1993.02.21 - The Indianapolis Star - No Stradlin' From Izzy

Transcript:
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No stradlin' from IZZY

■ Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist is back home again in Indiana with a new band.

Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds
Opening band: My Little Funhouse.
Where: The Vogue, 6259 North College Avenue.
When: 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Tickets: $18 in advance, $20 at the door; (317) 259-7029.

By MARC D. ALLAN
STAR STAFF WRITER

It’s gonna be killer," Izzy Stradlin proclaims about his show Tuesday night at the Vogue. For Stradlin, who changed his name after growing up as Jeff Isbell in Lafayette, the performance marks the central Indiana debut of his new band, the Ju Ju Hounds.

It’s also his first performance here since quitting Guns N’ Roses, a band that’s sold more than 25 million records, for a less-lucrative solo career.

Sounding genuinely enthusiastic during a 20-minute telephone interview, the guitarist/writer of such Guns N’ Roses standards as Patience and Mr. Brownstone talked about his relationship with his home state, his self-titled debut album and his old band.

Question: You have two fairly sentimental songs about Indiana on this record (Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds), but from what I've read, you don't have a lot of fondness for this state.

Answer: You gotta understand, from 1980 to '87, I was in California and Guns N' Roses. We did some interviews, the first ones we'd done, in '86 or '85, drunker than s —. The subject of Indiana came up and somehow we were sputtering crap about it.
I moved back to Indiana in 1988, 89 — after Guns N' Roses had been out on tour and made some money. I bought a house (in Lafayette) and I've been based out of there since. I’ve got family and I've got old friends back there and I kind of got to know the place again, I suppose. I dig it back there.

Youthful indiscretions

Q: So those were youthful indiscretions on your part?

A: I was 20 years old. I guess I should have known a little better.

Q: Is it going to be strange to come home and play a club?

A: It's gonna be killer. I'm looking so forward to it. We just got back off a tour. We've been out for three months — Europe. Japan, Australia — and the first gig we did before the tour started, we did a quick club gig up in Chicago. We wanted to launch the tour out of the States, then come back and do it right.
When Guns N' Roses played Indianapolis, when Axl (Rose, the group's lead singer, who also grew up in Lafayette) would start to go off on a tirade, I'd stand there and go, "Oh, let's go. Next song, next song." Kind of embarrassing. But there's no shutting him up. Once he gets going, that's it.

Q: One of the great things about your record is how live it sounds. How did you record it?

A: We would rehearse the song — sometimes it was just me, Jimmy (Ashhurst, the bassist) and Charlie (Quintana, the drummer), sometimes it was me, Jimmy and Rick (Richards, the guitarist) — and get it to where it sounded decent, go in and play it through three or four times and then move on to the next song.
After working on the Illusions records (Guns N' Roses’ Use Your Illusion I and II) for two years and recording so many songs I can't remember all of them, I just really had the urge to go in and do it how we did Appetite For Destruction, which was, you go in, track it live, do three or four takes and move right along. No messing around.

Rolling Stones sounds

Q: While your record got fairly good reviews, everyone mentioned how much it sounds like the Rolling Stones. Does it sound like the Stones to you?

A: Not Bucket O' Trouble, not Pressure Drop. There's the obvious two-guitar thing that's happening. It definitely has Stones influences and Stones vibes, and it's got a lot of other things, too. Maybe they're not as obvious.
To me, it sounds like the kind of music I like to play and hear. I love the Stones, reggae. I like any music. I listen to all kinds of stuff, even classical. Anything. I just love music.

Q: The song Shuffle it All sounds like you're exhausted by the whole rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Is that an accurate reading of how you were feeling at the time?

A: I did end up flashing back on constantly living out of a suitcase and constantly traveling, but at the same time enjoying it. At that time, the baggage was getting a little heavy, maybe. I've always loved touring. I got a bad rap from the Gunners about not wanting to tour and do videos and all that.
But I've always loved traveling and I've always loved playing different places. I've lived from suitcase to suitcase since '86.

Boyhood memories

Q: On Train Tracks, you reminisce about your boyhood hangout. Tell me more about that.

A: Where I live now, too, I bought a house that’s by the train tracks. That’s where we used to hang out all the time. We'd ride dirt bikes and hang out, build tree forts, that kind of stuff. It was my favorite place to be.
When I came back there in '88, after the Guns N' Roses tour was all finished, that was the first place I went back to. That got the idea going for the song back then. It's just kind of a biography tune.
We moved out to the West Coast and boom, this band popped and got a bunch of bad habits and kicked all that s - - -. But I still like hanging out down there. We still go riding down there.

