Re: 15. MAY-DECEMBER 1992: TOURING AND FEUDS

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:06 pm

1992-1994

AXL CONSIDERS A SOLO ALBUM

Band members quickly realized that they had musical ambitions that went beyond the confinements of "Guns N' Roses".

In 1988, Axl would say a solo record was unlikely, but that if he wasn't satisfied after the release he might explore, like movies:

I hope I'll be really satisfied after [releasing the follow-up to Appetite]. I don't want to go solo, but there are areas I'd like to explore - maybe movies - where I might not be able to stay in the band to do it.

Musician, December 1988

But in 1989 the tune had changed:

I want to do five records in two years.

RAW Magazine, May 1989

And those five records were, as written by Raw Magazine:

[…] the next studio one (possibly a double), the live one, his own solo LP plus two EPs, firstly a Punk covers record and, secondly, another acoustic set, this time with X-rated versions. And then there's the films...

RAW Magazine, May 1989

Axl would further elaborate on a solo record in 1990:

I can imagine finding people that play really good that I want to do songs with and see about possibly putting a solo project together at some point, but not getting the same effect. But I can't really see trying to duplicate what Guns N’ Roses is, because Guns N’ Roses is so much more than we ever thought it really would be.

MTV Famous Last Words, August 1990

In mid-1992 sources from the camp of Guns N' Roses allegedly said that Axl wanted to star in a movie and that they were "looking at a script a week" [The Akron Beacon Journal, August 23, 1992]. Allegedly, Axl had gotten a taste of acting after the November rain and Don't Cry music videos.

In addition it was reported that Axl had "been saving songs since at least the Use Your Illusion recording session" and wanted to release a solo record after the Illusion touring [The Akron Beacon Journal, August 23, 1992].

Axl would shed more light on what direction a solo record would go in:

I want to do some stuff on my own, but not as a means of trying to prove my own sense of identity. You know the song My World on UYI II? I want to do a whole project like that by myself and with whoever else might want to be on it. But right now it's just me and a computer engineer. It's just raw expression-just putting ideas together. We just go in, say "what do we want do do" and get to work. We completed My World in three hours. It's something that I need to get out of my system, but it's not something I want to base my career and future on.

Hit Parader, June 1993; interview from December 1992

To help him out with this solo project he would like outside collaboration, mentioning Trent Reznor from the band Nine Inch Nails, who had opened for GN'R on two shows in 1991:

Trent Reznor from NIN is one, and Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction is another guy I want to work with. I've talked to Trent about working with me on an industrial synth project, at least on one song, and I definitely want to work with Dave on something. I've always been curious what he would sound like working with Slash on something.

Hit Parader, June 1993; interview from December 1992

At some point in early 1994 or 1995, Axl reached out to Reznor to discuss such a side project:

I heard from [Axl] right before we started this tour. That was kind of when the downfall of Guns N' Roses was just reaching bottom. He was just kind of freaked out and was talking about maybe working on some other kind of project. I said, "Let me know. I'm into at least listening to ideas." I haven't had any other contact. […] I feel a certain degree of compassion [for Axl], just because he was thrust into something that was larger than anything else and then a lot of weight was placed on him to carry the torch. If I had to pick something that I think was wrong with how they were treated it was that no one had the balls to say "No." As in, "No, it's not a good idea to put out two double albums of mediocre material." But if you said that you got fired. I think that's inherently the problem. I think the guy is talented at what he is doing.

Juice Magazine, July 1995

And Axl talking more about Navarro:

But the idea of working with [Navarro] excites me to no end because I still put on Jane's Addiction and it always seems brand new, no matter how many times I hear it. I'd like to try to achieve a fusion of what they were trying and what GNR is doing. I think that blend, if taken seriously and patiently, could be amazing. It could be a fuller thing than anyone's done before. Dave and Slash together could be incredible-two guys very "out there" on their own, working together.

Hit Parader, June 1993; interview from December 1992

In December 1993 Duff would also talk about Axl doing a solo record:

I think one day, what [Axl] will do – what I’d really want him to do, because I think I’d be killer – is do a kind of like Nine Inch Nails type of record, a real industrial type of record. I think that’s what he’ll do – one day.

Metal Express, December 1993

And in January 1994, Axl would talk more about hoping to make a solo record:

I'm hoping to… I'm trying to put a project together that is kind of a top-secret weapon right now.

Rockline, January 3, 1994

Eventually, Axl did not make a solo record and according to Slash [insert sources] instead wanted to evolve Guns N' Roses to incorporate new musical influences, to Slash's dismay. Slash would comment on this in late 1995:

I wanted him to. You have to know Axl to understand what I'm getting at. Axl's the kind of guy who over-thinks everything. Sometimes it's fucking classic, and sometimes it's just...whatever. And that's cool. But there was a point there where Axl goes: "I'm gonna do a solo record, and I'm gonna get Trent Reznor and Dave Navarro, and the drummer from Nirvana..." and so on. And it's like, he doesn't even know half of these people. He's just pulling them out of the sky. And I was like, "Cool! Do your thing. That way you'll get it out of your system, and when you get back we'll just be Guns N' Roses."

I wished he had done it, because then it would have really fucking taken some of the air out of the bullshit that we've been going through.

Metal Hammer, November 1995

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:06 pm

1991-1994

THE LOST DOCUMENTARY

Somewhere in a vault in LA there are on stage, off stage, hotel, you name it, they shot everything we did for two and a half years. And it's a collective... you know, the band owns that stuff. All of them would have to sign off on releasing it [...].

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

_________________________________

As discussed previously, the band had started thinking about a documentary already back in the band's the early days. As the touring for 'Use Your Illusion' commenced the band would film every show [Fully Illustrated Book & Interview Disc, June 6, 1992; Journal and Courier, July 31, 1992; RAW, June 23, 1993].

Because we’re gonna do a documentary and so it’s just footage of what goes on. It’s gonna be like Christmas at the end of this whole thing, going through and try to edit all this stuff together, and remembering some of the stuff that has gone on, cuz it’s been pretty wild. […] I think a lot of stuff is gonna stay in the vault (laughs).

MTV Headbanger's Ball, May 1992

Yeah, I just see the cameras all over and stuff, and, you know, after a while you just forget about them. I don’t know if it’s gonna be like the Madonna thing or anything (laughs). I hope not.

MTV, June 1992

Well, I can’t really tell you too much about it because we’re kind of sworn to secrecy a little bit, but it’s a documentary, it’s also videos will be intertwined. Okay... If you’ve noticed, some of our videos don’t really make sense. They will. [...] There’s, like, the endings of, say, Don’t Cry and November Rain that we’ll be putting out tomorrow night, right? [...] The endings kind of like leave you up in the air, to say the least? (laughs). [...] So there’s some things going on, and for me to really tell you everything would really kind of spoil the fun of the anticipation of the scenes.

MTV, June 6, 1992

I pray for the guys that have to edit it, because there’s a lot of stuff to take out, you know? (laughs). […] You know, stuff that we don’t want to have. Nothing bad, you know. Nothing as far as you know. Basically right now we’re just trying to do the shows. And then when it’s all said and done, we’ll get together and start going through the video stuff, and putting out the punk record and, you know, getting all that out of the way, and then concentrating on the next album.

MTV, June 1992

Like, our videos might not make sense right away, because they’re all part of one long story and only part has unfolded so far. That’s just how we wanted to do it.

New York Daily News, July 29, 1992

In mid-1992, Geffen records would claim the label isn’t involved with any video project and that they aren't allowed to talk about a possible band-produced video [Journal and Courier, July 31, 1992] and that it would become a feature-film release [The Akron Beacon Journal, August 23, 1992].

Axl would briefly mention that it was unfortunate that the incident when he pushed a piano out his window and staying in the recording studio in December 1990, never was caught on film:

Those were two major things that didn't get on film that should've. John Lennon wasn't nearly as selfconscious as I am. He could keep a camera rolling at all times.

RIP Magazine, September 1992

Gilby would talk more about what was happening:

[…] supposedly we're doing a movie in which a lot of the questions from the other videos and stuff are gonna be answered. Ever since I've been in the group we've been filming and, at the end of this tour, we’re gonna put it together — basically, we're going to make it up later (laughs). […] Yeah, the movie’s going to be awesome! Right now we're calling it a documentary. In the end, basically, what we're going to do is tape a lot of shows, and we have a film crew that deals with us backstage; in the hotel; in the plane — and we're just going to put it all together and make something out of it when it's all done.

M.E.A.T., September 1992

It is hard to say whether the band wanted to both release a video with live recordings and a documentary with footage from their lives, or whether it was one project. It is also not clear how the elaborate music videos fitted into the plans. Axl himself was not sure what would be the result:

Then, we've had a documentary crew out with us the whole time we've been out on the road, and they've been filming everything. We're just having our director go through all the footage and we're putting a movie together that will be a combination of reality and fiction tied in with the three videos, November Rain, Don't Cry and Estranged. That story will tie in with the reality of Guns N' Roses, yet there'll be a fictional story going on as well going on between me and my girlfriend Stephanie. We're working on it, but we can't guarantee exactly what it'll be until we get it done.

Hit Parader, June 1993; interview from December 1992

In April 1993, Matt was asked about the documentary:

(To someone) Can I say that? (laughs) Yeah, I think I can. Yeah, we are. We’re doing a documentary movie. We’ve had a film crew with us for well over a year now. [...] They follow us around and there’s a guy with a… you know, one of those. [...] And we basically film whatever is going on backstage and who’s around or whatever, and, you know, just anything. And then we’ll wag it all together and you’ll have it turned into something.

Mexican TV, April 27, 1993

In June 1993 it would be reported that director Annie Morahan was "sorting through the footage for a film of the tour, which will incorporate live and video footage, plus candid off-stage material" [RAW, June 23, 1993]. In June 1993, the band would also release the first two out of three videos (The Making of) that in addition to being documentaries behind the band's making of the epic music videos for 'November Rain', 'Don't Cry'' and 'Estranged' used lots of the footage described before.

Axl would again talk about the documentary in early 1994:

We'd like to make a movie. We filmed everything that we did on the road for the last few years, and we'd like to make a documentary movie and put out a soundtrack to that.

Rockline, January 3, 1994

In 2002, after being out of the band, Slash would talk about the documentary:

I left all that documentary stuff with GN'R when I left the band. So I don't know what's up with it. There's some good stuff in there although I don't know it will/how get used.

Snakepit.org, 2002

And in 2007 when asked if the documentary would ever be released:

I know right now there’s no rhyme or reason behind the business really that is the Guns N’ Roses original lineup or as close to the original lineup as we ended up with. All that stuff is in such a topsy-turvy state, and there’s really no relationship -- a healthy, positive relationship, at least -- between myself and Axl. (So) I really don’t have any idea as to how any of that stuff will see the light of day. The situation will hopefully be rectified at one point.

Billboard/Reuters, October 14, 2007

In 2010, when asked who should have been the director of a movie about Slash's life, he responded:

That's a good question! I don't know, man. I take what I do seriously, but I don't take myself seriously so it's hard for me to get a perspective of how I'd want to be portrayed. You can get really Martin Scorsese-heavy with it, but there's nothing really that warrants that. So it'd have to be somebody with a little bit more levity. I always wanted Oliver Stone to direct the Guns 'N' Roses footage we have in a vault. It's like three years of Guns 'N' Roses touring that we haven't released. That would be awesome.

Artist Direct, April 7, 2010

In 2012, Marc Canter would talk about the documentary:

In 1994 they were gonna release a documentary movie and Del James, Axl’s right hand man was working on it and I saw the trailer for it actually. What it really was comprised of was live footage, backstage stuff and interviews of the Illusions tour. It looked really cool, like a better version of a VH1 type thing. Axl’s got all those gigs and then some. They shot every single night of course for the jumbotron and some of them, probably six or seven have leaked out.

Legendary Rock Interviews, April 22, 2012

Canter would suggest the documentary had been scrapped because Axl didn't want to promote Slash after he had left the band:

The reason you can’t turn up full shows for the most part or the backstage stuff in the movie form is because Slash was in it all and Axl has really tried to bury it at all costs because he’s so pissed at Slash and doesn’t want to have anything to do with him or promoting anything involving him. So that’s why you’ll never see it. He just feels that Slash has burned him and told all of these lies in the press, in Slash’s mind it’s mostly all true but Axl has built up all this hatred so the movie will probably never see the light of day.

Legendary Rock Interviews, April 22, 2012

In 2018, Slash would briefly mention all the videorecording that had taken place:

Back in the '90s, we had this guy Austin and another guy that videotaped the entire 'Use Your Illusion' tour, 24/7 [...].

Clay Marshall via Blabbermouth, September 2018

And again in 2019:

[...] I think we have a lot of concert footage from the 90's in the can, like 24/7 footage from 1991 to 1994 of just every day on the road with Guns N’ Roses, and it’s been sitting in a vault for years. I would love for that to be edited at one point and put out. So we’ll see if that ever happens.

Futuro FM 88.9, April 5, 2019

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:07 pm

AUGUST 14, 1992

MOTORHEAD RELEASES MARCH OR DIE FEATURING SLASH

In the first half of 1992, Slash did "two songs" with Motorhead [MTV Headbanger's Ball, May 1992; The Akron Beacon Journal, August 23, 1992]:

[…]we’ve been off for a month. I’d been out jamming around, like doing the Motorhead thing and all this other stuff. […] I haven’t listened to them in a while. I forgot the name of the first one, but the second one I did was called “I ain’t no nice guy” and it’s a classic song. It gave me chills - you know, it’s sort of rare to go into somebody else’s session and get chills from their song. So I think it’s gonna be on their new record. That’s as much as I can really say about it.

MTV Headbanger's Ball, May 1992

'I Ain't No Nice Guy' and 'You Better Run' (the song Slash forgot the name of) would be released in August 14, 1992, on Motorhead's 'March ör Die' album.

March ör Die
August 14, 1992

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:07 pm

AUGUST 25-SEPTEMBER 7, 1992

CONTINUED TOURING WITH METALLICA

In late August 1992, El Paso Times did an assement of the Metallica/Guns N' Roses/Faith No More tour so far and concluded that since mid-July only 9 out of 19 scheduled shows had taken place due to band member injuries [El Paso Times, August 27, 1992].

Things happen. All three bands are really disappointed, but it’s really nobody’s fault.

El Paso Times, August 27, 1992

Axl would try to stay fit:

If I notice that I’m getting run down, if I notice I have a show where I’m really tired, then I get back into a workout program. And I have, like, this special machine called the ROM, that you can do a half-hour workout in four minutes, you know. It’s like this thing some scientists built in UCLA. And I have that on the road and I use that, and we work with a chiropractor who, little by little, helps keep all the muscles in tune and everything. I’m on a vitamin program and stuff like that, basically general health, but something I’ve never concentrated on, and this show, the way we perform demands it.

MTV, September 9, 1992

After the riot in Montreal on August 8 and James Hetfield's burns form the pyro accident, the tour started again with a show in Phoenix, AZ, USA, on August 25. Axl has overcome his vocal chord and arytenoid inflammation problems and has been fit to perform for more then a week, but GN'R has waited for their co-headliner's singer to be ready too [GN'R Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date]. This show was held on Phoenix International Raceway since it was to happen during a school night and there was curfew in the city [Arizona Republic, May 24, 1992; July 7, 1992]. Unfortunately, due to extensive flooding a fan was swept away while attempting to wade a swollen river and lost his life after the show [Arizona Daily Star, August 27, 1992; August 29, 1992].

Before their next show on August 27 in La Cruces, reverend Jim Franklin would warn against the concert: "There is definitely a link with violence, sexism and an overwhelming link to Satanism, the occult" [The Santa Fe New Mexican, August 27, 1992].

Report in Albuquerque Journal
August 29, 1992

Then followed shows in New Orleans on August 29. Axl was not happy with the exhausted crowd:

O.K.? How much did you pay for this show? I'll tell you what I'll do I'll pay you back because this just isn't going to work. It's hard to be up here giving like this with all you people sitting there taking a f---ing nap. Yeah, yeah, I know, there he goes begging for attention again. My therapist always says, 'You crave attention.' And I go, 'No shit'.

Live onstage as recounted in Life Magazine, December 1992

After the show in New Orleans, Axl travelling to Montauk to spend a few days with Stephanie before the next show of the tour. Stephen Thaxton, the band's chiropractor, would tell a story of what happened:

I do remember one really difficult situation we ended up in. Axl was dating Stephanie Seymour at the time, and her and her other model friend had rented a house for like a month. So each was staying there for two weeks with whoever they wanted to stay with. So Stephanie invited her mother. So it was out on Montauk. And so she invited her mother and wanted Axl and I to come up. So we couldn't, with shows going, we couldn't get up there till like Sunday night. So I think we had a show in, we had a show in New Orleans at the... whatever dome that is, forgive me for not remembering. [...] Superdome was it back then. It would have been Superdome. Okay. So I had a show at the Superdome on Saturday night. And then Sunday we're going to fly commercial up to New York and go out and spend a couple of days out of Montauk with Stephanie and her mother. And so I'm used to having Earl, Axl's bodyguard around, and personal assistant. So they kind of take care of everything and I just kind of tag along and it's all good. Well, for whatever reason, he just wanted me to come along on this one, which was fine. And so we get to the airport and get the luggage out. Everything's going smooth, going through the airport, and we stop in a - he wants to go into like a magazine store, bookstore, whatever. So we go in and within 30 seconds of getting in there, fans start spotting him and full on chaos breaks out. Well, he's cornered, there's nothing he can do and he's frustrated beyond description. He literally just sits down in the middle of this bookstore and I'm trying to keep fans off of him. It's pure chaos. I finally, I think, begged, pleaded enough with the fans to make space for us to exit the thing. It's straight to the gate, and it put us right on the plane, God bless them. But oh my gosh, that was one difficult ordeal.

Anaheim Bulletin, October 10, 1991

Their next show was in Orlando in September 2 where the band would be criticised for having camera crew who zoomed in on women in the audience and encouraged them to strip, feeding the live stream displayed on the giant screens [The Orlando Sentinel, September 4, 1992]. A fan would say: "There were guys ripping off girls' shirts and rubbing their hands all over their breasts for the camera" [The Orlando Sentinel, September 4, 1992].

The band then travelled to Houston for a show in September 4, to Irving, September 5 and to Columbia, September 7 where the band would again be criticized for showing bare breasts on the screens [The Greenville News, July 31, 1992].

Review in The Atlanta Constitution
September 9, 1992

Duff and Axl
Houston, September 4, 1992

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:07 pm

SEPTEMBER 1, 1992

THE BAND SIGNS A PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

In September 1992, the band signed its first written partnership agreement between Axl, Slash and Duff [Partnership agreement, October 1992]. Prior to this agreement the band had operated under an oral partnership agreement [Slash & Duff Vs. Axl lawsuit document, January 18, 2008]. The effective date of the agreement was set to September 1, 1991 [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992]. Axl, Slash and Duff became the only three partners of the California General Partnership "Guns N' Roses" [Duff, Slash and Axl lawsuit papers, April 29, 2004].

The purpose of this partnership agreement was defined as "utilizing and commercially exploiting their collective talents and personalities in the areas of recording of audio and video tapes, live personal appearances, publishing of musical compositions, and sales and merchandise" [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992].

Additionally, the agreement contained provisions for division of income, stating that from the effective date until the date of the agreement (September 10, 1991 to October/November 1992) all income had been dividing equally between the partners, but that from now any "new" profit (from new music etc) should be divided with 36.3 % to Axl, 33.3 % to Slash and 30.3 % to Duff, while all "old" profit should be divided equally (20 % each) among the members of the Appetite lineup [Partnership agreement, October 1992]. This would mean that Steven and Izzy would continue receiving royalties on the sale of 'Live Like A Suicide', 'Appetite', 'Lies' etc, but that only Axl, Slash and Duff would receive royalties on the sale of the 'Illusion' records and any future records. The partnership agreement also opened up for an revenues arising from solo records being solely entitled to that partner [Partnership agreement, October 1992]. The latter basically means that the partners have the right to have a solo career outside of Guns N' Roses.

Interestingly, this new partnership contract also set forth provisions on governance, stating that Axl and Slash should make all "partnership decisions" and that if they couldn't come to an agreement then the majority of Axl, Slash and Duff should select a person to decide on the matter [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992].

The agreement also contained a clause on how partners could leave the agreement, both freely but also by being voted out by the other two partners (expulsion) [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992]. Any terminated partner (through leaving or being expulsed) would lose the right to use the name "Guns N' Roses", unless that person is Axl [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992]. Additionally, any terminated partner shall sell any stocks he controls in any corporations held by the partnership [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992]. If two members withdraw, the partnership is dissolved [Partnership agreement, September 1, 1992].

Axl would later discuss this section that meant the name resided with him:

When Guns renegotiated our contract with Geffen I had the bit about the name added in as protection for myself as I had come up with the name and then originally started the band with it. It had more to do with management than the band as our then manager was always tryin’ to convince someone they should fire me. As I had stopped speaking with him he sensed his days were numbered and was bending any ear he could along with attempting to sell our renegotiation out for a personal payday from Geffen.

It was added to the contract and everyone signed off on it. It wasn’t hidden in fine print etc as you had to initial the section verifying you had acknowledged it.

mygnrforum.com, December 14, 2008

The manager that Axl is referring to in the above is likely Alan Niven, who was outed before the tour started in 1991 [see previous chapter], suggesting that the agreements were being negotiated for a time before they were signed.

In addition to signing a partnership agreement between Axl, Slash and Duff, the guys would sign a new recording agreement with Geffen which replaced the one originally entered into in March 1986 [Legal document, March 15, 2004].

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:08 pm

SEPTEMBER 9, 1992

THE MTV VMA

The band then took a short break in touring to attend MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on September 9 where they received their Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for "November Rain".

Receiving the award
September 9, 1992

During the awards the band would play 'November Rain' together with Elton John. Slash would comment on his performance:

[…] I’m doing a guitar solo and I’m, like, 20 feet in front of the stage. I can’t hear the band and I’m, like, half a note under key, and I’m playing the solo like I’m cool (laughs). And I talk to a friend of mine, Kirk Hammett from Metallica, and he goes, “I’ve heard you play better.” And then I finally got to see it and I was like, “God, I’m half-step (?)”

The Howard Stern Show, February 1, 1995

November Rain with Elton John
September 9, 1992

Kurt Loder from MTV would later mention Elton John and Axl together:

Axl had that song ‘One in a Million’ … and he tried to explain that ‘n—–’ didn’t necessarily mean ‘black person,’ and he tried to explain the ‘f—-t’ thing, so he got together with Elton John. You know, Elton John got together with Eminem. He’s there to save souls, I think. So, the two of them up there, with the pianos — it was a little weird, you know?

MTV Newsroom Blog, November 21, 2008

While in L.A., Axl would talk to MTV and discuss the ongoing tour with Metallica:

One of the big things I learned was that everybody had wanted this tour so bad and worked so hard to make it – to be able to do this tour. You know, Metallica through their touring and through our touring, to be able to do a stadium tour together, that we thought that when we got here it would just be “perfect!”, that it would be so cool. Well, it kind of turned out to be that, 'Wait a minute, this is so cool that why shouldn’t it be the hardest thing we’ve ever done?'

MTV, September 9, 1992

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:08 pm

SEPTEMBER 9, 1992

THE FEUD WITH NIRVANA PEAKS AT THE MTV MUSIC AWARDS SHOW

With Nirvana having scoffed Guns N' Roses' offer to join them on tour, Axl attacked Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love from stage:

You know, we’ve had our share of problems with so-called alternative bands. What is this word? I mean, I didn’t find myself using it. “Alternative.” Like someone who lives an alternative lifestyle. All I know is that when Guns N’ Roses started, ain’t no fucking radio stations wanted to play our shit either. And no radio stations wanted to play Metallica. So I think we have the world’s biggest alternative crowd here tonight.

I think that the problem starts when you start thinking that you’re different from everybody else on the fucking planet. You may be a little different in what you’re doing and how you’re going about doing it, but I’ve got a good feeling that you’re probably a human. Right? You’re probably a human being?

And so, right now, “alternative”, the only thing that means to me is someone like Kurt Cobain in Nirvana, who basically is a fuckin’ junkie with a junkie wife. And if the baby is born deformed, I think they both ought to go to prison, that’s my feeling. And he’s too good and too cool to bring his rock ‘n’ roll to you, because the majority of you he doesn’t like or want to play to – or even have you like his music.

It seems to be a general feeling among a lot of alternative bands, that they don’t want the majority of people even liking them. They like it on the outside.

Citrus Bowl, Orlando, USA, September 2, 1992

Then, one week later, the feud between Guns N' Roses and Nirvana peaked at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 9, 1992:

Tensions at the awards peaked when Love mockingly invited Rose to become godfather to her month-old baby, Frances. Rose snapped to Cobain, 'If you don’t shut your woman up, I’m going to take you down to the pavement.' Then Rose’s pal, model Stephanie Seymour, asked Love, ”Are you a model?” ”Yeah, are you a brain surgeon?” Love shot back.

Entertainment Weekly, September 25, 1992

Craig Duswalt, Axl's personal assistant at the time, would describe what happened and say it had been exaggerated in the press:

Stephanie Seymour and Axl wanted to take a walk around the backstage area to just relax, and maybe visit some industry friends. As always, Earl and I tagged along. The four of us arrived at the hospitality tent, and as we walked by we saw Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, sitting at a table, eating, with their new baby, Frances Bean. This is where the story starts to vary. And this is where the media and/or secondhand accounts have blown this “meeting of the minds” way out of proportion. No matter what was said, it never really escalated into anything. As we walked by, Courtney sarcastically asked Axl, “Do you want to be godfather to our daughter?” Stephanie said something about being a model. Courtney said something about being a brain surgeon. Silly fun. Axl then told Courtney to shut up … blah, blah, blah … And that was it. It was quick; it was said in passing; it was really nothing. Yet, there are so many different accounts on what was said, and how it was said, that it makes us all laugh, because it was nothing. It was so nothing that Earl and I did nothing, except smile. And the four of us went on our merry way.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

Doug Goldstein would also recount the episode:

Look, Axl loved Kurt and wasn’t necessarily a big fan of Courtney. So me, Axl, and Stephanie Seymour are walking across the area where everybody is sitting and eating, and [what] you hear is, ‘Oh look it’s Asshole Rose and his supermodel girlfriend!’ It was Courtney. Axl just went over and told Kurt, ‘Look, shut up your girlfriend or I’ll knock you out.’ None of the band members of Nirvana said anything until they walked out onstage, and Krist Novoselic is trying to make himself look like a tough guy. Really Kurt, where were you? You never came to our dressing room? If you have that much of a problem dude, bring it up.

