2018.03.28 - GN'R Central - Interview with Doug Goldstein

Excerpt from Alternative Nation
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Former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein revealed in a new Guns N’ Roses Central interview how Slash collaborating with Michael Jackson contributed to his falling out with Axl Rose. Goldstein mentioned that Slash’s collaboration with Jackson came shortly after Rose gave an emotional interview to Interview Magazine where he opened up for the first time about his father sexually abusing him as a child.

Keep in mind that based on the tone of the conversation, Goldstein’s memories of his conversation with Slash appears to not be an exact paraphrase, as it also seems to express the thoughts Goldstein had in his head at the time. Alternative Nation transcribed Goldstein’s comments.

“So he does that huge interview, and he bears his deepest darkest secret, and Slash comes to my room two months later and says: ‘Hey, I’m going to play with Michael Jackson.’ What! No! So everybody in the industry knows that Eddie Van Halen got 1 million dollars for ‘Beat It,’ for the single. I said, ‘At least let me negotiate the deal.’ ‘No, it’s already negotiated.’ ‘What do you mean? You’re not going to let me do my job?’ I said, ‘Look, I need to go to Axl with some ammunition to explain why you’re going and hanging out with a pedophile.’ He had just shared what happened. Slash said, ‘It’s already negotiated.’

So I said, ‘At least give me some ammunition to go to Axl and tell him but yeah, he’s getting X amount of dollars.’ He said, ‘He’s giving me a big screen TV.’ ‘Hang on, what?’ ‘Yeah, he’s going to give me one of those big 72 inch big screen TV’s.’ ‘So that’s what I get to go with Axl with? You’re going to go play with a pedophile after he just bore his soul, for a big screen TV?’ ‘Yeah.’

That was the end of the end right there, that was the beginning of the end, but that sealed the fate of the band. Axl never again thought Slash was his brother. Like I said earlier, the greatest thing I ever did was let Axl know what they thought of him, because he loved those guys. He thought they understood how damaged his own life was.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20180718223119/http://www.alternativenation.net/ex-guns-n-roses-manager-calls-out-pedophile-michael-jackson/

More excerpts (transcribed by Alternative Nation):
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Former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein was asked about Axl Rose’s reaction to Kurt Cobain’s 1994 death in a new Guns N’ Roses Central interview. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments. Goldstein was asked if Rose’s media feud with Cobain, including the infamous MTV VMA’s incident, affected his reaction to the Nirvana frontman’s tragic death.

“It didn’t matter, he 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.'”

“It wasn’t that strong of an effort, it was an afterthought. But you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

He discussed Axl Rose’s depression more in detail.

“I had lived it with my own brother, who is a genius manic depressive, who attempted suicide a number of times, so it wasn’t that foreign to me, I was just reliving my childhood basically. He was my best friend, Axl was born 6 years later but born the day after my brother, so the Aquarian tortured genius manic depressive, I shared a room with that guy for 14 years, that was my brother. It made me more emphatic, I certainly understood, I was the one who could the call at 2, 3, or 4 in the morning that Axl wasn’t doing well, I happened to be the guy to go sit with him, sometimes for days at a time.”

http://www.alternativenation.net/axl-roses-heartbreaking-reaction-kurt-cobains-death-revealed/

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In a new Guns N’ Roses Central interview, former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein was asked if he attended any Guns N’ Roses ‘Not In This Lifetime’ tour reunion shows. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.

“No. [Former Guns N’ Roses tour manager] John Reese, when I was talking to him, he went to a show, he had passes for him and his now wife, and his daughters, and they went. They were back with Kanye West and a couple other people, one of the Brazilians, Beta’s family, one of the daughters comes out and only takes back Axl’s guests.

So Kanye got left there, a couple other celebrities, and John Reese. John Reese was the tour manager for the band, and he got embarrassed. So once I heard that I went, they don’t hate him, they hate me for some reason. They think I’m the guy that in 1993, when I was sitting with my wife having a child, that I was the guy taking the name back.”

He was also asked about Izzy Stradlin’s lack of involvement in the tour.

“Izzy’s a principle guy, and they wanted to undercut him, and I don’t know why. If you want the original members back together, then pay everybody equally. Let Steven sit down on the kit for the last song, do Paradise City, let the guy go off. He doesn’t even want to get paid.”

Goldstein thinks the band will eventually record new music.

“I think so, I don’t know factually. They’re so talented, and so creative, that shame on them if they can’t figure out how to get into a studio. They should use Steve Thompson honestly.”

http://www.alternativenation.net/kanye-west-humiliated-guns-n-roses-concert/

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Former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein was recently interviewed by Guns N’ Roses Central and he revealed how Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis turned down an idea for shows with Guns N’ Roses and U2. Alternative Nation transcribed Goldstein’s comments.

“What happened was Axl [Rose] came to me, Pearl Jam had just broke, they had released Ten and it was on fire, I was [somewhere] in Tel Aviv, Israel, we were playing there. Axl had come to me in the morning and said, ‘I don’t care if we open, I don’t care if we don’t get paid, I want to do a show or a couple of shows with us, Pearl Jam, and U2 closing. Can you please call everybody?’ I said, ‘Sure.’