Q: What caused you to write Come On Now Inside?

A: I wrote that back in Lafayette, right before I came back out to LA to hook up with Jimmy,
the bass player. It was after I left Guns N' Roses. It was one of the first winters that I'd ever really spent that much time in Indiana.
I was there for just about a month, and the weather was really bad. One day the sun came up and I started feeling really good. I forgot how good it felt to have a little sunshine. I was sitting at my 8-track and tracked that song, just put it all together right there.

“A percussion thing”

Q: Tell me about Morning Tea, the uncredited instrumental at the end of the record.

A: How it started was, I’ve always wanted to do a percussion thing. I've always been into drums. I played drums before I played guitar or bass. I love drums. We did this thing in Chicago and we had everybody — the road crew, the band, everybody — all playing different drums. I had a couple of these Indian drums I bought down in Oklahoma. Ceremonial drums.
We did it in Chicago and we mixed the album in Copenhagen. Jimmy met this guy, his name is Agafa, he’s Rastafarian. He's from Africa, but he lives in Copenhagen and he teaches African tribal drums. That’s what he does for a living.
We did a live track, it was just me and him. I played on this talking drum, and he played the answer drum. We added two more tracks to It, and we had this track of guitar feedback and we stuck that in there with it. It was a trip.

Q: Are you still friendly with the guys in Guns N’ Roses?

A: Yeah. Duff (McKagan, the bassist) tried calling me here last night at like 4 in the morning, but I was sleeping. I got the message this morning. I saw (lead guitarist) Slash in New York last January and I talked to Matt (Sorum, the drummer).
I haven't talked to Axl since December of '91, but I’m sure he's been busy. But I’ve left the doors open if they want to call or anything like that. No animosity on my part.

Q: So how did you feel when you saw that 'Where's Izzy' sign in the Don't Cry video?

A: I thought, well, s —, I'm here in Indiana, man. What do you mean, where am I?

Ah, and this is from 1993

Soulmonster wrote:Ah, and this is from 1993

Of course it is Fixed

The interview tape that found the basis for this interview has just been released: https://www.thetapesarchive.com/izzy-stradlin/

And here is the transcript:

Denise: Marc?

Marc Allan: Yes.

Denise: Here’s Izzy.

Marc Allan: Hi.

Izzy Stradlin: Hello.

Marc Allan: Izzy?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Hi, It’s Marc.

Izzy Stradlin: Hi.

Marc Allan: Marc Allan at the Indianapolis Star, how ya doin’?

Izzy Stradlin: Good.

Marc Allan: Good.

Izzy Stradlin: What do I owe you for that review you guys gave?

Marc Allan: Well, we’ll talk about that.

Izzy Stradlin: Okay.

Marc Allan: No, that’s a genuine love-that-record review, you know?

Izzy Stradlin: Cheers man. my dad, he faxed me that over when we were in Japan. Yeah, he says, “You guys got a great write up here “in the Indy Star.” I was like, “Yeah? and see it,” and everybody was stoked, in the band. Appreciate it.

Marc Allan: Oh, no, we were- I was just absolutely knocked out, ’cause I have no idea what to expect, you know? I didn’t know if you were going to come back with a record that sounded like Guns N’ Roses.

Izzy Stradlin: Right.

Marc Allan: Or if you had some other ideas, and boy, I put that on and I was just, you know, blown away, so. Anyway, you got a couple of fairly sentimental songs on there about Indiana, and I guess what you have been quoted as saying in the past, I didn’t think you had a whole lot of feeling for this state.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, my wife was ribbing me this morning about that, because you gotta understand, from 1980 to 1987 I was in California, and Guns N’ Roses, we did some reviews back- some interviews, like the first ones we’d done in ’86 or ’85, drunker than shit, and the subject of Indiana came up, and somehow, you know, we were sputtering crap about it. But I moved back to Indiana in 1988, ’89. I came back after we, Guns N’ Roses, had been out on tour and made some money, and I bought a house back then. I’ve based out of there since and I don’t know, it’s just a case of my family, I’ve got family and I’ve got old friends back there, and kinda got to know the place again I suppose, but I dig it back there. I was just out there last week, and we flew out here to get this, we’re starting up our tour now.

Marc Allan: Is it going to be strange for you to come home and play a club?