GN'R Central podcast, December 23, 2018; transcribed by Alternative Nation

I’d love to straighten out the story about Axl and Kurt Cobain. Axl loved Kurt’s music, but Kurt used to say not very nice things about Axl. And Axl could never understand why. So we’re walking along, it’s me and Stephanie and Axl, and all of a sudden I hear this voice: “It’s Asshole Rose. It’s Asshole Rose.” It was Courtney. Axl said, “Fuck off,” and kept walking. She said, “Asshole. What are you doing, Asshole?” So finally, Axl was pissed off and he walked over to Kurt and said, “Look, if you can’t shut that bitch’s trap, maybe I should shut yours.” The instigator in this situation was Courtney.

Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution; ‎ Plume, October 27, 2011

Kurt, you know, when he, before he passed, he gave his version of the story. Axl, as is always, never did. But I was with him and Stephanie and we were backstage at the MTV Awards and Courtney is saying, "Hey, look, it's Asshole Rose. Hey Asshole." That's what caused Axl to go up to Kurt and say, "Tell your fucking girlfriend to shut her fucking mouth." I mean, Kurt makes it sound like they said, you know, "Hey buddy," and all of a sudden he came over. It wasn't that at all. Courtney's yelling, top of her lungs, "Hey, Asshole Rose!" Which hurt his... you know, I mean, you know, I have this opinion that anger is not a primary emotion, it's actually a secondary/tertiary emotion based upon something else and 90% of the times it's hurt. And I think Axl's feelings were really hurt because he loved Kurt and didn't expect what he got.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

Amy Finnerty, who was present and music programming executive at MTV, 1989-2000:

Courtney was obviously trying to rile Axl. He said to Kurt, “You better get a handle on your woman.” So Kurt screamed at Courtney, “Woman! You better listen to me!” At which point we all cracked up. But when Axl walked away, Kurt quietly said, “Honestly, that was scary.”

Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution; ‎ Plume, October 27, 2011

And so would Kurt Cobain:

They actually tried to beat us up. Courtney and I were with the baby in the eating area backstage, and Axl walked by. So Courtney yelled, "Axl! Axl, come over here!" We just wanted to say hi to him--we think he's a joke, but we just wanted to say something to him. So I said, "Will you be the godfather of our child?" I don't know what had happened before that to piss him off, but he took his aggressions out on us and began screaming bloody murder. […] These were his words: "You shut your bitch up, or I'm taking you down to the pavement." [laughs] Everyone around us just burst out into tears of laughter. She wasn't even saying anything mean, you know? So I turned to Courtney and said, "Shut up, bitch!" And everyone laughed and he left. So I guess I did what he wanted me to do--be a man [laughs].

The Advocate Magazine, February 1993

Well, apparently Axl was in a really bad mood. Something set him off, probably just minutes before our encounter with him. We were in the food tent and I was holding my daughter, Frances, and he came strutting by five of his huge bodyguards and a person with a movie camera. Courtney jokingly screamed out at him, "Axl, will you be the godfather of our child?". Everyone laughed. We had a few friends around us, and he just stopped dead in his tracks and started screaming all these abusive words at us. He told me to shit my bitch up, so I looked over at Courtney and said, "Shut up, bitch, heh!". Everybody started howling with laughter and Axl just kind of blushed and went away.

The Observer, August 15, 1993

After Nirvana's performance, Krist tried to spit on the piano Axl was later to use, but accidentally spit on Elton John's piano's keys [Nirvana The True Story, 2006].

But the encounter between Axl and Kurt Cobain and Courtney Hole wasn't the end to the day's drama:

We finally got back to the GNR trailer, and we could immediately see that something was brewing. A potential fistfight between Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana. Earl and I looked at each other and I said, “Damn, news travels fast.” I assumed that this potential fight was because of the “discussion” Axl and Kurt had minutes prior in the hospitality tent. But it wasn’t. This was a whole new fight. Since I wasn’t there I won’t pretend I know exactly what happened, but when we got back Duff was pissed and he kept trying to get all of us to go over to Nirvana’s trailer to kick some ass. He even tried to get the Nirvana guys to come out of their trailer by yelling obscenities at the closed trailer. Luckily Doug stepped in, and the rest of our entourage calmed the band members down, so nothing happened.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

Later, after we played our show and were walking back to our trailer, the Guns N' Roses entourage came walking toward us. They have at least 50 bodyguards apiece: huge, gigantic, brain-dead oafs ready to kill for Axl at all times. [Laughs] They didn't see me, but they surrounded Chris, and Duff wanted to beat Chris up, and the bodyguards started pushing Chris around. He finally escaped, but throughout the rest of the evening, there was a big threat of either Guns N' Roses themselves or their goons beating us up. We had to hide out.

The Advocate Magazine, February 1993

Amy Finnerty would also claim Duff and some guys form the Guns N' Roses' camp almost tipped Nirvana's trailer over:

After the show I went back to Nirvana’s trailer. As I got there, I saw Duff McKagan and a couple of the guys from the Guns N’ Roses camp rocking the trailer back and forth, trying to tip it over. They were trying to get back at Kurt for his comments. I started screaming at them, “The baby’s in there, the baby’s in there!” They stopped, but it was ugly for a second.

Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution; ‎ Plume, October 27, 2011

In 1993, Duff would discuss the episode:

And afterwards I went after [Novoselic] at the MTV Awards. [...] he dissed on Axl, man. [...] And I said, “Man, yo, our band, it’s like - what are you doing, man? Why are you saying that?” I said, yeah, “If you want to say something, say it to me.”

The Howard Stern Show, September 1993

Ernie Bailey, Nirvana's guitar tech, would remember the story this way:

At one point Krist and I were walking out from the main building to our trailer and [Guns N' Roses bassist] Duff McKagan approaches us. He's got several body guards with him, and one person in his entourage was videotaping, like he's making a Guns N' Roses movie. Duff comes up to Krist and announces, 'I hear you've been talking shit about my band' and Krist tells him that he hadn't said anything about his band. But Duff keeps going on about it and so Krist says flat out to him, 'Obviously, you're trying to provoke me into a fight so you can film it for your Guns N' Roses fan movie, and I could easily kick your ass but then you'd have four of your bodyguards kick the shit out of me – so let's walk over behind these two buses there and it'll be you and me. I'll be more than happy to take you on'. And Duff was like, 'No, right here, right now'. And there's no way... I mean Krist is like Paul fucking Bunyan [legendary giant lumberjack], and Duff was very thin and smelled like he was liquored up. So nothing happened. We walked on, laughing at how absurd it was.

Nirvana The True Story, 2006

Years later, in his biography, Duff would explain what happened and be embarrassed by his behavior at the awards show:

[...] gotten into a scrap with Krist backstage at the MTV awards, where Guns and Nirvana both performed. I lost my shit when I thought I heard a slight of my band from the Nirvana camp. In my drunken haze I went after Krist. My means of dealing with any sort of conflict had been reduced to barroom brawling by then. Kim Warnick from the Fastbacks—the first real band I played with as a kid in Seattle—had called me the day after the awards show and scolded me. I had felt so low.

It's So Easy (and other lies): The Autobiography, Orion, 2011

Cobain would also try to get back at Axl:

I spat on Axl's keyboard when we were sitting on the stage. It was either that or beat him up. We're down on this platform that brought us up hydraulically, you know? I saw this piano there, and I just had to take this opportunity and spit big goobers all over his keyboards. I hope he didn't get it off in time.

The Observer, August 15, 1993

After the MTV Video Music Awards Axl would continue to slam Nirvana and especially Cobain from stage:

I’d like to take this time to acknowledge all the great rock ‘n’ roll that comes out of Seattle. To thank Soundgarden who went out to tour with us and ended being the coolest fuckin’ people we’ve ever worked with. And just to make it public that your homeboys Nirvana were just too fuckin’ good to play with us or Metallica. That’s okay. I guess if you wanna sit home, and fuck an ugly bitch and do heroin instead of playing rock ‘n’ roll, that’s okay.[...].

Onstage in Seattle, WA, USA, October 6, 1992

Again, Cobain would comment on it:

Since then, every time Axl has played a show he's said some comment about me and Courtney. When he was in Seattle, he said "Nirvana would rather stay home and shoot drugs with their bitch wives than tour with us." [Laughs] That's why there's this big feud in most of the high schools. It's hilarious. He is insane, though.

The Advocate Magazine, February 1993

In February 1993, Matt would talk about Cobain:

That little punk. We did nothing but treat those guys fucking good. We asked them to tour with us, we talked good stuff about them in the press. Axl even fucking wore their hat. […] But they basically slag us everywhere they go, including the MTV awards. We had a little row backstage haw haw! And Duff almost kicked the bass player’s (Chris Novoselic) ass! And I was ready to help him. […] I mean, they have some good songs – though they’re not a great band – but it’s as if they don’t want the fame. I don’t understand, man....

RAW, June 23, 1993

And Cobain would be asked if there was anything about GN'R's music he likes:

I can't think of a damn thing. I can't even waste my time on that band, because they're so obviously pathetic and untalented. I used to think that everything in the mainstream pop world was crap, but now that some underground bands have been signed with majors, I take Guns N' Roses as more of an offense. I have to look into it more: They're really talentless people, and they write crap music, and they're the most popular rock band on the earth right now. I can't believe it.

The Advocate Magazine, February 1993

And on how different the two bands were:

[…]when we played that No on 9 benefit in Portland, I said something about Guns N' Roses. Nothing nasty-I think I said, "And now, for our next song, 'Sweet Child o' Mine.'" But some kid jumped onstage and said, "Hey, man, Guns N' Roses plays awesome music, and Nirvana plays awesome music. Let's just get along and work things out, man!" […] And I just couldn't help but say, "No, kid, you're really wrong. Those people are total sexist jerks, and the reason we're playing this show is to fight homophobia in a real small way. The guy is a fucking sexist and a racist and a homophobe, and you can't be on his side and be on our side. I’m sorry that I have to divide this up like this, but it's something you can't ignore. And besides they can't write good music" [Laughs].

The Advocate Magazine, February 1993

Later in 1993, Krist Novoselic would summarize the whole feud:

I think Axl started talking some nonsense onstage in Florida, he said some mean things and then, uh… we were at the MTV Video Music Awards and Kurt & Courtney said something to him… like, Kurt was holding their baby and Courtney said, like, "Axl, will you be the Godfather? You can be the Godfather!" He got mad and told them to shut up. One thing led to another, it was really silly and then, uh… we said some nasty things about him at a show in Portland, Oregon. It was a benefit show for the No On 9 - this measure that was gonna discriminate against homosexuals in Oregon - some fascist law, you know what I mean? Franco would've been proud! And then what happened? And then he said some bad stuff about us onstage in Seattle, but he got booed, because he couldn't get away with that in our town! And we haven't heard anything else from him. It's basically really silly stuff, y'know? I think it's kinda funny and if I can instigate more stuff, I will, just for heck of it! I'd like to meet him, I met him once briefly, y'know "Hi, how are you?" and that's it, but I'd like to meet with him and maybe discuss things, resolve a few things, maybe engage in some sort of dialogue. Maybe we can have some negotiations mediated by David Geffen in his office, y'know? We'll have our list of demands and they'll have their list of demands, and through the process of elimination we'll find common ground and… it'll probably hold some Sarajevo ceasefire, but it'll be worth a try [Laughs].

Canal+, rec, August 11, 1993

And Dave Grohl would talk about the future of Nirvana and make a few digs on Axl:

For me, Nirvana doesn't have to become bigger. I'm afraid our music won't have the same effect in stadiums with 60,000 people anyway. It's deadly for the intimacy and the energy. I would have no problem with us standing in clubs like Paradiso [a pretty big disco in the Netherlands]. And as for the lack of privacy, you get used to that. As soon as Americans have a hunch that they can make money off you, they will start digging. Or write books on you. At a given moment, you KNOW all that sudden interest in your band has only got to do with one thing: money. Especially with those manager types and 'sudden' friends. But if you pay too much attention to it, and get concerned about it, you will go nuts. Look at someone like Axl Rose. Although, he probably wanted to be a rock star all his life, so now he is one, he plays his part okay. He has a model for a wife, many cars, a couple of villa's… […] How's Axl Rose in ten years? He's already a parody of himself.

OOR Magazine, September 4, 1993

Grohl and Novoselic would much later discuss the whole incident:

[After Nirvana declined to tour with Gusn N' Roses] Kurt started talking shit in interviews, and then Axl started talking back. It went back and forth like tenth-grade bullshit. Then we got to the awards and our trailers were all in the same one hundred yards. And Courtney was there, which never makes anything easier. So it didn't take much to blow up into a full-fledged showdown. Kurt and Courtney were screaming at Axl. Axl screamed back. It was all just soap-opera bullshit. Krist, our bass player, almost got in a fistfight. I was just the drummer, so I shouted some loud, funny shit and hit the bar.

Esquire Magazine, March 31, 2006

I eventually made it to the food service area, where Kurt and Courtney were at a table with their newborn daughter, Frances. They told me that Axl Rose had walked by and Courtney started teasing him. She yelled, “Axl, Axl—you’re the godfather!” Upon hearing this, Axl apparently got very annoyed, walked over to Kurt, and demanded that he keep his woman in line. Kurt turned to Courtney and sarcastically asked his woman to keep in line and left it at that. Axl then split. Of course, Kurt and Courtney were musing over Axl’s response in the context of society’s patriarchal tendencies. My thought was that Rose shouldn’t have gotten bent out of shape. He should have walked over and asked to kiss the baby or something!

[...]

I was walking toward the stage and came across my now-friend and colleague, Duff McKagan. I think Duff was also under the influence. He must have heard something from Rose and had a terse word for me. I was already a little bent out of shape and instantly replied with the same sentiment. The production people grabbed me and we continued toward the stage.

Seattle Weekly, November 18, 2008

And Kurt Loder from MTV would reminisce:

The backstage thing was the most interesting, because it was Courtney [Love] and it was Kurt [Cobain] and it was Axl. It was like two worlds colliding. That was sort of an important moment in the way fashions changed, and you really saw the culture of music going in a slightly different way. But it didn’t last, did it? The guys in the flannel shirts started buying Gucci too.

MTV Newsroom Blog, November 21, 2008

In 2010, Slash would collaborate with Dave Grohl and be asked about the two bands' feud in the 90s:

See I don’t know anything about that. I only remember something happened with Kurt and Courtney and Axl, whatever that was. And I just thought it was all fucking silly, whatever. I didn’t know Dave Grohl had anything to do with it, but he brought that up at one point and I had no clue! [laughs].

Faster Louder, April 23, 2010

APRIL 5, 1994 - EPILOGUE I - COBAIN'S DEATH

On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain tragically committed suicide. Bryn Bridenthal, working for Geffen, would break the news to Axl:

I just jumped in, with Jim Merlis and Dennis Dennehy, and we handled it. We were the center that the media came to. I don’t think that I even looked up or peed or had a drink or anything until about 11 that night. The first thing I did when I got back to my hotel room was call Axl, because I was afraid of how the news [of Kurt Cobain’s suicide] might impact him. He was such an emotional roller coaster, I was afraid that Axl would hurt himself. He felt things really deeply, and he felt a real connection there, even though there was no connection from the other side. I think he had a lot of empathy for Kurt. I was on the phone with Axl until about 3 in the morning. Ultimately, it was okay, but I don’t remember what was said because I’d had so many hours and hours of those kinds of conversations with him. One time, I got off the phone with him and my teeth were chattering and I felt like I was energy inside his head. We were just talking on a level that wasn’t in the here and now, that was just pure energy—an out-of-body experience, except that my body acts like it’s freezing or something. It was just so intense.

Mark Yarm, Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge; September 2011

The members of GN'R would over the years comment on this tragedy and how it affected them:

Wow, that was rough, man. You know, it’ really hard for me to say what I think about it. I think that he was very, very talented and he was a great songwriter. He was really talented. But he’s got problems. You know, he does a lot of drugs; and when you do drugs like that, it affects your thinking, and I don’t think he was in his right mind when he did what he did.

Argentinian TV, June 1994

Well, I just thought the whole thing was sad. I don’t know him, so I don’t judge him at all. I thought the whole thing was sort of – it’s just a cop-out, as far as I’m concerned, you know?

The Howard Stern Show, February 1, 1995

I think Kurt Cobain's suicide was unfortunate but its what he wanted...RIP.

Netscape Online Chat, July 30, 1996

I thought Nirvana was brilliant. I thought Kurt Cobain was brilliant as well. It was sad to see him go. I also think Foo Fighters are great too.

Online Chat, October 16, 1996

I knew him, I knew a lot of junkies, most of them are dead. I don't know of any junkies that I see and say, 'man, he's going to snap out of it'.

Music West in 3-D, 1997

Duff sat next to Cobain on a flight three days before his suicide:

I sat near Kurt on the plane and when we talked, I could tell something was wrong. My buddy Eddie met me at the airport. Kurt and Eddie were outside having a smoke while I was collecting my bag. I said to Eddie, Why don't we take him over to my house tonight? Kurt was just gonna go home by himself having snuck out of [LA rehab centre] Exodus. So Eddie went running back out to get him, but a car had to pick up Kurt. We didn't know what was gonna happen, but you could sense something wasn't right.

Mojo, December 2004

He said, 'Man, I just escaped from Exodus' [a treatment facility]. I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before. We were at baggage claim, and I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house. I turned around and he was gone.

What if. Only if. A lot of my friends have died. If only he'd ...

The Seattle Times, April 17, 2005

[...] people always make more of it that there was. We were on a plane together and we were both addicts and kindred in that respect and I thought about asking him to come over to my place, but by the time I sent a message across, he'd gone and that was that.

This is Nottingham, August 29, 2008

We talked. We were both sort of in the same boat. A couple guys recognizing where each other was at. It's no fun being that completely and utterly addicted. And then we get off at Sea-Tac Airport and it's like, there's a mass rush of people, and all the sudden because it's like him from a big band and me from a big band and all the sudden everybody just stopped and stared at us. Maybe I just remember it this way but everyone just stopped and we were like, 'Okay… where do we go with this thing?' But I went to baggage claim and that was it.

VH1/Blabbermouth, April 7, 2011

I was really fucked up [when I saw Kurt]. I mean, I wrote about it in my book, It was, like, 87 words. We were both fucked up. It wouldn't have been a big deal… It was something, like, even at that time… we were just two fucked up guys, but we were both in big bands and we landed at the airport and we kind of talked about… I mean, my pancreas blew up four weeks later. He died two days later. So that's where we were both at at our lives — at the end of our ropes. I didn't have a sense that he was gonna die in two days, but again, a lot of my friends and peers were dying, or had died, and I was getting numb to it, getting used to it. And even when I got a call that he died, I didn't fall out of my chair. It just happened. And I was too fucked up to really take it in. I was, like, 'Oh, another one fell.'

Mulatschag TV, June 20, 2014

On Slash's first Snakepit record the song 'Lower' would be inspired by Cobain's and Savannah's suicides:

I haven’t dedicated [the song] to him. What happened was that Kurt killed himself a few days before Eric and I sat down to write the lyrics. And my ex-girlfriend, if you want to call her that, the porn star Savannah, also killed herself... When you write songs, you reflect what is around you, what’s happening, and we wrote about that. There’s a line in this song that goes, ‘How to keep the knife from inside of you’ that is about trying to prevent someone from doing this thing, because it’s very ridiculous. It’s not a song dedicated to them, but influenced by what happened. That's how we felt when we heard the news, and we reflected it in the song. All the songs on the album are very spontaneous, like something happened in the afternoon and we wrote about it at night.

Popular 1, February 1995; translated from Spanish

[Talking about the song Lower from the first Snakepit record]: That just happened to be going on the week that we were recording. I didn't even know him, the song's not dedicated to him. I sort of wonder what the f— he could possibly have been going through to do that, you know. Being married to Courtney probably did it. I would have shot myself too, ha ha! I don't know Courtney either, so perhaps I should shut up.

NME, March 4, 1995

In February 2010, Duff would write about Cobain in his Seattle Weekly column:

All Apologies

By Duff McKagan
Thursday, Feb. 11 2010

I was in a recording studio the other day and had some time to kill. If I am not reading a book or writing, I will often scavenge around for a newspaper or magazine. On this day, I came across Cobain, a tribute put out by Rolling Stone some months after Kurt's death in 1994.

I can't really pinpoint the reasons, but suddenly there in that dingy studio, I was enthralled and emotional. I read this book from beginning to end, and while of course I remember this time well, I don't think the scope of the sadness came to me until this moment. A profound sadness that stirred up a lot of emotion that maybe I haven't dealt with yet. I don't know, to be honest.

I was on the same plane as Kurt on that flight up from Los Angeles a couple of days before his death. We were both fucked-up. We talked, but not in depth. I was in my hell, and he in his, and this we both seemed to understand.

When we arrived in Seattle and went to baggage claim, the thought crossed my mind to invite him over to my house then and there. I had a real sense that he was lonely and alone that night. I felt the same way. There was a mad rush of people there in public. I was in a big rock band, and he was in a big rock band. We were standing next to each other. Lots of people stopped to gawk. I lost my train of thought for a minute, and Kurt said good-bye and left to his waiting town car. His new house was right down the street from my new house. I received a call from my manager two days later that Kurt had died.

I suppose I was numb to this sort of thing at this point in my life. I had lost two of my best friends to drug overdoses. People in my own band had overdosed multiple times. My life and addiction were spinning out of control, and my body was failing in so many different ways. It is possible that I was incapable of feeling sadness, incapable of picking up the phone and calling Krist or Dave. In truth, I had such low self-esteem at that point, that I am sure I felt my call would have no impact on these fine men.

I had been really excited back in 1991 or so, when bands from my hometown of Seattle started to rise up and get recognized for magnificent music. I was proud because I knew the scene there was truly unique and self-supporting and open to new and different ideas.

A few years later, at the MTV Awards where my band and Nirvana both performed, I blew my lid when I perceived a slander toward my band from the Nirvana camp. In my drunken haze and drug-induced mania, I heard what I wanted to hear, and I went after Krist Novoselic backstage. I had no control of myself then. And Krist, I am sorry for that day.

Krist, my colleague and friend, I am so sorry for your loss, too. I am sorry I could not be your friend back then. We had so, so many things in common. We have so many things in common today.

I am sorry that I didn't have the faculties to just come up and talk to you at the MTV Awards in 1992. I was mad and insane then. My scope of dealing with any sort of conflict had narrowed down to barroom brawling. Kim "Fastback" Warnick, my mentor, called me the day after my embarrassment and scolded me for it. I felt so low. I simply did not know how to call you and apologize then. My dream of being in a band that everyone in the world believed in had come to life. The complications that came with that dream were also making themselves present. You were dealing with the same things I was. We could have had a lot to talk about together.

I am glad that you have overcome that mad season in your life. It takes a strong man to have that sort of devastation not permanently handicap you. Your band should have been one of those that kept setting new benchmarks for what a rock band is. Your career and vision was cut short. We musicians just don't talk about this kind of stuff, thinking maybe it's a little too touchy-feely. We are expected to just get over it. Why, don't we have piles of money to make ourselves feel better with? If only people knew.

I am not trying to embarrass you, Krist. Maybe I am only trying just now to come to grips and exorcise some of my own hidden monsters. I am glad that we are now friends and I hope that this part of the story will last a lifetime.

The Seattle Weekly, February 11, 2010

Novoselic, who was writing for Seattle Weekly himself, responded:

Dear Duff,

No worries on the MTV music awards. There were all kinds of shenanigans going on. And I've been drunk and irresponsible myself too many times. That self-destructiveness can lurk in the shadows - lubricated by one substance or another.

I read your column and it brought up a lot of feelings for me and if we do look back, let's not forget the positive. I remember the time later in the 1990's when we crossed paths again at the Showbox. I said it was good to see you, and it was.

Moments after I read your column about Kurt, I read the news about Alexander McQueen and his shocking suicide. On top of that, there was another news report that the authorities found out who stole the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the Auschwitz death camp. I stepped out to get some air and all this came together.

Kurt Cobain and Alexander McQueen were talented and successful individuals. They owned the world. But they obviously didn't see any value in what they had. There was something inside where things seemed futile.

Now imagine the life of those who suffered in the death camps? They were imprisoned starved, tortured, humiliated, raped - their loved ones died in front of their eyes! Yet people struggled to live. In fact, after the camps were liberated, many survivors went on to have productive lives and some are still living!

You can't be rational about suicide. It's hard to reconcile. When someone is murdered, you can get angry at the killer. This happens with suicide, but you're mad at both the victim and the perpetrator! It's the ultimate act of self-destruction.

Alexander McQueen was an excellent artist and craftsman who left us so much. His work promises to have a lasting influence on fashion in the 21st Century. In a way he lives.

They're putting the sign back on Auschwitz that we may never forget the suffering inflicted by an evil ideology - we also remember the triumph of so many individuals who pushed on in the face of the horrible atrocities of the camps. Again, when somebody take their own life, it's hard to make sense of things. It's a cruel paradox - that notorious sign that reads, "Work Sets You Free".

The Seattle Weekly, February 11, 2010

In 2018, Doug Goldstein would describe how Axl reacted to Cobain's suicide and claim Duff had developed PTSD over not preventing the suicide from happening:

It didn’t matter, [Axl] knew that Kurt was a fellow tortured artist. He was very upset, despondent, and I don’t know if it’s in Duff’s book or not, but Duff rode on an airplane back from Los Angeles the day before he killed himself. Duff has PTSD around the fact that he didn’t just hug him and say, ‘Come with me, don’t go to your house.

GN'R Central, March 28, 2018

In 2019, Slash would discuss the claim that grunge had killed Guns N' Roses and also say he had thought Nirvana was cool at the time:

It was kinda lame that music writers at the start of the ‘90s could only create an identity for the Seattle bands by setting them up as anti-Guns N’ Roses. I know writers like to consider the whole ‘birth of grunge’ as the death knell for Guns, but we were so big at that point that the emergence of the grunge bands didn’t really matter to us. Personally, I thought Nirvana were cool – I have four of their albums – but they weren’t as heavy or riff-oriented as Soundgarden or Alice In Chains, so those were actually my two favourite Seattle bands. I guess Axl [Rose] and Kurt Cobain had some issues, but Dave Grohl is on my album with Duff [McKagan], so at least one member of Nirvana didn’t hate me!

Kerrang! April 5, 2019

EPILOGUE II - COURTNEY LOVE APOLOGIZES

Bryn Bridenthal would talk about Axl's and Courtney Love's "obsession" with each other:

Courtney and Axl spent so much time thinking about each other. Years later, when Axl was starting work on the album that would become Chinese Democracy, Jim Barber was A&Ring the project. And Axl at one point told me that Jim came to the studio and Axl felt Courtney Love energy coming off of him and made Jim leave. He couldn’t work with that energy in the room. What I found out later, and Axl didn’t know then, either, is that Barber had taken up with Courtney. They kept it a secret from me and the company. So for Axl to feel Courtney Love energy coming off Jim Barber’s forehead, not knowing that they had a relationship, was sort of like, Whooooo! It was just amazing. Axl would do those kinds of things all the time. This is going to sound ridiculous, but it’s true: He’s a very spiritual person. Jim’s work on the album ended shortly after the Courtney energy came off his forehead. Because Axl thought that Courtney was evil and that her evilness would impact on his record.

