1993.05.DD - MTV - Guns N' Roses in Athens (Slash, Duff, Matt, Dizzy)

Transcript:
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[Band members, relatives, friends and crew members are on a boat cruising the Greek islands nearby Athens]

Duff: Yeah, this Duff and Matt from Guns N’ Roses.

Matt: How you doing?

Duff: We’re out in Athens, out in the sea somewhere going to some island – I think Lesbo [sic] or something like that.

Matt: (Laughs)

Duff: We played in Athens last night and we’re taking a day off. And, as you can see, we’re with our friends over here. They’re friends of Slash, who’s enthralled in a book, and his wife Renee. There’s my wife sitting down with the Washington Huskies baseball hat on – Huskies, next year. And security guys, John Reese - our tour manager, photographers... Del James over here, of course (laughs). He could give us shit. But anyhow... So we’re out here, obviously, having a good time. I think what’s coming up next is Knocking on Heaven’s Door. See you.

[Knocking on Heaven’s Door is played]

Duff: Yeah, here we are. You’re still watching Guns in Athens. We’re still on the boat, still cruising, destination unknown. We’re having a great time. What’s up next?

Matt: This is a video that I’m not in. But it’s a big hit and it’s called Sweet Child O’ Mine.

[Sweet Child O’ Mine is played]

Matt: Duff’s got a new hair color. I don’t know if anyone noticed. What is that actual color?

Duff: My real color.

Matt: Alright. Do you think? So here we are working hard again in Athens.

Duff: Oh, I’m sweating. Can you see the sweat? Yeah. What are we doing? (laughs) You know what we’re doing here. We have to go to Turkey tomorrow and, you know, we might never come back from there. So it’s like our last right to life, I say – something like that.

Matt: Lovely beverage here in Athens. We’re headed to some island still, and this is sort of the last leg of our two-year tour, so we’re trying to live it up. We’ve got a video coming up now. This is a video that I’m in, actually, and it’s called Yesterdays.

Duff: And I must say we did this video... we did two videos in one day, so to make for all the pricey November Rain and Don’t Cry videos. We did these two videos on one day. So it was like, ten takes, done.

[Yesterdays is played]

Duff: Okay, we’re still in Athens here, still on the boat. Speaking of Europe though, we were in Paris a while back for the pay-per-view thing and we did a nice little number with the boys from Aerosmith and it turned out great. They’re great guys, good friends of ours. The song was a song we’ve been covering for years, so we knew it. We knew it better than they did, because they hadn’t played it for a long time. But I think it turned out really cool. What song was that again?

Matt: Um, a little ditty called Mama Kin. And here we go.

[Mama Kin from Paris is played]

[Cut to interview with Slash on the roof of the band’s hotel]

Slash: The best memory from the Paris show was definitely Jeff Beck flying out and at least participating in soundcheck. But he blew his ears out at that rehearsal, and so he didn’t do the actual show the next day, which was a drag. But it was amazing watching him play. I was completely stunned, you know? I wanted to just pack it up at that point. Let’s see... And then, just it was the first time that we played in Paris, so that was cool. As far as the show is concerned, I can’t remember any particular highlights, other than the crowd and Jeff Beck being at soundcheck.

Interviewer: I thought that Lenny...

Slash: Oh, I didn’t even mention Lenny. God, I’m sorry. Yeah, Lenny came out and we did Always on the Run or – yeah, Always on the Run, which was great. We did a good version of it, which was cool.

Interviewer: And a bit rockier, wasn’t it?

Slash: Well, you know, any time we get out on stage, it’s always rockier, as you put it.

[Cut back to the interviews on the boat]

Dizzy: Hi, this is Dizzy from Guns N’ Roses. And here were are, cruising around on this beautiful boat outside Athens, Greece. We’re having a blast. I hope you are. This next song you’re gonna see on here is a particular favorite of mine. It’s the first song that I recorded with the band - I don’t know, it was about three or four years ago. Believe me, I was not thinking anything of Athens, Greece at the time when we recorded this, but it all comes into light now. This is called Civil War and I hope you enjoy it.

[Civil War is played]

Matt: Alright. You’re still hanging out with Guns N’ Roses in Athens and we’re having a really cool time here. That’s Slash over here who’s reading his book; he’s very enthralled in the new Anne Rice novel. And off your right you can see Duff just getting into the ski boat; he’s just been skiing around having a wonderful time. It's beautiful, beautiful weather. Okay, this next video I’m gonna show you was shot with a lot of live performances we did when Izzy was still in the band. We did it all over Europe and in the United States, and we just took live footage, and then we had little old pictures of each member of the band as kids, you know? And this next one is called Live and Let Die.

