1991.07.04 - The St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Bad Vibes

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Bad Vibes

Violence Follows Heavy Metal Band

By Jim Mosley
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

Guns N’ Roses, the band that helped Ignite a riot late Tuesday night at the Rlverport Amphitheatre, has an aptly named debut album: “Appetite for Destruction."

The band — and lead singer Axl Rose in particular — seem to be as good at generating controversy as selling music.

Two young men were trampled to death while Guns N’ Roses played in 1988 in England. In Atlanta, Rose jumped from the stage to grab a security guard. And in Philadelphia, Rose fought with a parking-lot attendant.

Millions of Americans heard two of the band’s members utter profanities last year on the American Music Awards, and ABC later apologized. Rose has been arrested on a charge of hitting a female neighbor with a wine bottle. Another band member — a guitarist known as Slash — is a recovering heroin addict.

In a new, unauthorized biography of the heavy-metal band, author Danny Sugerman said adjectives used to describe Guns N’ Roses include “white trash, reprobates, scoundrels, uncouth and loathesome street rats," The book, “Appetite for Destruction,” is published by St. Martin's Press.

"Successful" also aptly describes the heavy-metal band. "Appetite for Destruction" sold more than 10 million copies, making it the highest-selling debut recording ever. At one time, two of the band's records were In the top five on Billboard’s chart.

Rose, 29, grew up in Lafayette, Ind., but moved to Los Angeles about 10 years ago.

The trouble Tuesday night is the latest in a string of controversies involving Rose and his colleagues.

Sugerman's new book recounts that:

- Two men — 18 and 20 — were trampled to death while Guns Ν' Roses performed in 1988 at a "Monsters of Rock" concert in England.

- In Atlanta, Rose jumped from the stage and grabbed a security guard who allegedly had "manhandled" one of Rose's friends.

- In Philadelphia, Rose fought with a parking lot attendant minutes before a Guns N’ Roses concert was scheduled to start.

Other incidents include:

-  Rose was arrested last year, accused of hitting a woman neighbor over the head with a wine bottle. Rose denied the charge.

“Frankly if I was going to hit her with a wine bottle, she wouldn't have gotten up," People magazine quoted Rose as saying.

- In May, fans who grew restless during an unexplained 65-minute delay of the start of a Guns Ν' Roses concert in Wisconsin tore up sod at the outdoor theater and began throwing it.

- Rose’s neighbors in Southern California said Rose had scrapes with his former wife, according to Entertainment Weekly. Once, while she ran down the street in the middle of the night Rose followed her in a Jeep shouting obscenities at her.

And his former wife once threw her wedding ring into the front yard during an argument. The next morning Rose was seen in the yard with a metal detector.

- The band’s song "One in a Million" has drawn criticism because its lyrics include language derogatory to blacks and homosexuals.

"I don't like boundaries of any kind," Rose responded in an interview published in Rolling Stone magazine. “I don't like being told what I can and what I can’t say."

Nearly 24 hours before the riot broke out, a group including Rose, members of the opening band, Skid Row, and the road crew had a limousine take them to P.T.’s, a topless bar in Illinois. They stayed for about three hours early Tuesday morning.

"They were pretty well behaved," said their driver, James Brim of Mid-Rivers Limousine Service & Sales.

Reaction to this article, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 13, 1991:

The Post-Dispatch’s July 4 articles on the riot at the Guns N’ Roses concert smack of yellow journalism. The basis for the lead article, "Bad Vibes,” was an unauthorized biography. It superficially reported alleged incidents of trouble in the past about Guns N’ Roses and implied pollyannishly that:

(1) There is something wrong with Axl Rose's comment that he doesn’t like being told what he can or can't say. I believe that is a freedom we have here in America — freedom of speech.

(2) There is something wrong with the band going to P.T.'s, a topless bar in Illinois. I believe topless bars are legal in Illinois and that many mainstream Missourians go there regularly.

The article kept harping about all the obscenities lead singer Axl Rose and his group use. Excuse me, but I've worked in a newspaper’s newsroom and what Rose and his group can come up with obscenity-wise couldn't possibly top what I’ve heard at so-called respectable newspapers!

We in the music industry lose billions of dollars in income from people who illegally record and sell our works! Rose did nothing wrong when he stopped the videotaping of his performance. He was trying to protect the income from his work. If the fans rioted after that, that’s not Rose's fault. The fans should have supported Rose. These are the people who scream daily about how the Japanese have robbed them of American jobs!