Mark Yarm, Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge; September 2011

At some point, Duff and Courtney Love sang It's So Easy together in Las Vegas, as celebrity guests at a clothing-store opening [The Seattle Times, April 17, 2005].

I'd talk to her a couple times since I've been sober. This time she was sweet, just really nice, and healthy. She started apologizing to me for what Kurt [Cobain] said, criticizing Guns N' Roses, and I said there is nothing to apologize for. That's rock 'n' roll.

The Seattle Times, April 17, 2005

EPILOGUE III - THE AV CLUB ANALYSIS THE FEUD BETWEEN COBAIN AND AXL

In 2010, Steven Hymen, writing for the A. V. Club would analyze the conflict:

Say what you want about Axl Rose, but you can’t accuse him of not putting out the welcome mat for new pledges in the rock-star fraternity. More than anything, the guy just sounds like a fan; I know I would have asked Nirvana to play my birthday party in 1991 if I had the means. Unfortunately, Axl Rose embracing Nirvana seemed to confirm Kurt Cobain’s worst fears about signing with a major label. For Cobain, Axl Rose represented everything horrible about corporate rock. On a personal level, he found Rose to be a despicable human being, the epitome of racist, sexist, homophobic, proudly redneck and macho assholes that his music was intended to irritate and destroy.

That Rose was actually more complicated than that—he was just as much of a misfit as Cobain was growing up, and a fairly sensitive guy considering he once called his mother a “cunt” in the song “Bad Obsession”—was beside the issue. Rose signified old-guard, cock-rock superstardom, and Cobain was never more deliberate in his desire to dismantle that institution than in his outspoken criticism of Guns N’ Roses. Cobain’s aversion to turning into Axl Rose bordered on obsession; he claimed to the press that out of the $1 million he made when he was first flush with Nirvana’s success, a relatively modest $300,000 went toward a house, and only $80,000 was spent on other personal expenses. “That’s definitely not what Axl spends in a year,” Cobain said. (A seemingly contradictory story is found in Charles R. Cross’ Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography Of Kurt Cobain, where Cobain and Courtney Love spent two months in Fall 1992 at the fancy Four Seasons Olympic Hotel in Seattle, ringing up an extravagant $36,000 bill before being kicked out. The name they were staying under was Bill Bailey, also known as the original moniker of one Axl Rose.)

The irony of the Kurt/Axl rivalry is that Cobain—the wimpy feminist who took to wearing layers of sweaters in order to look less scrawny—was the clear aggressor while Rose, who demanded that any and all critics “suck his fucking dick” in “Get In The Ring” and once threatened to fight Vince Neil of Motley Crüe outside of Tower Records in L.A., seemed to shrink away from a man he seemed to have genuinely admired. It’s sort of sad, really, though Rose was not above insulting Cobain; when Nirvana turned down the GNR/Metallica “Get In The Ring” tour, Rose crabbed to Metallix magazine, “They would rather sit at home and shoot heroin with their bitch wives than tour with us.” (Artless wording aside, Rose wasn’t completely wrong.)

[...]

It’s convenient shorthand to paint Axl Rose as the meathead rock cliché and Kurt Cobain as the genuine artist, but what gets left out? Looking back, I see the crucial difference between Axl and Kurt being how they chose to act out their darkest, ugliest sides. Both men had troubled childhoods that led to adult lives distinguished by intense mood swings and a compulsive need to control their surroundings. Both men hated the press for spreading “lies” that often turned out to be true, and both were drawn to complicated women who created as much misery as ecstasy in their lives. Both men saw fame as a double-edged sword; it gave them the attention they craved after a lifetime of being ignored, and yet it also seemed to intensify their feelings of self-loathing. They were, to use medical terminology, a couple of fucked-up individuals, which both men expressed eloquently in their music.

But even in the saddest, most depressing Nirvana songs, Cobain always seemed like a sensitive, thoughtful man. Rose, on the other hand, wrote a lot of songs about being a bad person and not seeming all that sorry about it. Is this dichotomy merely a reflection of who these guys were? Maybe, but I find it hard to believe that Rose was clueless about the monstrous picture he often painted of himself in his music. He’d have to be a complete sociopath not to notice it—though even Patrick Bateman from American Psycho knew to hide his true self behind his love of Huey Lewis and Phil Collins-era Genesis tunes.

[...]

If Cobain’s songs dealt in surrealism and playful nonsense, Rose was all about directness and outrage. A song like “Dumb” seemed to touch on Cobain’s chemical romance with love (“My heart is broke, but I have some glue / Let me inhale, and mend it with you”), but he also claimed his lyrics didn’t mean anything; Rose made the connection between “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and his then-girlfriend Erin Everly unavoidable by putting her in the video. But if Rose loved Everly enough to write the best power ballad of all time about her (with an assist from Slash and Izzy Stradlin), there were also days that he hated her with equal passion—and he believed that was worth writing about as well. Cobain’s relationship with Love was far from healthy, but he never wrote the sick and twisted sequel to “Heart Shaped Box,” like Rose wrote many toxic retorts to “Sweet Child.”

I’m not saying one approach is preferable, just that Axl Rose should be recognized for the role he played in creating his own public image, including the parts that people like Kurt Cobain despised. Perhaps he was too honest; as laughable as the Use Your Illusion video trilogy of “Don’t Cry,” “November Rain,” and “Estranged” ultimately is, it shows Rose self-consciously grappling with his suicidal impulses, childhood traumas, and proclivity toward domestic violence on a large and public canvas. Not only was he open about the demons that had stalked him from Indiana to the Sunset Strip, he freely admitted that sometimes he enjoyed them, or at least was unwilling to sacrifice them at the altar of political correctness, no matter what effect they had on how he was perceived.

The best example of this is the most controversial song Rose ever wrote, the radioactive “One In A Million” from 1988’s GN’R Lies. An account of Rose’s first days in Los Angeles, “One In A Million” is an uncomfortably frank but bracingly honest depiction of how a “small town white boy” reacts to being confronted by a number of offending parties, including police, “niggers,” immigrants, and “faggots.” Rose just wants them to get out of his way, so he can make a living in the big city. Sympathetic critics (of which there weren’t many when it came to “One In A Million”) could interpret the song as a comment on bigotry, but Rose derailed such efforts whenever he tried to defend it, saying in interviews that he was “pro-heterosexual” and that the “niggers” comment referred specifically to black people that hassle you at the Greyhound station. Other times he simply claimed “One In A Million” was a joke, which only made the song more offensive.

The power of “One In A Million” lies in it being an intolerant song that doesn’t endorse intolerance. Only a complete fucking idiot listens to “One In A Million” and nods in agreement. It’s not a persuasive song in the least, and it doesn’t seem that the protagonist is intended to be likeable in any way. “One In A Million” is a song nobody would ever admit relating to. What makes it so disturbing is that Rose doesn’t tip his hand; there’s no catharsis pointing toward a change of heart by the end, which is why Cobain and millions of others concluded the worst about Rose when “One In A Million” was released. But if Rose really was just a cardboard-cutout racist, homophobic bad guy, why would he have bothered to expose himself as such by releasing this song? Rose would’ve had to be the least self-aware pop star ever to not anticipate the shit-storm “One In A Million” caused; you have to assume that he either didn’t care, or saw value in shining a light on the dimmest regions of his psyche. Was he trying to shame himself into being a better person? If so, did it work?

Cobain was right; Rose felt that the world owed him something, and that was the fulfillment of his dreams in exchange for a painfully detailed account of his nightmares. In “One In A Million,” Rose sings, “It’s been such a long time since I knew right from wrong / It’s all a means to an end, I keep it movin’ along.” By the end of 1991, I chose Kurt Cobain over Axl Rose because I wanted someone who did know the difference between right and wrong. But even if Cobain’s music changed lives, Nevermind failed in saving the man who created it. It also couldn’t touch Axl; he’s the one who is still movin’ along.

The A.V. Club, October 19, 2010

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:09 pm

SEPTEMBER 11-17, 1992

CONTINUED TOURING WITH METALLICA

Then the band continued the tour in Foxboro on September 11. At this show the concert area contained informational booths "including one for the Massachusetts Prevention of Cruelty to Children" [The Boston Globe, July 27, 1992] which was an important issue to Axl. The Foxboro show was apparently good, and Axl would state, "I wish every night could be this good" [The Boston Globe, September 12, 1992].

The next show was in Toronto, Canada on September 13 before coming to Minneapolis on September 15.

From The Gazette/Canadian Press
September 15, 1992

The show in Minneapolis had been rescheduled after first been cancelled due to unknown reasons, although rumours claimed it was his physic who had warned Axl against playing in cities that started with the letter M [Star Tribune, June 26, 1992; July 8, 1992]. Then it was postponed when Axl had to rest his voice [St. Cloud Times, July 31, 1992].

Review in The Bismarck Tribune
October 5, 1992

The next show took place in Kansas City on September 17 before the band headed for Denver.

Airborne Axl
Unknown date

The band's chiroptactor, Stephen Thaxton, would later comment on the Axl and Slash's daring athleticism during the shows:

Truly mind boggling to me [that they weren't injured]. They came off of those ramps, and you know, in the show, in the heat of the moment, just, I guess all the adrenaline must've really been beneficial to them because to this day, I still think about on a regular basis coming off of those ramps, jumping, it was pretty impressive athletic athleticism on both of their parts. It really was.

Anaheim Bulletin, October 10, 1991

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:09 pm

GUNS N' ROSES AND FAITH NO MORE

Guns N' Roses would invite Faith No More to be one of the openers for the European leg of the tour that started in May 1992. FNM would again be asked to be the opener for the joint Guns N' Roses/Metallica tour that started in July 1992. GN'R knew FNM from way back. On June 19, 1989, Duff and Slash had jammed with FNM on 'War Pigs' at the Roxy [L.A Weekly, June 30, 1989].

A STRANGE DECISION

FNM was a very different band than Guns N' Roses and belonged to the alternative scene of the early 90s. The band would be vocally opposed to many aspects of big bands and how they operated, including the headlining act, something that would become increasingly clear as the touring went on.

As the tour was progressing, Gilby would be asked about their decision to include FNM when they obviously didn't appreciate GN'R:

They're not too crazy about our band. The reason we got Faith No More on the bill was this: When this whole thing originally came together, the idea was to have us, Metallica, and Nirvana all together on the same bill. It was going to be our way of bringing a really broad spectrum of music together that we still had something in common with. I feel that our audiences are very close — people who have our record have Metallica and Faith No More records. It was just something that was the right bill. But if they're not crazy about the band then that's up to them, but we're not going to kick them off the bill just because they don't like the band. I can’t slag someone for having their own opinion about something 'cause I'll tell you if I like or don't like someone too. I don't know how it affects the concert, but it certainly doesn't affect us.

M.E.A.T., September 1992

Already before the tour started the band members of FNM would express some consternation and wonder about what they would take part in:

I don't really know what to expect. Big shows and a lot of people, sorrow and agony, soap opera acting. I've never heard them to tell you the truth.

Raw Magazine, May 27, 1992

We haven't really experienced anything like that yet. This is our first time going out on the road with a band like that. We did do the Billy Idol tour and we were a little bit uncomfortable with that. It'll be interesting to see exactly how many Bodyguards Axl Rose has, I want the inside story. More than anything it's just something to poke fun at. Not to say that's what we're going to do, but...

Raw Magazine, May 27, 1992

We're the reporters and were going to get our scoop. We don't do any of those glamour things like flying first class and riding in limos I guess we're just dumb.

Raw Magazine, May 27, 1992

BADMOUTHING GUNS N' ROSES

When the touring started they would struggle to reconcile their worldviews with being part of the tour. Patton would admit to being a "whore" [NME, June 20, 1992] and that they did it for the money and exposure:

We said: we may not like GNR, we may not like playing in open air stadiums in broad daylight, where we sound like shit and look like shit on a much too large stage that wasn't built for us, and we may not like the fact that people are paying too much money for a ticket...that's all true. But the fact is: it's a very good opportunity to reach a large audience that otherwise wouldn't have come to see us. And that's good.

OOR Magazine, August 8, 1992

While Gould would amusingly describe the circus that was GN'R:

GNR and their management are like a small government. Axl's the president, and his manager's a personal advisor. A couple of the other more visible band members are vice-presidents. Then there's the little guys who come underneath, to make sure only the right information is leaked out. They're dependent on the band for their living, so they will police themselves. Support bands are like other countries with whom they maintain a diplomatic front. Like, keep your mouth shut, enjoy the ride and everything will be cool. Open your mouth, and jeopardize your own position. It's an interesting thing to experience first hand.

NME, June 20, 1992

We're not the kind of band that's made for this kind of stadium show. It's just not what Faith No More is about. It may be good from a business point of view because our record has just come out, and what better way to promote it than to get on a big tour like this? But if we had our way we wouldn't be doing this; I'd rather do ten nights at the Newcastle Mayfair than one at Gateshead Stadium. […] I mean, it's cool to be out there in front of a lot of people, but man, the sound is shit, the place is too big, the crowd is a fuckin' mile away... It just lends itself to more of a cabaret act, the kind of band who want to indulge in all that theatrical bullshit, with costume changes every other song. I mean, we do change our clothes too, but usually only once a month.

Select Magazine, August 1992

Early on, Patton would start to badmouth GN'R and especially Axl to the media:

We never have any contact at all [with GN'R]. They seem to live in a whole different world so I can't relate to them. I can tell you funny stories and that's all. […] A juicy tit bit I heard the other day was that Warren Beatty was fucking Axel's girlfriend. I think he knows because we had a show cancelled the other day and maybe - just maybe - that had something to do with it.

Rip It Up, July 1992

They were playing one night and Duff walks up to Axl and pats him on the head like a loving comrade-type thing and Axl Rose immediately brings the show to a halt, this is in front of 80,000 people, and be screams, 'Don't you ever touch my head again, motherfucker!' Duff just walked away, wounded. We found out later that it was cos he's going bald and he's worried that, if you touch his hair, it will fall out. Every follicle counts.

Melody Maker, August 8, 1992

[Axl] came up to me the other night and said, 'Hey, man, your song really helped me through some really heavy shit in my life'. I said, 'Really? What song is that?' He said, 'Midlife Crisis'. 'What kind of shit?' l asked, He looked at the ground for about an hour then shook his head and said, 'Mmm, just a lot of shit, man'. I tell you, I was biting my lip so hard trying not to loose it. 'We've given up trying to be quiet about their stupid games. It's gotta come out somewhere. For a while we were a little cautious of saying anything, but we were uncomfortable with that.

Melody Maker, August 8, 1992

It's more like you see so many thing that are fucked up that you wanna say something - and we're already pushing it. The amazing thing is that everybody knows something is going to happen. By the time we get to the States, I'm sure something will have happened!

Hot Metal, August 1992

When asked what makes him laugh:

I saw two people in a bar recently, really drunk and flirting with each other. My first instinct was "Oh my God!" 'cause I knew one of them. They were sitting on high bar stools and they were learning forwards, just about to kiss, when they fell off and crashed to the ground. Justice! [They were] Axl Rose and Warren Beatty. [When the interviewer ask whether they could print that but that Axl likely wouldn't read it] Oh yes he will. He has Axl policemen checking things like that for him.

The Face, August 1992

Patton would also shed light on why he was being so vocally critical and abusive towards their headliner:

I always feel a need to provoke, especially if we're supporting some band like Guns N' Roses and people aren't really listening. By insulting them, you make them at least look: it's the lowest common denominator.

The Face, August 1992

Three weeks into the tour and we're already pushing it. We're going to spend the summer with these guys. To me there's nothing... no real reason why we're doing this tour. I mean, it makes real business sense, but on a personal level we have to provoke. To me, that's our duty.

Details Magazine, September 1992

Gould would explain:

We’ve got big mouths. We had big mouths when we were in school and we have big mouths now. It’s just that now when you have a big mouth, everybody reads what you have to say like it’s a valid opinion or something.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 11, 1992

And Patton wasn't the only member of FNM who would be critical about the tour

When is this interview going to be printed? [nervous laugh] You see, I have to watch what I say...but hey, fuck that, just print this: I hate the whole circus thing, we all hate it. But at the moment we don't have the power to do what we want to do, so we still have to eat a little bit of shit. […] We almost have the power to control what we do, but not quite, so we're just gritting our teeth and getting through it best we can. […] Every band in the world might think they want to open for Guns N' Roses, but lemme tell you, it's been a real ugly personal experience, having to deal with all the shit that surrounds this fuckin circus. I've always hated that aspect of rock music and I've never wanted to be part of it, so to find myself being associated with a tour this big kinda sucks.

Select Magazine, August 1992

Besides, I'm getting more and more confused about who's who in Guns N' Roses, and it's blowing my mind. There's Dizzy and Iggy and Lizzy and Tizzy and Gilby and Giddy... Shit man, onstage now there's a horn section, two chick back-up singers, two keyboard players, an airline pilot, a basketball coach, a coupla car mechanics...

Select Magazine, August 1992

Not everybody in FNM was as critical. Mike Bordin, the drummer, would be enthusiastic and defend GN'R:

All these guys are implying that they hate Guns N' Roses, but they actually admire Slash as a guitar player.

Melody Maker, August 8, 1992

It’s an incredible opportunity that they’ve given us - just like this tour was fantastic. They’ve been super good to us. I mean, people say what they want, you know, about any band. There’s always controversy, especially with Guns N’ Roses, turbulence and turmoil that people don’t know. You know, they don’t talk to the press a lot, so people make up their own goddamn bullshit stories - and I’m not gonna do that. But the point is, it’s fantastic we’re getting in front of a lot of people. We’re getting respect from those bands, which means a lot, I think, to the people that like those bands. They realize, I think, that we’re getting respect from those bands that they like; and I think that’s really important.

Much Music, August 9, 1992

And Gould would also occasionally express gratitude:

It's fucking amazing that we even got on the tour, one of the biggest tours in the world. I don't know... I mean, aesthetically we're different! […] I think it's good though. I've gotta give Guns 'N" Roses credit, and give Metallica credit, too. Right now it's really responsible of them to pick bands that are different because they didn't have to do that. They could pretty much tour with anybody.

Hot Metal, August 1992

AXL AND SLASH TALK TO FAITH NO MORE

At some point in the tour Axl decided to confront the band with their constant bad-mouthing.

[Axl] read all the bad press we said about him and asked us about it! We actually talked to him for a while, and y'know what? He was pretty cool! One day we came to the concert, and Axl was there waiting for us. Like, 'What's the deal?'. And we just said we tried to stir up as much trouble as we could. We told him we felt like that was our job, and he just laughed. He just sat and explained his position to us a little bit. He's an easy guy to take pot-shots at, and we definitely went for the easy thing. He was cool about it. He likes to see the system shook up as much as anyone, but he's in an awkward position. We left the tour friendly. It was like making friends with the Devil. I thought all hell was gonna come down, and he let us off with, 'Aw, right, you f"kin' idiots'. That was a cool response. Most people in his position would have been real uptight dicks. I can think of 100 other bands we've done a lot less to that have freaked out 10 times as bad!

Kerrang! November 28, 1992

We said a lot of shit, and didn't realize how bad it was until we got caught. Axl was real straight with us, but it was an ugly scene. He said: 'It's like I went away and came back home to find you guys fucked my wife.' We were thrown off the tour for five hours, but we apologized. It was like being in the principal's office. He said, 'I only like you guys, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, and two other bands, and all of you hate me. Why do you hate me?'

Sky Magazine, December 1992

That was humiliating, that whole thing. I don't know the guy [=Axl] that well, but he seemed genuinely hurt, just this honest guy, saying, 'Hey, there's only two bands I really like, and I took one of them out with me - and then you bad-mouth me in the press'.

Kerrang! February 20, 1993

We'd been talking shit in the press about Axl, and he got wind of it. So one night, we had to stick around and have a meeting with him after the concert. He was really upset and talked to us for an hour. At the end of it, one of his people came into Axl's trailer and said, 'Axl, come on, I want to show you something'. So Axl gets up, all serious, and says to us, 'Come on' - we'd just been raked over the coals and felt obliged to play along - so we all had to follow him. We went into this other trailer. It was filled with guys but dead silent, no one's saying a thing. Everyone was looking at something going on in the back. We're following Axl like idiots, but as we all get closer to the back we see what everyone's looking at - lying on a bench are these two really out-of-it women, stark naked. One was eating the other out, but it was anything but sexy. The girl who was being eaten out... she looked like she was dead - just lying there. It was so creepy. And absolutely silent. All you could hear was the whirr of the video camera. Axl walked right up in front and we freaked out. Mike (Patton) started yelling, 'Oh my God! I cannot believe you people would do this!' Everyone just shushed us, and we all just left immediately.

Kerrang! May 22, 1993

With Soundgarden everything worked out well. But we did have problems with Faith No More. They’re a bunch of brats. We had to talk to them because they started messing with us in the press. They were opening for us and at the same time they insulted us in the press. We didn’t know how they really felt. Axl gathered them in a room and told them, ‘What’s your fucking problem? If you don’t like it here and have any kind of dignity, don’t go bitching to the press, just leave,’ and they shut up for a while. They were being naughty (laughs). If you don’t like being somewhere, the best thing to do is leave.

Popular 1, February 1995; translated from Spanish

According to Slash's biography, he was also present at this meeting, although it could have been a different meeting since only Patton and Martin was present from FNM's side:

We had a much more antagonistic situation on our hands with our other support band, Faith No More, once their front man, Mike Patton, started talking shit about us onstage. We let it go once, twice, but after that, that was it. We had to have a talk with him. Axl came in with me, as did their guitarist Jim Martin, because Jim was as fed up with Mike as we were. “Listen, man,” I said. “If you don’t like it here, just fucking leave. It can’t be like this. Either let’s do this thing and make it great, or forget it, go home.” They ended up finishing the tour and that was the last outburst we heard from Mike during their set.

[Slash's autobiography, 2007

IN HINDSIGHT

After the touring, Faith No More would look back at it:

We're still hoping [Axl] hasn't read some of [what we said]. We were just being honest, and that felt great, but it can also get you killed. As far as the press was concerned, we were like caged animals. They'd throw us a little bit of meat and we'd attack. And we realized that we were the ones who were getting screwed. The interviews that we did belonged in the National Enquirer. We were like a gossip column rather than a band.

Sky Magazine, December 1992

[The tour] was really good for the band. But it wasn't really good for our heads. Things happen when our minds are given the space to degenerate. […] The good thing was playing in front of 80,000 people a night, when on our own we'd bring maybe 3,000 people to a show. So we'd have to play 200 shows to make up for one Guns N' Roses' show's worth of people. […] Unfortunately, we're used to much more relaxed situations, just being able to hang out after the show and not having to worry about our fans shooting us or anything. Getting thrown into that atmosphere was really uncomfortable. Plus, with the security so intense, what can you do backstage? Get drunk and look at strippers? Oh yeah, that's real exciting. […] Being able to talk shit in the press and have a lot of people read it! That was really fun. That was how we got our amusement. We like to create dissension. It was this gigantic body of people that travel just like some big circus, where no one ever really communicates with each other. We thought that if we could stir it up just enough to where we wouldn't get in trouble, it might make it more interesting! After all, it's kind of uncool when a band invites you on tour and you diss 'em a little bit just to have some fun.

Kerrang! November 28, 1992

I hate rock music. I've always hated it. Like Led Zeppelin and stuff like that. I mean, my dad used to listen to that shit. It's the least interesting thing in the world, the excess and all that stuff, it's so boring. The world has gone through its period of exploration in that area. A stadium gig is fun to do once in a while, but that Guns N' Roses thing really got me down because it's as rock as it gets. It's the mentality I don't understand. I think it's disgusting. It's not natural, it's all role-playing. Complete bullshit and I hate it when our band reflects things like that.

NME, January 23, 1993

It wasn't that bad on the road for the first couple of months, but after four months, there were lots of little things...

NME, January 23, 1993

They did us a huge favour, and then for us to turn around and say that stuff in the press was pretty shitty...

Kerrang! February 20, 1993

Knowing their beliefs and the sexist, racist, homophobic things they've said in the press, the fact that they were touring with us - a band with someone gay in it kind of tickled me. But talk about crass sexism... the actual experience was disgusting. On the road. the band would send their video crew out to roam around in the audience during intermissions. They'd corner pretty girls in the audience, and everyone would scream and yell at her until she lifted up her blouse and showed her tits. [And if she refused] the whole audience would boo her. It was awful. And it happened every night. And at each stop on the tour, before Guns N' Roses would come to a town, they would have their crew arrive a day early and find the local club, where they'd give strippers backstage passes. Every night, the whole scenario was like millions of stripper chicks just hanging out waiting to do one of the band, or a roadie or whoever. […] It was so sleazy. We left every night right after we played. The only time I ever talked to Axl was the night our band had to stay after Guns N' Roses' set to get a tongue-lashing from him.

Kerrang! May 22, 1993

Opening for them was an absurd situation for a band like Faith No More. Their scene was about excess, excess, excess. There were more strippers than road crew. We weren't into that type of male bonding. The only time I saw their show was when we were reprimanded for laughing about the absurdity of the touring environment in the press and told that we'd have to apologize to Axl or leave the tour. We made an attempt to explain where we were coming from, but I think it went over his head because as a sort of peace offering he brought us to a trailer backstage where two naked women strippers were having sex.

Spin, July 1999

When Guns N' Roses offered the quintet a long stretch of opening stadium dates in the UK and the US, it appeared as though the band had it made. But FNM and GN'R were coming from two completely different worlds. [...]

There was a rumor that Axl brought his psychic on tour with him. And it would be bad luck in any city that started with the letter M. So he cancelled Manchester, Madrid, Munich, and he did Montreal, and that's when the riot happened. [...]

It got very bizarre. We saw Axl once or twice the whole time. We did a lot of interviews talking about how it was, and I think the band didn't appreciate that very much. We got busted one day, and we had to go apologise. It was like getting in the principal's office. We went and met Axl in his room, and to tell you the truth, he was super-cool and super-gracious. Then some guy comes in, and says: 'Now that everything's good, come over here.' We went into some trailer where there's some lesbian love act going on. It just blew the whole thing. It was so fucking gross that we were just like: 'Oh God.' We thought we came to some kind of meeting of the minds, and obviously, we hadn't.

Classic Rock, October 2006

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:10 pm

SEPTEMBER 19, 1992

ALMOST A RIOT AT THE MILE HIGH STADIUM IN DENVER

At the show in Denver on September 19, 1992, the band started with 'Welcome to the Jungle' but Axl then left the stage leaving Duff to sing on 'So Fine' and 'Attitude'. This was then followed by a "slow blues instrumental" before Slash started on a guitar solo only to be interrupted by Axl coming onstage again and saying "shut the fuck up" to the booing crowds who were fed up with the performance so far [Rocky Mountain News, September 1992; 101.9 King, December 5, 2016].

