1986.08.23 - Whisky A Go Go, Los Angeles, USA

I worked on the band’s record deal because Warners helped out Geffen as part of their distribution deal. I was the junior guy at Warners, and when it came time to do the Guns N’ Roses contract with Geffen, they gave the job to me. Guns’ deal [with Geffen] was nothing special—either it was for two albums, firm, or for one album with an option. I don’t remember. The whole thing, including the band’s advance and album budget, was a few hundred thousand [dollars].

I must have met the band through Tom Zutaut and his assistant, Teresa Ensenat. Somehow I made them aware that I also played harmonica, and I began to hang out with them at their band house, which was everything you might have heard—naked girls, plenty of dope, loud music, breaking glass, complaining neighbors, the cops arriving to restore some semblance of order. Maybe we jammed while they were rehearsing, and eventually Axl asked me to play harp on their song ‘Nightrain’ at some gigs they were playing. The first one was at Madame Wong’s, and then I played the Troubadour with them. Then they asked me to play with them at the Whisky a Go Go.

“So I get to the Whisky, which was probably one night in the summer of 1986. I was so psyched. How many lawyers get to play with their bands? I go upstairs to the Whisky’s little shithole of a dressing room, and I find Axl sitting there, with two strippers. He gives me a high five, and he says to the girls, ‘This is our friend Jeff. He’s going to play with us tonight. I would appreciate it, very much, if you would take him into the bathroom and help him relax.’

“So I went with these two girls, and they basically ‘serviced’ me”—with double-headed oral sex. “Then Guns went onstage, and when it was time for ‘Nightrain’ they called me on, and I played with them. The audience—lots of girls—was rabid. Bonkers.  I was ten years older than the band, but Guns were sort of goofing on it—that their label’s lawyer could do this. They gave me a harp solo, like we’d done before.