1991.09.DD - Rapido (French TV) - Guns N' Roses Special (Slash, Duff, Matt)

Transcription (and approximate translation of the parts in French):
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Host (translated from French): Everything comes sometimes with nostalgia for those blessed days of dissolute youth, where you listened to rock bands that scared your parents and outraged the mainstream press [...] in the era of the artistic approach of the francophone Belgian singer Adamo. Oh yes, what a delight, all those dirty and nasty bands like the Stones, Led Zeppelin or, later, the Sex Pistols, that had songs all about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. As veterans say, it was a time when people knew how to have fun, and its survivors remember it with a nostalgia as big as that of Cloclo Junior when he talks about the 60s. But what about rock today? Where is the danger? Where is the subversion? Where can we still find that delicious thrill of the forbidden? In Madonna's panties? In Prince's doe-eyes? In the platform shoes of New Kids On The Block? No! In Guns N 'Roses, the most decried group of the early 90s, the group that reactivates, for better or for worse, all the rock' n 'roll clichés that we thought had disappeared forever. A knife-cut sound, a totally crazy singer, riots, fights, scandals, cops - in short, passion [...]. Everything, everything, everything you need to know about Guns N 'Roses, on the occasion of the release of Use Your Illusion, their double-double album, is now on Rapido. Fasten your seat belts, it’s mind-blowing.

[Clip from You Could Be Mine video]

Voice-over (translated from French): Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Slash, the world champion of ex-junkies, famous guitarist and friend of the stars. He was invited on the latest albums by Lenny Kravitz, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, and the upcoming Michael Jackson. Duff, the bassist, is injected with tobacco. Freshness of life is definitely not his thing. Matt Sorum is the new drummer, formerly of The Cult. He replaced Steven Adler, who is taking his ex-friends in Guns N’ Roses to court. Axl Rose, the singer, who never gives interviews and is more paranoid than one who never leaves the psychiatric asylum, is the undisputed leader of Guns N 'Roses. And then, there are two more: Izzy Stradlin, the rhythm guitarist, the only one who has really stopped everything; and Dizzy Reed, the keyboardist. Slash tells us why the current Guns N 'Roses tour is the most controversial, the most destructive - in a nutshell, the most rock' n roll since the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, the bands of the great era.

[Cut to press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, August 1991]

Slash: All the stuff that’s going on around us is just building up and building up. And no, we haven’t shot anybody, we haven’t stabbed anybody. We haven’t done anything really bad. So why is everybody paying attention to us? We aren’t doing anything...

Duff (talking over): “Why is everybody always picking on me?”

Slash (talking over): "...picking on me?" (laughs). So everybody heard all these rumours about us, and we’re totally fucking – you know, just anti-establishment, anti-society type of rock ‘n’ roll group, okay? And that’s where our image came from. So everybody had this – you know, we had this reputation, so whenever we went, it preceded us. And it’s not really what the band is about, but it’s out there, and that’s why we’re trying so hard to express the fact that we’re just a band. All the other stuff is just like, “Okay, yeah, I get laid, alright, fine.” Do you? (chuckles)

Voice-over (translated from French): Millions of kids recognize themselves in Guns N 'Roses. It's not a mystery. They see a potential for revolt, the antithesis of New Kids On The Block. Guns N 'Roses is the last rock band. After them, [...], [rock] may die.

[Cut to interview with Slash, September 1991]

Slash: Because we do things our own way and because it’s against the grain. Everybody plays it so safe nowadays, and we’re still doing the same thing that we’ve always done. And real people are ready for it. So, now, whenever we get to a gig – right? – everybody’s really tense, thinking we’re gonna do something. It’s just like, let us get on stage and play, and we’ll be fine. Just don’t screw with us. Otherwise, you know, stuff does happen.  

[Cut to footage from the Ritz 1988

Axl (on stage at the Ritz): We want to dedicate this song to the people that try to hold you back. The people that tell you how to live; people that tell you how to dress; people that tell you how to talk; people that tell you what you can say and what you can’t say. I, personally, don’t need that! I don’t need that shit in my life. Those are the kind of people that get me down. They make me feel like somebody out there is OUT TO GET ME!]

Voice-over (translated from French): The stadium tour that started this summer was enameled by various incidents. For Slash, the group attracts problems like shit attracts the flies.

[Cut to interview with Slash, September 1991]

Slash: Well, we try not to get arrested. We don’t like to get arrested, you know? (laughs). There’s a little bit of a problem with the authorities. Our relationship with the authorities can be a little sketchy. But it’s nothing like the press makes it out to be.

[Footage from Wembley 1991 - One in a Million is played in the background]

Voice-over (translated from French): Among the 70,000 spectators who applauded them in Wembley, near London, the Rapido team spotted two black guys and asked them if they didn’t feel offended by the song One In A Million, where they are called "niggers".