Apparently, Axl had been on his way back to the hotel after 'Jungle' but concert promoter Barry Fey, claims to have ordered to limo to return to the concert out of fear of a riot [101.9 King, December 5, 2016].

In an article in Westworld, Fey would describe how it went down:

I'm walking backstage, and this guy comes running out and says, "Barry, Axl just left." I said, "'The fuck are you talking about, 'Axl left'?" So I ran backstage, and I found out that he had come down off the stage, got into the limousine and left the site. So I said to... I went up to - his name was Big John; he was the guy who ran the limo company - and I said, 'You don't work for him; you work for me.' I said, 'You ever want to see another fucking dime of this company's money, you get that car back here.' And he said, "What?" I said, "Yeah. The only way he gets out of that car is if he jumps out. And if he jumps out, you leave him in the street. But you get that car back here." So he gets on his little telephone. People are getting a little pissed by this time. Guns is up there just jamming, right? They played "Welcome to the Jungle," and then they didn't do anything; they were just jamming, and people were getting a little pissed off. In fact, I found out that they were taking their Guns N' Roses T-shirts back to the concession stand and throwing them at them and saying, "Give me a Metallica shirt." So I went into the Guns and Metallica dressing room. So Guns sends down an emissary -- and this I know for sure because I was standing there within three feet - and he tells Lars, "Would you guys consider coming back up and jamming with us, because the crowd's going to get out of line?" So Lars tells him, word for word, "You bozos don't have enough money in your collective bank accounts for me to get back on that stage." So at that point, I left the dressing room, went back out to the parking lot and got my .357 out of my glove box and put it in my back pocket. So I go out there, and I don't know what I'm going to do, because, you know, he had caused a riot in Montreal, I believe, by leaving and not coming back. Well, a few minutes later, the car comes back, and Axl gets out and talks to his manager - his name was Doug Goldstein; he was a glorified security guy; he use to do their security, and he took over their management. But how do you manage, manic depressive heroin addicts? That's a pretty good trick. I don't know how you do that. So he [Axl] comes and talks to his manager and goes right up on the stage and gets back into it. So I put three of my, what do you want to call 'em, security, goons, thugs -- the toughest ones I have - at the top of the stairs and three Denver cops at the bottom. My instructions are: "The only way he gets out, if he leaves again, is that way," and I point to the crowd. Doug Goldstein says, "Barry, you can't do that. Axl will get so pissed." I said, "I don't give a fuck about him, and I don't give the same about you. I care about them," and I pointed to the people. So that, basically, is what happened. But Lars tends to tell a different story, and Lars has far more credibility out in the industry than I have. He swears I put the gun up to Axl's temple and said, "Get on that fucking stage or you're going to die." It [his .357] never left my pocket. But every time he sees me today, he says, "Barry, are you packing today?" So that was that story. […] Of course, that also was Slash's bachelor party that night. It was downtown at the Embassy Suites, which is no longer there. They were handing out little tickets - a blue ticket, like if you wanted a blow job, a yellow ticket if you wanted to get laid, a red ticket if you wanted to do both. It was a crazy night. And it turns out, I found out later, the reason Axl left was because he had a fight with Slash on the stage. But you know, I didn't really care. I just... I wasn't going to let him get away with that. And Lars says to me, "Don't tell me you wouldn't have shot him." I said, 'Oh if he's not going to go on, he's going to get shot." But it didn't have to happen. So that's a great story, but it's true. That's the way it is. If you hang up with me and call Lars, he'll tell you the story, "Yeah, Barry put this fucking gun to his head." Didn't happen.

Westworld, November 18, 2011

In 2015, Goldstein would be confronted by the rumours that Fey had pointed a gun at Axl:

Horseshit. Actually, I've heard that Barry told people he pulled a gun on Axl. You know what, I mean, it makes for great stories, but it's fucking horseshit.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

Of course, according to the description by Fey above, he doesn't claim to have pulled the gun and blames Lars Ulrich for spreading this rumour.

Goldstein would give his version of what happened:

I don't know if you've ever gone through this Mitch, I go through it all the time because I have a bit of a temper. So when you go through, when you leave the stage, or in my case when I am in a relationship and I lose my cool, I walk out the door. [...] So [Axl] leaves and then... What I go through when I lose my cool is, "Fuck, now I'm embarrassed and I need to find a way to actually get back to what I was doing" [laughing] "because I don't want to be the guy who split." Axl told the limo driver to pull it around. There were no threats. There was no security. Myself and Earl Gabbadon, Axl's security guy, met him at the car and said, "Everything okay?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm just fucking pissed off. You know, I can't sing the way that I'd like to, I shouldn't be doing this fucking tour." So I talk with him for like 10 minutes and he ends up going back. So, I don't know why Barry told the story that he did. I mean, Barry also called me a glorified security guy.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

Goldstein would also claim he couldn't remember that Fey put security guards close to the stage to prevent Axl from leaving again:

I don't remember it that way, Mitch. The only time I remember something like that was actually in Germany. Where they locked us in.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

A review in the college newspaper Highlander was not very kind to the band:

Guns N Roses left a lot to be desired for their set. Singer Axl Rose stomped off the stage during their opening song "Welcome To The Jungle," only to come back on in about twenty minutes later to do the same thing on "Bad Obsession."

Bassist Duff McKagen had his fill of singing to the crowd with "Attitude" and "Why Are You So Blind?" while Axl was off stage pouting.

In between around seven clothes changes from Axl, there were the never-ending solo's from hell. Lead guitarist Slash had his guitar on so loud, it overpowered Axl's voice, Matt Sorum's drum set and even Duff's bass.

Slash's solo (which lasted around half an hour) included "Voodoo Child," "The Godfather," and many more interesting things. Everyone in the band had a solo, including Denverite pianist Dizzy Reed.

Drummer Matt Sorum's solo was excellent, but his ego seemed to get into the way of his act. Instead of playing, he kept standing up to receive gratification from the crowd.

The solo's got so long and so dull, many people either left to go home or were sitting in their seats sleeping. It was more like watching pay-per-view or MTV instead of a live Guns N Roses concert.

Guns N Roses had little to none interaction with the crowd. When guitarist Gilby Clarke's solo was through, Axl came back out on stage again to sing "Mr. Brownstone," "Sweet Child O' Mine," and "Paradise City." Those three songs seemed to be the only rocking tunes in their set.

Since the solo's dragged on and wasted over an hour of Guns N Roses' time, they only played around eight songs total, most of which were slow.

From part of their cover of Alice Cooper's "Only Woman Bleed" to their song "November Rain," the set was really somber and depressing. Denver got a lousy show from Guns N Roses.

Metallica definitely should have headlined the show, but time can't be changed. Well, look at the good side of it, at least there was no riot!!

Highlander, a college newspaper (of Regis University in Denver), Sept. 24, 1992

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:10 pm

SEPTEMBER 23, 1992

A PRENUP KILLS SLASH IN SAN FRANCISCO

In an interview in early 1995 Slash would for the first time mention an OD that happened "a couple of years ago:"

I was like dead for eight minutes. It wasn't recently, okay? There was an incident that happened, but it was a couple of years ago.

Metal Hammer, February 1995

Uh... I didn't realise at the time, but when I came to it was, like, cool! Ha ha. I woke up in the hospital, signed a release form and hailed a cab. It didn't mean shit to me.

NME, March 4, 1995

Do you remember that movie "Pulp Fiction"? He needed to get an injection in the heart like in the movie.

O Globo, January 16, 2001; translated from Portuguese, possible paraphrased

To keep Slash alive if he OD-ed, Doug Goldstein would later tell that he carried Narcan and once had to administer it, although this is likely a different incident:

I had to carry a Narcan on the road and used it on Slash. The same drugs, the same thing that they did on the Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

Talking Metal Podcast, February 16, 2018

The reason the media hadn't caught on to this story about Slash's OD in 1992 earlier was that the band and crew had decided to keep it a secret, as Craig Duswalt would describe it in his book:

That night we had a team meeting—the band and some key members of the entourage, me included. We figured out what we were going to say to everyone else on tour, and we were all sworn to secrecy about what happened that day. The band didn’t want the public to know, and this story was buried.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, 2014

Slash would forget he had told about it to Metal Hammer in early 1995, and be surprised when another interviewer subsequently asked about it:

Wow. Where did you hear that? I don't remember ever talking publicly about that. Uh, but, yeah, I've had a couple of close calls. I don't know what you'd call it though. They told me that I was out for a while but I really don't remember anything about it. I didn't see any fucking bright lights. But even if it did happen, I was too fucking high to have seen anything.

Q Magazine, April 1995

Before a show in San Francisco with his side-project Slash's Snakepit, he would talk more about the incident:

They found me unconscious by my hotel elevator. I ended up in the hospital and woke up with all these tubes sticking out of me. They told me I'd been dead for 8 minutes. […] I had stopped doing the hard stuff six or seven years ago, and that’s the only time I screwed it up. I had to quit; I was doing everything extremely over the top to the point where I shouldn’t even be alive. I just fell in with the wrong people up there in the Bay Area. […] No one knew about it. It was kept pretty quiet. I’m clean now, although I still have a few vices: cigarettes and my Jack Daniel’s.

The San Francisco Examiner, May 8, 1995

The tour manager of the tour, John Freese, would also later describe what happened:

I got a phone call at 5:30-6:00 a.m. at my room from the front desk saying, “Mr. Reese, one of your band members is passed out in front of the elevator on the sixth or fifth floor.” So I throw on some pants and run out of my room, and Slash is dead. I mean dead, blue dead. He had no pulse. Paramedics show up and bump the adrenaline right into his heart.

VH1 Documentary, July 5, 2004

Duff would likely refer to this incident in 2004:

[...] Slash died right before a show and when they revived him he said, 'we gotta play; and he was on stage that night!

Metal Hammer, April 2004

And Slash would go in more detail:

I’ve had a lot of incidents like that, but the one that you’re talking about is one in particular in San Francisco, where I died in the hotel, and they revived me in the hotel and I was like, “Okay!” Actually, they revived me in the hotel and took me to the hospital and I said, “Okay, I’m fine.” They said, “You can’t leave” and I said, “I gotta go, I’ve got a gig.” So I signed myself out and walked down the street back to the hotel, and we flew to the next gig. [...] That was drugs. That was one of those occasions where I got out of hand and, I think, sort of just didn’t care (laughs). I was pissed off about something in particular, and I ran into the wrong people and knew that they had what I knew I was looking for; and they showed up at, like, five o’clock in the morning in my hotel room, knocked on the door and they had everything. And I did all of it, and I was on my way, actually, to another guy’s room - when all of a sudden I fucking collapsed in the hallway - to get more (laughs). So... [...] I remember exactly what happened. What happened was, I got the phone call, I said, “Okay, I’ll be up there in a minute” and I got up, I told the people who were in my room that I’ll be right back - which means I must have been not in my right mind if I was gonna leave some people I don’t know, who are drug dealers, in my room – and I went out, opened the door and I started going down the hall, and I was starting to physically collapse. And I ran into a maid, and I remember asking where the elevator was, and then just bam! - that was it. It just freaked her out. [...] A little Spanish lady. I remember her really well. And it just all went sort of “boom.” And the next thing you know, I woke up with tubes coming out of my throat, and sitting on the same place where I passed out, and all these people and my security guards staring down at me thinking I was gone, and all that. There’s a certain kind of... what’s it called... like, everybody just moving really quickly, and noise, and stuff like that that happens when you OD (laughs). I’ve experienced it a bunch of times; you wake up and there’s, like, this whole thing going on around you, you know, and all these people moving around, and sticking tubes in and talking on radios, and this and that and the other. Then they put me on the stretcher and took me to the hospital and I was... But at that point, I was up – you know, they should’ve just left me there (laughs).

The Guardian, unedited radio interview, July 9, 2004

Years later, Slash would describe the incident in his biography:

When we got to the Bay Area to play the Oakland Stadium on September 24, 1992, I got into a bit of trouble. We were staying in a hotel in San Francisco, and before I went to the venue that afternoon to sound-check, I got into a huge argument with Renee over the issue of our prenuptial agreement. It descended into a screaming match and a fight so abrasive that I was beside myself pissed. I went to the gig so angry that I was determined to do what I do when I want to act out: get some smack. I hadn’t done any in so long because, as unhappy as I was with the band, I was not about to cripple my professionalism. But this gave me a worthwhile excuse as far as I was concerned.

I got to the show and I ran into an old friend, a porn star we’ll call “Lucky,” who I’d known some years before. She was a friend of an ex-girlfriend of mine, the porn star Savannah, whom I’d dated for a few months when I had downtime in L.A. during my time off from Renee. Savannah was intense. I had no idea that she was a junkie. The clue I should have picked up on was that she only liked to fuck after she’d fixed; I didn’t know it at the time. We got into a huge fight one night when she spontaneously decided to give me a blow job in the middle of some bar in New York City.

I first met Lucky when she came over to hang out with us at the Mondrian. She and Savannah got stripped down, and when we ordered some champagne they invited the room service guy into the room to watch them go at it, and before long the only thing holding this guy’s eyes in their sockets were a few little tiny veins.

Anyway, I ran into Lucky at the show and we got to talking. I gave Lucky passes and about seven hundred bucks in cash to get me as much heroin as she could find. We did the show—it was great—then I went straight back to my hotel room and waited. I kept drinking the whole time, maybe did some blow, but when she showed up at five a.m., I was pretty much ready to pass out.

Lucky and her boyfriend came rolling in with all of this crack and smack and I’m sitting on the floor watching them spread out all of the drugs across the coffee table. They’ve got rigs, points, shooters, tools, hardware, whatever you choose to call them—they’ve got brand-new needles. We get it all going, the three of us, and we are all fiending hard. It was intended to be a fun illicit thing—momentary, as far as I was concerned—but this is getting intense. We all do a hit, but the shit isn’t strong, so I do a few more. They are sending the crack pipe around.

The hours go by and we are really loaded. Matt calls me sometime in the early morning he invites me to his room to do some blow.

“Okay …yeah …I’ll be right there.”

I get up, weak-kneed, reeling from my last crack hit, and I look over at Lucky and her boyfriend; they are having the time of their lives—they have never had a motherload of drugs like this for free. I make my way across the carpet to the door, dragging my feet, realizing that I’m dizzy and I can’t speak. I open the door; I don’t have my wits about me at all. I see a maid in the hallway pushing her housekeeping cart and I ask her which way to the elevator. That is what I try to say. I remember it all in slow motion; I remember hearing my voice speak far away.

I collapsed like a rag doll in the hallway …I blacked out, and my heart stopped for eight minutes, or so I was told. I don’t know who called 911. My security guard, Ronnie, was there and so was Earl, Axl’s guy, and they took care of me and got the paramedics. I woke up when the defibrillators sent an electric shock through my chest and stunned my heart into beating again. It was like being slapped in the face hard enough to wake you from a deep sleep. I remember the bright lights in my eyes and a circle of people leaning in over me: Ronnie, Earl, and the paramedics. I had no idea what was going on; it wasn’t an easy wake-up call.

I was put in an ambulance and taken to a hospital, where I was given the once-over. I was told to remain overnight for observation, but I wasn’t having that. After a couple of hours I signed myself out and went back to the hotel, Ronnie in tow. I had no remorse whatsoever about my over-dose—but I was pissed off at myself for having died. The whole hospital excursion really ate into my day off. I was hoping to make it through without a hitch and was kicking myself for not being able to maintain my balance and just stay awake through the whole thing as planned.

Back at the hotel, the vibe was pretty somber. Apparently, my halfway swan dive didn’t look so good. Everyone thought that I was a goner and was acting appropriately serious, which is something that I could never understand. My attitude at the time was, “Hey, everybody, I made it! Let’s go!” When I got back, my highest priority was finding Lucky and her boyfriend. From what I was told, Earl had scared them off. I completely understood that because Earl was terrifying: He was a big black guy, over six feet tall, with a football player’s build and an oddly sweet face. That feature actually made him more disturbing because when he was pissed, you really knew about it.

I’m sure the mention of prison and me dying was enough to drive Lucky and her man to vacate quickly. It wasn’t their fault that I couldn’t hold my shit together. I don’t know for sure, but Earl probably threw the dope away in the course of kicking them out. At least that’s what I told myself because they hadn’t left me anything …and that bummed me out most of all. I cooled down in my room for a few hours, with both security guards posted in the hallway outside of my door to ensure that I didn’t go anywhere.

Eventually Doug Goldstein came in and launched into one of the most pathetic displays of bullshit concern that mankind has ever known. He gave me a long speech at the top of his lungs about what I’d just done, about how people love me and this, that, and the other. It was very aggressive, very dramatic, and very fake. To illustrate his “seriousness” he threw a bottle of Jack Daniel’s through the television. When he left, I retrieved that bottle, which hadn’t broken, and poured myself a stiff drink to get over his intervention.

Shortly afterward, Doug called a band meeting in Axl’s room. We all gathered around, and I was still nodding out at this point. Everyone voiced their concern for my well-being, but Axl’s comment stood out most of all. It snapped me out of my haze, actually.

“You gave us a scare,” he said slowly, looking right at me. “We thought you were dead…. I thought I’d have to look for a new guitar player.”

The next morning we boarded helicopters and flew to Oakland for the gig, and the whole time Ronnie and Earl monitored me like two hawks tracking a mouse. From there we did the L.A. Coliseum, then San Diego, which was killer: Motörhead, Body Count, Metallica, and us. We did the Rose Bowl in Pasadena after that, which was just huge, and then we ended the tour in Seattle. And after a few days, everyone realized that what I’d done was a onetime thing.

[Slash's autobiography, 2007

A FIGHT OVER A PRE-NUP CAUSED IT

The OD happened not long before Slash would marry Renee and in 2001 he would say that a fight over a pre-nuptial agreement had resulted in the OD:

The beginning of the end [of the marriage] was when I said, “Sign this prenup.” I remember exactly where I was. I was in San Francisco, Guns was touring the stadiums with Metallica. And that phone call was made that there was gonna be a prenup. […] That was me [who called Renee], yeah. And that was one of the biggest fights in our entire relationship over the phone. […] Well, I don’t even get into it. You know... […] And it stressed me out so bad that, after the show was over, I ran into the wrong people at the wrong time, and after the gig I ended up in the hospital, you know, messing around... I was so depressed from the whole argument that I ended up OD’ing that night. […] And then I had a gig the next night.

The Howard Stern Show, September 7, 2001

HOW THIS AFFECTED AXL

In 2001, Axl would curiously state that his problems with Slash started with this overdose incident [O Globo, January 16, 2001]. And in 2016, an BBC Four interviewer would ask Marc Canter and Tom Zutaut whether it was true that Axl believed that when "Slash died, that he flew away as a crow" [BBC Four, February 5, 2016], to which they responded:

Uh-uh (laughs). I’m not going there! (laughs). No. I'm not even going to go there.

BBC Four, February 5, 2016

I think Axl genuinely believes that the soul of Saul Hudson left that body when Slash OD'd and that there's a replacement soul that has taken over Slash's body, and Axl truly does believe that. And I think that's the greatest stumbling block to getting the band back together. It could have been just the luck of the timing of that moment. That Axl perceived that Slash had died, and a replacement soul had taken over Saul Hudson's body and Saul had gone off into the next world. Who's-ever in Saul Hudson's body right now, it seems like Slash to me.

BBC Four, February 5, 2016

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:11 pm

AXL WANTS BODY COUNT; HETFIELD WANTS MOTORHEAD

Faith No More was finished as the tour's opener on September 21 and allegedly Guns N' Roses and Metallica was did not agree on which band would take over as the opener for the remaining five shows of the tour. Axl wanted Body Count while James Hetfield wanted Motorhead. In the end they agreed on a compromise, Body Count would open for the first two shows and Motorhead for the last three.

[Sources to be added].

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:11 pm

SEPTEMBER 24-OCTOBER 6, 1992

THE LAST SHOWS ON THE METALLICA TOUR

SLASH TALKS ABOUT THE TOUR

While the tour was on hiatus due to James Hetfield injuries, Slash was interviewed by Guitar Player and talked about the tour:

I feel bad for James Hetfield. I know he's bummed out because Metallica never cancels gigs. It figures that as soon as they get on tour with us, all hell breaks loose! All these cancelled shows aren't his fault, but he feels responsible. He's trying desperately to heal, and everyone is still committed to finishing the tour.

Guitar World, November 1992

And on the decision to let GN'R end the shows:

There's a certain kind of unpredictability about GN'R, as opposed to the rigidity of Metallica's whole trip. We could've never been the middle band, because it would've thrown Metallica way out of whack. […] We are aware the audience is pretty tired by the end of the night, but we've fought through that. But even though the crowd is tired, we've felt that the response has been warm and appreciative. Any other way would've been a disaster. We're trying to be a little more responsible with how we do things, because we know other people are involved; but still, with us, it's a firecracker situation.

Guitar World, November 1992

Slash would also talk about his solo spots:

It's pretty off-the-cuff. In the first several shows of the Illusion tour, I would play solos to fill in the gaps while Axl figured out which song to play next. As the tour continued and the set began to solidify more, we ended up just keeping a few spots open. For example, I never expected my rendition of "The Godfather Theme" to become a permanent part of the set - it just happened, and people came to expect it. Everything just evolved naturally. […] I don't like to play unaccompanied all that much, so over the last few shows Dizzy and I have started working out a blues duet that I think works really well. It's a 12-bar thing in a minor key, and I love doing it. But so many things factor into whether I'm going to play an extended, unaccompanied solo. A lot depends on how well I can hear myself in the room. I can't stand directly in front of my cabinets, because they're too dry, so I depend on the house mix. Because we don't do soundchecks, the first thing I do after I hit the stage is find different sweet spots on the stage. If I can't find a good spot, then I'm sunk for the rest of the show. If I do find a good-sounding area on stage, I can wail my ass off, and I'll play more or longer.

Guitar World, November 1992

THE FINAL SHOWS

The next shows in the Guns N' Roses/Metallica tour took place in Oakland on September 24, 1992 and at the Los Angeles Coliseum in Los Angeles on September 27.

The rapper Ice-T's band Body Count was supposed to open but at the Coliseum and for the upcoming October 3 show at Rose Bowl, show promoter Brian Murphy decided to cut Ice-T due to their controversial song 'Cop Killer' and the recent massive riots in Los Angeles [Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1992]. Body Count manager Jorge Hinojosa didn't criticize Murphy for his actions. "We're glad to be doing the dates we are on the tour," he said [Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1992]. Axl, on the other hand, was critical:

Both Ice and myself are tired of all the racial crap. This was our chance to play together and show people that we're about artistic expression, not violence or prejudice. It comes down to this--freedom of speech is OK, as long as it doesn't piss off some public official.

Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1992

Apparently, the LA gig was not very good due to a lackluster crowd who had caused both Lemmy from opening band Motorhead and James Hetfield to complain about them [Los Angeles Times, September 29, 1992]. During the show Axl would address the crowd, going "a large number of you seem to be the most boring . . . crowd that we've played for so far on the face of the . . . Earth" […] Now, we can work together here, and we can continue to stay up here and try to kick some ass. But, if you're t-i-r-e-d and it's been a long night and tomorrow is going to be a hard day and you're not really into it . . . well, we don't have to be either. . . . 'cause I'm gonna give what I receive" [Los Angeles Times, September 29, 1992].

Axl would also talk about the show from stage in Rose Bowl a few days later:

We didn't have such a great experience when we just played the Coliseum. This (expletive) makes up for the whole thing.

Rose Bowl, October 3, 1992

And Slash in early 1994 when talking about how poor US' audiences can be:

Ask the guys in Metallica about one show in LA at The Coliseum which had to be the deadest 60,000 people I've ever seen! They've got the beer to get drunk and have a good time, but they don't even get drunk enough for that - they just stand there!

Kerrang! January 8, 1994

The next shows were in San Diego on September 30 and Rose Bowl in Los Angeles on October 3.

Matt had been looking forward to playing the Rose Bowl, especially since there had been local opposition towards the concert [Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1992; April 29, 1992; April 30, 1992]

[Talking about playing at the Rose Bowl before the tour started]: It’s pretty wild. I don’t think anyone... Not that many people play there, you know, because the people in Pasadena are pretty old and they like to keep the volume down, I think. […] So I think we had a hard time getting it, you know, the facility to play. But I’m glad that we did, because we can get, like, I don’t know how many, 220,000 or something.

MTV, July 17, 1992

The comedian Andrew Dice Clay would introduce the band at the Rose Bowl but afterwards say that he fucked it up:

I've got a long history with [Guns N' Roses] and the last time I introduced them at the Rose Bowl, I screwed that intro up [laughs]. [...]

Artisan News, June 1, 2014

And the show was a success:

We didn't have such a great experience when we just played the Coliseum. This (expletive) makes up for the whole thing. [...] They might even allow us back again. You've been a (expletive) excellent crowd. They've got nothing to complain about.

Rose Bowl, October 3, 1992

That was probably the best show too. I mean, they were all great, but that was the funniest.

In Your Face, October 1992

When we did the Rose Bowl (in Pasadena), that was the dream concert of the whole summer tour, but it didn't feel like that peak moment we thought it would because there was a whole lot more to do.

Raw Magazine, November 10, 1993

Craig Duswalt, personal assistant to Axl at the time, would mention this show in his biography:

Saturday, October 3, 1992. Guns N’ Roses performed at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. I remember that show very well, and I remember Axl saying after the show, “Now, I feel like I’ve made it.” His goal was always to play at the Rose Bowl. Maybe because of his name, or probably because it is one of the biggest venues we ever played. I vividly remember thinking that day that Axl Rose, for the first time I noticed, seemed extremely proud of his accomplishments. It was the only time I ever saw that in him. We ended up leaving the venue at about 7 a.m. Long night. Great night.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

When I was on the road with [Axl], one of the biggest concerts we played was the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA. I remember him saying, after he walked off the stage, that he felt he had “made it.” His dream was always to play the Rose Bowl.

mygnrforum, May 1, 2014

Lemmy would also look back at opening for Guns N' Roses in this period:

We were on the Ozzy Osbourne tour with Ugly Kid Joe and we got fired off that so we went to play with Guns N' Roses. We played a couple of shows with them at the Rose Bowl. They were already sort of fragmenting then. The Illusion songs weren't as good as the ones on the first record. Axl was on his own. It didn't feel like they were thinking as a band anymore. I think when Steve (Adler) got messed up it really fucked them all in the head. It always happens when an original goes. Fans don't really give a shit if the (replacement) is better. It's still not that guy.

Spin, July 1999

The final show of the tour took place on October 6 in Seattle.

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:12 pm

LOOKING BACK AT TOURING WITH METALLICA

We stuck in there and made our points. That was a great achievement as far as I’m concerned. It was definitely the hardest tour at least - for Guns N’ Roses, that we’ve ever done.

MTV, October 1992

We had a blast, man. It was one giant party, very fun. It was great doing shows with Metallica.

In Your Face, October 1992

To be honest, the American tour was really hard because with Metallica playing a full set, and the crowd being really tired by the time they got to us, and so many spectators who really weren't into the music-people who were there just because they wanted to see what everything was about-it was difficult for us. […] With that many people on the American tour just standing around and not giving us energy back, it was really hard for us to keep up our energy level.

