1992.12.04 - Press Conference in Argentina (Axl, Slash, Duff)

Segments broadcast on the Argentinian TV station Telefe, Dec. 4, 1992:



Transcript:
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Slash: I don’t wanna speak on Axl’s behalf, but I’m just saying this did not happen. So we’re having a great fuckin’ time. You guys just look a little tense.

(Laughter)

Slash: And if you look at the response outside the hotel, the kids there are excited. I don’t think they give a shit about anything. They just want to have a good show. I think that people – they’re just trying to build up a lot of crap. You know, people make up rumors and everybody wants to believe them because Guns N’ Roses is supposed to be, like, the bad boy band, right? But it’s getting a little old. We’re just touring, right? We’re having a great time. And I don’t think all this rumor stuff (?) to us all the way through South America this far. So, I have no complaints.

Duff: Also, you know, as far as the reaction Slash and I have been talking about in Latin America right now. We haven’t (?) together down here. So, you know, 1) that couldn’t happen, 2) I haven’t (?) and Slash hasn’t. We came down here to do this. We love playing, which is why we’re down here. So, I don’t know why people are coming up with these conclusions.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: He wants to know, if the fact that you are big has changed the group – the attitude of the group.

Slash: I think it makes it a little bit rougher around the edges to keep it all together and to keep focused. But because there’s been so much hype and so much hysteria around the band, it’s made us a lot closer as a group, which means the materials have a lot more integrity. And we’re, sort of like, really striving to be what we originally started out to be, just because there’s so much stuff going on in the outside; and so much – I don’t know the best way to put it – so much conflict with us and the media, and so on. So it makes us bond together as a family, and I think that’s really important for us. So, I think, it’s been - for the band it’s been sort of a plus as far as really going where we’re coming from.

[Break]

Slash: One of the most important things about Guns N’ Roses is that it’s a rock ‘n’ roll band. I hate to use that cliché, but that’s what we are. And, so, I think because of the fact that we’re a rock ‘n’ roll band, we generate a kind of – for kids, especially, it’s just like the sense of getting away from everything and going crazy for a little while. A lot of stuff happens when there’s 60,000, 80,000 or 100,000 people when you play, with all this loud music and this excitement that’s generated. And I don’t think that we condone it; I don’t think that we’ve ever promoted any kind of violence. As far as kids go, you might want to take your chances. That parents are concerned about their children going to a show, I can understand it. Really. Even from my point of view, I can understand it. But this is what we do, and everybody has to be smart enough (?) to figure out how to handle it. Obviously, people are interested enough to go out and buy the tickets and want to be there. And, being there, they’re taking their chances. That’s the deal. We’re not promoting any kind of – we’re not (?) controversy, we’re not promoting violence or anything like that. It just sort of goes along with the territory with this band. It’s just been there ever since we started. I don’t think any of us members sitting here today can ever tell you exactly why that is. It’s just that.

Duff: Also, we’re giving out this press conference, which we don’t do in every city. We don’t do press conferences. As Doug, our manager, said, the reason we’re doing this is to clarify a few things up, because all these rumors are flying. And where do they come from? Not from us. They come from the press, you know. So, that’s why we are here, to clarify a lot of these really ugly, kind of silly and stupid rumors that are happening, and it makes us sick, you know? We’re here to play, we’re here to make people happy, and it’s really gotten out of hand. That’s why we’re coming down to do this. We’re just a rock ‘n’ roll band, you know?

[Question in Spanish]

John Reese: One minute. There’s...

Slash: Let her ask.

John Reese: Specifically for her question about violence in Chile? Excuse me, ma’am.

Female: Yeah.

John Reese: Specifically your question about violence in Chile. The violence in Chile that you’re hearing about is simply overblown, okay? Everything that you’re hearing about us is simply overblown. It’s situations that are occurring. You have somebody viewing with a police officer a small situation and the press overblows it like that’s happening all night long in the entire stadium. People are depicting small minute situations and making it blown up to be, like, incredible, theatrical (?)

Doug Goldstein: Also, John - I would also like to add that we care so much about the security of the fans, that we spend more than any other group, and I defy any other manager to put his numbers and his personnel against the level of experience that we have, up against what we have. We spend thousands and thousands of dollars just upon people that we carry with us and their knowledge is extensive as far as working event security. So, we take more precautions than I think anybody else in the industry far and away.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: (unintelligible)

Slash: I think it’s sort of a sense of trying to hold on to a little bit of privacy. I think it would be the best answer to that.