So I called Paul McGuiness from U2, he was in, ‘Absolutely Doug, that would be great. We can talk about who will headline.’ I said, ‘No, no, no. Axl already said he wants you guys to close.’ We were bigger than U2 at the time, but it wasn’t about who was going to close, and it wasn’t that Axl wanted to kick their ass, he just wanted to do this show. So I called Kelly Curtis in Seattle, who manages Pearl Jam. I’ve got a finger in my ear, because the music is going on, I’m at a closet hut in Tel Aviv, and he has me on speakerphone.

I said, ‘Kelly, can you please pick up?’

‘No.’

‘Kelly, I need to talk to you, it’s kind of important.’

‘Yeah I don’t care, what do you want?’

‘Kelly, I can’t hear, I’m in a closet.’

‘I don’t care, what do you want Doug?’

So I told him, he goes: ‘Eh, no. We’re going to pass.’

I said, ‘Okay hang on a second, I manage Guns, and when an idea comes to me, I usually talk to the band.’ I go, ‘Are you speaking on behalf of the band?’

He goes, ‘Yeah, we’re going to pass?’

I go, ‘Don’t you have a moral ethical responsibility to at least discuss it with the band?’

‘Don’t fucking tell me my fucking job.’

‘Okay, nice talking to you, you have a great life!’

At that point there couldn’t have been a venue big enough to hold all three of those bands.”

http://www.alternativenation.net/pearl-jam-turned-down-huge-guns-n-roses-offer-in-brutal-way/

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Former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein claimed in a new Guns N’ Roses Central interview that Motley Crue ripped off the riff for “Dr. Feelgood” from Guns N’ Roses. He discussed the story when asked about Izzy Stradlin briefly writing with Guns N’ Roses in 1995, and if Izzy made it look like he would return full time.

“No, Izzy never led anybody to believe anything like that. Certainly not me, and I don’t think Axl [Rose] either. There is something worth noting, Dr. Feelgood, the Motley Crue song, that’s a Guns N’ Roses song. Slash and Duff [McKagan] wrote that riff. They wrote it down in Redondo Beach, when I was with them.

[Guns N’ Roses] were rehearsing, and Steven [Adler] would come down once a week, and Duff would come down five days a week, and they were jamming and they came up with that riff. Nikki is famous for taking a recorder to a club and stealing songs from bands, [they got it] because they recorded the recorded before we did.”

When asked if the band cared about the riff being lifted from them, Goldstein said the band didn’t really care since they were friends with Nikki Sixx.

“Slash did drugs with him, eh.”

He added, “They’re friends. I never pushed it, I brought it up, ‘Guys, hello, it’s that song.’ ‘Oh it’s Nikki, don’t worry about it.'”

http://www.alternativenation.net/motley-crue-allegedly-ripped-off-guns-n-roses-hit-song/

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In a new Guns N’ Roses Central interview, former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein was asked about two people passing away during a Guns N’ Roses performance in Donnington at the Monsters of Rock festival in 1988 with KISS and Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. Alternative Nation transcribed Goldstein’s comments.

“I knew during the show, I knew when it was happening, but I didn’t tell the guys, because it crippled Axl [Rose]. When we got back to the hotel David Lee Roth was staying there and he was at the bar, and Axl said: ‘Can you introduce me to him? I want to talk to him.’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure. Dave, this is Axl.’ ‘Hey man, how you doing? Diamond Dave! Sit down!’ So Axl said, ‘How do you deal with stuff like that when it happens?’ He goes, ‘Aw fuck man, you’re in the U.K. 10 people die every time they hold a soccer match. Fuck it! It’s rock and roll!’ Axl just said, ‘Really? I’m sorry, I don’t really want to sit here anymore.’ He went back to his room. He was disgusted at Dave, and I was kind of embarrassed that I introduced them. To each his own I guess. Everybody has their own way of getting through things.”

He added, “When I was working with [David Lee Roth], he used to get fucked up and want to throw kicks at me. So I went to knock his head off one time in the elevator. Andy, his bodyguard jumped in and said, ‘Doug, you can’t hit him!’ I said, ‘Fuck you.’ I said, ‘Where I come from, if somebody continues to throw kicks at you, you knock them on their ass and then they don’t throw kicks anymore.’ ‘Well he pays the bills!’ ‘I don’t care, I’ll quit, I’ll go home. I don’t give a shit.'”

http://www.alternativenation.net/axl-rose-disgusted-david-lee-roth-mocking-tragic-deaths/

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In a new interview with former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein, he revealed that at least as of the late 90’s/early 2000’s, Axl Rose was not a big fan of Tool and A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan. He said Rose was hurt when Billy Howerdel quit Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy sessions to form A Perfect Circle with Maynard James Keenan. Alternative Nation transcribed Goldstein’s comments.

“He was our programmer, and Axl was really hurt when Billy left. I’m like, ‘Well he’s got to do his own thing, he’s working with Maynard.’ Axl wasn’t a big Maynard fan, there was stuff between them.”

When the hosts mentioned that they thought Axl was a big Tool fan, Goldstein seemed to indicate that Rose’s former psychic Sharon Maynard influenced the Guns N’ Roses’ icon’s dislike of Maynard James Keenan.

“Yeah, Sharon led him to believe that because Maynard lived so close to where Sharon lived – I don’t know.”

http://www.alternativenation.net/axl-rose-reportedly-didnt-like-maynard-james-keenan-bizarre-reason/