Hit Parader, June 1993

Then we went out with Metallica, and it was the workhorse tour. Two major acts, two major ego-maniacal conglomerations - it was hard work! So e stuck together in true Guns N' Roses fashion, which mean that it was us against everybody! As glad as I was when that tour was over, I will never have any regrets over doing it. I'm glad we did it, and I'm happy for the kids because it was so volatile; the whole thing was so f**king honest. This is the real shit, guys! All 50,000 kids - this is what it's like! I'm sure people will talk in years to come of having been to that show, more than something like the US Monsters Of Rock, which was so stale.

Kerrang! January 8, 1994

I was definitely very excited about how that went — I mean, as far as how it went for us. And we got to see a lot of people backstage, we threw some really huge parties that were a lot of fun.

WRIF Radio Detroit, November 20, 2002

[Being asked which band had been the most fun to party with on the road]: Guns N' Roses. Everything you've heard is true. Use your imagination. That summer we toured with them, '92, it was the most fun in terms of the girls and the drugs and the debauchery. At the same time, four months was plenty. We sort of walked out of there going, 'I'm really glad I got to experience that. Now I'll crawl back into my safer cubicle with Metallica.

Rolling Stone via Blabbermouth, May 2003

As a fan coming out to see their favorite band, and having the singer walk offstage or throw the mic down in frustration because the monitors were funky, it’s not professional and it’s not giving the people what they came for. Man, we did like 50 shows with Axl. We used the same monitors every night. I don’t remember James or myself complaining once about that kind of stuff. The dude recorded some great vocal on some great rock songs, but you don't sell 50,000 tickets and walk off the stage. Fuck that!

FHM, June 2006

In 2009, Metallica would be asked if they would consider touring with Guns N' Roses again:

[Shaking his head and mouthing "no" before]: Like James was saying earlier, we're road dogs we love to tour, so if that opportunity ever came in the right situation, of course.

AntiMusic, January 16, 2009

We've learned never to say never, cause you don't know what hurtle, or what great thing is gonna be handed to you.

AntiMusic, January 16, 2009

We actually, all 4 of us really like Chinese Democracy, I think it's a great record and I mean who knows, we never say no to anything.

AntiMusic, January 16, 2009

I think the question is: would they tour with us?

AntiMusic, January 16, 2009

In 2018, Doug Goldstein would discuss the problems of the tour:

We got along great until we started the tour with them. There’s a lot of reasons but once that tour started it went from we were great friends to we don’t really like each other. Just generally. I think that they intentionally wanted that spot before us and I told Axl I wanted to swap headlining and he didn’t wanna do it and I think they walked into it going, we’re going to try and kick their ass every night. That’s what an opener is supposed to do. As a manager, that’s what you tell your opener. Go leave them with a feeling of go and try to follow that.

When I first started with a band, tee shirts were $19. And we earned out our advance in a month. So tickets went to, because they gave us such a large advance that tee shirts went to $20. And we kept earning our advances as was Metallica. Metallica wanted a better deal than GnR, GnR wanted a better deal than Metallica. And when tee shirt went to like $23, $22 maybe, I told the band you know what, Metallica is going to have a better deal than you. I won’t do it anymore. This is where I jump off. And they supported it because they understood and again it was because I was more fan-based. I made sure that all of our shirts were done in heavy cotton material. I didn’t want some throw away tee shirt that was going to rip after six months, two months.

GN'R Central, December 24, 2018

For more about the digs between the band and Axl lashing out against Metallica after the tour, see a later chapter.

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:12 pm

OCTOBER 10, 1992

SLASH MARRIES RENEE

In July and August 1992 Slash would say he was soon to marry his long-time girlfriend Renee Suran. The decision seems to have come as a surprise to Slash:

It's a stretch of the imagination for me to get married in the first place. I've been the most intense womanizer for so long -- I like women! I finally had to weigh them out -- stay with this girl or go out with all these girls? So I'm getting married and, honestly, I feel good about it.

The Washington Post, July 18, 1992

I had spent so much time chasing around and after a while it was like going to strip clubs. You start looking at women like pieces of furniture, something you admire for their lines. And you realize you either keep going on like that forever or you commit to someone you love--and that's what happened to me. I realized the other stuff is a sort of waste of time anyway. […] I met my fiancee three years ago and I've never been happier. The funny thing is a friend was going out with her roommate, and my fiancee said she didn't even want to meet me. We finally met by chance and she found out that I wasn't this beast that she had heard about.

The Washington Post, July 18, 1992

In February 1995, Slash would talk about being married, and mention that he had "bolted" before the marriage. This was likely the trip he took to Hawaii which is mentioned in a previous chapter.

Amazingly enough, the last of the Mohicans--the least likely candidate for marriage. We were together for five years before we were married, but when it got close to the pressure of marriage, I bolted but eventually came back. I shy away from stability usually and like chaos, but because she's so stable it makes the chaotic moments all the more perfect.

Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1995

Slash and Renee married on October 10, 1992 [People Magazine, October 26, 1992].

Renee and Slash's wedding[/i]
October 10, 1992

I tried anything to avoid tying the knot because I was scared to death of it, and there became a situation where it was one or the other, and I opted for getting married and staying with her. And once I did that, it changed me completely.

MTV, October 1992

In 2007, Slash would say Renee had given him an ultimatum to marry her after she had found out about Slash's infidelities:

The first marriage I got into was an ultimatum. [...] You know, she was a good-looking girl, but it was an ultimatum. I’d been caught – she finally caught me. Someone ratted me out for everything that I’d done behind her back. [...] I mean, literally everything. [...] So we split up for a while, and, of course, I was out on tour, and I started feeling lonely. And just because of all these things I did to her, it didn’t mean that I didn’t care about her. It was just that I really wasn’t ready for that serious of a relationship at that point, I think. [...] Oh, what I was saying was, so I called my girlfriend up. I called my girlfriend up, who was gonna be my wife. And I said, “Let’s get back together,” and she said, “No, unless we get married and I’ll see how.”

The Howard Stern Show, November 1, 2007

Slash would also admit being unfaithful on the night before his marriage with Renee:

[...] and Perla, who’d known me from previous, came around and said, “Ha ha,” you know. And then somehow we ended up doing it the night before my wedding. [...] The wedding was doomed from that point on. The marriage was doomed, you know.

The Howard Stern Show, November 1, 2007

After the marriage with Renee, Slash would marry Perla [see later chapter].

THE DEADLY PRENUP

In early 1995, Slash would be asked if he and Renee had a pre-nuptial agreement, to which he would reply:

Actually she and I made a deal together, and so that’s very private.

The Howard Stern Show, February 1, 1995

The argument over a prenup had caused Slash to shoot heroin again which led to his near-fatal OD in San Francisco earlier in the year [see previous chapter].

HAVING KIDS

Slash was not interested in having kids:

I have a really hard time [picturing myself as a father]. [laughs]. […] 'Cause I'm just not ready for it. I wasn't even ready to get married actually. I was the least likely candidate for marriage I ever met. […] Yeah, 'cause I loved her too much [to not marry her]. And I was afraid I would end up losing her and then I would be more pissed off, eventually. I had other little reasons why I wanted to stay with one person.

Swedish TV, June 13, 1993

I don't have any children. I'm not interested. I really wouldn't be into bringing a kid into this world at this point, the way things are, and I'm too ambitious to take the time.

If one of the cats starts to grow up and all of a sudden doesn't give the baby reaction Renee was used to when it was a kitten, she gets really pissed off - like `Fffk you!, I raised you.'

I can't imagine her raising another Slash.

Toronto Sun, January 24, 1995

BALL AND CHAIN

Renee and Slash had found a way to balance marriage and Slash's rock life:

She refuses to come to shows because of the groupies and all that. So she comes out with me, and then she hangs out for a couple of weeks and stays at the hotel, or hangs out with other wives or girlfriends that are out. And I go on to do the gig and I have my freedom. It’s cool. Good sort of balancing.

The Big Breakfast Channel 4, May 28, 1993

Yet he would also state that marriage curbed his promiscuity and made him work harder:

And, you know, I'm married now, which keeps me off the streets a little more then I used to be. Keeps me from waking up in some strange girl's apartment. And I love her very much so it's OK. That's curtailed my extracurricular, lunar activities.

Swedish TV, June 13, 1993

[Married life is] different. I mean, Renee is really cool and everything, and marriage is great. But there was a period there where I got so ... whacked out on sex with however many partners I could get my hands on and got really over the top. Of course when I got married, that stopped altogether. The cool thing about it is it’s a love for her, and there’s a real sobering effect marriage has had on me. If I were still single, I’d probably be down ... with some chick in a club on Hollywood Boulevard. I’d be spending more time doing that than getting work done. Now I kick back around the house; the guys in the band come over, we have a few drinks, play pinball.

Detroit Free Press, November 26, 1993

[Touring is] still as much fun. The only thing Is. there's certain shit l can't do and there's certain shit I have to do. One is check in and say 'Hi honey,' and that's fine. Things I can't do that I'm used to doing is that whole chick thing that happens on the road when there's girls around. I made a commitment when I got married. It was like, now I won't be fucking around on you. So I made a promise. I don't go back on my promises, so I maintain that as a rule. And that's sort of difficult, because there's girls everywhere, and I love women. It's rough.

Michigan Daily, April 17, 1995

FEBRUARY 1993: TRACI LORDS SAYS "HI"

In February 1993, when an interviewer said "Hi" from Traci Lords, a former girlfriend of Slash and former porn star, Slash would respond:

Traci Lords! God, my wife would love to hear that! [chuckles]. Yeah, I’d like to say hi to her, but that’s probably not a good idea.

RAW, June 23, 1993

IN HINDSIGHT

In an interview with Howard Stern in 2001, Slash would claim he only married Renee as part of an ultimatum:

Uh, that was the first time I ever got married, and it wasn’t really my idea. I was sort of forced – no, no, I mean... […] There was a... let’s see what’s the best way to put it... She was like, “Only if you marry me”...

The Howard Stern Show, September 7, 2001

Furthermore, he would indicate that Renee had leverage over him due to him having been "busted", likely referring to his fling with Savannah (and possibly others):

What happened was, I got busted for doing a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have been doing...So I figured we were split up and everything was cool. And then, all of a sudden, somehow we managed to get back together. And if we were gonna continue on in that sense, then she wanted to get married. She wanted a ring, you know. And so I was like – you know, being typical me – “Okay, whatever.”

The Howard Stern Show, September 7, 2001

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:13 pm

OCTOBER 26, 1992

THE SINGLE FOR YESTERDAYS IS RELEASED

On August 20, 1992, Gilby would say that they had just started work on the music video for the song 'Yesterdays' [M.E.A.T., September 1992]. At the same day they would also start shoot the video for 'Garden of Eden' [M.E.A.T., September 1992].

I'm just a little tired right now. We just got in from shooting a video. We did two actually — we did one for ‘Yesterdays’, and one for ‘Garden Of Eden’. Whether they both come out or not, we don't know. But we did two. We did start 'em. [...] Yeah, but these are cool — they're back to like the basics, you know, just the rock 'n' roll band stuff, it's cool.

M.E.A.T., September 1992

The 'Yesterdays' single would be released in the US on October 26, 1992, and in the UK on November 13 in the US. The band would not release a single for 'Garden of Eden' but the music video would be released.

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:13 pm

NOVEMBER 1992

AXL ENTERS A PLEA BARGAIN WITH THE ST. LOUIS PROSECUTOR

After the court date had been postponed from October to November 1992, Axl and his attorney would negotiate a plea agreement with the St. Louis public prosecutor regarding the misdemeanor charges against Axl after the St. Louis riot in 1991.

Included in the plea agreement was a donation of $50,000 to charities. Axl had suggested a preference for programs for abused children. His attorneys then suggested each of these charities would get $10,000 each: The Child Abuse Detection and Prevention Program, an agency that teaches professionals how to detect child abuse; Court-Appointed Special Advocates, they provide legal counsel to juveniles; Backstoppers, a group that provides services to families of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty; Youth Emergency Services, an agency that provides a suicide prevention hot line and counseling for teenagers; and Marian Hall, a Catholic Charities shelter for young women [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 1992].

In addition to the $50,000 in charities, Axl would be on probation for two years. There were two special conditions: Axl can travel outside of USA and he can associate with two band members who are felons [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 1992].

But additional civil suits, including the one from Bill Stephenson ("Stump") still had to wait until October 1993 to be solved.

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:14 pm

AXL'S RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING
AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

AXL'S RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING

Axl grew up in a very religious home and later in life he would reflect on his relationship with God and religion:

That experience with religion lasted for 10 years and I went to church 3, 2, 7 times a week, you know. And I had to study the Bible regularly for that 10 years. But, you know, the church was pretty hypocritical and they ended up helping to destroy each other’s lives. And it really distorted my view on God, and peace, and all kinds of things for a very long time. And it took a long time to get over, you know. And now I’m just, like, things are cool with God, I guess. "Jesus is just alright with me" (laughs) [Reference to a 60s gospel song that became known from its versions by the Byrds and the Doobie Brothers].

Rockline, November 27, 1991

I was brainwashed in a Pentecostal church. I'm not against churches or religion, but I do believe, like I said in "Garden of Eden," that most organized religions make a mockery of humanity. My particular church was filled with self-righteous hypocrites who were child abusers and child molesters. These were people who'd been damaged in their own childhoods and in their lives. These were people who were finding God but still living with their damage and inflicting it upon their children. I had to go to church anywhere from three to eight times a week. I even taught Bible school while I was being beaten and my sister was being molested.

RIP, November 1992

The Bible was shoved down my throat, and it really distorted my point of view. Dad's bringing home the fatted calf, but I was just hoping for two hamburgers from McDonald's. We were taught "You must fear God." I don't think that's healthy at all. I'll tell you, I don't know what God is or isn't, but I don't fear him or it.

RIP, November 1992

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

In May 1992 it was reported that Axl was into homeopathy [Czechoslovakia TV, May 20, 1992].

Some of Axl's forays into alternative medicine were spurred on by AIDS and Freddie Mercury's death:

I want to learn more and start helping people. Freddie Mercury's death is a marker in my life that says there's no turning back, and I'm going to do whatever I can to inform the public about certain things. We can't sit idly and hope someone will change things and hope things will be alright. There are alternative forms of medicine that are having high success rates in treating AIDS victims. There's things like vibrational medicine, oxygen-ozone therapy, there's homeopathic medicines, there are Chinese medicines and different forms of vitamins. The government is denying the public this information. That's because the government, the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies are making billions of dollars off of people dying. The FDA invests money in companies they've supposed to be regulating - that makes no sense. Over the last 50 years there have been different cures for different illnesses that have been kept from us. Freddie Mercury's death made me want to fight for people to have the right to know about these alternative treatments. Everyone has got a God-given right to health, and it's being denied by power-hungry, greedy people who want control.

RIP, September 1992

It would also be claimed he took up to 60 vitamins per day [Life Magazine, December 1992]. Assumingly what was meant was either 60 different vitamin pills or in total 60 different vitamins, although there are only 13 different kinds.

[…] I'm on very specific, high-tuned vitamins. My body needs these vitamins. I'm also involved in extensive emotional work to reach certain heights with myself that doing hard drugs would interfere with. I'm doing several detoxing programs to release trapped toxins that are there because of trauma. Doing a lot of coke would get in the way of my work. Doing dope would definitely get in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish. Some pot doesn't really get in the way too much. It gets in the way of the work for, like, the next day, but sometimes it's a grounding thing. If I'm flipping out in the middle of Idaho, then a little bit of pot helps me be sedate. Also, coming off stage, going from such high energy into a very sedate world, is heavy - I don't care how many strippers you have. It's like going off a cliff in a car, and that's when I can use some smoke.

RIP, September 1992

I've learned that when certain traumas happen to you, your brain releases chemicals that get trapped in the muscles where the trauma occurred. They stay there for your whole life. Then, when you're 50 years old, you've got bad legs or a bent back. When you're old, it's too hard to carry the weight of the world that you've kept trapped inside your body. I've been working on releasing this stuff, but as soon as we release one thing and that damage is gone, some new muscle hurts. That's not a new injury, it's very old injury that, in order to survive, I've buried. When I get a massage, it's not a relaxing thing; it's like a football player getting worked on. I've had work done on me - muscle therapy, kinesiology, acupuncture - almost every day that we've been on the road.

RIP, September 1992

During the touring in 1992 he would talk more about what he was doing:

It's, like, I was always accused of being a hypochondriac, and I'm not. It's, like, I have a pit crew. And it's, like, I'm a car. We do muscle testing and kinesiology. We do chiropractic work and acupuncture. We do cranial adjusting. Oh, yeah. On a daily basis. I'm putting my life back together, and I'm using everything I can.

Life Magazine, December 1992

Axl's personal assistant Colleen Combs, would also talk about Axl's obsession with his looks:

Axl became vain, worrying about dyeing his eyebrows and eyelashes and going on prescription drugs for his hair and skin. He had his teeth fixed. He went on all-sushi diets.

Spin, July 1999

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:14 pm

NOVEMBER 25, 1992

ESCAPING A COUP IN VENEZUELA

PRE-SHOW ROUTINES

In November 1992 an interview would be published where Slash would talk about his pre-show routines:

Currently what I've been doing is taking the guitar into the hospitality room. Me and whoever else is hanging out sit there, and I play and talk at the same time. I have a drink, watch TV, and just try and keep my fingers moving. I do fast picking, but not any particular pattern. I play the way I play, and maybe stretch my fingers a bit across the neck. […] I can't even hear the guitar. I don't plug it into an amp, which is really important.

Guitar for the Practising Musician, November 1992

TAKING THE TOUR TO SOUTH AMERICA

In July 1992, Axl and Matt would discuss ambitious plans for continued touring:

Hopefully we’ll go off and on till about next May. Because, you know, hopefully in December and stuff we will be doing South America and things like that, and then we’d like to try to do some really strange places like, we’re working on China, so who knows. […] I’d like to play China, I’d like to play Israel, I’d like to play Moscow...

MTV, July 12, 1992

The future is very hard to say. We’ve got this tour going on right now and we’re gonna, you know, probably go out again in January and do Japan and South America and Australia. You know, you never know what’s gonna happen with this band. I pretty much – I wake up in the morning, turn on MTV and, you know, I find out (chuckles).

MTV, July 13, 1992

In October 1992 it was clear the band would be touring South America:

The hysteria that’s going on in South America about us coming over there is sort of apparently unequal; like, we sold an amazing amount of tickets at an amazingly fast amount of time compared to the acts that usually go over there. So, we’re just going to South America. I don’t know if we’re gonna call back and say, you know, “This is where we’re at.” I mean, because that’s a whole different country altogether and you just want to just go and focus on playing there. So, we’ll see how things develop. I don’t know if anybody in the States is gonna hear from us for a while. I mean, I think everybody’s probably sick of us at this point anyway, so, yeah, they'll be glad to let us go away for a while (laughs).

MTV, October 1992

The tour that never ends. Next stop is South America, and from what I understand we’re playing, like, Bogota, and Lima, Buenos Aires...[…] It’s gonna be interesting. Hopefully they’ll check the plane before we take off every time (laughs). For bombs.

In Your Face, October 1992

NOVEMBER 25, 1992: POLIEDRO DE CARACAS, CARACAS, VENEZUELA

The first show of the tour took place in Caracas, Venezuela on November 25, 1992. While in Venezuela, Duff would be asked about which country of the tour would be the most difficult one:

Well, I would think some place like Colombia, but this is just me and what I’ve heard from people that have been there, like our crew that’s been there like a week or so. Colombia is probably the least used to having a big show like this. But, I mean, we’re looking forward to every country. I don’t look at any one country as being the most difficult, you know. We’re gonna do the best we can anywhere that we go in the world, you know, as far as that goes. […] and we’ve been to South America before. I mean, we hadn’t stopped in Venezuela. But we were there for two and a half weeks, we kind of got somewhat of a little bit of culture, as much as we could, at least. But yeah, I mean, the promoters down here sent us the whole booklet of, like, each country – what to kind of expect. But you have to live it to really, like – you can’t read what actually a country is gonna be like; so, for us to study it, as you say, it doesn’t have any worth like to actually being here, the real thing.

Televen, November 26, 1992

Craig Duswalt, Axl's personal assistant at the time, would tell a story from Venezuela as rewritten by the New York Post:

While on the road, crew members were required to keep their walkie-talkies on 24/7, in case a band member needed something. One night in Venezuela, Duswalt had his girlfriend with him — they’d been having problems due to her fears about his crazy rock ’n’ roll road life — when the walkie-talkie squawked at around 2 o’clock in the morning.

“I thought to myself it was probably [bassist] Duff [McKagan] wanting someone to get him a drink because he ran out of vodka,” he writes. But instead, and to his and his girlfriend’s dismay, they heard a man’s voice saying, “Gentleman, the ladies are here. Let the games begin.”

He jumped to shut off the walkie-talkie, but his now pissed-off girlfriend told him to leave it on.

The next sound they heard from the walkie-talkie was giggling; then, from the hallway, what sounded like a stampede.

Duswalt opened the door and saw “about 50 naked women right outside my door, walking down the hall.” The next day, he learned that “the promotor … thought it would be really cool and impressive to empty a whorehouse out and bring them all to the hotel via bus … naked.”

The New York Post, May 03, 2014

In the absence of a suitable venue, the show is played outside in a parking lot in front of 45,000 people, the biggest show ever staged in Venezuela [Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date].

Talking about the show:

But the kids, like, really appreciated us and it was great.

Telefe, December 4, 1992

Two days after this show there was an attempted coup in Venezuela [USA Today, December 1, 1992].

We noticed a lot of military people there—we noticed there was nobody but military people, but we thought, 'oh well, that's the way it goes.

Rip It Up, January 1993

There were some scary moments [at the tour]. We escaped a coup in Caracas by two hours. The airport was bombed two hours after we left it.

The Boston Globe, March 12, 1993

In GNR, we were playing in Venezuela and at that time Venezuela was going through a lot of political changes. Well, it just happened that the daughter of either the president or the general was a GNR fan. Strangely enough, after the concert, there was a military coup in Venezuela. But they were actually waiting until the band left the airport! The country went into chaos, but they waited for the band to leave—they didn’t want us to get caught in the crossfire!

FHM, June 2006

[We] found ourselves in the middle of sudden political unrest when we did a show in Caracas, Venezuela. [...] We were scheduled to play the biggest concert in the history of the country, and since there wasn’t a venue large enough to hold the forty-five thousand ticket holders, the promoter created one in a huge parking lot. It was an amazing show, and all went off well …until the next night, when the country experienced a sudden military coup just after we left for Colombia. We made it out, but a few of our crew, and over half our gear, did not—they got held up in the chaos at the airport

Slash: The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2007

Because of the buildup to the coup, one plane with equipment and crew was not able to leave Venezuela [Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date].

Matt would later recount how he had been looking for drugs while in Venezuela and ended up asking a taxi driver to help him out:

We're on this dirt road going through the jungle... I hear monkeys and jungle sounds. We drive for 20 minutes on this crazy dirt road, and I'm like, `Amigo, where are we going?'

Finally, we pull up in front of a shack made out of tin and sheets of plywood, and he blinks his lights 10 times. I gave him the money... a guy came out and threw 10 grams in straws. Then the guy handed me two bottles of pure Venezuelan rum.

Two days later the tour manager found me on the balcony of my hotel with the bottles of rum and all these empty straws and said, `We have a show, Matt.'

He put me in the shower and then put my clothes on, got me up and pushed me onstage.

Contact Music, January 14, 2006

Looking back at the coup:

I’ve been flying to work for the last quarter-century.

And I’ve had my share of foreign-soil adventures, like escaping a coup attempt by Hugo Chávez in 1992, when Guns N’ Roses was playing in Venezuela.

I didn’t know what a coup was. I didn’t even know how to spell it. All I knew was that it didn’t bode well for us.

Fortunately for me, Mr. Chávez liked our band and waited for our chartered plane to leave before he strafed the airport.

The New York Times, June 1, 2009

I mean, I've heard stories but something happened and we went to the airport and they said that they were holding up a coup until we got out of the country because they didn't want the Americans in the country when it happened.

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:15 pm

NOVEMBER 29, 1992

CHAOS IN BOGOTA, COLOMBIA

Next the band travelled to Bogota, Colombia for two scheduled shows at El Campin Stadium in Bogota, on November 28 and 29. The band is not able to get the remaining equipment transported to Colombia in time for the scheduled Saturday show, so the two shows are combined for Sunday (29.) [Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date; Appetite for Distortion, October 15 2018]. GN'R originally offered to reschedule and play a second show on Monday, but local promoters believed that those who had travelled long distances would not be able to stay an extra two days [Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date].

Teddy Andreadis would later claim equipment had been destroyed from rain during the first show and that's why they decided to not do a second show in Colombia:

The Colombia show, we did November Rain and it rained on us. The ceiling was just a cloth covering on the grating. They have video of it so it's a really amazing to see. But the the rains were so torrential that it destroyed everything, so they opted not to play the second show [...].

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

The fan hysteria in Bogota was extreme:

And the kids, they’re starving for it. You know, they’re just like, “Give one good day in the week to go out and watch a rock ‘n’ roll band."

Telefe, December 4, 1992

In Bogota, Columbia, it was really hectic. You needed about two vans of security people just to move around. It was a nightmare.

Hit Parader, June 1993

Teddy Andreadis would later talk about the fans in South America and how they would use decoy cars to get around and how they had to watch Slash:

The problem was going out with those guys because they were the biggest band in the world, wherever you went there was always people chasing the cars, chasing your vehicle. Like Roberta [Freeman] said, if you went to a VIP section they put you in a VIP section and they roped it off right so it was just you and Slash.. And we'd be in this little VIP section but then outside of the VIP section would be all these people just staring at us, just staring at us. Like, "Can we just get out of here and just walk around a little?" And god forbid you ever go out to dinner. It's like in South America we used to have decoy cars, they would have these cars with curtains on them and we'd go out, the decoy cars would go out through the front of the hotel because the kids would camp out in front of the hotel and then we would go out to the back. And then, you know, sure enough they would find out where we were eating or something like that and they would have to pull the car up right up on the sidewalk, right to the front door of the restaurant so that there was no gap between the car and the building so you walked right into the car. And they would run after the car, they would beat on the cars and stuff. It was very scary. I mean, for, you know, I played with Carol King for god's sakes, they didn't do that. [...] But after a while you got to say to yourself, "Man, I got to get out of this hotel." And it goes, "You can't go anywhere," you know, "you can't leave." And for me, because I was close friends with Slash, if he wanted to go out to a strip club or something and it was just me or Ronnie Stallnaker and Ronnie would say, "Come with us so that we can keep an eye on him," because he would get lost. He would... you know, "I'm going to the bathroom," and one of us would inevitably have to follow him because he would just... Because he, you know, he was a young kid, he wanted to hang out a little bit. And, you know, there's things that happen, you know, when you're not careful.

