth like nothing had ever happened.

But then just as shocking, that very same show, you have to understand it at the LA

Coliseum, which is where the Olympics were held.

And there's a running track that goes around a football field.

Axel jumps off the stage in the middle of the set, runs the

complete track while he's singing without losing a breath.

Same show.

Their last tour, actually that was out here, the illusion

tour, which was like their finale of their on top of the world.

They played actually out here at the Los Angeles Forum in California for like a

four and a half hour show, which is just incredibly long.

And they just played it all.

And everything was great.

The tour was great.

They just capped off a two year tour.

And everything went just fantastic.

It was a great tour.

And as far as from that point on, when the members, they all dispersed and

they were together anymore, the only time, the only thing that we've seen other than

a Rio de Janeiro reunion with the new lineup, which I

believe was a few years ago, there just hasn't been any tour.

And so the only performances that I know of in

the States at this time were the Las Vegas shows.

And that's pretty much all that there's been since the illusion tour.

I mean, they've done a lot of tours.

At one point, they held a record for the longest touring.

I think they did something like 28 months or more.

That's over two years on the road.

But this band lives beyond the road.

They liked it on the road.

That's where they really came alive.

A lot of other bands couldn't handle that.

But Guns N' Roses, at least in the beginning, really liked it.

As far as the tickets for Guns N' Roses, the show sold out.

Right now on the new lineup, there's been a few shows going sale.

And I've heard that 15, 20 minutes Madison Square Garden sold out.

So some of the bigger venues are selling out.

He's only putting, they're only putting a few shows on at a time on sale right now.

But the ticket sales seem to be pretty strong.

Throughout the band's history, their reputation has filled column inches worldwide.

With stories of axle destroying hotel rooms, slash urinating openly on planes

and riots fueled by the outspoken lead singer.

But did they deserve the reputation of one of the most outrageous bands of all time?

The most outrageous, the most dangerous, probably the most unpredictable.

I mean, I've seen axle in, I've seen him play at the troubadour on a Thursday night

with 80 or 90 people in the audience with chaps with the crotch in them,

screaming on stage.

And that is a pretty outrageous thing, but it

doesn't come across as outrageous from that.

I think the funniest story is when they played the Long Beach Arena one night.

And they were, it was big sold out shows like 10,000 people or something like that,

50,000 however many it holds.

And apparently, Axel's limousine driver got a ticket trying to get to the concert.

And Axel didn't think he deserved a ticket.

So when it's time for him to go on stage and there's 50,000 people sitting there

screaming guns and roses, guns and roses

because appetite for destruction is number one.

Axel comes out and says, we're not going to play until

the city of Long Beach decides to tear up this ticket.

And he sat there and the band wouldn't play for like half an hour until they

contacted the mayor of Long Beach and the police chief of Long Beach to come out.

And then they finally decided, okay, we'll tear up this this ticket.

And they tore up the limo driver's ticket.

That was hilarious.

He's not going to play concert because he got a ticket.

I love it.

There was an incident I heard about where Axel got a little upset.

I guess the security at the venue wasn't very good and someone in the crowd was

taking pictures of Axel and Axel got a little bit upset

and hopped in the crowd and handled the situation himself.

And then got up, stormed off the stage, brought the rest

of the band with him and canceled the show basically.

But Axel was outspoken and he was outspoken about what he didn't like.

So that's why they were dangerous because if you said something to fuck with guns

and roses, Axel would get on stage at the biggest concert in town and blast you away.

And that's why they were dangerous.

You take a look at this cover, Axel is way down here.

I'm not quite sure what he was doing there, but he absolutely hated this photo.

He hated this photo so much that he called up music

connection and didn't want them to run the interview at all.

He wanted it pulled from the stands.

Well, we couldn't do that.

It was already the print.

It was out there.

But they had a gig at the rock scene.

A few days after this hit the stand and Axel ended up

dedicating the song back off bits to music connection.

And he wasn't afraid to speak his mind.

He was the first Eminem.

You know how Eminem gets on stage and he goes, you know, well, fuck in sync,

you know.

And see this speech finger I'm holding up?

Well, let me turn this motherfucker up right now.

That was Axel 10 years ago.

Eminem just doing it now.

And that's why I like Axel because he wasn't afraid to speak.

When he was pissed off at someone, he wasn't afraid to speak and tell his mind.

Parting drugs and giving him just that whole the whole LA

like metal image was kind of what Guns N' Roses was all about.

And I mean, you never saw Slash without a cigarette or a bottle of Jack in his hand.

And it wasn't just a little bottle of Jack Daniels.

It was one of those big court things, right?

Always.

When he woke up in the morning, it was there on by his bed.

When he ate breakfast, it was there with him.

When he went to Denny's for lunch, he brought his bottle with him.

And when he went to the nightclub, it was like all was in his hand.

And it was like a top hat.

His top hat and his bottle of Jack Daniels were his trademark.

With Guns N' Roses for some reason, that makes him seem so forced.

Like other bands, you know, you liked them and you appreciated them for it.

But it just kind of seemed like they were just the lifestyle.

For Guns N' Roses, it kind of seemed like it's not just the lifestyle.

That's just who they are.

You know, it just kind of seemed to come naturally to them.

Life was no longer simple.