[Live and Let Die is played]

Duff: Yes, it's Duff, we’re still in Athens, and still in Greece, we're still somewhere out here just having a great time. The next song is coming up and it was also a video off our first record, Appetite. It’s called Paradise City, filmed in New York and also in bloody old England. Paradise City.

[Paradise City is played]

[Cut back to the interview with Slash]

Slash: When you get to go to so many different countries, because of the fact that you’re confined to a hotel most of the time, it’s actually a little frustrating. You know, because it’s exciting when you get into the airport, into an entirely different culture, and you go straight to the hotel. And that’s basically it until the gig, because the hysteria level is so high; which, you know, I’m not complaining or anything, but it does get to be a drag, because you can’t go out and experience it. It's best if you pick some time in between, say, tour dates and just gather maybe one or two people and just go on your own. When the whole entourage is in town, everybody knows; there’s no escaping it.

[Cut to interview with Duff outside of the boat]

Duff: It’s beautiful. I mean, we went and saw some of the old ancient ruins and the crowd was great. At first they were a bit slow. I guess a bunch of bands have cancelled for whatever reasons. So the fans were a bit slow at first and apprehensive. But once we started rolling, the crowd really got into it. That was good and all. I’m kind of looking at this now as, like, a kind of vacation. It’s like, okay, I’ll go to work for a couple of hours and then go on a boat somewhere. There is this part. But, like, when we go to London, it’s pure business. But Greece is beautiful. And, you know, we were just in Israel, and we went to Jerusalem and everything.

[Live footage]

Duff: Myself, I've always kept friends with Izzy, and so it’s really just like, him stepping back in. It’s okay, I mean he’s forgotten a few songs (laughs). But that’s alright, you know. People know that he hasn’t played with us for over two years, so they’re not gonna expect crystal clear, perfect sounds coming off the stage. Because they definitely are not. Not that I just think it’s Izzy, I mean everybody. We’ve never been perfect.

Slash: Initially the break-up, when it first happened, was kept under wraps. We’ve gotten so – you know, we’ve gone through those periods where everybody was used to living together or staying in the same hotel, then when we go home we all live in different places. And I’d be busy doing my thing completely obsessed with what the band is doing, and Axl would be doing his thing, and everybody - so we wouldn’t see each other that much. And so Izzy just really got farther, and we got farther and farther away from him. And that had been developing over the years anyway. And when he finally quit it was, like, such short notice and so close to the next leg of the tour. And he didn’t call any of the guys in the band; he just called management and sent, like, a letter of resignation. So there was a lot of tension going on when all that finally came to light, that drift that was going on. And then having to find another guitar player and all that kind of stuff. And I think there was a bit of resentment for a while, and at this point – you know, I’ve known him for so long, I can’t be mad at the guy. And it was great to see him, so, yeah, it’s, like I said, water under the bridge.

[Live footage]

Matt: It feels good, cuz, you know, when he left the band, it was a little weird. I mean, he had different reasons, he was feeling like he kind of wanted to do his own thing, and when we spilt we hadn’t really spoken with each other. I spoke with him a few times, Duff spoke with him a few times, but, you know, not like it used to be. So when he came back, at first when I saw him, it was a little strange. But once we got up on stage it feels like the old days. I look over at him now and it’s like, “Wow, there’s Izzy.” It’s kind of trippy.

Interviewer: Maybe this will help heal all the wounds.

Matt: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s helped heal the wounds to a lot of other people too. A lot of people thought that we had a lot of conflict amongst us with Izzy and stuff. But it’s not true. And for him to come back is obviously – you know, it’s cool.

[Live footage]

Dizzy: (?) I think it’s a blast. When we first started rehearsals to do that, I remember we brought out, like, all those stools, and we were sitting there doing (does gesture of playing guitar). And I remember Axl at the rehearsal is like, “No way, we can’t do this.” He’s like, “We need a couch - and a coffee table.” You know, and it just looks like your living room now, right? (?) And we brought the couch out there, and the table, and got the guy to serve the pizza. You know, it’s like sitting around in your house jamming. And that’s, basically, what you could do to get stuff started out. In some way we’re trying to portray that to the audience and make it more real. I think it’s a lot of fun for us and I think most of the people get into it in the same way.

