1993.01.28-30 - Australian TV/Sydney Morning Herald - Segments from the press conference in Sydney (Slash, Duff)

News report from January 28, 1993 (the day of the press conference):



Transcript:
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Host: ... insist the show will be kept under control. For starters, there’ll be no alcohol allowed.

Voice-over: If Beethoven and Brahms rest amid your collection, Guns N’ Roses may be judged classically crude. But for millions across the heavy metal world, the Gunners rule supreme. Their bold enough and bruising form of entertainment building and unmatched rocking reputation.

[Cut to footage from the St Louis show

Axl (on stage in St. Louis): Well, thanks to the lame ass security, I’m going home.]

Voice-over: Axl Rose once again stayed backstage today, as guitarists Slash and Duff promoted their Australian tour and defended their honour.

[Cut to the press conference in Sydney]

Slash: Guns N’ Roses carries sort of a bad boy kind of image. That was something that was stuck on us. It was a label that was put. We didn’t ask for it.

Duff: We are this generation now, and so the kids come to see us.

Voice-over: Over 70,000 are set to see the band in what’s billed as Australia’s biggest outdoor concert at Eastern Creek on Saturday night. Organisers are assuring that security will have never been tighter.

[Cut to the press conference in Sydney]

Michael Chugg (promoter): We’ve got St. John’s Ambulance, over 100 St. John Ambulance on site. We have 400 security.

Voice-over: Over 200 police will also be placed on crowd control. The Gunners are hopeful the boys in blue will enjoy the concert as well.

[Cut to the press conference in Sydney]

Slash: Guns N’ Roses doesn’t, in any way, shape or form, incite or condone riots or, you know, trying to get kids going in that direction.  

***

From another news report (Channel 5), January 30, 1993:



Transcript:
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Voice-over: The American group’s invasion began with their arrival at the Qantas Jet Base on Wednesday night, with enough security to protect the president of the United States. Apart from 500 tons of equipment, they had the heavy luggage of a reputation for drug abuse, violent antics and misogynism [sic]. But there was no evidence of that sinister behaviour at the media conference held the day after their arrival at Sydney’s plush Ritz Carlton Hotel. There wasn’t a smashed television set in sight. They greeted Sydney’s scribes with good humour and patience, uncharacteristic of the egos they’re supposed to have.

[Cut to the press conference in Sydney]

Slash: When it comes down to it, when you get back to your room and you get – let’s see, you’re off the stage and you have to function just like everybody else, and you can’t [beep] believe in your own hype and think that you’re any more special than anybody else, cos it just doesn’t work.

Voice-over: Not even the potentially explosive presence of the niggling Norman Gunston could rattle the band’s bassist and lead guitarist. On a more serious note, they denied their sort of music was poison for the ears of a whole generation. In the 1960’s it was the Rolling Stones. Thirty years later, you wouldn’t want to be introducing your mother to Guns N’ Roses, but the band members insist they’d probably make mum a cup of tea.

[Cut back to the press conference in Sydney]

Slash: I understand that Guns N’ Roses carries sort of a certain bad-boy kind of image. That was something that was stuck on us. That was a label that was put. We didn’t ask for it. I mean, granted, we are a rock ‘n’ roll band and we’ve been through a lot of stuff. I think, as far as the general image, from the kids’ perspective, is that we’re pretty down-to-earth and realistic; and I think they relate to us on a pretty sensible level.

***

Humorous moment at the press conference with comedy character Norman Gunston:



Slash: I've never heard about you.

Norman Gunston: Why do you wear bananas on your head?

(Laughter)

Norman Gunston: Sorry. Why do you wear bandanas on your head?

Slash: I don’t think either of us have bandanas.

Norman Gunston: You wear one on stage though. Mr. Hubcap does.

Slash: Axl usually does. Mr. who?

Norman Gunston: Hubcap. I thought his name was Hubcap. Sorry.

Duff: No, it’s Axl.

Slash: Axl wears one of those things, right.

Norman Gunston: Well, you know, you guys have pretty unusual nicknames, like Slash. You don’t have a prostate problem really, have you?

(Laughter)

Slash: I just woke up, man. I’m not ready for you.

Norman Gunston: You’ve actually been on tour, on this tour, for two years, haven’t you? Well, how much of that time was spent trying to get through Australian Customs?

(Laughter)

Slash: About 10% of it.

Norman Gunston: Yeah, cos, you know, they’re pretty strict here. And did they spray Mr. Rose for aphids?

(Laughter)

Norman Gunston: Very strict. Very strict.

Duff: Wow, this guy’s great.

(Laughter)

Norman Gunston: You write songs about depravity, murder, racism, drug abuse, and millions of impressionable teenagers buy these songs. You haven’t got one to spare, have you?

(Laughter)

Norman Gunston: You named the band after me, didn’t you? Gunston Roses?

Slash (laughing): Do you want to get up here?

Norman Gunston: I wouldn’t mind... No.

Slash: What a funny guy.

Norman Gunston: Thanks. Is it true that your former rhythm guitarist, Mr. Izzy Stradlin, was arrested for urinating in the kitchen of airplane that he was travelling on?

Slash: Well, he had to take a piss and they wouldn’t let him because the plane was landing or something. So, you know, he said, “I’ll do it right here in the wastebasket.”

Norman Gunston: They don’t need that sort of thing guys on here in Australia. I think eating our food just naturally tastes that way.

Norman Gunston: Let me get this straight: Izzy quit the band, but Dizzy is still with the band. Is that right?

Slash: Yeah.

Norman Gunston: What about “Sleepy Dog” and “Grumpy”?

(Laughter)

Slash (laughing): I gotta give you credit, what can I say?

Norman Gunston: Thank you very much.

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Original sources of the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs9tZLf8Xig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seschUzkjy4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mh8HThNHdY

Report about the press conference with more quotes, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 29, 1993:

https://images2.imgbox.com/ac/08/Ib7aA5qV_o.jpg

Transcript:
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Basically, just a nice pair of boys

By BERNARD ZUEL

And no-one said the word “heroin”.

We got a question about leather pants, several about how much they loved Australia and one about the snakes left behind, but the drug of choice among the latest crop of hirsute rock gods, and a substance which often is mentioned in the same breath as Guns N’ Roses, didn't come up when the band touted as the world’s biggest met the press.

And when it was over there was a round of applause. It was that kind of press conference.

The TV cameras and the radio men were waiting for fire; the reporters from the teen magazines were prepared for the goss. Everyone was ready to hear from the “baddest band in the world”. And what did we get? Two nice boys and Norman Gunston.

“We’re just a bunch of guys,” bass player Duff McKagan said. “Ninety per cent of what’s been written about us is not true.”

After earning more column centimetres for arrests, post-concert riots and fractured love lives than their mega-million selling albums, Guns N’ Roses would like you to know that they are regular chaps. Maybe not the kind you would take home to meet mum, but the sort of boys who would refrain from throwing up on your father’s shoes.

“ ‘Bad boys’ is a label that was stuck on us - we didn’t ask for it,” guitarist Slash said without a trace of a mocking smile.

Duff and Slash - when you’re counting album sales by the multi-million, who needs to worry about a second name -played the part to the hilt. They joked with Gunston, they talked a lot about “the kids”, those 80,000 who have paid more than $50 to see them tomorrow at Eastern Creek Raceway, and they were unfailingly polite.

A pink-coloured drink Slash kept handy was as close to debauchery that he managed, and he excused his initial slow reaction to Gunston’s questions with: “I just woke up, man.”

Asked by a teen magazine reporter how many Guns N’ Roses it took to change a light bulb, Duff replied: “Hey, we pay people to do that s-t.”