They had the success, the money, and the reputation of rock stars.

But by the early 1990s, they were about to self-destruct.

The fact that the original Guns N' Roses lineup broke up surprised nobody.

It was inevitable.

It was not ever fun.

Well, I think probably the trouble probably came when they started making so

much money, they didn't know what to do with it.

This was a comet that was going to burn out.

Everybody knew.

The fact that they lasted for almost two albums, I think shocked everybody.

I mean, basically, they had kicked Steven Adler out of the band because he had drug

problems that were beyond help, I guess.

Or easy leaves to ban because it's too big for him.

He didn't want that sort of notoriety.

He didn't want that sort of celebrity.

Action became more controlling.

And knowing Axle, he probably was saying, but this is my creation.

I deserve more than anybody.

In that case, I would identify with Axle, and I would say Axle is a band.

The band never would have got famous without Axle.

The band never would have got signed without Axle.

The band never would have been big.

They never would have done it without Axle.

And Axle is there more than 50% of that band.

And if the rest of the band members couldn't

see that, than the band deserved to break up.

Everyone did solo projects for a while.

Slashes make it.

I think Slash wants to have a more legitimate place in the rock and roll world.

Is he had a solo project?

Duff has his own band, and he lives in Seattle now.

He's got a recording studio up there, and he's got a

little record company, and he produces a few local bands.

Slash is the most down to earth.

He's definitely the coolest.

He still keeps the rock and roll legend sort of thing alive.

I like that.

And he's in a total delinquent, which is also cool.

I have seen Slash's new band, and basically Slash's the guitar player.

He's not the singer.

So he has to get a singer for hire, so to speak.

Even though he might not have been a singer for

hire, that's the way you see it as a singer for hire.

And it didn't come across.

He didn't, his singer didn't have any personality.

Compared to Axel, he was nothing.

And it just didn't work.

It was at Cherokee Studios in the heart of Hollywood

that Guns N' Roses recorded several new songs.

Everyone has recorded here from members of The Beatles and

David Bowie and Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin, two Guns N' Roses.

And when the members did their solo projects, Slash's Snake Pit was in here

before the last record.

Gilby Clark has been in here.

Is he straddling?

Is he recorded here?

And the most recent lineup of Guns N' Roses, the one fronted

by Axel with no other Guns N' Roses player recorded here.

And Buck Buckethead insisted on, I understand,

wearing his makeup and his Kentucky Fried Chicken hat.

But strangely enough, he was going to play another

session with another group after they finished.

And he took off the bucket and washed his face

and actually played like a regular person.

Guns N'

Roses are renowned for their constant reshuffling of players, from the formation

of the band in the late 80s until the late 90s with the

departure of the last original members, Duff and Slash.

But Axel, the fiery head frontman, determined to carry the band into the next

decade, found new musicians, began a new tour and released new material,

attracting more fans worldwide.

I think that they're trying to start something new.

They're not trying to recreate what's already been created.

They're not coming back as Guns N' Roses and with the same characters.

It's a new lineup, it's a new thing.

There are going to be some die-hard fans because

Axel has that sort of a magnetism that keeps people.

As far as new fans, it depends.

I think it's going to depend musically and it's going

to depend a lot on Axel because Axel's calling the guy.

Their much awaited appearance on MTV relaunched

the band and the new Guns N' Roses line up.

On the VMAs when they performed, it was really weird to see Axel Rose,

you know, older, obviously, not quite as he as you remember him.

But I mean, it was still, it was Axel.

They did that performance and I think anyone

would agree it was not Axel's best performance.

It was very weak, he lost his voice, that sort of thing.

Anyone talk about that?

No, what did they keep saying?

Guns N' Roses appeared.

Guns N' Roses appeared.

Guns N' Roses' last album, Live Era, was released in 1999.

So when will their new album be released?

It's always news of a new album when it's going to come out, who knows, you know,

and they're always threatening to put one out but nothing ever happens.

You know, we've heard about this album for like two years and that everyone's been

waiting for and then finally to see them, it was great.

The new line up is already on the road with Chinese democracy.

They're mixing old songs with new, creating a different sound.

Axel has done a couple of performances out here.

He did New Year's Eve at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It's about his first showing in about six, seven years out here.

I went to see him in Las Vegas and they were great.

Everybody was having a good time.

They finally went on around, I would say, 11 o'clock.

Then they played for a good two and a half hours.

They were pretty great.

They were playing all the old songs from Mappetite.

Guns N' Roses used to be more of a blues rock band and now they're I think Axel's

trying to be more of an industrial kind of like tool, you know, more modern, I guess.

When Axel did his show at the Mandalay Bay, he heard that Slash was out there at

the hotel that he let everybody know that at least supposedly this is what he said.

He said if he shows up or they allow him in, he wasn't going to perform.

And that's been substantiated by a few people.

I mean, I hear different stories, but we were out there

and we did see Slash and no, we did not see him inside.

So I kind of tend to think that it's true.

The name Guns N' Roses is legendary.

And like the last, the new band is set to make history.

Axel Rose is still as fiery as ever.

So be assured, they will remain one of the most outrageous bands of all time.

What Axel and Guns N' Roses have managed to do is they've

managed to become a myth and a legend without dying.

They're James Dean and they're alive.

It's absolutely phenomenal.