1986.06.27 - L.A. Weekly - L.A. Rocks: The Big Bang Theory (Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff)

Transcript:
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L.A. Rocks: The Big Bang Theory
 
By Scott Morrow
 
I grilled Guns & Roses – or Led Zeppelin II, as I like to call ‘em – at their West Hollywood crash pad in the midst of the spontaneous creation of another crunch-rocker tune chronicling the true story of an evil woman. Full of piss and vinegar, this young bunch of boys are on their way to London to record their vinyl debut for Geffen, having just completed a 37-song, two track recording – in three days! (Geffen plans to release it as a kind of legal bootleg – coolness!). You may not like Guns & Roses personally, but if you don’t like their music something is seriously wrong with you. Either that or your idea of a rocking band is Tears for Fears. Let the guilty speak! (Guns and Roses are Axl Rose, vocals; Slash, guitar; Izzy, guitar; Duff, bass; Steven Adler, drums.)
 
“Who You Calling Glam?” or “It’s All Henry’s Fault”

AXL: I think the “glam” label pretty much applies to people who didn’t necessarily want to be associated with punk or heavy metal or whatever. It gave them something to identify with. This scene particularly evolved out of the Fetish club, and the Glam Slam that evolved out of the Fetish. It’s Henry Peck’s fault! It’s also because of the rhinestones and some of the jewelry. “Glam” was a name you could call this thing, something that people could feel they belonged to. I don’t consider us a glam band. We weren’t trying to do anything with that.
 
DUFF: It’s basically an L.A thing. L.A. people think they have to be put into one category, like “Now we’re death rockers” or we’re this or that – which is not bad, but in other cities you’re just a band. You’re not grouped with anything.
 
SLASH: It’s not even worth talking about. We’re just a rock & roll band.
 
AXL: It’s non-denominational. We could play symphonic music, and if I had all my heart and emotion and feeling put into that, I’d call it rock & roll. I think Mozart was rock & roll.
 
Happy Mother’s Day
 
AXL: We like a lot of local bands, like Jet Boy and Redd Kross. But at the same time we’llo go and get in a fight. I got in a fight with Bob Forrest from Thelonious Monster at Raji’s. They were intoxicated, and I was completely straight and playing, and they were throwing beer bottles at the band. If somebody does that I hit them with the mike stand. I don’t care if my mother came up and started punching me, I’d hit her with the mike stand.
 
Sexloft
 
IZZY: For a while there, we had the band and four other women living in a 12-by-12 loft behind the Sunset Grill.
 
AXL: Nine people living in this one room with a bathroom destroyed by people throwing up! I used to shit in a box and throw it in the trash because the bathroom was so disgusting.
 
IZZY: So to compensate for space, we built this loft out of stolen stuff.
 
AXL: People would show up at all hours, and we’d talk everybody into climbing into the loft, and someone would hit the light and go, “Alright! Everybody in the loft! Let’s get naked or leave!” This one girl fucked almost the whole band, friends of the band, the band next door and two days later she goes, “Axl, I’m having your child.”
 
Freedom
 
SLASH: The kids just wanna be free. They wanna go out and have a good time. They don’t wanna be told what to do. And one of the outlets for that is rock & roll bands and the whole rock & roll way of life. The only place kids can go is out and buy a record or go see a band and get away from the teachers and the scumbag parents and the cops and all those people, all the authorities who tell you what the fuck to do. You go to a show to let it all go. All the opposing forces, all the cops and teachers and all that shit, they come down on you, and it causes havoc. They come down on the people that influence the kids, like the bands.
 
It’s Good To Be Bad
 
AXL: Being bad is a rush. One time this hippie chick wandered into our studio and she was fucking with our equipment, trying to break stuff. We wouldn’t call the cops – they’d turn the situation around and hassle us for picking on this poor girl. So eventually she wound up running down Sunset naked, all dingy, doesn’t even know her name. The firemen and the cops all came down on us, and I’m sitting in there hiding behind an amplifier. They got six or seven people lined up in there, and she identifies someone else as me. (He went to court and got off, by the way.) While the cops are there harassing everybody, asking questions, I’m with this girl behind the amp, going at it, and that was a rush! I got away with it! It was really exciting! But that doesn’t mean some other kid should go out and do that. If he does, that’s his problem.
 
What Is Happiness?
 
AXL: More things in life – mine, anyway – piss me off rather than make me happy, really heart-felt happy, overwhelmed with joy. You can have a girlfriend or a wife, but you can count on your fingers the time things are really, really so beautiful that you remember them forever. It’s harder to write about those beautiful experiences. Those times are so short.
 
SLASH: How happy can you be living in L.A.? Like, you’re looking at a tree, and there’s a dog pissing on it, and there’s some whores in front of it, and the air’s filled with smog...
 
AXL: That’s the stuff I write about. To some people, that’s depressing. But that’s what I am, and that’s what I deal with.