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

According to Craig Duswalt, Axl's personal assistent at the time, Axl refused to do the show:

Axl came into my room, still dressed in his shorts, and told me that he’s not doing the show tonight. And after dropping that bombshell, he headed back to his room. […] Doug proceeded to tell me that there were about 80,000 people squeezed into a stadium that might fit 50,000. I might be exaggerating these numbers, and maybe Doug might have been as well, but you get the idea. If we cancelled at this last minute there would be a lot of pissed-off people.

Doug also reminded me that he’d just spoken with the police, and if Axl didn’t arrive in the next fifteen minutes, they would make an announcement to the audience that the show was cancelled, and that they would not restrain the fans from destroying the stage.

My stress level reached new heights.

I’m a regular guy from a small town in Long Island and suddenly I was responsible for getting Axl Rose to a concert, otherwise equipment would be destroyed, and there was a good chance that people would die.

I had never told Axl that he had to do a show. But I knew I had to do it that night. It was not going to be a great conversation. I could tell when Axl walked into my room that he was not in a good mood. Something must have happened. […]

I grabbed the key to Axl’s room, knocked on his door, and without waiting for an answer, opened his door with the key.

Axl was sitting on his couch in his dimly lit room.

“Axl, you have to do the show. If we’re not there in fifteen minutes, they’re going to release the audience, and Natasha [Craig's wife] is backstage, and so is your sister, Amy. Let’s go.” And much to my surprise, he only said, “Fine.” He headed to his bedroom to get dressed.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

And while Duswalt was struggling with Axl the crew had been fighting the weather to prepare the stage. After the remaining equipment arrived the crew started assembling the stage but heavy rain made the locally-supplied construction collapse resulting in modifications to the stage for this show with the band having to play under the open sky [Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date]. The bad weather continued during the show:

The crew arrived and began to feverishly set up for a delayed Bogotá show. Then, after a huge rainfall, pooled water on the roof collapsed the stage. The crew started over with what was left. The day of the rescheduled show arrived. It rained and rained. It continued to rain during the show. Then, as Axl played the opening chords of “November Rain,” the sun broke through the clouds. Everyone in the audience crossed themselves. After the song, the rain began again.

It's So Easy (and other lies): The Autobiography, Orion, 2011

When we were in Bogota, Columbia, it started raining during 'November Rain', and the crowd lost their minds. That city deserved to have that happen more than any place else in the world, because 'November Rain' was Number One for 60 weeks. Singing in the rain. It was a very special moment. We all got very happy about it, because we were having a miserable time in Bogota. There's big hotels and armed security everywhere.

Raw Magazine, 1993

Because of the poor conditions with equipment soaked in rain, the show was cut short:

We had to quit the show in Bogota early the other night-and that's only the third show we've had to cut short for technical reasons or riots, or whatever-and that bothered us a great deal.

Hit Parader, June 1993

The set cut short and the cancellation of one show led to rioting and the band's chiropractor, Stephen Thaxton, would later tell of Axl's sister, Amy, trying to treat anesthetize a soldier with cocaine:

That whole South American leg that time just turned into pure chaos. We started in Caracas, Venezuela, and there was some religious group praying and a big rainstorm comes up and collapses the stage the night before the show, which they'd been working on the stage for like three days. So how do you get a stage back together after it collapses in a rainstorm? So somehow they figured out how to do that. But then just as we're finishing the show, there's a coup for the government and they're not letting any planes out. So Doug figured out some way to get us out, but now we can't get the band and their, or we got the band out, can't get the equipment out and the crew out. So by the time, so we had shows I think scheduled in Bogota for Monday and Tuesday night and so this was like, we were leaving on Saturday night, have Sunday to get the stage, the other stage was already partially built and moving on. And so, but if we didn't have our amps and guitars and drum sets and all the things it takes to make a show go, can't get it out. So Doug offers to, as I understand it, Doug, you were in the meeting, I wasn't, so correct me if I'm wrong, but he offers to the promoter to do the shows Tuesday and Wednesday night. And the promoters were like, "No, no, no, we'll just put them all in on one big show Tuesday night." And as I understand it, Doug's like, "We can't do that. It's two sold out shows at 80,000 people per night." And, "No, no, no, it'll be fine. We'll just put everybody in show Tuesday night." [Goldstein interjects that the promoters wanted half the money back] So anyway, so they're going to do this one big show on Tuesday night. And of course, earning more of the Guns and riots reputation that night. Of course they riot because only 80,000 people can fit in there and 160,000 wanted in. So it turns into a riot on stage. We get the band off and, Axl's sister, Amy - what a wonderful, wonderful girl - she's a nurse, so she's looking, trying to help people, and there's this Colombian soldier who - in his military fatigues - ends up backstage, she grabs him because he's bleeding profusely from his head. And she's like, "Steve, Steve, can you sew him up?" And of course, in a chiropractor, I wasn't necessarily trained in stitching people up. I stitched a few people here and there, including one band member one time. So I'm like, "Okay, yeah, sure." But I'm out of lidocaine because when we toured to a lot of third world countries, you just don't know what kind of medical care you're gonna get. So I carried various supplies. And I did have a sewing kit and a vial of lidocaine, but I had used it all previously. So I had nothing to numb this guy's head up. And so Amy goes, "Well, wait a minute, we're in Bogota, Columbia. I'll get some cocaine, we'll throw it down in the wound and it'll numb it right up. Great idea." An hour later, Amy comes back and she's so distraught, like her head's hanging, her shoulders are slumped forward. I'm like, "Amy, are you okay? What's the matter?" She goes, "I've searched everywhere. I can't find any cocaine. [?]" She wasn't asking the right band members.

Anaheim Bulletin, October 10, 1991

Doug Goldstein, Duff and Slash talking about the mess in Bogota and how the band left the country:

We were to play two nights (Friday and Saturday) in Bogota. After playing a Thursday show in Caracas Venezuela, we flew into Bogota only to find out there had been a coupe attempt in Caracas, which closed the airport, meaning our gear was being held back.

The promoters tried to talk me into giving back half the money and just playing the Saturday show. I blatantly told them “No way”, that we would play on the Saturday and Sunday!! The promoters opted for one show on Saturday. We played the show and there were at least 30,000 fans trying to gain access into the building. Cops on horseback were deployed and they were hitting fans over the head!

The band started playing “November Rain”, and the rain started pouring down in the roofless stadium. The fans who couldn’t get in ravaged the streets looting the shops in town!

At about 7am, I heard a knock on my door. I got up and there was a soldier who stuck a machine gun in my chest. I read the note (which was written in Spanish), and it said I have a mandatory meeting with the mayor at 3pm. I told him I would let Mr. Goldstein know as soon as he got back!

I called my U.S. Embassy security guy and asked him to come to my room. I asked him what the letter meant, and he told me what I had assumed. There was no meeting — they were going to kidnap me and hold me until we returned half the money. We woke up the security guys and had them get the entourage together and hauled ass to the airport!

Wheremusicmeetsthesoul.com, 2016

We were supposed to play two nights in Bogotá, Colombia, after [Caracas], but without that huge cargo crate of equipment, it wasn’t really an option. The promoter decided to roll both nights into one show, to take place the next night, so we had a day off to relax in our hotel. [...] During our stay, word got out to the authorities that we had drugs, so, in another move typical of South America, the authorities got “warrants” to search our rooms, in hopes of finding something that might require us to buy them off, I imagine. The day of the show, the cops barged in on all of us. I had nothing; they came in, guns drawn, and found me, freshly showered, in a towel playing pinball. “Oh, hey,” I said. “Hi!” They showed me the warrant and started searching my room. I was pretty jovial as they tore through my stuff. “Señor, is it okay if I keep playing?” I asked.

The show that night—November 29, 1992—was pretty magical; it was one of those moments that you can’t believe is happening even as you watch it all unfold, even as you’re a part of it. There was a torrential rainstorm the entire day before as our crew set up; the weight of the water buckled the stage roof (which wasn’t ours), sending a lighting rig crashing to the ground. Luckily, no one was hurt. The whole stage had to be redesigned. Then the day of the show, a sudden storm damaged some of our equipment. Despite more rain, people filled the arena and were lined up outside, where fights broke out, a few cars were burned, and the police had to use tear gas to calm everyone down.

When we took the stage sometime around eleven p.m., the place went crazy. We were playing really well, and the rain had held off throughout the first hour of our set until we played “November Rain.” As we started that song, literally on cue, the sky opened and it poured once again. It was one of those massive tropical downpours where one drop can fill a coffee cup. It was coming down in a black mist that mixed with the steam rising off of the audience. I could barely see through the clouds that formed in the arena; the people were a sea of silhouettes. It was very dramatic and very beautiful; it felt as if they and the band were one. The audience was as moved as we were—they were into it, truly passionate. It rained so hard that we finished the song then we had to break until the storm passed, and once it did, we came back on and gave it everything we had.

Slash: The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2007

That night, more news: a coup had been launched in Venezuela. An air-force pilot named Luis Reyes Reyes and his co-conspirators were able to wrest control of most of the country’s air bases by the morning of November 27. Our cargo planes were grounded. McBob and the rest of the crew were stuck.

The next morning a bomb went off near our Bogotá hotel. Then Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar told the press that we were his friends and that he was supplying us with a bunch of cocaine. He was already in hiding then as a result of American pressure (we never met him), and I guess he was just sticking it to the U.S. government, using us to have some fun. [...] At some point that next day, I went to leave my hotel room. Outside my room stood a machine-gun-toting soldier. He motioned me back inside. I was—we were—under house arrest. Oh, shit. I didn’t know what to do. I spent the day stewing. What are we going to do now? At least there was booze. That evening there was a knock at my door. I opened it. The hallway was dark. The soldier was gone. Instead there was a guy in a suit—also carrying a machine gun. “Yayo?” he said. I had learned this was slang for coke in South America. “Yayo?” I slammed the door and locked it. Shit. I’m being set up. I just know it. I picked up the hotel phone. Who did I know who could help? Who could call somebody? I didn’t want to scare my mom. Then it hit me: my dad. He’d been a fireman. He must know people at city hall in Seattle. I dialed my dad. It went through. “Dad, I don’t know who else to call,” I said. “It’s all gone terribly wrong. I’m in a hotel room in Bogotá with an armed guard out front. I don’t know if they’re going to let us out. I don’t know if they’re going to let us play the show—if our planes even get here. And I don’t know what will happen if we don’t play the show. I’m really worried. Is there anyone you can call?” I have no idea what my dad did, but the U.S. consul soon showed up on the scene. The atmosphere lightened. The armed guards disappeared.

It's So Easy (and other lies): The Autobiography, Orion, 2011

We were in Bogota, Colombia, and somebody bombed the hotel we were at.

The Boston Globe, March 12, 1993

As the result of the rioting following the cancelled second show in Bogota, which results in 20 people injured and damages worth an estimated $165,000, authorities banned rock concerts "indefinitely" [The Age, December 4, 1992].

The local concert promoter, Julio Correal, would later recall the story:

So I was the manager of this Guns N’ Roses show Back in '92, in Bogotá. The whole country, actually, was very violent, a real mess, it was - you know? It was Colombia. It was an adventure. Pablo Escobar was around, marihuana and cocaine, you know... But "El Meneíto" ["Meneaíto" - dancehall song] was being played everywhere in Bogotá. "El Meneíto, el Meneíto". That was very hot in Bogotá back then. And with that in mind, I was persuading El General, who was the best performer of ""El Meneíto". 88.9 radio station manager, Fernando Pava [and me], we both knew a businessman who, back in the day, was the most famous show planner of Colombia: Armín Torres. And also another businessman called Felipe Santos, brother of Juan Manuel Santos [former president of Colombia]. I vividly remember that I went to Armín Torres' place. He was staying in Torre Bavaria. “Hey! My big guy! I managed to get El General, dude! We're gonna make it big!” Then he confidently looks at me and says, "Really, huh?" He was trying to bring something up, you know. So I thought, "He's up for something." "Just look at this, man. Guns N' Roses!" And I'm like, "What! No freaking way, dude! Oh god! Show me the fax messages, please!" And effectively, the fax message included "Bogotá, Colombia", the date, everything! And I'm like, "Oh Lord!" Then I remember that I told him, "Dude, schedule two shows."

We signed the contract and started to sell the tickets. Everything was awesome. I already spotted a couple of Ferraris for me, some stage kits and other things. The second payment was due and we needed to pay the money. And one of the Armin Torres' businessmen said, "I don't have that money! You’re on your own, guys." The other guys got mad: "What! You bastard!" and they were trying to beat him up. Everyone else was like, "Hey! Calm down!" Anyway, we did the payment on time. We kept on pushing, but now it was like – let’s say that we weren’t really cool after that.

One day, a friend of mine called me at 6 a.m. and he says, "Dude, you really are in a bad streak." He says, "There is a coup (d' etat) going on in Venezuela right now." Guns N' Roses, their plane and all their show equipment were stuck there. And I'm like, "No way." They got a show in Caracas and Hugo Chávez orchestrated a coup around the same date. The airports were closed. After we were told about it, the most important thing that we needed and didn't have in Colombia was the stage roof. We sent a person to Miami to rent a stage roof. He brought it, and we started to set it up on Wednesday. The things around Venezuela got calm and the plane could now take off to Colombia. And so the Gunners arrived in their private jet.

When the band arrived, I went to the airport and witnessed an incredible mess. There were around 5,000 fans waiting for Guns N' Roses. We saw the vans cut through to get to the band. Then, when they tried to leave, the people around were jumping over them. They didn't plan this out. People were actually jumping over the Guns N' Roses vans. The security guard took action by taking out his revolver, rolled down a window and shot his gun twice in the air, bam-bam. And I was like, "Oh my God. What the fuck is happening right now!" So I thought, "Shit, if this is happening at the airport, I can’t imagine what the hell is happening at their hotel." So we went there and we found almost 500 fans out there by the hotel's entrance. The band arrived and Axl Rose got out with his girlfriend; and the poor girl was pulled from her hair, Axl as well, and they grabbed her ass. Plus, the band was already drunk, so they decided to go into the bar Chispas.

When they arrived that night, the same day at around 12:00 the roof of the concert had fallen down. I remember very well arriving with Felipe Santos, and entering the stadium through the back, and seeing the whole roof sitting on top of the stage, and I just said, "Dude..." and we started crying. Then the stage falls over the roof, so now, not only did we lose the roof, the lights also went to shit. So we were there having an open concert without any roof. Without a roof over the stage, the second day of the concert had to be canceled. And I remember very well coming into the bar Chispas, and fetching the manager to sit down with him, and we said: "Hey dude, it appears we will only do only one of the two dates. We paid 1 million dollars, how are we going to solve this?” So the guy said, "I’ll give you back $45,000 for the second day". We lost $500,000, and those $350,000 from our associate weren’t coming back. We were in a huge hole, dude. A big fucking hole. We were screwed, dude. So the only thing left to do was to rock ‘n’ roll, because we were only moments away from the show.

So we were in a meeting with the American Embassy, their lawyers, our lawyers, the agent... And out at the concert, they were about to start. Hordes of people were screaming and throwing rocks so that we opened the doors and let everybody in for free. What's their deal? So, at one point, I heard the show had started and I said, “You know what? I don't give two shits about whatever we are doing here. We brought Guns N' Roses. They are playing on that fucking stage, and I'm going to go see the show and have a great time, motherfuckers. You can all stay here, if you want.” So, the show started all great, until mayhem burst out in the streets. There was huge lack of control and little help from the police or anybody. After a while, they called me on the radio: "Hey, the colonel had to be taken to hospital". "What happened!?" So he tells me, "The colonel got into the armored truck, and decided to go take a look around the stadium to see what was going on. The level of craziness and mayhem around was such, that the guy had a heart attack right there and then. Inside an armored truck, the chief commander of security had a heart attack.

Anyway, the show was going well and "November Rain" started playing, and things started to get hectic. Those were no special effects. They were no - I mean, dude, it started pouring rain. "November Rain," Axl Rose's piano, the music video where it's raining playing behind them. And then it really starts raining. The maximum climax you can imagine in terms of special effects. I was next to another colonel, rolling myself a joint, and Camilo drinking some Jägermeister. It was already a mess, already a fucking mess, man. So then Axl tells something to Slash and then uses the microphone. He says: "Hey, Opie, [stage manager], we’re about to be electrocuted." Because, you have to understand, the stage was a damn pool, wires floating everywhere and such. And Axl went on to say: “Guys, stay calm. We are not leaving; we'll come back."

So I started running, man, all the way backstage, and I saw they already had their vans parked outside with the doors opened. And I was like, "These sons of bitches are leaving, dude. Oh God, these sons of bitches are definitively leaving, dude. No fucking way." And I saw Opie walking and I confronted him. I told him, "Hey, Opie, motherfucker, where are you going?", I told the guy, «Where do you think you’re going motherfucker?" He said, "We are leaving." And behind me me I had a bunch of my workers that had helped with the lights and that stuff - Colombian workers. And, of course, they saw I was mad, because I was really mad. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” So the guy says: "We are leaving!" "Yes? You’re not going anywhere, you piece of shit!" There are people who have been waiting, I don't know how long. So the workers started saying: "Go and get him Don Julio, go and get him Don Julio, go for him Don Julio!" And the guy says I don't know what, and then another thing and I just, bam, I headbutted this guy. Come on. It had already stopped raining. And they hadn't even played Sweet Child O' Mine or "Knockin On Heaven's Door, the motherfuckers. So, at that point, the guy screamed, "Security!" or something like that. Security comes in, and my guys got my back: "Whaddup bitches, what are you going to do, huh?” Finally these guys got in their vans and decided to leave, and all our associates left for the hotel. But one of the associates was an airplane pilot at the time. So he calls the Control Tower at the airport and tells them: “Those motherfuckers, Guns N' Roses - they are buttloaded with a bunch of drugs. Let them board on the plane, get all their stuff inside, and then when they are done, make them get off the plane with everything they have and search these assholes for any drugs.” Dude, it was 3 in the morning, they were about to take off. And they were absolutely pissed off. Fingers up their asses. I mean, I can only imagine five officers arriving to search them with their rubber gloves on. Yeah, man, “It's an anti-narcotic check, would you please form a line please, one by one.

Vice Espagnol, March 19, 2019

In early 1993, Duff would look back at the South American leg, and especially the show in Colombia:

South America, you know, they’re very religious down there. This is heavy. They’re very, very Catholic. And November Rain has been, like, number one down there for a year or something - or more than a year - and it’s, kind of like, their anthem. I forget, I think it was Colombia or something, and they’re very religious, right? It just started raining when November Rain started, and these people just freaked. They were all doing, like, this (makes the catholic cross sign gesture) and they’re like, “Oh, wow!” and praying. It was really heavy.

Japanese TV, January 1993

Fuck that shit! Never again! We did Rock in Rio before, but that was okay because media and bands from around the world were there. This time, it was just us. And fuck man…In Columbia, they were threatening to kidnap Doug, our manager, shit like that, we were getting bombarded with shit. It was like, ‘Fuck this, we’re outta here’. […] The kids were great. The places we played were huge, and all sold out. I think the smallest place we played, was like, 85,000 people. So it wasn’t the kids. It was the government. Which is scary. None of the embassies, none of the American embassies, are very strong down there, so if you really wanted to get out it would be iffy at best.

Kerrang! April 1993

And in 2004:

You know, we played in Colombia once, and we were more powerful than the government at that point. There was guys with submachine guns inside the stage. If Axl were singing, or one of us would have said, "Revolution, now!" You know, these kids would've done it.

PBS Frontline, May 27, 2004

In 2008, Axl would look back at the show:

Very surreal and religious feeling [playing November Rain while it was pouring down]. So was being chased by the military in our plane down the runway gettin' outta Dodge there!!

htgth.com, December 12, 2008

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:15 pm

DECEMBER 2, 1992

LATENESS AND TRAGEDY IN CHILE

Having narrowly escaped Colombia the band continued to Santiago in Chile for a show on December 2. The show was two hours delayed [Calgary Herald, Dec. 6, 1992] resulting in fighting breaking out in the audience [The Record, December 4, 1992].

Matt would later explain that the band was late on stage when Axl refused to play when he heard about all the 1973 coup victims that were buried there after the stadium had been used as a concentration camp:

We played Santiago, Chile. And I remember we played it where they had Amnesty International. During the military coup in 1985 about 20,000 people were murdered in that stadium. We're playing to that same stadium where those people are actually buried in and around that stadium. In the ground there. So no-one had told Axl that piece of information and I remember him going, "I don't want to fucking play here." And then the military… there was security there. The chief of police, or whoever he was, said, "We will use force if you don't do the show." We said, "What kind of force?" "We will have to shoot and kill the singer" (laughs). He said it in Spanish. Maybe he fucked up the way it came out. “You got to play the show, finish the show.” And he did a great show that night. It was fucking perfect. It was… I said, "Doug, you need to tell Axl that part, because he needs to know" (laughs). Fucking… Yeah.

BBC Four, February 5, 2016

Teddy Andreadis would later talk about the soggy ground they played on (mistaking it to have happened in Colombia):

When they would get up in the first song and they would jump and you could feel the whole stadium shaking. There was one [?] in Colombia that apparently was a burial ground so the ground was real soft and, you know, when they would jump they would jump in a wave because of the sound, we didn't have delay, we had one delay tower, so that they tried to keep the sound frequency steady [...].

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

Unrelated to this, Myriam Henríquez Reyes, a 15-year old girl, was critically injured from trampling during the concert and died later at the hospital [The Record, December 4, 1992; ABC, December 9, 1992].

Guns N’ Roses went on two hours late that night, and during the show, specifically during the song “Civil War,” bottles were randomly thrown on the stage. No one got hit, and normally Axl would have just left the stage, for fear of getting hit. He had been hit before with objects, as had most of the members of the band. But this night Axl did not leave the stage, probably because he knew something bad would happen. More than 85,000 people were there—the biggest concert ever in that stadium in Santiago.

However, unrelated to the show, something bad did happen. Fifty people were arrested outside the stadium, and through no fault of the band, a teenage fan sustained numerous injuries at the concert and died two days later. Rumor had it that she had snuck out of her house to see the concert, because her parents wouldn’t allow her to go.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

Axl would later look back at the tragedy:

Um, well I, you know, that situation was very tragic. Other parts of the you know experience as far as the show and the people, you know, was very big and very exciting. Then I was in a lot of trouble with the media and, and the authorities [laughs]. So, I did not personally, you know, with the problems and being in trouble and then the tragedy at the show, it wasn't as much fun for me. And that's another reason why I wanted to come back to Santiago. And I think that it's good that I came back not to do a show yet, but just came to Santiago to enjoy Santiago. You know, to heal memories and to feel good about Chile and to.. You know, I go around, you know, asking people, you know, about Chile and what Chile is about and listening to them. And so that's been a very good experience for me..

Rock & Pop Chile, January 20, 2001

During a later press conference in Argentina Axl would be asked if the reason they were two hours late was that he was drinking and using drugs, to which he would say:

The show was scheduled at 10:00, which means we usually go on at 10:30, so we went on at 11:00. And I don’t have time to be drunk or drugged before a show, or I couldn’t do my shit. The truth was that I had strep throat, so, it’s like, I had to do a lot of throat exercises and things like that, and work with my doctors, so that I could do the show altogether, or there wouldn’t have been a show. People will write anything (laughs).

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

Axl would also comment upon the crowd throwing stuff:

The crowd was throwing bottles and spitting a lot, because they thought that’d be a thing to show they liked the band. They hit our rhythm guitar player with a bottle, so there were many times we almost stopped the show.

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

In general, the South American fans were excited:

In Chile, there were, like, 500 kids at the hotel at any given time.

Raw Magazine, November 10, 1993

[Talking about fans in South America]: The fans there stake out your hotel room and you can't leave. You look out the window and it's just a mob.

San Antonio Express-News, April 4, 1997

TRACES OF COKE...

Traces of cocaine was allegedly found in a tube in one of the band members clothes while it was being cleaned at their hotel in Santiago, resulting in being refused to leave Chile until after the police had searched their private plane for drugs [The Orlando Sentinel, December 4, 1992; Tallahassee Democrat, December 5, 1992]. After the search of the plane the band was allowed to leave [The San Francisco Examiner, December 4, 1992].

When looking back at the show in March 1993, Duff would tell a story about someone trying to plant drugs on them:

In Chile, they tried to plant drugs on us. My wife was in the hotel room when we were playing the gig. She was naked on a bed and all these men in suits came in the room and she screamed and they left, but who knows what they were trying to do. It just goes on and on.

The Boston Globe, March 12, 1993

Teddy Andreadis and Roberta Freenab would also talk about how they were search for drugs while in South America without specifying the country:

[...] they so wanted to catch us bringing in drugs and stuff that they would unload the truck right on the tarmac. And then there were times where we'd have to actually have to take apart our stereos. I didn't have one but guys like Matt and Slash and Duff had these [?] cases that had stereos built into them and they would be rolled into their rooms and I remember Matt having to take his apart. They literally unscrewed the speakers to look for drugs. [...] They were just looking to want to really bring the band down because they just thought the band was not good and, you know, not a good representation of rock and roll and just were trouble makers and, "They'll bring drugs," and we were just, you know, nobody. Nobody even dared, you know.

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

Yeah, they looked into like our lipstick cases and the shoes.

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:15 pm

DECEMBER 5-6, 1992

WILD RUMOURS IN ARGENTINA

Next up was Buenos Aires, Argentina for shows on December 5 and 6. In a prelude to their coming to Argentina, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, said the band members needed "very serious and deep psychological therapy" [The Guardian, December 14, 1992].

Local press had also been spreading crazy rumours about the band:

In Argentina, there was a rumor we had burned an Argentinian flag and that we wouldn't buy Argentinian boots because we didn't want them to touch American soil. So we had all these right-wing skinheads, like Nazis, after us. They were all out in front of the hotel - hundreds of them - yelling and chanting. And we even had a guy who went in front of us to every city, because he knew who to pay off. I'm serious. We had to have a grease money float. It was scary.

The Boston Globe, March 12, 1993

To avoid trouble, Roberta Freeman was advised to not look conspicuously American if she went out of their hotel:

I remember being in like Argentina and being told, "Don't wear like baseball caps or anything that looked American," you know, "hoodies and like," you know, "American attire," you know, "you'll stick out and then they'll realize that we're with Guns N' Roses." And we did. You know, like I remember, you know, just going outside wearing the clothes I wore and people being able to figure out that we were with Guns N' Roses because of the fact that we were Americans and we were in town and we were in a specific part of town and, you know, they would figure it out so it was it was really weird, you know.