Concertgoer: Certain people like this sort of music and certain people like to go against the grain. I’m one of these people.

Concertgoer: Many people like rap, house, soul, hip hop and stuff like that. I just prefer this music. It’s a lot different. It’s against the grain.

Voice-over (translated from French): Same with the girls for Axl Rose. They don't seem to mind.

Female concertgoer: (?) I like their records. So I don’t care how they think about women.

Female concertgoer: If you can’t stand their shit, then don’t go.

Voice-over (translated from French): The fans are ready to forgive all their excesses. But there’s one thing they wouldn’t accept: the separation of Slash and Axl, the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the 90s. Hey, Slash, how is it going? All good with Axl?

[Cut to interview with Slash, September 1991]

Slash: They’re trying constantly to, like, sensationalise me and Axl, or Axl and I’s relationship, which has totally gone way leftfield. Me and Axl are fine. We’re tighter now than we’ve ever been, I always say that. And it’s true. It’s not me trying to make up, like – you know, to cover anything up. We get along great, but there’s this thing behind us, that’s constantly nipping us in the back, going, “Oh, Axl and Slash,” “Axl and Slash,” “Axl and Slash.” You know, I’m just sick of it. I mean, it’s not true.

[Cut to footage from the riot in St. Louis]

Voice-over (translated from French): Near St. Louis in the United States, there was a big, very big mess. 60 people injured and half a million dollars worth of damage - all that because the singer suffers from terrible mood swings, as a witness says.  

St. Louis concertgoer: Axl Rose came out in his fur coat, and this guy from the audience started taking pictures of him. Axl Rose got mad cuz he didn’t want the guy to take pictures of him. So he jumped out in the audience and started beating up the guy. Then the security got him back on stage, and then after he got back on stage he said, “I’m leaving here because of poor security.”

Voice-over (translated from French): We asked some of their fellow-musicians for their thoughts. First, Lars Ulrich of Metallica.

Lars Ulrich: The thing about Guns N’ Roses, which is quite funny, is that a lot of things that happen to them happens to a lot of other bands, but, because it’s Guns N’ Roses, everybody talks about it, “Oh my God, it’s happening to Guns N’ Roses.” This is one of the phenomena in Guns N’ Roses that you can’t really explain, but every time Axl Rose goes to the bathroom, people talk about it.

Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi): It’s really hard when an artist comes from nowhere and all of a sudden their first record – they sell 10 million records. There’s a huge responsibility to that people don’t really see. Young bands that come from nothing to everything, it’s – I think it’s a very tough transition to make. I hope that they’re gonna have a decent time of it, because, as you can see, their drummer is not in the band anymore, and they have drug problems and things like that. So, obviously, this business is taking its toll.

Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane): I love Guns N’ Roses’ music. Axl Rose, as a human being, I think is probably a jerk. But he’ll figure that out, sooner or later. He will have to figure it out or die. But they are angry, they are confused, and that’s what they’re saying. And that’s what they should be saying. They are representing a generation of people who are angry and confused, and can’t figure out why everything is so scattered.

[Footage from Wembley Stadium 1991]

Host (translated from French): Rapido, second part of the Guns N 'Roses Special. Now that you've got a better idea about Guns N’ Roses and where they’re coming from, let's talk about what’s happening with the band currently: the records, the new drummer, the tour, the concerts, and so on. And, as a bonus, opinions from other musicians including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Iggy Pop and John Cougar. I know, we don’t back down before any sacrifice. That's Rapido.

[Cut to interview with Slash, September 1991]

Slash: So we just go out and go, “This is screwed,” “This is screwed,” “This is great,” “Chicks are great,” you know, “We did drugs,” “We do drugs,” dah dah dah. And people can’t go out in public and do that. They’ll get arrested (laughs). And we’re not that bad either. I think we represent what everybody goes through in modern day life kind of thing. And we sing about it, so therefore you have it in our lyrics and in our music, and that’s why I think we’re popular, not only as musicians but also as personalities.

[Clip from Patience video]  

Voice-over (translated from French): Undoubtedly the most extravagant personality in the band is the singer, Axl Rose. The bassist, Duff, tells us about his condition. Is Axl really uncontrollable?

[Cut to interview with Duff from unknown date in 1989]

Duff: You gotta just deal with it. He knows sometimes he’s an asshole, and he’ll admit it, and he’ll say sorry later. But it’s something that can’t, really, help right now. It’s fine, you know. He’s an interesting guy and he's very creative, though. I mean, he’s a good guy. He doesn’t do a lot of, like, drugs and stuff. He’s got good control. I think he’ll outlive us all, actually.

[Footage from the Ritz 1988]

Voice-over (translated from French): So, as we understand, there is unanimity about Axl in his own band. But what about when they deal with other stars? What happens? We start with Steven and Joe from Aerosmith.

Joe Perry: We didn’t have to deal with him. His road manager had to deal with him. They were always nice around us. You know, it’s like...

