1987.08.30 - The San Francisco Examiner - Wild-Living Rockers Bust Out of L.A. Gutter (Axl)

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Wild-Living Rockers Bust Out of L. A. Gutter

Outrageous group lives together in West Hollywood; they were signed by Geffen Records to a whopping $2.5 million contract last year

BY TOM LANHAM

"I JUST got out of the hospital a little while ago, 'cause I partied too much one night, blacked out, got into it with the cops, got stun-gunned, was knocked out, went into a coma for a coupl’a days and woke up strapped to my bed, plugged into a catheter."

Though it may sound like a harrowing scene from Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest," the vignette is allegedly an average night in the life of rowdy rocker Axl Rose who — with his five-piece metal combo Guns N’ Roses — reigns high over a wild new Los Angeles music scene.

In reaction to media reports that heavy metal was dying, Guns N' Roses — and countless bands like it — have speeded up both music and lifestyle. Vocalist Rose, for instance, in his long red hair, scruffy, mostly denim wardrobe and multiple tattoos, is nocturnal, wears makeup, drinks as often as possible and rides a Harley Davidson motor cycle — fast.

Rose, 25, also dates Don Everly’s daughter, which the elder musician — himself a rebel from way back — takes in stride. At a recent Everly Brothers concert in L.A., Dad blessed the relationship by racing onstage in jackboots and bandanna screaming out Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze." "He had my attention from then on," says Rose, affectionately terming Pa Everly "a full-on party dude."

The band members, who all live together in West Hollywood, were signed by Geffen Records to a whopping $2.5 million contract a year ago, outbidding a slew of competitors.

The company acted because it suspects that Guns N' Roses represents a street-smart new generation
that is doing for rock what the Beastie Boys already have done for rap. The movement is breaking out of Southern California, and exemplified by such statements as Rose’s "We do whatever we wanna do, and the only time we calm down is when we realize we can't pay for it." The ex-teen truant's unruly demeanor is a selling point for Guns N’ Roses’ trashy Aerosmith-Meets-Hanoi-Rocks sound, which has made the members hometown heroes.

The group is the first of these bands to make it out of the L.A. gutter — and Rose moans that "Guns N’ Roses have seen a lot of these other bands not be able to keep up with us; drugs have either taken over their lives or gotten ’em into car wrecks and rehabs." But his group, he swears, “will push it as far as we can.”

Rose talked about one wild drinking night at the Troubadour Club. “We walked right across the stage while the band was playing and started running sound,” he proudly testifies. The club owner tried to calm Rose down by buying him a drink, but Guns guitarist Slash — famous for smashing things while intoxicated — "drank it while I wasn't looking. I got mad, and the next thing I remember was lyin’ on my back with a crowd of people tryin’ to punch me while I was kick-in' 'em in the face.”

Rose was alleged to have pulled the band off stage, hurled insults at several Marines and ripped the dress off a porno kingpin's daughter, but he says he can't remember the incidents. "We all get each other in trouble in Los Angeles,” Rose says, with an innocent laugh. He wants to move to New York next, "because we get bored when there's nothin' to do."

The band jokingly has been referred to as “Lines N’ Noses," but club owners didn’t mind. They’d endure Guns N’ Roses partying just to keep the band performing regular sellout shows. And the outfit’s shows are what lured the major labels to Guns N’ Roses’ door in a swift two years. On the liner notes of their gut-pummeling Geffen debut — aptly titled "Appetite For Destruction” — the group thanks its label for “letting us be ourselves,” and even tips the biker cap to “all those who taught us hard lessons by attempted financial sodomy, the teachers, preachers, cops and elders who never believed."

And the album is quite believable. It reveals a band molded in the grand New York Dolls tradition: catchy, up-tempo rock songs housing Slash's riff-riddled guitar work and Rose’s yowling, masculine vocals. Song topics, of course, run the hard-rock gamut of drugs ("Mr Brownstone"), booze ("Nighttrain"), and women ("My Michelle,"), with the tankard of uncensored expletives thrown in. "We were signed by the same guy who originally signed Motley Crue to Elektra," Rose says, belching. "And he told us to keep all the vulgar stuff in."

MTV didn't see it the same way. Guns N’ Roses’ first $85,000 video single, “It’s So Easy,” was banned by the station for being too racy and violent. But Rose is used to being hassled. He was in and out of jail while growing up in Lafayette, Ind., and he escaped one sentence five years ago by catching a plane to California. Strangely enough, he has yet to be arrested in his hometown. But that — judging from the singer’s stories of hairbreadth escapes — can only be a matter of time.

“Hey, we’re gonna play our music no matter what," says the man who once challenged an enormous skinhead punk named "Animal" who had sworn to kill him. "And, believe me, we won’t let anything get in our way."

This is brilliant. How did you find it?

I had saved this a long time ago, as well as the 1988 interview with Slash, but I somehow missed them when I was uploading other early articles.

Ah, well, great you found them again