2001.01.16 - O Globo - Axl talks at Pool Side

Wearing a basketball team shirt and suprisingly receptive, the most reclusive of the Rock In Rio 3 stars started to talk. On his third day in Rio, the singer of Guns N' Roses, Axl Rose, talked to a group of fans in the Intercontinental Hotel's pool yesterday morning. Drinking "caipirinha" and tequilla, Axl talked for two hours about the end of the original formation of the band, relationship problems and drugs abuse. The leader of Guns N' Roses said lots of things about Slash, ex-guitar player of the band, with whom he haven't talked since 1992.

- I'm very proud of being able to talk about things that I have been keeping inside me for eight years - Axl said.

The meeting took place when Axl and his personal security rested at the side of the hotel's pool, at 11h30m of yesterday. Approached by a fan Axl let her sit on the table and started the conversation. After a while a group of teenagers surrounded the singer. The leader ofGuns said he likes Brazilian music - music by Emílio Santiago could be heard in the speakers of the hotel - and answered the people's questions:

- Everybody hated each other in the band, with the exception of me. Slash was fighting for power with (the guitarist) Izzy (Stradlin) because he wanted to take control of the band and destroy it.

Axl told that the drummer, Steven Adler, used so much drugs that he fell several times from the drums while they were recording. The drum track for the song "Civil War", one of the group's hits, was remixed more than 90 times.

According to what he says Duff McKagan had panic attacks during the performances.

With Slash it wasn't much different, addicted to drugs and alcohol, the guitarist disagreed with the direction of the band:

- Nothing about happiness and love made sense to him. That was the reason why he hated "Sweet Child O' Mine". He only wanted to write songs about drugs and sadness.

The start of the fight between them, was the hospilization of the guitarist in 1992, because of an overdose.

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

After Las Vegas, Rio was the city chosen for the second performance of the new line up, that includes guitarists Robin Finck, Buckethead and Paul Tobias. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed, bassist Tommy Stinson and the drummer Brian Mantia. Axl gets excited when talking about the group's Brazilian fans:

- In Brazil we have an acception that we can't get in any other place in the world. The Brazilian people came to Rock In Rio without knowing the new band and without knowing if we would play the old songs. This is something we need to thank a lot.

Although this, the performance at Rock In Rio was the target of some criticizism from Axl. According to him, his voice was not at his best because of lack of sleep and the band needs to adjust the sound to these great shows. The expectations of the band turns now to the new album, "Chinese Democracy". The leader guarantees his fans that they will be rewarded for the long wait.

With 18 songs, the group's next album (they haven't released anything since 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident?") is a collection of songs, which in Axl's opinion are as good as "November Rain". Among them "Madagascar", included in the show on Sunday. The CD will include a tribute to John Lennon and another about child abuse.

This article was published in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo on January 16. I added the image.