Steven Tyler: When people with big egos get together, they get diffused (?)

Iggy Pop: The band didn’t sound like they were biting the weenie, like all the other bands. They didn’t sound fake to me. At least they didn’t sound like they were faking it for somebody else. Everybody in this world fix things for themselves. You can’t help it, you’re a human being. But – and musically it sounded exciting, in a way that it didn’t sound like it was dependent on some click track in the drummer’s ears or some machine going “bum-bum-bum” to give them a muscle they didn’t have. It sounded like it might fall apart at any time, and they would change tempos, and so I thought, “Ooh, a real band. How exciting. How cool.”

John Cougar Mellencamp: I like their music. I like their attitude. You know, they’ve got a rock ‘n’ roll spirit, a rock ‘n’ roll heart. But whether they self-destruct or not, who knows.

[Clip from You Could Be Mine video]

Voice-over (translated from French): Apart from your funny latest video clip and the fact that we have been waiting two years for your new double-double album... Apart from all that, what 's new, doctor?

[Cut to press conference in Copenhagen, August 1991]

Slash: What we really wanted to do was, we wanted to release all this bulk of material that we had, okay? Like I said, a backlog of material that spanned over these years, all the new material that I wrote over the two years that we were off the road, some stuff that came up that was – you know, it takes up the whole six or seven years that we’ve been together, okay? And we wanted to put it out, and we didn’t know how to put it out without being, like, you know, “Who the fuck is Guns N’ Roses? Why did they matter so much that they’re gonna put out a $35-40 album?” Alright? So what we did, we chopped it in half and we release them separately, so that you can buy one just like a normal record, and, if you dug that, then it’s your own option to go spend your money and buy the other one.

Voice-over (translated from French): Use Your Illusion I and II, the new albums of Guns N 'Roses, are out on cassette, LP and CD.

[Cut to interview with Slash, September 1991]

Slash: I think this album is more pissed off than the other one was. But this is the stuff that we’ve been going through. I don’t know if I want to get into the details about each particular song, but they just represent situations that sort of stuck out in our minds, you know? And what we call memorable experiences, be they negative or positive. The negative ones are really bad, and we put those in there along with the positive ones, which were really sensitive, you know?

[Cut to interview with Duff from unknown date in 1989]

Duff: It’s different, yeah. But, I mean, it’s the same aggression to it, you know, and even more so. There’s a couple of softer songs, this piano, kind of, ballad that Axl wrote. It’s a real nice song.

Voice-over (translated from French): The big novelty, as you saw, is that they are six now, complete with the new drummer, the ex-Cult Matt Sorum. He was asked how he managed to get this position.

[Cut to press conference in Copenhagen, August 1991]

Matt: Basically, I never was really a member of the Cult. And when these guys came on and asked me to do the album – I was just gonna do the record and go back to the Cult and hopefully Steven would get his thing together, but it didn’t work out, so they asked me to join the band. And, you know, it was basically something I couldn’t turn down; I’d have probably kicked myself in the ass real hard later, you know.

[Footage from the Ritz 1988

Slash (on stage at the Ritz 1988): I wanna dedicate this song real quick and I'm not gonna say anything offensive, so that we can make it on TV. This is a song that's not dedicated to drinking, or drug addiction, or any of that kind of stuff. This song is basically about a walk in the park. This is something called Nightrain.]

[Cut to interview with Slash, September 1991]

Slash: The big deal about being on stage is the fact that we’re rocking so hard, you know? And that’s what gets us off and we get really seriously into it when we’re having a good night, where there’s nothing that could stop us. That’s the driving force behind the whole band, so that blows my mind that we’re as big as we are, like, just going there and doing it. We do it at rehearsal. All you have to do is put us together and play, and we go off. It doesn’t matter, really, if there’s people or not, if we’re getting off on each other, you know? And then we gel with the crowd. It’s really heavy.

[Clip from Paradise City video]  

Slash: It’s sort of a lonely band in a way, because we feel separate from everything else, you know? From some – you know, we don’t have, like, any particular peers or anything that we really get on with. We’re, sort of like, just six individuals – it was five, now six, anyway – that all like doing the same thing, and it doesn’t necessarily fit in with the norm. And so, I think, what bonds us together is the fact that we’re so close in that sense that, no matter what goes down, we’re willing to deal with each other to keep it together.  

[Clip from the Ritz 1988]

The interview with Duff in 1989, clips of which are included in this video:
1989.MM.DD - Rapido - Interview segments (Duff)

More quotes from the press conference in Denmark:
1991.08.20 - - Press conference in Denmark (Slash, Duff, Matt).

In the interview clips contained in this program, Slash wears the same shirt as in this MTV interview:
1991.09.DD - MTV - Interview with Slash

I don't think it's the same interview though. Probably they were different interviews Slash did on the same day.

i love you guys