Izzy Stradlin: It’s gonna be killer. Looking so forward to it. We just got back off a tour. We been out for three months, Europe and Japan, Australia, and the first gig we did before the tour started, we did a quick club gig up in Chicago, and it was sort of a launch, you know? We wanted to launch the tour out of the States and then come back and do it right, and the response we got up there was really great, and the people made us feel really good. In Indianapolis, well last time when we played, we did a-

Marc Allan: You did Deer Creek I think, yeah and then, I can’t remember what the order was, I think it was Farm Aid first and then Deer Creek with Guns N’ Roses.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, Deer Creek, right, yeah. In most of the gigs, you know, like I wasn’t, while I was playing in Guns N’ Roses, so when Axl would start to go off on a tirade, I’d kind of stand there and go, “Oh, come on. “Let’s go, next song, next song.” Kind of embarrassing but, you know?

Marc Allan: That’s how it felt in the audience too.

Izzy Stradlin: There’s no shuttin’ him up.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Izzy Stradlin: Once he gets going, that’s it.

Marc Allan: No kidding. Well one of the things that I like so well about the record, is that it’s such a raw rock and roll album. How close to live is this?

Izzy Stradlin: When we recorded it, we did it like this. We would rehearse the song, sometimes it was just me, Jimmy, and Charlie, sometimes it was me, Jimmy, and Rick. And we’d rehearse it and get it to where it sounded decent, and go in and play it through like three or four times, and then move on to the next song. So in the course of a day, you know, we would get through quite a few songs, and then we’d go back and pick the stuff out that seemed to be a good take of it. So it was mostly live, and we’d go back and throw on some overdub stuff and vocals, and guitar solos, and maracas and stuff like that.

Marc Allan: So mostly live-

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Which is exactly the way it sounds.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Which is cool.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, well after working on Illusions records for like two years, you know, and recording, I don’t know, God, there was so many songs, I can’t remember all of ’em, I just really had the urge to just go in and do it how we did Appetite for Destruction, which was you go in and just track it live, do three or four takes and move right along. You know, no messin’ around.

Marc Allan: The record got, I guess you would say, fairly positive reviews, but everyone notes how much it sounds like the Stones.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Does it sound like the Stones to you?

Izzy Stradlin: Well, not Bucket O’ Trouble.

Marc Allan: No.

Izzy Stradlin: Not Pressure Drop. There’s two guitars, I mean there’s the obvious two guitar thing that’s happening. It definitely has Stones influence and Stones vibe, and it’s got a lot of other things to in it that maybe they’re not as obvious, but to me, you know, it sounds like the kind of music I like to play and hear.

Marc Allan: Mm–hmm.

Izzy Stradlin: And I love the Stones and reggae. I like any music really, I listen to all kinds of stuff, even Classical or just anything. I just love music.

Marc Allan: In retrospect, would you make the same record again?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, I think the next one we do, we’ll do it the same style, you know, the same groove. And that’s the main thing, is keep the grooves in the songs. We try to lean towards, you know, make sure each song had a good groove that you could follow.

Marc Allan: If you had been unknown before this record, do you think critics would have cut you some slack?

Izzy Stradlin: I don’t know, you know? It’s hard to say. It’s hard to say because I never have understood what motivates someone to write a bad review or what motivates someone to really want to put some people down, like bands. Like I read a review of Keith Richards‘ show when he played LA. It was just sort of, I don’t know, kind of sarcastic and they say he did a pointless rendition of this and that. I think, fuck, I mean I saw those guys playing live, and I thought they were just great. I’m sorry, you were asking again?

Marc Allan: Well I guess I wondered if you had been unknown, would they have looked at the record differently? I mean, you know, I just wonder if people are thinking about you and thinking about Guns N’ Roses, and comparing those two, and would your reviews have been different, maybe more favorable or something else?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, it’s hard to say.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Izzy Stradlin: It’s hard to say. I don’t know.

Marc Allan: Okay, well let me ask about some of the songs. Shuffle it All makes it sound like you’re kind of exhausted by the whole rock and roll lifestyle. Is that an accurate reading of the song as you wrote it at the time?

Izzy Stradlin: That song was a song that Jimmy and I put the music together for first. He had this bass riff, and we put that song together without any lyrics first, and started putting the lyrics together. I had a lot of lyrics for that song, like more than any on the album. It took a longest for me to write that one. Yeah, it ended up being a lot of, I guess, just flashing back on constantly living out of a suitcase and constantly traveling, but at the same time, enjoying it. But yeah, at that time I think it was, the baggage was gettin’ a little heavy maybe.