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

To address the rumors Slash and Duff, Doug Goldstein and other members of the crew, with Axl joining them later, would do a rare press conference while in Argentina before the shows:

Also, we’re giving out this press conference, which we don’t do in every city. We don’t do press conferences. As Doug, our manager, said, the reason we’re doing this is to clarify a few things up, because all these rumors are flying. And where do they come from? Not from us. They come from the press, you know. So, that’s why we are here, to clarify a lot of these really ugly, kind of silly and stupid rumors that are happening, and it makes us sick, you know? We’re here to play, we’re here to make people happy, and it’s really gotten out of hand. That’s why we’re coming down to do this. We’re just a rock ‘n’ roll band, you know?

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

Also, I’d like to say, we have been touring for seven years together. And this is the first time that we’ve ever seen – I mean it’s great, but we’ve never, ever seen the type of reaction that we’ve seen with the press and with the fans. It’s more hysteria than we’re certainly used to. And, to be honest with you, a lot of people get afraid when you have press people pushing this way, the fans pushing this way, you have nowhere to go. It gets a little scary.

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

I might add that in some distorted way we do appreciate all the attention. We just don’t know what to do with it (laughs).

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

Well, also because of the things that went on in the papers down here. I don’t even know what paper or what writer or who said what about me. All I know is that I’m seeing fights outside right now, people burning Guns N’ Roses t-shirts, other people beating the crap out of them. Now there is a mess outside. People throwing bottles every now and then, hitting little girls in the head... So that’s why I came down.

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

Axl would explain that such rumors could influence the actions of crazy people:

I’m a bit concerned with an element of people at the show or outside the venue that were affected by the story of me flag burning and not taking my boots back to America or something. I think that might be an element outside the arena and that might be an element inside, and I don’t want anybody in the crowd to get hurt. It’s like, we’re pretty much a target up there, and now we deal with it at every show, cuz you never know where you’re gonna have a crazy that could shoot you or whatever when you’re up on the stage.

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

Dizzy would also comment on these rumors as some of the "most ridiculous things" he had heard about the band:

Oh God, there’s been so much stuff that I don’t know where to start. There was a story in Argentina – some guy's inspiration, who wrote that Axl had brought the Argentinian flag out on stage during our show in France! Nice, huh? Anyone can write some bullshit... But why would they do that? An Argentinian flag in France? It just doesn’t make sense. He also wrote that we’d have to take our boots off before leaving Argentina, because we couldn’t enter the States after having stepped on the Argentinian shit - something like that, haha (!!!)

Pop & Rock, June 1993; translated from Greek

For the press conference and show Axl would be donning an Argentinian football shirt, when asked why he would say:

Because it was given to me (chuckles) […] Well, in light of the false stories in whatever papers, I think it’s a good gesture for me to wear it.

Press Conference in Argentina, December 4, 1992

In 2008, Axl would say the press conference had worked out great:

It actually worked out good for us w/the press conference and all.

chinesedemocracy.com, December 13, 2008

Axl would also talk about the rumors to an Argentinian TV channel:

I don’t even know the name of the man who said these things. I’d rather burn him. (chuckles) But I don’t know enough about Argentina to ever say anything to disgrace it, or to be disgraced about being in Argentina. I don’t want to take anything away from the country or capitalize on anything. I haven’t come to spit on the territory or offend anyone, because I like the feeling from the people at the shows here in Latin America and how much they’re into us, and there are many people who like us a lot more. I’m watching out my window, and I see that there are people who are in favor of Guns N’ Roses and there are those who are attacking our fans because of all the things they’ve read. But I understand that they’re offended, because if someone said that in America I would see the youth get behind that feeling and something similar happen. But I don’t know if these people know the truth of what happened, that there’s this man who was really irresponsible and obviously doesn’t care about the Argentine people. He doesn’t care for what kind of violence can happen because of false stories like that. I believe that this violence is reflected in what is happening outside the hotel right now, people are attacking girls because of a person who was very irresponsible for putting out statements that we never made; a person who was greedy, selfish and angry that they weren’t the ones working with us on this tour; a guy who is involving innocent people who can get hurt in a series of situations, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt.

Telefe, December 4, 1992

Before the first show on December 5, the band would display some of the erroneous and hysterical local media reports on the big screen, including the report that Axl had burnt an Argentine flag and that the band would burn their shoes before leaving the country, with the word "LIES" behind [ABC Sevilla, December 9, 1992]. Wendy Laister, Guns N' Roses international tour publicist, would say, "Those stories are extraordinary. They’re completely untrue. There’s not even one grain of truth in the stories. The band has been excited to come to Argentina. Which is why it was one of the countries on the South American tour, and it’s the first time they’ve ever been here and they’re very excited to come (?)" [Telefe, December 4, 1992].

Craig Duswalt, Axl's personal assistant at the time, would tell a story from Buenos Aires as rewritten by the New York Post:

Just before a show in Buenos Aires for 80,000 people, Rose was already late — the rest of the band was at the venue — when he asked Duswalt to order dinner for him from room service.

Specifically, he asked for chili and cheese.

Duswalt quietly freaked out. Rose needed to leave within minutes, and chili and cheese was not a room-service menu item. Duswalt was aware that if Rose failed to get his exact order, he could bail on the show.

Duswalt called room service and, despite the language barrier, spent several minutes trying to describe “chili and cheese” to the man on the phone. The order took over an hour to arrive, with the road manager frantically paging Duswalt wondering where Rose was.

Finally, the meal arrived. The waiter brought it inside, ceremoniously lifted the lid, and presented to Duswalt “a block of cheddar cheese surrounded by six whole red-hot peppers.”

Terrified of the ramifications, Duswalt grabbed plates and glasses — including the incorrect order — and hurled them against the wall, “smashing them into a thousand pieces.”

Rose ran out of his room and asked, “What the hell is that?” Duswalt explained that the waiter had screwed up the order and said that he had become so enraged by the mistake that he “threw the plates at him in disgust.”

The singer, distracted from the screw-up with an explanation he could relate to, forgot about his dinner and left for the show.

The New York Post, May 03, 2014

Another story from Duswalt reprinted in New York Post:

In Buenos Aires, Rose offered a few hundred dollars to any crew member who would “run naked in the streets in front of our hotel” — where hundreds of the band’s fans were camped out, hoping for a glimpse of their idols — and then “shake the hand of an Argentinian police officer.”

Tour photographer Gene Kirkland negotiated the fee up to $1,000, then accepted the offer.

After returning to his room to prepare, Kirkland emerged in the lobby wearing nothing but “a white bath towel and a tie.” Rose gave him the money, then pointed to a police officer stationed across the street — “the meanest-looking one,” writes Duswalt — as the one Kirkland should approach.

With the band, crew and hundreds of fans watching, Kirkland “pulled off his towel and ran naked across the hotel parking lot to the pre-chosen police officer. He approached the officer, smiling the entire time, reached his hand out and waited for a handshake . . . amazingly, [the officer] reached out and shook hands with Gene.”

Seconds later, though, two officers grabbed Kirkland’s arms, put him against the wall and began to frisk him — which was strange, since he was naked. After a few seconds, the officers could no longer contain their laughter. It had all been a set-up, and Rose was in on it — someone in the crew had paid the officers to go along with the charade.

The New York Post, May 03, 2014

Unfortunately, the notoriety of the band resulted in a young fan, Cynthia Tallarico, who wasn't allowed to attend the show by her parents, committing suicide [The Times, December 1992; Rip It Up, January 1993]. Upon finding her daughter, the father then shot himself [Rip It Up, January 1993]. Duff would recall this tragedy in his biography, but mistakenly think it happened in Colombia:

When we arrived in Bogotá, Guns N’ Roses was the lead story in all the local newspapers. When we asked what all the headlines were, someone translated for us. A fourteen-year-old Colombian girl had committed suicide after her father refused to let her attend our upcoming show. Jesus. Another person whose life we touched . . . gone.

It's So Easy (and other lies): The Autobiography, Orion, 2011

We did hear about it. We did hear about it, but, unfortunately for us, whenever we do get to places, there’s always so much kind of havoc that happens. We had heard a report, and I think it was when we were leaving, somebody told us about it. And when you hear it like that, it’s hearsay and it’s like, “Did that really happen?” I guess it did happen. That’s a complete tragedy and – I mean, I wish we would’ve known about it when it was happening, but –

Argentinian TV, June 1994

Teddy Andreadis would keep a newspaper clipping of the story:

I have a newspaper article because she's on the front cover from an Argentinian magazine, newspaper, and... I don't know if you remember her, but she was a rabid fan of Guns, right? And she would sit out there and sing and sing and sing. Well, her father told her that he wasn't going to allow her to go to the show because he just thought it was going to be too much trouble, "These guys are going to be too crazy," and that, "I don't want my daughter going in there, you can go to the hotel and you can chant all you want but you're not going to go to the show." She was so overwhelmed by that and not to be able to go, that she killed herself. She committed suicide. And they put her on the front page of the paper and I still have the the article with her picture. I mean, how crazy is that? That you're so into a band and that you're so into a band? Guys that write songs? Basically they're guys that write rock and roll songs. And you're not going to be able to see them that I'm going to kill myself.

Appetite for Distortion, October 15, 2018

And talk about the upcoming two Argentinian shows:

We’ll give everything that we’ve got to the shows and to the people. At the same time, I hope that we can clear up a little bit of the confusion that has been created from what was in the papers; and, hopefully, we’ll show people that rock and roll is not that bad of a thing. We’ll perform all the songs that the people want to hear and we’re doing this so that we have a great show. I wanted to do this interview because I don’t want people to hurt each other at the show because of a group of people who are angry about statements that don’t exist. We, as Guns N’ Roses, haven’t said anything like that, it’s somebody else. […] I want to say that, if people come to the show because of what they’ve read, they shouldn’t believe everything they read. There’s a lot of people that for some reason want to stop rock ‘n’ roll, they’d like to stop Guns ‘ Roses or they’re against rock ‘n’ roll and they don’t want people out there to have a good time - why that is, I don’t know. And to take a moment to think, and to be a bit more responsible and not throw bottles or anything, because we want everything to be nice, we want everyone to have a good time at our show, and that is all 100%.

Telefe, December 4, 1992

Axl would also sum up the South American tour:

I think everything’s been going pretty well. The shows are really big, because a lot of other rock bands don’t necessarily always make it down to South America. There’s been some different confusions and different problems arise, like in Chile, because the people putting out the shows aren’t used to organizing this kind of big show. But I think everything has gone pretty well. The media – and CNN has kind of jumped on - has presented the details a bit more exaggerated, over-exciting in a negative way. […] Slash and I have really had a great time in the South American tour, and we have toured the world - I mean, we just did the stadium tour in the U.S. with Metallica and that was very good for us, but the last show we did in Chile was much more exciting. And we hadn’t realized that Guns N 'Roses was so big here in Argentina.

Telefe, December 4, 1992

In 2008, Duff would talk about the police wanting to be bribed:

When Guns N’ Roses were in Argentina, a news story said we brought in 60 grams of coke to sell. The federales came. It was scary. But they just wanted a payment—$30,000!

Blender, March 27, 2008

And the next year he would talk more about bribes:

That particular trip to South America also involved a bribe of $30,000 to another country’s immigration service so we could play our show. Yes, this stuff does happen. We actually employed a guy who spoke both Spanish and Portuguese to go to some of these countries beforehand to find out which officials we had to pay off.

The New York Times, June 1, 2009

Looking back at the Argentinian shows:

It was always about the music, for me. There would be certain moments when Axl would hit a high note, I would hit the perfect chord, the rest of the band were completely in synergy with us, and those moments were the best for me. When it all came together musically, and the hairs on your arms stand up, it felt like total bliss. We were a great band, man. I remember one time in Argentina, we were playing some huge stadium to a huge crowd, and it was pouring that special South American kind of rain, and we were doing "November Rain", and the smoke was coming off the heat of the bodies in the audience, and that just felt incredible. It's not something you can really explain, it's just the way you feel when it happens.

GC, February 1, 2010

I think it was in Argentina, back in the '90s, that I mentioned in the interview we did before, which was when it was pouring really thick rain and there was steam coming off the audience, and we were playing "November Rain" and the timing was such that as soon as we went into the cords of "November Rain" this rainstorm started and just seeing this crowd sort of bouncing in the rhythm of the song and the -- [...] That was -- that was pretty intense. There's a few of them. But that one was very picturesque.

CNN Piers Morgan, May 23, 2012

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:16 pm

DECEMBER 8, 1992

THE RELEASE OF USE YOUR ILLUSION WORLD TOUR - 1992 IN TOKYO' I & II

In late 1992 the band released a double VHS of live footage from the February 22, 1992 show in Tokyo, Japan.

Use Your Illusion World Tour - 1992 in Tokyo I & II
December 8, 1992

In 1993 an interviewer would comment that "Gilby on stage has a background role" with Slash doing "a lot of virtuoso guitar soloing and the whole band jams lengthily in a manner more reminiscent of Santana than the grubby Roxy rockers of old", to which Duff would reply:

That was quite a while ago. We've cut some of that down. We were still like going 'what are we doing?' on stage. When you're watching that on a videotape you're more apt to press fast forward but in a live situation it's a whole different thing because we were completely just feeding off the audience which you wouldn't tell from a video tape.

Rip It Up, January 1993

Review in Entertainment Weekly:

Last year there was talk that Guns N’ Roses were concocting a long-form video to unify their hysterically indulgent Use Your Illusion I & II: World Tour 1992 in Tokyo clips into one, presumably even more excessive, GN’R movie. At first glance, you might think these two tapes contain such scintillating goods, but as the cassette boxes’ small print reveals, they’re just two halves of a concert video — and a deadly dull one at that (apparently lifted from a Japanese TV broadcast, with interview segments retaining their subtitles). The wimpy sound mix doesn’t do justice to GN’R as a hard-rock band, and front man Axl Rose’s stage manner seems to confirm his avowal to MTV’s Kurt Loder that there’s a lot of other stuff going on in his head while he’s performing.

Entertainment Weekly, February 5, 1993

In October 2003, a DVD version of USE YOUR ILLUSION WORLD TOUR - 1992 IN TOKYO' I & II would be released [Press Release, October 15, 2003].

Later, Goldstein would mention how much they had profited from these videos:

[...] [Alan Niven] talks about how November Rain sucks and Estranged sucks and they're really expensive. I'm a guy who believes in turning lemons into lemonade. So I get this phone call from Eddie Rosenblatt. He says, "You need to come up here. We need to talk." Okay, so I go up there and he says, "I'm out of the video making business with you." Okay. "Because of the cost." Yes. Okay, no problem. So I say, "How about this? You'll still pay for the videos out of our royalties. And for the right to do that. I will give you a 15% distribution fee and we will own 85% of our videos." He says "Okay." We made 40 million fucking dollars on that video release from Japan. How many November Rain and Estranged videos can you make with that?

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

by **Soulmonster** Fri Jun 19, 2020 7:21 am

DECEMBER 10-13, 1992

THROWING STUFF IN BRAZIL

Despite all the troubles the band experienced while in South America, the fans were ecstatic which motivated the band:

The South American tour, for instance, has really gotten Slash, Gilby and me very excited, especially about the people and their responses to the show. It's brought new life into it.

Hit Parader, June 1993

After Argentina the band travelled to São Paulo, Brazil, for shows on December 10 and 12.

While in São Paulo Axl hurled a chair from a hotel mezzanine at a "small group of journalists, fans and hotel guests" 33 feet below [Associated Press via The Greenville News, December 10, 1992; Associated Press via the Pantagraph, December 11, 1992]. According to GN'R publicity officer Wendy Laister, the chair "missed everyone by miles" [The Times, December 1992].

They made me sign a document saying that I didn't wanna throw that chair. I wanted to throw it, and, if they stop me again, I'll throw and throw however many chairs needed. This is a song called 'Double Talkin' Jive Motherfucker!'

Onstage in Sao Paulo, Brazil, December 10, 1992

The first show was stopped halfway through Paradise City when Axl had had enough of the audience throwing stuff on stage:

Axl stopped the first show in São Paulo about four times. First, because there was a fight in the crowd. Second, because there were stones being thrown onstage. Third, I think because he got hit with a tennis shoe or something like that. And lastly, during “Paradise City,” their final song of the evening, when a stone hit drummer Matt Sorum.

That was the last straw. Axl and the band walked offstage halfway through the song.

I think his parting words that night, were, 'Good night, and f*** you, assholes'.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

The second show had to be postponed 24 hours because of heavy rain that flooded the stage and entryways [Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date].

We hope that everyone who was planning to come to the show tonight can make it tomorrow. As we proved, both here and in Bogota recently none of us are afraid to get wet!

Press statement reported in Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions Tour Diary, unknown author and date

The second show in São Paulo was postponed, due to heavy rains. However, Guns N’ Roses played the next night with the 120,000 fans in attendance standing in the mud. It was a mess.

Craig Duswalt, Welcome To My Jungle, BenBella Books, May 2014

According to Earl Gabbidon, Axl's security detail, Axl was robbed while in Brazil:

I remember Axl getting robbed for his $30,000 Rolex outside our hotel by some thugs. I was with Slash and Matt that Day. Axl went out alone, which he knows was bad. Don’t like it there. Beautiful, but dangerous.

Metal Sludge, December 17, 2002; THIS INTERVIEW IS POSSIBLY FAKE

The next and final show of this tour leg took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 13.

DISCUSSING THE TOUR

While in Brazil Duff and Matt would again talk about the South American press:

The tabloid journalists down here – you know, they gotta make their buck. And the way they do it down here than what we’re used to. […] it’s very sensationalist and they get the wrong information. We’re just down here – I mean, we haven’t even left the hotels, and the stories they tell about us, like, doing this and that, and this and that, it’s like, “What? I did what?” And the stories get all mixed up and it kind of comes bad on us – not even “kind of”, it really comes bad on us. We’re just down here to play rock ‘n’ roll shows, man. That’s what it’s all about, ya know?

MTV Brazil, December 11, 1992

[…] it’s a lot heavier here [=South America], you know, as far as, like, political situations and things like that - with the Argentinian situation with the flag and all that. I mean, we haven’t really experienced that before. We had almost a riotous situation in front of the hotel and people threatening us and - you know, that kind of thing, which makes you, like, scared to go up and play a show. […] There was guys out in front of the hotel that were basically threatening us and, you know, burnt American flags to retaliate for what they thought we did, that we didn’t do. […] we made it out of Venezuela, three hours before the coup, so we thought we were, like, home free, you know? It just kind of kept happening, you know? Every country we went to, we were having problems.

MTV Brazil, December 11, 1992

I almost kissed the ground when I landed here [in Brazil] (laughs).

MTV Brazil, December 11, 1992

The Times would also describe the tour:

By the time they flew into Argentina, Guns N’ Roses’ hysteria was at its height, with Catholic parents fearing for their daughters’ virtue. The band was accused of committing a vile crime by burning the Argentinian flag, regarded as virtually sacred. Axl was quoted as boasting that he was planning to burn his boots after they had been tainted by touching Argentine soil. The singer staged a rare press conference to deny the reports, saying they had been put about by a jealous producer. But the damage had already been done.

Television called for a boycott of the concerts, saying such a violent group would set a terrible example to the nation’s youth. The controversy even percolated through prison walls, as Colonel Mohamed Seineldin, serving a life sentence for masterminding three unsuccessful coup attempts, called for a “patriotic” reaction. Young right wingers hurled firecrackers at the girls holding vigil outside the band’s hotel each night, despite the risk of periodic saturation.

The Times, December 1992

by **Soulmonster** Sat May 01, 2021 1:50 pm

LATE 1992

MATT TRIES TO BE MORE HEALTHY

At the end of 1992 Matt was feeling the strain and would try to become more healthy:

I was actually getting a little bit... out there, you know what I mean? Carried away in a few rock ’n’ roll excesses, but nothing like what Steven was into.

Dayton Daily News, February 26, 1993

In early 1993, Matt would say the band had "cleaned up its act" [Star Phoenix, March 26, 1993]. And further elaborate:

No one's doing heroin anymore. […] It’s no longer total decadence. The older you get, the harder it is to get out of bed in the morning. It’s like, 'This is really hurtin’.’ I’ve had my share of good times, you know, but you eventually reach a point when your body says, ‘Enough’s enough!’ […] When I joined this band, it was everything I dreamed about. The whole backstage scene was exactly what you’d think a rock and roll band would be about.

Lincoln Journal Star, April 4, 1993

To have something else to do than partying, Matt hired a personal trainer to accompany him on the road:

[Making touring] more like real life, like if you were at home. For almost two years on the road, I didn’t do anything but go out at night, and then... stay in my hotel room all day.

Dayton Daily News, February 26, 1993

I needed something to do beside being a partier. I go to the gym, get fit and it seems to help both mentally and physically.

Star Phoenix, March 26, 1993

[The PT] wanted touring to be "more like real life, like if you were at home. For almost two years on the road, I didn’t do anything but go out at night, and then... stay in my hotel room all day.

Dayton Daily New, February 26, 1993

by **Soulmonster** Fri Jun 04, 2021 2:07 pm

1992-1993

PLANNING THE SKIN N' BONES TOUR

In Mid-1992 Slash would talk about doing another tour in 1993 where they would play all their harder stuff:

We still feel there is a lot we want to do with the "Illusion" material. We have been touring for a year and a half to this point, but we have all these Metallica shows left, then a Brazilian tour and maybe a little club thing in the U.S. next year where we go out and play all our thrash stuff.

Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1992

Axl would talk more about this tour in December 1992 and reveal its name, 'The Skin N' Bones tour':

We're calling this one the Skin And Bones tour, and it gives us a chance to play other songs-the ones that aren't necessarily the hits. It will be all stripped down to just the six members of the band and a small stage. We'll use the video screens and maybe some cool lights, but it'll be only an hour and forty-five minute set, and we're really excited to have the Brian May band as our opening act. I always loved Queen, so that's very exciting for me. And we're gonna be playing arenas in cities that we haven't played yet.

Hit Parader, June 1993

In early 1993, Duff would talk about wanting to strip down their shows now and go back to basics:

But, you know, we started off with the girls and the girl horn players, who are - they’re all great. They’re great to look at, and we all have fun and they have fun getting dressed up, you know. But it’s not, like, a sexist – it’s not like that at all. I hope people won’t get that, because the girls really have fun getting dressed up, and we have fun goofing around with them, and the most important thing is they’re great musicians, you know? But that’s something we started – I guess, now, - what about 14 months ago. And after we do this Japanese and Australian/New Zealand thing, then we’re done with that. We’re stripping back down to do again Europe and again the States, and then we’re done. But we’re doing it just as a five-piece band again. It’s gonna be called the “Skin N’ Bones” tour".

Japanese TV, January 1993

And after that we’re gonna do a tour in the States which is just stripped down and just jamming.

MTV Brazil, December 12, 1992

Explaing why:

Well, it’s very simple. We’ve been touring the whole stadium thing, the whole real kind of big, big events on this tour in the past - you know, we’ve been touring for two years, with like, the real big – what do you say – focus, sort of. And I guess it’s been, like, “Oh, Guns N’ Roses got all these people in the band now. What, are they’re trying to cover up cuz they can’t play?” or “They’re not a rock ‘n’ roll band anymore,” or whatever else people will wanna take a crack at it about. So we’re gonna come back, and it’s kind of like, “Okay, alright, here you go. There’s us again,” ya know? So it’s just basically to prove that on any turf, any place, anywhere, we are the same band.

Japanese TV, January 1993

Goldstein would later claim it had been his idea:

And then it was actually my idea - I went to the band when we did the Skin And Bones to tour, well, we lost all that stuff and I said, "You know guys, let's do Song Remains the Same. One light bar, you know, no risers, just set up our fucking gear and play.".

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

As mentioned above, the tour would be named "The Skin N' Bones Tour", although Matt would refer to it as the "the tour that wouldn't die" [Dayton Daily New, February 26, 1993].

[The elaborate production on the previous tours] worked out for the big shows, ’cause it just made it a little bigger, more like what the Stones would have done. […]. [The auxiliary musicians] filled up a lot of the music, and if you’re playing in that big of a situation, you want it to sound a little plusher. […] I don’t want to use the word ‘plush,’ because that doesn’t go very good with Guns N’ Roses [laughing]. A little bit more like the record is what we were trying to go for, and I think that happened. I think the band sounded better. […] We just felt that it was time to come back to just being a rock ’n’ roll band.

Dayton Daily New, February 26, 1993

In March 1993 Duff would talk more about why they left the big production behind:

We got that out of our systems. That's gone. I'm glad we did it, but it's over. Never again. There was just too much to keep up with. There would always be something that somebody would forget to do. Or one of us would fall through part of the stage. Or the monitor system wouldn't work. […] Every night you'd worry about something - whether the big inflatable monsters on the side of the stage would go up without popping, whether the three Diamond Vision video screens were working, whether the 250,000 watts of PA were OK, and whether the 125 members of the crew had all made it there. It was too much. And me and Slash and Axl were the eye of the hurricane, because we paid for all this stuff. So you had all that on your mind and you still had to play the gig. […] We lost so much money on the big production tour. We had to cart that whole circus all the way through Europe, and then on through Tokyo and Australia and New Zealand.

The Boston Globe, March 12, 1993

Much later, Matt would talk about how much he had disliked the larger lineup from 1992 but credit Axl for making Guns N' Roses into a super group:

With all the horn players and (expletive)? That was boring, wasn't it? I wanted to kill those (expletive) girls by the end of that tour. They were in my dressing room. Behind my drum riser, I used to have my own room and I had a bar in there and I used to have little groupie chicks running around naked. Then these (expletive) girl horn players and background singers came on the tour, and they used to have to sit in my room - sitting down there doing their makeup. And Axl was doing all these costume changes and I'm like, 'What happened to this (expletive) band?' So finally we all agreed to get rid of the horn players. We did a tour after that, the 'Skin and Bones' tour. That was our anti-statement to Axl: 'Let's get rid of these (expletive) horn players.'

Lawrence Journal World, June 28, 2001

But I understood a lot of what Axl was doing. He wanted to heighten; he wanted to cross Guns over into super group. And he was very smart about the way he did it. He used to bring artists onstage with us: Elton (John), Brian May, Lenny Kravitz, Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry. And his whole thing was you are who you hang out with. To a certain degree, I think the band achieved super group status because of the strategic things that Axl always thought up. It was his thing to put out the double album - very smart guy, very intelligent. At times it gets the best of him.

Lawrence Journal World, June 28, 2001

by **Soulmonster** Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:45 pm

1991-1992

EARLY WORK ON THE FOLLOW-UP TO THE 'ILLUSIONS'

We really have only just begun. We’ve only have what we have - what, four records out. We’re still babies, you know. We’ve got a lot to achieve.

MTV Special, July 17, 1992

____________________________________________________________________

The initial plans was to release a new record quickly after the ongoing touring to promote the Use Your Illusion albums:

We’re already starting to work on new material now with an 8-track on the road, and hopefully we can fire something out by the end of this, rather than wait forever.

MTV, May 25, 1991

Yeah, we were talking about getting right in the studio [after the release of the Illusions] and doing another one. Just eight or nine, ten songs, you know?

RAW, October 1991

And as the tour progressed the band tried to work on new music:

I'm trying to write the songs at the moment.