Daniel Grinbank (promoter): (talks in Spanish)

Slash: One important thing is, as a rock band we really don’t travel thinking that we’re as much of a media sensation as I guess we are - because you guys are all here, right? (laughs) But, after a while, it gets a little difficult, because we don’t have any time to ourselves, and you guys – I won’t insult you as a whole, because I don’t know any of you individually, but you, press people, can be really aggressive and it’s like, “fine”; after a while it’s like, “Fuck you.” (laughs) You know? There’s a time and a place for everything.

Daniel Grinbank (promoter): (talks in Spanish)

Doug Goldstein: Also, I’d like to say, we have been touring for seven years together. And this is the first time that we’ve ever seen – I mean it’s great, but we’ve never, ever seen the type of reaction that we’ve seen with the press and with the fans. It’s more hysteria than we’re certainly used to. And, to be honest with you, a lot of people get afraid when you have press people pushing this way, the fans pushing this way, you have nowhere to go. It gets a little scary.

Slash: I might add that in some distorted way we do appreciate all the attention. We just don’t know what to do with it. (laughs)

[Break]

Slash (laughing): The funny thing is, as fucked up as we are, how anybody considered, like, seeing us as being racist or having any kind of opinion about anything, where we would say this is wrong or right. You know, this thing’s sort of (?). It’s sort of funny.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: What do you think about (?) that compare you to Zeppelin or (?) Rolling Stones?

Doug Goldstein: (?) her daughter.

Duff: (Laughs) Is she over 18?

Slash: I think I can speak on behalf of everybody in the band. We all appreciate the comparison, but we don’t fuckin’ know. The fact that we’re so popular and the people like our music, is the only reason that we keep going and the reason we’re still inspired to be here. So, as long as that’s going, and that’s hard enough to do on its own, we can’t deal with this publicity thing, where we’re just like this, “Rolling Stones,” and blah blah blah.

[Break]

[Axl joins the press conference]

Doug Goldstein (to Axl): I was just explaining, just so that you know - there was a question asked, why the magazines and the photographers aren’t allowed, and I was explaining our friendship with Robert John and Gene Kirkland, and that, since they’ve been supportive of us, we’re supporting them.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: You’re very popular, you and the band, and your face is on a lot of merchandising. You’re good looking for women. Is it hard for you to have another life far from (?)? A life of your own?

Axl: Yeah, there’s not much privacy. Privacy is very valuable.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: What’s the good part and the bad part to be in such a popular band?

Axl: That’s a big question (laughs). The bad part is that there’s no privacy. And there’s a lot of great rewards. The best part is, the feeling at a show, when we played in Bogota and it began raining in November Rain and the people were so happy and we were happy. And that song had been, like, #1 for 60 weeks there. So, that was really special. That was one of the most special times I’ve had.

[Break]

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: Why are you wearing the Argentinian football shirt?

Axl: Because it was given to me. (chuckles)

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: Doesn’t it mean anything to you?

Axl: Well, in light of the false stories in whatever papers, I think it’s a good gesture for me to wear it.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: What happened in Chile, at the concert? He asks whether you went two hours late because you did drugs and drank...

Axl: (Laughs)

Interviewer: Then afterwards you came (?)

Axl (to Doug Goldstein): Was I two hours late?

Doug Goldstein: No.

Axl: I wasn’t two hours late. Um... (looks at Goldstein)

Doug Goldstein (to Axl): One hour behind.

Axl: We were about an hour behind, which means we were about a half hour behind.

Doug Goldstein: (unintelligible)

Axl: Yeah. The show was scheduled at 10:00, which means we usually go on at 10:30, so we went on at 11:00. And I don’t have time to be drunk or drugged before a show, or I couldn’t do my shit. The truth was that I had strep throat, so, it’s like, I had to do a lot of throat exercises and things like that, and work with my doctors, so that I could do the show altogether, or there wouldn’t have been a show. People will write anything (laughs).

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: (unintelligible)

Axl: If I could sing it. I didn’t know the music.

Interpreter: (unintelligible)

Axl: The crowd was throwing bottles and spitting a lot, because they thought that’d be a thing to show they liked the band. They hit our rhythm guitar player with a bottle, so there were many times we almost stopped the show.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: Why did you now take (?) to talk to the Argentinian press, after not really doing that for a long time?

Axl: (Nods and smiles) Well, also because of the things that went on in the papers down here. I don’t even know what paper or what writer or who said what about me. All I know is that I’m seeing fights outside right now, people burning Guns N’ Roses t-shirts, other people beating the crap out of them. Now there is a mess outside. People throwing bottles every now and then, hitting little girls in the head... So that’s why I came down.

[Question in Spanish]

Interpreter: The press conference with the other guys was a bit aggressive, and he wants to ask you, what do you expect of the show, to change (?) the press conference?

Axl: I’m doing what’s nice. I don’t care if it’s aggressive.