Marc Allan: Yeah, so I would figure that you feel differently about the lifestyle now, being in-

Izzy Stradlin: I’ve always loved touring. I got a bad rap from the Gunners about, you know, not wanting to tour and do videos and all that. I’ve always loved traveling and I’ve always loved playing different places. I’m not really sure what that song is exactly about, but it’s basically about always putting those bags, shuffling the stuff out of your bags, because I’ve lived from suitcase to suitcase for the last, since ’86.

Marc Allan: It really gives, you know, kind of this impression of just being tired of what you’d been going through. So I kinda figured that that may have been something that you were writing either while you were still with Guns N’ Roses, or just after it.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, it was just after.

Marc Allan: Yeah. Well, what are your recollections of the train tracks, other than what you sing about in the song? I have a very similar, the same thing happened to me.

Izzy Stradlin: Oh really?

Marc Allan: Yeah, that’s exactly what I would do when I was a kid.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, well it’s where I grew up in Lafayette, we lived by the train tracks. That’s where we used to hang out all the time, was down there. We’d ride dirt bikes and just hang out and build tree forts and all that kind of stuff, and it was just like my favorite place to be or to hang out, and when I came back there in ’88, that was the first place I went back to when I got back there. I was just kind of hanging out, going, “Man, this place. “I used to love hanging out here. “This was my favorite place.” And that got the idea going for the song back then. It’s just kind of a, what was it called, biography tune or something, you know?

Marc Allan: Mm-hmm.

Izzy Stradlin: A little bit about, because that’s where I used to hang out and we moved out to the west coast, and boom, you know, this band popped, and got a bunch of bad habits and kicked all that shit, you know? But I still like hanging out down there.

Marc Allan: Did your family, did that song make them feel a little squirrely, talking about getting stoned by the train tracks?

Izzy Stradlin: No, I mean I haven’t gotten no flack yet from my pop or my mom, so I guess Well, there’s no lyrics on the.

Marc Allan: Yeah, that’s true.

Izzy Stradlin: My dad, he kind of- I think they liked the record.

Marc Allan: What caused you to write the song Come On Now Inside?

Izzy Stradlin: I wrote that back in Lafayette, right before I came back out to LA to hook up with Jimmy, the bass player. It was after I left Guns N’ Roses, and it was one of the first winters that I’d ever really spent that much time back in Indiana, and I was there for just about a month, and man, it’s like, you know, just was pretty– The weather was really bad, and I was sittin’ around and one day the sun came up and I start feeling really good, you know, and I just forgot how much, how good it felt to have a little sunshine. I was settin’ up my 8–track and pullin’ out guitars and stuff, and I just tracked that song and just put it all together right there. It’s just one of those songs.

Marc Allan: Tell me about Morning Tea, which I’m told is the title of the uncredited song?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: That’s really a cool thing, and completely unexpected in many aspects, you know? You don’t know that it’s coming, for one thing.

Izzy Stradlin: Well how it started was I’ve always wanted to do like just a percussion thing. I’ve always been into drums. I played drums before I played guitar or bass or anything. We did this thing in Chicago and we had everybody, the road crew and the band and everybody, all playing different drums. I got a couple of these Indian drums that I bought down in Oklahoma, like ceremonial drums. The song started out, we did it in Chicago and then we mixed the album in Copenhagen. Jimmy met this guy, his name’s Agafa and he’s Rastafarian, and he teaches African tribal drums. That’s what he does for a living. We met this guy and we hung out with him, and he was a super cool guy. He’s never been to America, which really blew my mind, talking to a guy, he’s from Africa, living in Copenhagen and he’s never been to America, so he has no idea what it’s like here. So he showed me like basic pattern of this one drum beat, there were three parts to it. He showed me the basic beat, and I could play the basic beat. The other stuff was really complicated. It was really hard for me to learn how to play any of that other stuff. So we did a live track, it was me and him. I played on this talking drum, and then he played the answer drum, which came back with, something like that. Then we added like two more tracks to it, and at the end it was finished up, we had this track of guitar feedback, and we kind of stuck that in there with it. It was a trip though. I mean, that drumming stuff is really powerful. Some of these guys, they really know what they’re doing. It’s incredible, it’s like trance.

Marc Allan: Yeah, is that the kind of thing that you might try more of in the future?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, I mean, it’s something– I still got these tapes. I’ve got all these, it’s West African ritual drums, and it’s got for ceremonials, like when a child is born or when they’re having a celebration. They have war songs and stuff like that. I’ve always listened to these tapes over the years. I turned Steven Tyler on to a tape when we were on tour with them back in ’87, with Guns N’ Roses, and they used some of that stuff on the beginning of, what was it called, Hoodoo/ Voodoo off of Pump.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay.