Kerrang! May 16, 1992

Well, we do that when there’s a chance in soundcheck. We usually try to, like, just jam, you know, come up with riffs. So we’ve got some good stuff going in. We tell the sound man to hit the tape player. And then, later on, we’ll compile some of it and maybe we’ll have another Guns N’ Roses album in... five years (laughs).

MTV, June 1992

We haven’t gotten together as a band per se and, like, started to put songs together, although we’ve been jamming a lot. You know, cuz we always jam. And so I sit around and, you know, come up with ideas and I just keep it in my head. And when, you know, everything is over with, we’ll probably get together and start trying to complete some of the ideas.

MTV, June 1992

In mid-1992 Slash would say a new record was not on his mind when asked when he thought the next album would be out:

I don't know. We still feel there is a lot we want to do with the "Illusion" material. […] I'm not even thinking about the next record until we finish all that. When the time does come to begin work on it, we'll take however long is necessary. We've never been the kind of band that rushes in and forces things--like one of those album-a-year type bands.

Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1992

After the tour, in 1995, Slash would say he had a mini studio with him on the UYI tour and did come up with ideas for songs:

Some of the ideas for some of the material are stuff I'd play on my acoustic around the hotel room that I thought were cool. I had a little mini studio on the road with me. I used it a little bit.

Metal Edge, April 1995

And when asked if these songs ideas ended up on the Snakepit album that he would release:

Not that I can think of, maybe one of them at best. Any ideas that I still had in my head after all this time of touring I figured were good enough to use. So I put all these songs down.

Metal Edge, April 1995

It is not clear to me from the quotes above whether all his ideas were used for Snakepit, or whether some remained.

In September 1992, Gilby would comment on what he would bring to the table:

When I came in I couldn't possibly be Izzy - I just have to be myself, and find what I can add to the band, therefore the new stuff is going to be different. I can't say it's going to be like the first record, but it is going to be heavier. You don't know where it's going.

M.E.A.T., September 1992

When asked if they were currently writing new music Gilby would indicate that they weren't and that not much had been done in regards to the follow-up record:

No — we haven't had the time. But this little vacation (laughs) we've been doing some individual writing, but we have a year of touring ahead of us. One of the reasons I'm in the band is because I can write. Izzy was one of the major songwriters of the band, so it's a big hole to fill. In my last band I was the songwriter, as well as the guitarist and singer. I did everything.

M.E.A.T., September 1992

I'm just lookin' forward to being able to write stuff with people like Slash, Axl and Duff. I mean, just imagine! I'll be able to write a song, and hear Axl sing it, and Slash play on it. To me, that's what I'll be lookin' forward to. I'll look at the people buying part of it later (laughs). I don't ever think too much about the selling part. That's the really cool part about Guns N' Roses — we really are a band. We do care about what each other thinks.

M.E.A.T., September 1992

In October 1992 Dizzy would say that they would start recording when all the touring is finished:

Well, we have to finish touring [before we can record], because we’re doing South America and then we’re going to, I think, Japan and Australia. And then we’re gonna do the States some more, yeah (chuckles). […] [The tour]’s going on forever. It’s perpetually touring. Never stops. No, we’re gonna – after we do the States again, then we’re gonna start working on the next record, which is gonna be very fun, because, you know, we have Gilby in the band now, and Matt is gonna be involved in, like, the writing and stuff now too, so that’s gonna be very cool. […] it’ll be good. It’ll be better [than just Axl and Slash in the group]. […] You know, whenever you change the chemistry of anything, it becomes a little different. It becomes either better – in this case, I think it will.

In Your Face, October 1992

In December 1992 Slash would also talk about Axl, Gilby and him talking about the next record:

As far as what’s next, last night Axl, Gilby and I were all talking about, you know, the next record and what – […] Yeah, Gilby, Axl and I. Anyway. We were talking about what the next record is gonna be like and how we’re gonna go about it. And everybody’s just really excited. I still don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen, but I’m writing songs upstairs - you know, in my room, just playing - Gilby’s writing songs, Axl’s got ideas.

Telefe, December 4, 1992

Axl would share more light on this in December 1992, and emphasize that Slash had been working on riffs while he had been trying to get in the right state of mind to make the next record more emotionally extreme. Axl would also mention the name of a new song, This I Love:

Slash has been working on a lot of things, working on a lot of riffs with the band. I've just been working on where my head's at on things so I can approach the next record in a way that lets me go to farther extremes. If I'm going to express anger, I want to take that farther, and if I'm expressing happiness and joy I want to take that farther too. We really haven't really sat down to collaborate on songs yet. I wrote and recorded a new love song that I want on the next record called This I Love, that's the heaviest thing that I've ever done. Other than that, we're not even sure how we're gonna approach writing for this next album. Last time Slash would write his songs, I would write mine and Izzy would write his, and then we'd put em all together. Well, this time there's no Izzy, and Slash isn't writing just his songs-it's gonna be more of a collaboration thing. We don't know if we're gonna be writing with Gilby or somebody else. We know we want to play with Gilby, but we're not sure about the writing. […] It's definitely an evolving thing because everyone has a different direction that they want to go in, and I wanted to get the band big enough that they'd have those opportunities. We have a lot of new people in the band, but what works at the end is what gets me and Slash off. We're not sure where we want to come from with the other band members as far as the writing goes, and, who knows, if someone isn't into a song, maybe they don't want to be there. We're really into letting Matt go more off on his own in terms of drumming for GNR. On UYI, he was pretty much playing just what we wanted to hear on a particular song which we already had together before he joined the band. […] When he goes off on his own creative sense it's pretty amazing. I want to facilitate that getting out. I want Matt to just explode on the next record.

Hit Parader, June 1993; but interview done in December 1992

WERE THERE ANY LEFTOVERS FROM THE ILLUSIONS?

Duff would claim they had many songs and song ideas not used after releasing the 'Use Your Illusion' albums:

But also, we had so much material built up when we went into the studios, we decided.... “Well we got all this material; let’s record until we’re burnt out”. If we can only do one record, we’ll only do one record. But we never burnt out. We just kept goin’ and it turned out that we recorded over forty tunes. I mean there is another record in the can.

Hit Parader, June 1992

If Duff is accurate with his "over forty tunes" comment, it means that there were 10 songs recorded but not featured on the two Illusion albums. Six were punk covers intended for the upcoming punk EP (which would evolve into a full covers album). In addition comes 'Ain't Goin' Down' which was intended for the punk record (and ended up on their 1994 pinball machine). This still leaves a few songs.

Axl, though, says it was only "parts and stuff" and implies that Slash had more songs ready but that these might be used outside of Guns N' Roses:

No, we started with 56 songs… […] ... you know, and we cut it down to 30. And we decided which ones were important out of that, and kind of put different things on the side, on the shelf, that we weren’t really into, and recorded the most important ones now. And we kinda wanted to get things - we wanted to clean the closet, you know. Because when we set out to make Appetite, we had some of these songs already then, and we wanted to get rid of all those songs so that we could have - be fresh to start, and whatever we do next time is brand new for us. […] I have no idea [what we are going to do with them]. There’s just parts and stuff. And we kinda like took the best things from those. Slash is, though, one who really has a backlog of some material, and I don’t know what he plans to do with that.

Rockline, November 27, 1991

HOW WOULD THE NEXT RECORD SOUND LIKE?

Axl talking about how he has changed and how that would effect the style of their next album:

I really think that the next official Guns n' Roses record, or the next thing I do, at least, will take some dramatic turns that people didn't expect and show the growth. I don't want to be the twenty-three-year-old misfit that I was. I don't want to be that person.

Rolling Stone, April 2, 1992

By July 1992, Duff would indicate that the work on a new record had progressed and even hinted that the new material sounded more like 'Appetite':

We have enough material now. It’s more like ‘Appetite for Destruction’ than ‘Illusion’ — songs that are right in your face.

New York Daily News, July 29, 1992

In an interview published in September 1992, Mike Patton from Faith No More would claim that Axl was into his other band, Mr. Bungle, and wanted to do something "heavier" and "industrial" [Details Magazine, September 1992]. Whether this was for a solo project or GN'R's next release is uncertain.

In the October 1992 issue of RIP Magazine, Axl would talk about what he wanted to do on the next album and indicate that he didn't not want to re-visit the sound from Appetite but evolve the band and have a more modern sound:

What's next is, I would like to have a cleaner, more focused expression. We've pretty much stayed within the parameters of rock 'n' roll music as we know it. I'd like to see if we could add anything to GN'R, possibly bring in a new element that hasn't been there before. Guns N' Roses is not just me. There are other members in this band, and everyone's growing. There was a certain focus we all wanted to keep for Illusion I and II, but when I did "My World," everyone dug it and wanted it on the record. By the next record I think we can branch out a lot further. I would like to move in a direction where I'm more in touch with life and love but still remain as strong in terms of exposing ourselves as GN'R has always been. I don't feel now like I did when I wrote "Estranged." I'm not as bummed out as I was then. I've grown past that.

RIP, October 1992

And on the direction of new music:

My girlfriend recently asked me if I could still write a song as nasty and gritty as the things on Appetite, and I told her that it would probably depend on the song and if I was moved to write that way. But I'm not gonna write that way just to sell records. I'm not gonna write anymore bar room sex songs just to sell a few more albums. If something inspires me to do it, I will. I won't regress. I'll do it if I can take it to a new place, a new level.

Hit Parader, June 1993; but interview done in December 1992

Duff would talk about new music before they went to Australia and New Zealand in January/February 1993, saying the stuff they had been playing at sound checks "a lot broader" in style than the Illusions, and:

The stuff we've been writing at sound check — it's way, way outside. When you're on tour for this long, you kind of lose it a bit so some of the stuff is just, I don't know, very heavy, sort of like dark. But not in a bad way.

Rip It Up, January 1993

In Februar and March 1993 it would be reported that Slash and Gilby was starting to come up with songs for the next record [Hartford Courant, March 4, 1993; RAW, June 23, 1993].

Y’ know, I was just thinking about [being the musical arranger], ‘cos I’m in the middle of writing a lot of new material right now. But I wouldn’t call me a song arranger, because I have no attention span!. […] So I talk with Duff a lot, and talk with Axl a lot, and we still have original ideas, and we’re still turned on by one another as far as creating is concerned. That’s a huge accomplishment after all this time, and anyone who wants to criticise can fuck off.

RAW, June 23, 1993; interview from early February 1993

TO BE MOVED: 1993

In May or June Axl's head was finally in the right place to start working on new music:

It’s like, I haven’t really written songs for a new album, until I started, like, this weekend, because I’ve been trying to get my head in a certain space that I was actually growing, rather than staying in the same place. And now that this tour is winding down, the Use Your Illusion songs have all, in one form or another, come back to life emotionally for me on the albums; and so we’re experiencing them in new situations, and then trying to figure out how to grow and go farther, rather than stay in that same place. I’ve been kind of doing it with every aspect of my life; and it’s very strange for me, because on a tour I feel like I’m trapped in a time warp that I created (laughs).

"Guns N' Roses: The Photographic History", Documentary, June 19, 1994; interview from May or June 1993

It would also be said that Axl, Slash and Duff would continue to work on new material together but that it wasn't clear whether Gilby would be involved [RAW, June 23, 1993].

In July 1993, Duff would say that he would adjust his upcoming solo tour to accommodate work on he band's next record:

[Scorpions have] offered us the Canada dates, but I haven't given them a definite answer. […] [Mostly because, come next Spring] we're all planning to get back together to work on GN'R stuff, and of course that's the priority. […] We've got a lot of stuff written already.

Kerrang! July 17, 1993

Around the same time, Duff was also confronted with Matt allegedly having said that the band was in the process of recording the follow-up, to which Duff replied:

Did he say that? (laughs) Well, if he said that, okay. I have no idea, we haven’t even finished this tour. I don’t know.

Popular 1, September 1993

Later in the year Duff would indicate that a new record with original material would not happen quickly:

GN'R always jams new stuff at soundcheck - when we do soundchecks [laughter] - so we have some cool riffs already. […] People are going to have to realize that it's going to be a while before our next official record comes out. We released two albums with 30 songs on them in September of '91 and were touring before the records even came out.

RIP Magazine, November 1993

by **Soulmonster** Tue Feb 14, 2023 7:30 am

AXL'S BELIEFS IN THE SUPERNATURAL;
SHARON MAYNARD, THE PSYCHIC

BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL

In 1991, according to his personal assistant Colleen Combs, Axl started visiting a "past-life regression" therapist named Suzie London [Spin, July 1999]. According to Combs:

I only went twice. [Suzie London] told me that I didn't have any past lives and later told Axl that I was a fifty-thousand-year-old being that put a hex on him.

Spin, July 1999

According to Rolling Stone, London (named as Suzzy London) would also accompany Guns N' Roses on tour and have an area backstage for herself and Axl [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000]. She would also be cast for the music video to 'Don't Cry' where she played Axl's therapist [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000].

In Erin Everly's sworn deposition in connection with her lawsuit against Axl in 1994, Everly would indicate that Axl's belief in the supernatural started already when they were together:

Axl's beliefs were different than mine.... [After my dogs died] Axl believed that he had the dogs' souls transferred [into new dogs].... He said that I wasn't appreciative that he had given me the opportunity to have [our dogs] Torque and Geneva back, and that I should call [the new dogs] Torque and Geneva.

Spin, July 1999

During the court hearing in the trial, Erin would also claim that Axl had told her he believed she and Stephanie Seymour had been sisters in a previous life and were not trying to kill him, and that Axl thought he was possessed by John Bonham [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000]. She also said:

Axl had told me that in a past life we were Indians and that I killed our children, and that's why he was so mean to me in this life.

Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000

Allegedly, at some point during Axl's relationship with Everly, Axl paid 72,000 for an exorcism:

Mainly it involved getting some kind of herbal wrap. […] I ended up getting ripped off for a lot of money in the long run.

Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000; from the court hearing

But Fernando Lebeis would later claim this hadn't been an exorcism, or at least deny Axl had spent millions on it:

[Being asked if Axl ever paid millions for an exorcism]: (laughs) Lie.

Guns N' Roses Brazil Fan Site, July 2001

SHARON MAYNARD, THE PSYCHIC IN SEDONA

In 1999, Spin Magazine would claim Axl had spent money on something "metaphysical" in Sedona, Arizona:

Axl got metaphysical and started spending a lot of time in Sedona, Arizona. These people were taking advantage of a guy with millions to blow on lunacy.

Spin, July 1999

In May 2000, Rolling Stone would publish a long article where they would discuss Axl and quote an alleged friend of him:

Axl is looking for anything that'll give him happiness.

Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000

In the same article, Rolling Stone would claim that Axl's trips to Sedona was to visit a psychic there, whom people in the Guns N' Roses camp derisively referred to as "Yoda" [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000]. Her real name was Sharon Maynard and she was running a not-for-profit business in Sedona called Arcos Cielos Corp. ("created for the development of New Paradigms in Science, Education, Fine Arts, Global Ecology, Human Potential Development, and Future-Science Technology"), where she was living with her husband, Elliott Maynard [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000]. "Dr. Elliott and Sharon Maynard" are thanked in the liner notes of Use Your Illusions, indicating that Axl was familiar with them already in the first half of 1991.

According to Goldstein, it had been Axl's therapist, Suzzy London, see above, who had introduced Axl to Sharon Maynard:

So Sharon was brought in because Susie London, Axl's therapist - who Axl had a lot of faith and belief in, the regression therapy that they were doing together. So she says, "I see this lady, Sharon Maynard and..." You know, it's kind of like there's somebody chooses a religion, Mitch. That's a really sensitive subject and so all of us kind of let Axl have his space and his own beliefs on what he thought was right or wrong.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

Goldstein would talk more about how he dealt with Axl's relationship to Maynard and imply he mostly didn't confront Axl with it:

I called him on it. Yeah, you know, again, when somebody has a religion you have certain windows of opportunity where they're second guessing it and they ask your opinion. But would I countedly say, you know, "Hey, she's a fucking whack job," or whatever else was being vocalized by the rest of the band to me? No, I really didn't want to create that riff again. It's like a person's religion and whenever you attack somebody at that level you're gonna get defensivism. You're gonna get reactionary. So if he gave me the opportunity where he was doubting then absolutely, I throw my cards on the table without any reservation. And he heard me. And he never really came back at me later to say, "You know what, fuck you for having your opinion." He has absolutely allowed me my opportunity to state my case.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

According to various anonymous sources interviewed by Rolling Stone, Maynard would study photographs of people in Axl's world [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000]. This would be confirmed in 2008 when Tom Zutaut would talk about Maynard and how he had been re-hired to help recording Chinese Democracy in 2001:

Axl was sort of drawn to some people that were involved in psychic phenomena. There was sort of like a medium/ therapist that did past life, regressive, transgressive therapy – whatever. And she took Axl on a journey through his past lives, if you believe in that kinda stuff. And then that led to Axl meeting Sharon Maynard, the infamous woman who looked at pictures of people and told Axl whether or not he should work with them…

Classic Rock, March 2008

You had to be vetted. You had to get a black and white picture and get it to Axl’s assistant and then you would be vetted and told whether or not you could work with him. [Maynard] read auras and stuff. All I know is, she saw my photograph and she cleared me to work with him.

Classic Rock, March 2008

Goldstein would deny he had taken photos for Axl and say that was Axl's assistant Craig Duswalt's job:

I've never taken a picture on his behalf, ever. That was always done by one of his assistants, like Craig... Craig Duswalt primarily.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

Zutaut himself would not dismiss the practise:

As hard as some of it is to believe, everything has some kind of energy. I mean, human beings have a divine spark of some kind: positive energy, negative energy, good, evil, Cain, Abel, however you want to put it. I know for myself that I can sit in a room with some people and feel totally energised, and I can sit in a room with other people and they drain me. I think we’ve all had experiences like that. [...] at its core [Axl] believed that this woman in Sedona could read peoples’ energy from a photograph and tell whether or not they were gonna drain him or energise him. And it sounds kinda wacky but maybe she could.

Classic Rock, March 2008

Regarding Sharon Maynard's possible influence on Axl's life, an "associate" of Axl would be stated as saying:

[Axl] wasn't turning his life over to somebody with a candle and a crystal. I say that with every confidence. It's just not consistent with who he is. He makes his own decisions.

Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000

Maynard had also been travelling with the band on the Use Your Illusion tour [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000]. In June 1992 it was rumored that Guns N' Roses would not play Minneapolis on the upcoming tour with Metallica because Axl had been advised by his psychic to avoid playing in cities that started with the letter "M" [Star Tribune, June 26, 1992]. Lars Ulrich, Chris Jones [from the band's management team], and Duff would deny these rumors [Star Tribune, June 26, 1992; Star Tribune August 4, 1992]. James Hetfield, on the other hand, would say he thought "it did have something to do with [Axl's] psychic, or his psychic’s assistant" and he would mention that there were rumors about what "his psychic said" [Star Tribune, August 4, 1992]. Much later, Billy Gould from Faith No More would repeat this rumour:

There was a rumor that Axl brought his psychic on tour with him. And it would be bad luck in any city that started with the letter M. So he cancelled Manchester, Madrid, Munich, and he did Montreal, and that's when the riot happened.

Classic Rock, October 2006

In 2015, Goldstein would be asked about the rumour that Maynard would advise to avoid cities with "bad auras", and confirm this:

Pretty much. Yes, sir.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

Mike Patton, the singer in Faith No More, who opened for Guns N' Roses in 1992, would also confirm that Axl travelled with a "psychic":

Then, for the last show of the European tour [July 2, 1992, Lisbon, Portugal], Axl's psychic (who has her own bodyguard) went out and blessed his microphone and blessed the stage.

Melody Maker, August 8, 1992

A former anonymous employee of the band would describe Sharon Maynard trying to move the stars by will:

I remember everybody up on the roof with her watching her ‘move the stars’ or some such thing. Everybody just shook their heads but Axl was seeing those stars move.

The Province, November 7, 2002

A crew member would describe Sharon Maynard and her circle of friends who travelled with the band:

She came with some of her pals. Funny dudes: Southwestern people with funny shoes. Their look didn't fit in: they were like aliens.

Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000

According to Rolling Stones' sources, one of the jobs of the psychic was to consider "the magnetic forces that exist in the universe and where those things are in comparison to where Axl would be spending his time", and this could affect where the band would play on the tour [Rolling Stone, May 11, 2000].

In 2001, Doug Goldstein's Big FD Entertainment company was sold to Sanctuary, resulting in big changes in how Axl and Guns N' Roses was managed, and in 2009, Goldstein would describe in a letter to Axl how that sale happened and claim Maynard had played a pivotal role in encouraging him:

The sale of Big FD to Sanctuary......

Ax, I swear on my kids lives, when I was first propositioned by Merck, I immeadiately called Sharon [Maynard]. She told me to fly to England and meet with Rod Smallwood, Merck, and Andy Taylor. Furthermore, and most importantly, she definitavely "ORDERED" me NOT to tlk to you about it. She wanted me to ascertain the strength of the company, which at the time was magnanimous.

After my fact finding mission, I flew to Arizona to meet with Sharon and Elliot. They concluded that at this point in your career, you needed a powerhouse company with unlimited power and resources to help guide your career. Again, I was given the missive to "surprise " you with this information, as Sharon felt you would be PROUD that I was willing to give up Big FD to further enhance YOUR career. Ax, check with Elliot..if he denies this, he's flat out lying...I swear on my kids lives.

Goldstein's letter to Axl, 2009

Duff would later shed more light on Sharon Maynard and what she was telling Axl:

This guru lady would come out on the road with us and she took Axl for a fucking ride. In France, she would tell him he was Napoleon in a previous life and, in Israel, he was the Roman soldier who stabbed Jesus on the cross. And he believed all this shit. If anything went wrong it was because there was some intergalactic battle going on out there between past lives or something.

Nuts Magazine, October, 2004

In 2013, Alan Niven would talk about the Maynards and describe them as charlatans:

They were representing themselves as spiritual counselors, right, and they they were based in Sedona-

RockAAA, March 17, 2011

I think they were absolute out and out charlatans. And Axl somehow got involved with them without my knowledge. And I remember being at the Record Plant one day an Axl goes, "Niven, I need a picture of you," and I'm going, "Sure, fine." You know, he takes a Polaroid of me. I later find out that these Polaroids are taken to Sharon Maynard so she can read the auras and tell him who's good for him and who's bad for him. Now, obviously, I'm bad for him because I'd kick a charlatan down the fucking street and say, "Get on your fucking bike," you know? So obviously I'm bad for Axl. And I kind of wonder what kind of relationship Doug had with them, and, you know, there are a lot of questions there.

RockAAA, March 17, 2011

Niven would also claim that the Maynards had been primary forces behind the breakup of the band:

[...] a lot of what we've been talking about, you know, it's fairly well known history, I think. I think what might be entertaining is, you know, if you're up for this, is I think it would be amusing to talk about the renegotiation that went on with John, with Geffen, with David Geffen. Because there are some moments of really high comedy in that and an area of which I think has been completely under-analyzed. And that is the role of the main arts in the destruction of the band. We can talk about the role of, you know, my dearly beloved Dougie Goldstein and, you know, so on and so forth, and in the demise of the band, but I think one of the more intriguing things cuz it gives you a fascinating microscopic perspective on Axl and his psyche but the acts that a couple of charlatans from Sedona Arizona, just over the hill from here, over the mountain from here, could take him for so much money, manipulate him as they did, and be - as far as I'm concerned - one of the primary forces in the breakup of the band, is really fascinating. I heard from both, you know, Reese and Goldstein, you know, the kind of money that these two charlatans took from Axl and his camp and those around him and it's stunning, it's staggering. I mean, most famously 75,000 dollars for an exorcism, you know, on top of that it didn't work obviously.

Dropping The Needle, April 3, 2013

And lament how Axl got entangled with people Niven thought were just exploiting Axl's vulnerability:

[...] you know what's really, really sad about that? It's not that they were a major instrument in my going and the degeneration of the band. What is really, profoundly sad about this is that obviously Axl knew he needed spiritual guidance. He was trying to find something, he was trying to find his center, trying to find whatever who he is. Trying to define a sense of purpose. And he falls amongst thieves. You know, he takes the lamb in his consciousness and delivers it onto the wolves. And these fuckers charged him $75,000 for an exorcism. They also used to have weekend retreats where Axl's inner circle had to attend and each paid 10 grand to attend weekend. These fucking charlatans would get on a plane, Mitch, and you'll find this amusing, and come up to Canada on the Monday or the Tuesday after the weekend and go and buy land in Canada. [...] After they had had their little Axl-fest out in Sedona. I mean, you know, I heard from both Reese and Goldstein that those two took - I have thought it was 10s of thousands - but Reese told me it was hundreds of thousands. [...] But the sad thing is, here's a guy who's who's looking for help. And what happens? He gets taken to the goddamn cleaners.

RockAAA, March 17, 2011

Goldstein would be asked how long Maynard was involved with Axl and Guns N' Roses:

Right up until her death to the best of my knowledge, Mitch. I mean, you know, I was gone in 2002 but yes, she continued on and probably still would be with him if she lived.

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

JANUARY 2007: SHARON MAYNARD DIES

Sharon Maynard died on January 18, 2007 [Classic Rock, March 2008].

While interviewing Doug Goldstein in 2015, Mitch Lafon would mention that he was "unfortunately" looking at Maynard's obituary, prompting Goldstein to state:

Not really unfortunately [laughing].

One On One with Mitch Lafon, April 5, 2015

DECEMBER 2012: AXL SPEAKS OUT

When confronted with Wikipedia mentioning him believing in past life regression, Axl would say he wasn't sure his personal belief were publicly known and would suggest "gossip, hearsay, unsubstantiated media nonsense and even outright lies" had influenced the public perception of his beliefs and spirituality:

I'm interested in having a personal, first- hand understanding of spirituality and religion as well as politics and government in India. [...] I'm not sure that what I personally believe or not is really out there publicly. Lots of people say and twist things and have done so over the years for their own purposes based on gossip, hearsay, unsubstantiated media nonsense and even outright lies, especially when money may be involved and/or if they're trying to make problems for others. I do like to explore and consider lots of different concepts, ideologies, belief systems, religions etc, and have an understanding of what others feel, think or believe, but in my opinion, ultimately what one "believes" is their own business.

The Times of India, December 2, 2012

In 2018, Doug Goldstein would be asked about Axl's religious belief and argue that since Axl has good morals he must believe in God:

I mean, I always have known Axl to be, I don't... Look, I'm not in his room, I don't see him getting down on his knees praying to whomever, but he's a good guy with good morals. He doesn't harm people intentionally, ever. He always has people's best interests at heart. And to me that's somebody who's spiritual, you know, I mean, that kind of defines, you know, the golden rule stuff. You want to be treated like you treat others. And I've always experienced Axl to be a really God fearing person, at least in terms of how I would, you know, kind of frame a God-fearing person. He never denounced the existence of a creator with me, put it that way. I mean, you know.

Appetite for Distortion, January 7, 2019

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