2006.08.18 - KROQ - Interview with Axl

Many thanks to Gordon Comstock from MyGnR.



Transcript:
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Interviewer... the show is September 23^rd at the Hyundai Pavilion, and there’s a little band named Guns N’ Roses making their first real Los Angeles concert appearance in 14 years on that night. Axl Rose, from the band, back on the phone, back on the Kevin & Bean Show. Hey Axl, how are you doing?
 
Axl: Hey, what’s happening?
 
Interviewer: Good to talk to you again, dude. How’s it been going? Last time we talked to you was what, a couple of months ago, when we announced this thing, and you’ve been doing nothing but working since we had you on the phone that day.
 
Axl: We’ve been having a lot of fun. A lot of fun.
 
Interviewer: You’ve been touring Europe, right?
 
Axl: Absolutely.
 
Interviewer: How’s it been going?
 
Axl: It went great. We played for over 700,000 people, 32 shows, and really it was a lot of fun.  
 
Interviewer: Does it kind of feel like you’re back in the groove as if that giant time never happened? Or does it feel it’s kind of new again?
 
Axl: Um, a little bit of both. I mean, it’s been very fun, very exciting, and the people have been so great everywhere at the shows. The shows have gone over really, really well, and we had a lot of fun working the shows - I mean, everybody going and putting everything they got into it. So yeah, it’s kind of like erased the time, in a way, and feels new.    
 
Interviewer: Right. I remember when we had you on last time, when we were announcing the KROQ Inland Invasion 2006, and we were talking about what it is about Guns N’ Roses that makes your fans still be so faithful and so loyal after so long. And from what I’ve been seeing on the news of the shows you’ve been playing, you’re drawing 6-year-olds and 60-year-olds. It seems like everywhere you go, you’ve got every age group represented in the audience in front of you.
 
Axl: It’s a predominantly young audience and, you know, that seems to surprise a lot of people. It surprises me, but it’s really fun - and with that - and they’re very excited.
 
Interviewer: Have you been able to put the East Coast-West Coast feud behind you and Tommy Hilfiger? (laughs)
 
Axl: Yeah, that’s just still an odd thing.   
 
(Laughter)
 
Interviewer: I remember when we talked to you after that. That was funny. How did you go about putting the setlist together for this? Tell people what they’re going to see when they come out to the Guns N’ Roses KROQ show on the 23^rd of September. You’re doing a lot of the old stuff? How much new stuff are you doing?
 
Axl: It varies. Sometimes [we do] four to six new songs, maybe seven right now, and that’ll grow as we begin touring, more songs or new songs. That varies every night. It kind of depends on just the vibe of the crowd and other circumstances, how we feel, what’s going on with... We don’t change it too much, but we vary what we throw in and what we don’t. We try to just change it up a bit for ourselves, so that it keeps us excited. I mean, my favorite thing that we do is, we move the piano in and out for a couple of songs, and when we’re doing that and goes into, like, an impromptu jam that we just make up on the spot.
 
Interviewer: Right.
 
Axl: Four little ones happened during the show and they sound really good (chuckles).
 
Interviewer: That sounds like it would be fun if you’re (?) the whole thing. That’s pretty cool. You said that you also vary it according to the vibe of the audience. Do you change sometimes mid-stream and say, “I don’t wanna do this” or are you set before you go?
 
Axl: Absolutely. I’ve always done that and I do it now. And the band is good with it. They don’t have a problem with that. They like that, as well. We usually are all kind of in joint unison about what song we’re gonna go into next. Sometimes we get confused...
 
Interviewer: (Laughs) Right. Especially if you’re changing things, I imagine, yeah.
 
Other interviewer: Yeah, call an audible. This is Axl Rose on the line. We’re talking about the-
 
Axl: I said “joint unison.” That, actually, sounded pretty weird.
 
Interviewer: (Laughs) Yeah.
 
(Laughter)
 
Interviewer: Axl Rose is talking to us about the Guns N’ Roses KROQ Inland Invasion 2006 show, which is going on sale tomorrow morning at 10:00. I gotta ask you, after having the flexibility, Axl, that you did to have taken so much time off, is it now like, “Hey, I’m working again and don’t give me too much to do”? Like, every time they come to you and say, “The shows are selling so well, we want to add another city, we want you to go here, we want you to go there,” are you starting to think, “Man, I don’t want to get back into that groove of committing a year out in advance,” because you missed the flexibility of being able to kind of do your own thing for a while? 
 
Axl: No, quite the opposite. Actually, I was trying to add shows to this tour.
 
Interviewer: Oh, is that right?
 
Axl: Absolutely. And, you know, I’ve noticed that in the little bit of the downtime, coming out off of the tour, it’s like, “Okay, what am I supposed to do now?”
 
Interviewer: Yeah.
 