Izzy Stradlin: Or something. Yeah, sure I’d love to do some more stuff with it, maybe on the next album do just a song, have it part of the record or something like that, or an intro maybe.

Marc Allan: Agafa, do you have any idea how to spell that?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, it’s A-G-A-F-A-

Marc Allan: Okay.

Izzy Stradlin: He’s got a really long name, it was like Agafa Etsu Amarti, probably long.

Marc Allan: We’ll give up on that part of it.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, we just called him Agafa.

Marc Allan: Yeah, good plan. How do you feel as a frontman? Are you comfortable in the spotlight?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, it’s fine. I always sang at GNR rehearsal, most of the rehearsals. It was usually just the band, Axl wasn’t usually at all the rehearsals, so I’d always been guide vocs for Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City and all that stuff, and it was always something I’d been doing, but it was a pretty easy step to go into that. I mean, the first week, it was one of those things where you go and I’d say to myself, I’d say, “Well, I can sing enough to pull this off.” The only question would have been whether or not my voice would take it, you know, whether it would hold up to it. After three months of being on the road, it’s no problem. Gotta do some warm–ups. You need to do like 20 or 30 minutes of warm–up every night and that’s about it really.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Denise: Hi, it’s me, Denise.

Marc Allan: Hi.

Denise: I want to give you a little wrap–up signal.

Marc Allan: Okay.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Okay.

Marc Allan: All right, just a couple of things then. Are you still friendly with those guys, Guns N’ Roses?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, Duff tried calling me here last night, like four in the morning, but I was sleeping and I got the message this morning. And I saw Slash in New York last year in January, and I’ve talked to Matt. I haven’t talked to Axl for the last year, since December of ’91, but I’m sure he’s been busy. But I’ve left the doors open if they want to call or anything like that. There’s no animosity on my part.

Marc Allan: One thing I gotta ask is, what the hell is wrong with that guy?

Izzy Stradlin: Who?

Marc Allan: Axl.

Izzy Stradlin: I don’t know man. You’ll have to ask him.

Izzy Stradlin: He’s just, I don’t know, combative.

Marc Allan: Forget about the conduct, you know, and all of the weird things. I mean, that guy’s just out of control.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you gotta wonder.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I just thought maybe you had some clue since you’ve known him for so many years.

Izzy Stradlin: I really don’t.

Marc Allan: How’d you feel when you saw that “Where’s Izzy?” Sign in the video? Did that make you mad?

Izzy Stradlin: What was that, Don’t Cry video?

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Izzy Stradlin: I thought well shit, I’m here in Indiana man! What do you mean where am I?

Marc Allan: Since you gotta go, I wanted to ask you, can we do something in person and more in-depth, when you’re home next?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, sure.

Marc Allan: I’d like to just, you know, either come up and talk to you at the house, or if you don’t want to do that, just kind of driving around Lafayette and talking about places you used to hang when you were a kid and that kind of stuff?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah man, that could be cool.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Izzy Stradlin: We’re going to be back there a few weeks here on tour.

Marc Allan: Right.

Izzy Stradlin: So maybe we could set something up then. I’m sure there will be a lot of people down there from Lafayette, and it will be probably a scene, but we could probably hook up something, maybe in the daytime?

Marc Allan: That’d be great, that’d be great. How can we work this?

Izzy Stradlin: I guess you need to get a hold of Aaron, the management, or tell Geffen.

Marc Allan: Okay.

Izzy Stradlin: And try to set it up in advance.

Marc Allan: Oh, that’d be really cool.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: That’d be great, because there’s a lot of things I want to ask you, and I knew we only had 20 minutes, so I’m just…

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, okay.

Marc Allan: Covering the bases.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, sure we could do something again.

Marc Allan: That’d be great.

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah.

Marc Allan: All right then, thanks. I’m really looking forward to the show. I think this is gonna be really cool. Do you have a lot of stuff that’s unreleased that you’re gonna be playing?

Izzy Stradlin: Yeah, we got a few songs that we haven’t recorded yet.

Marc Allan: Okay. All right, well I’ll let you go, and I’ll try to set something up and I hope we can get it together. I can’t wait to see you.

Izzy Stradlin: Cool man, thanks, Marc.

Marc Allan: All right, thanks Izzy, take care.

Izzy Stradlin: Bye-bye.

Marc Allan: Bye-bye.