Journalist: The press conference was very aggressive for the band. And I think it’s very nice (?)

Axl: Wow. Why didn’t he say that in – (laughter). I think the shows will be really nice. I’m a bit concerned with an element of people at the show or outside the venue that were affected by the story of me flag burning and not taking my boots back to America or something. I think that might be an element outside the arena and that might be an element inside, and I don’t want anybody in the crowd to get hurt. It’s like, we’re pretty much a target up there, and now we deal with it at every show, cuz you never know where you’re gonna have a crazy that could shoot you or whatever when you’re up on the stage. But I don’t like seeing people in the crowd get hurt. And that’s when I’m a little concerned about that, we’re gonna try to monitor it the best we can. And if I see anything going on onstage, I stop the show to try to stop it. I don’t care if it’s all the way in the back. When we played Portugal, in Lisbon, they were throwing (?) and throwing candles at each other. We kept stopping the show to try to stop it. By the end of the show we had it about 90% under control. But, I mean, we do the best we can; I’m worried about that though.

Unknown Argentinian publication, Dec. 5, 1992:



Translation:
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Axl Rose sought to clear the air

"Muchas gracias." The greeting, whispered in Spanish, with which Axl Rose ended the press conference held by the members of Guns N’ Roses at the Hyatt hotel yesterday afternoon, completed the surprise of the journalists, who were very well aware that the North American band never lends itself to this kind of  contact with the media. "I feel like Gorbachev," joked the musician, summarizing his lack of experience in these matters.

His arrival - wearing a shirt of the Argentine national football team – was unexpected at a press conference which, until that point, was centered on guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, managers Doug Goldstein and John Reese and local promoter Daniel Grinbank. "I'm wearing it," Axl said about the shirt, "because it was given to me. And in the light of the events, the bad press and everything that has happened, I think it’s a good gesture to wear it. "

"That it’s going to be a good show," Rose said of his expectations for today and tomorrow. And, before anyone dared ask him, he continued: "There is nothing true in the stories about the burnt flags and the boots. I’m worried about what may happen with certain people who are trying to attack kids. "

Blushing, almost shy to hear a question that mentioned the band’s worldwide renown, the singer said: "The lack of privacy, which is very valuable, is the only bad thing about this. Everything else is great, and being out there playing is what we really like."

He cleared up the questions, one by one: "I wasn’t two hours late at the stadium in Chile. It was an hour, and that’s something quite normal. I had serious problems with my throat, and I worked with my doctors doing vocal exercises so that I would be able to sing and give a good show. I don’t have time,” he said, almost ironically, “to get high or drink alcohol before a show, because I couldn’t do the show."

"I don’t like hating anyone, unless they’re aggressive towards me," he rushed to answer when asked if he was sexist, racist or homophobic. And, as the question referred to the lyrics of his song One in a Million ("Immigrants and faggots... spread a nasty disease"), he added: "I don’t believe in censorship, and this is why we didn’t pull that song, that ended up being a bad joke, off the record.” "It wasn’t me who ran out of the hotel naked last night (Thursday). It was him," Axl Rose said casually, when Gene Kirkland, the band’s photographer, entered the room.

"I don’t know who wrote what, or what newspaper printed these things," clarified the musician - who was applauded both when he entered and when he left the room by the journalists who know that he never gives press conferences. “What concerns me is that there are people outside throwing bottles at the kids who came to see us."

Referring once again to his fans, the redheaded –and blond at close range- singer acknowledged: "It's true that I had a shitty childhood and I was abused as a kid. I like it if wearing a shirt with my face on it helps a kid who had a similar experience."

"Some fans think,” he said talking again about the incidents, “that by spitting or throwing a bottle they show that ‘we like them’. When something like this happens, I stop the show until everything is back to normal, because if I don’t say anything, I’m responsible for what may happen later.” About the parents associations or nationalist groups that give so much importance to Guns N’ Roses, the band’s leader said: "Maybe talking about us helps them get attention for themselves."

Axl Rose’s surprise was sincere: "I had no idea that we were so popular here, and I am really very happy." The statements by the guitarist and the bassist of the band - overshadowed by the singer’s unexpected appearance - were in the same vein.

Smiling and attentive to listening and responding, guitarist Slash –dark-skinned, thick-lipped and with abundant black hair on his tattooed arms- made the audience laugh when he assured, "Evidently, I’m not a racist." And the guitarist went on to clear up the doubts: "We love being in South America. Playing at the Rock in Rio festival before 260,000 people was an amazing experience for us, and we wanted to come back. And Axl Rose was the one who wanted the most to come to Buenos Aires; the musicians in Queen told him a lot about the "wonderful Argentinian audience".