Axl: “No, I don’t like this.”
 
Interviewer: (Laughs) Too much free time is bad, huh? 
 
Axl: Yeah! Yeah. And then I have too much of other kinds of fun.
 
Interviewer: Sure, yeah.
 
Other interviewer: Right, yeah.
 
Interviewer: What do you feel – we’ve talked to a bunch of bands that have hits like you do, you know, Welcome to the Jungle and stuff like that, Mr. Brownstone... What do you feel about playing those at the shows? I mean, you feel like your audience kind of expects you to at least do some of them?
 
Axl: You know, we don’t... we’re not bored with it. I’m not bored with it, because at least these shows, as soon as we walk out on stage, the crowd erupts.
 
Interviewer: Right.
 
Axl: And we bash out three or four songs, or maybe five, in a row with really no pauses and, like, go at it a hundred percent. It just feels great when we do it and the crowd is into it, so I don’t have any problem with doing the songs. I did for a few years, as I was trying to find where I wanted to go with the record. And, you know, I’m not exactly “on the nightrain.”
 
Interviewer: Right.
 
Other interviewer: Right.
 
Interviewer: Sure (laughs).
 
Axl: But doing that song, to do it well and to do a lot of these songs well live, it is a real big physical thing. So I like that sense of pulling it off and I think the crowd responds to that really well.
 
Interviewer: Is it tough for you to get in physical shape to be able to do an entire show like that?
 
Axl: It was a bit, but then I didn’t have... That happened pretty quickly, getting in shape to be able to do the shows. But I did most of the European tour injured. When I came here, the very first show, I somehow had muscle spasm in my hip that took almost the whole tour to get rid of. And when I finally got rid of it, and I was on stage going, “Yeah, it’s gone!” - basically, to do all these stretches and make it look like you don’t have a problem, which I think I did for the most part.
 
Interviewer: Right.
 
Axl: But as soon as that was okay, then the other leg went – “Okay, now we have to deal with this the whole time?”
 
(Laughter)
 
Axl: “We’re gonna give you much bigger profit.”  (laughs)
 
Interviewer: Oh my god. So people-
 
Axl: I got that all worked out, but figuring out how you’re stretching and moving as far as every day, you know, it was a different thing than performing on stage, because it is-
 
Interviewer: People would come to see your show and they would say, “His voice sounds great, but he dances way different than he used to. I don’t know what’s going on” (laughs).
 
Axl: Yeah, I’ve been moving around a lot differently and it’s a lot more fun.
 
Interviewer: You know, people’s heads exploded when we unveiled that day a couple of months ago, Axl, that your band was going to be headlining KROQ’s Inland Invasion 2006. You’ve encountered these people your whole career, but it’s been new to us to hear from Guns N’ Roses fans who would send us photographs of the tattoos that they have of your logo, we’ve had listeners who have sent us pictures of their Guns N’ Roses pinball machines... I mean, it’s unbelievable the stuff that’s out there on Guns N’ Roses and how hardcore some of your fans are. And people, like, almost didn’t want to believe that you were really going to play a real show in southern California, because it’s been so long. But we’re here to tell folks today that Axl is on the phone, tickets are going on sale tomorrow, his band is gonna be there headlining the show and they’re looking forward to it. Would you say that’s fair, Axl?
 
Axl: Absolutely, and we are very, very excited to do so. We’ve announced our Vegas warm-up shows on the 16^th and 17^th. Then we’re doing a couple of warm-up shows in San Francisco and we’ll be announcing that very soon.   
 
Interviewer: Then you’ll be ready for September 23^rd, Hyundai Pavilion. Again, tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. I want to ask you one more thing, Axl, because I think you’ve already done a couple of shows with Alice in Chains around the world? Is that true?
 
Axl: Yes.
 
Interviewer: How is this lineup of Alice in Chains? I’ve not seen a minute of tape on it, and we’re so excited to have them there on that same show. Is that going to be something that’s going to be great?
 
Axl: I can’t say, because I didn’t see them. I’ve only talked with Jerry and he’s a really great guy. What I do know is that some of my band did and talked to other people that did, and they thought it went really well and they were all happily surprised.
 
Interviewer: Fantastic. Alice in Chains, Muse, Avenged Sevenfold, Papa Roach, 30 Seconds to Mars, Buckcherry, Rise Against, The Train - and, of course, Guns N’ Roses headlining the show September 23^rd at the Hyundai Pavilion. Go to kroq.com for on sale details tomorrow morning at 10:00. Axl, we’re gonna see you in person on that day, on September 23^rd, man. It’s always great to catch up with you on KROQ.    
 
Axl: Thank you!
 
Interviewer: Thank you. Thanks for calling.
 
Axl: Have a great day.
 
Other interviewer: Thanks, you too.