1988.08.10 - Interview with Axl at KJJO105

Transcript:

Interviewer: Guns N' Roses, the hottest band of the country and of the Twin Cities. How's the tour going so far, Axl?

Axl: Everything's going great. Even better than what we expect.

Interviewer: All right. On the tour, how's the reception been?

Axl: Yeah, it's been really good. Everywhere we've been going and the package [?] on his tour is working out phenomenal for us.

Interviewer: All right. You guys will be hitting the Twin Cities, let's see, some time in September. What leg of the tour you in right now?

Axl: Right now we're in Detroit. We're starting the first of three shows at a place called Pine Knob, like 15,000 feet or something, three in a row, starting tomorrow night.

Interviewer: All right. When you guys finally hit the Twin Cities, what can we expect from Guns N' Roses?

Axl: Everything we can in a time slot we're allotted. Like, we just like go out there and decide, we don't really follow a set list, we can do certain songs what we like to do every show, but other than that, we just play it by ear, you know, how we feel and how we feel the crowd feels about things, you know, at the time. Sometimes people are disappointed and want to hear this song or that, but like, you know, we're not doing a full two hour headlining show, you can, so we can only do so much. So we just, kinda like pack everything we can into the time slot we're given.

Interviewer: All right. No matter what you can do I'm sure you're gonna give the Twin Cities one heck of a show. Tell me, you got the number one album in the country right now.

Axl: Ah, yeah. It's going up and down, it's like, there's a lot of political things, back and forth with different bands and stuff like that. As long as our record's selling, I don't really care if it's number 1 or number 10 as long as it's doing its sales, everybody else can do their politics all they want.

Interviewer: All right. Back with Axl but first let's do us some Guns [cuts off][cuts in] Guns N' Roses, of course you guys will be tearing up the Twin Cities fairly soon, sometime in September. Tell us what's in the future for Guns N' Roses?

Axl: I just afford [?], you know, anywhere we play we just want to give the people everything we can give them, it's like, we've got about enough stuff planned for a double album and we don't know exactly what we're gonna put out on the next one, we're looking forward to being able to get out there again next year, and give the people even more of a show in a headlining position, so that they can, you know, see more of what we're about.

Interviewer: All right. Telling the headlining wise [?]. Next year, how do you feel about the band? Talk about the future and who might you be touring with in the future?

Axl: Yes, it's really phenomenal how it's like building up and stuff like that. We've thinking about tours, like, our favorite new bands out, like Metallica. We're friends with those guys and stuff and we're trying to work out something with those guys. But it's like, you know, they're going like we are, [?] we think that might be a monster show.

Interviewer: All right. What inspired you, your group, to do such a song like 'Sweet Child O' Mine'?

Axl: Well, there was a lot of work put into that song like, cuz I'm from Indiana, where like Bob Seger and REO Speedwagon and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Aerosmith was the rock band, they were considered like the top four bands, so when we worked up 'Sweet Child', and it's like, we went out and got a lot of the old tapes that, like, you had learned to hate because you'd heard them so many times. But we went back over it such to try to get some of that heartland feel into it, and try to get some of the things that people were leaving out of their music.

Interviewer: Yeah. You guys are [?]

Axl: Try to bring some stuff back. And so I think a lot of people are, you know, when they hear the song it's, like, whether they place it with those, some of the stuff they have heard or not, it brings back some roots and some memories rather than just being like a flash in the pan happy song [?].

Interviewer: All right. Axl Rose! If there's anything you'd like to tell the Twin Cities besides crank it up?

Axl: Rock and roll.