Slash: A lot of diehards and, like, metalheads will be like, “Oh, man, they do, like, a 20-minute really boring acoustic set.” But we have a great time doing it and the songs are there. And, you know, we just do whatever we feel like, which makes it fun for us, and I think people can read that more than when they see a band that’s out there doing it extensively like a job and just doing the same ritual routine over and over and over again. I can name a lot of bands that I know that would actually flag me and name Guns N’ Roses, but I won’t name them. But there are bands out there doing it, and they’ve been doing it for a long time.

[Live footage]

[Cut to interviews with concertgoers]

Concertgoer: The most beautiful concert in Athens that ever happened. The most beautiful.

[Clip from Dead Horse video]

[Cut back to the interview with Slash]

Slash: We shot Yesterdays, which was in that same airplane hanger, so we just said, “Let’s do Garden of Eden,” and then Andy Morahan, who just directed the last few videos, had this idea of just doing it with one camera and in one take. And so that’s basically it. So we just did it. It was at the tail end of the day and we just shook our heads like madmen for about two minutes. It was a hell of a lot of fun. That was it.

Interviewer: You mentioned Yesterdays and Andy Morahan, who seems to have a really good feel for the band.

Slash: Yeah, we communicate well together,  I think that's the main thing. I don’t think we want to be so called video entrepreneur types trying to make huge videos that sell a lot of records, and stupendous and technical and stuff. It’s just really to get the expression of the band across, and so he relates to that, which is really important.

[Clip from Garden of Eden video]

Duff: Welcome to the Jungle, let’s see... It was one of the first songs we ever wrote. We all lived in Hollywood and it was basically the story, the depiction of any given kid who moved to Hollywood from Midwest or – I’m from Seattle. So the words were written by Axl, but it could have set for basically everybody in Hollywood. And it was really just about coming out and go for it, and doing it. We did it, and we’re here (laughs). So here’s Welcome to the Jungle.

[Welcome to the Jungle is played]

Duff: Alright, this is Duff. I’m with Matt and Dizzy, and we’re still on the boat [mentions the name of the boat]. We just got here but now we’re leaving Poros. Okay? So we’re still here in Greece. And I guess we'll set up a video here that took us a couple of days, three days, a week, a month – how long did it take us?

Matt: It was a month.

Duff: Yeah.

Matt: (?)

Dizzy: Well, I'm not in it at all, so...

(Laughter)

Duff: Anyhow, it was kind of expensive also. But, you know, it’s only money, right?

Matt: Does it look like it’s gonna rain, you guys?

Dizzy: I think it’s gonna rain. I can feel it.

Duff: That sets up this video, November Rain. That was stupid.

(Laughter)

[November Rain is played]

Matt: I’m Matt, this is Duff, and Dizzy. You’re still rocking with us in Athens and right now on the island of Poros. And this next video starts out with a pretty cool drum beat, but I actually didn’t come up with the idea. Duff did. I just want to tell the public that now.

Dizzy: I have nothing to do with it and I’m not in the video.

(Laughter)

Dizzy: They should’ve let me in.

Matt: Yeah. This is a little song... and in the video stars our close friend Arnold “Arnie” Schwarzenegger.

Duff: He had to get us down.

Matt: Well, he had you there. He didn’t mind me.

Dizzy: I didn’t (?)

Duff: Do you think he let you go?

Dizzy: I had cheeseburgers that night. (?)

(Laughter)

Duff: Except for the November Rain video.

Dizzy: Right. We had to cut off.

Duff: Well, check it out. Check it out. Camera guy, come here. Hey, Matt, come here. I wanna party with that man right there (points to a fisherman).

(Laughter)

Duff: I’m gonna ask him if (?). He’s not catching a lot as you can see in that old sea bag, but when we come back, I wanna be down there fishing with the man.

Matt: Here’s a little video called You Could Be Mine.

[You Could Be Mine is played]

Dizzy: Me neither.

Slash: (?)

Dizzy: You’re right, okay. If you see the sign that says “Where’s Izzy,” that’s me, that’s my back. Other than that it’s a really great video.

Duff: Helicopters and everything.

Dizzy: Helicopters and everything, and skyscrapers, and – there’s some underwater scenes and we’re on water. That kind of goes along with it.

(Laughter)

Slash: (?)

Duff: We’re flying off from Greece. We’re out of here.

Dizzy: And this is Don’t Cry, right?

Duff: Right.

[Don’t Cry is played]