1987.11.21 - MTV Japan - Interviews with Axl

Transcript of first video:

Axl: Yeah. I mean, they go to Anthrax shows, they go to Metallica shows, you know. But, you know, some of those kids like all kinds of music, but there isn't, you know... they'll go to the Iggy Pop shows when they come to town and stuff like that, you know. And then they came to us, some of them, you know, they come to us. It's not totally dead, it's just...but there's not that many of them in bands that are doing that well anymore over there. Uhm, you know, and it's like, a lot of those people were also into Hanoi Rocks and now Hanoi Rocks isn't around and so we kind of, like, fill a gap somewhere, you know, in between Metallica and Hanoi Rocks and Aerosmith who haven't been there in 10 years. We came up through the middle, yeah, because we put everything kind of like together into one band and... Yeah, there was all kinds of different people, I mean, you just look at the crowd and see someone who's like 65 years old and then see someone else who's 15 with a mohawk. It's great. And the press was really weird, cuz the press, you know, said the crowd hated us but the crowd was screaming and singing. You know, the press was just trying to see if they could stop us before we got bigger. Then we went back into the Odeon for 3,000 people or more so we kind of ruined the press' little blockade [chuckles].

[Someone speaking Japanese, the translation of the question is unfortunately missing]

Axl: That's like, you know, that's like saying, "What's your favorite record," it kind of depends on the mood you're in. I mean, you can pick one but it might not be the one you want to listen to tonight. One of the best shows I ever saw was an Aerosmith show, but it was an Aerosmith that was the most exciting part of it. Rose Tattoo opened the show and Rose Tattoo was great. I saw them in Indianapolis, December 7th, a few years back [1982], Scarred for Life Tour, and they opened and they were just phenomenal. Aerosmith was The Rock In A Hard Place Tour with Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay and Crespo did one of the best leads I'd ever seen cuz he played off the crowd real well, but it was Rose Tattoo that just blew me away on how, like, cuz it was it was an arena like this, packed, about 18,000 people, who hated Rose Tattoo. They were Indiana people who just were like, "This band sucks! I don't want to see them." But that band, you know, no one had even heard their music. I had heard their music just a couple weeks before, I was excited. So I watched people. People went psycho. They were like, "This is the greatest!" They loved it. Next day, though, they were all scared to say it because there was a lot of kids and it was, you know, during the big preppy movement in all the schools in the States, you know, IZOD shirts and the whole bit, so the kids were like saying how much how much better Pat Travers was cuz that was the middle act. When Pat Travers played they turned the lights on so you could go get hot dogs and coke and people were going to sleep. That's how boring it was. Rose Tattoo won the whole audience over and it's just like I'm going, "If they can do it.. you know, just gonna do it right." It taught me a lot of lessons.

[cut and a new question presumably asked]

Axl: That are blues-based hard rock bands. I mean, you got a couple from Australia, what you have, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Angel City, and that's about it, that I know of.

[cut to Japanese guy holding up a GN'R shirt and talking]

Axl: I think tonight was a blast. Tonight was a really fun show. It's like, I haven't felt too good physically I've been having throat problems, tonsillitis and stuff on this tour, tonight was like the first time everything was back in gear, and the kids were great. We had lots of fun tonight.

[someone talking Japanese]

Axl: I love that. You think that, that's great! Because that is basically what we considers ourselves, an 80s version of those type of bands we heard in the 70s. You know, there was a lot of different forms of music that we like, but.... you know, so many different kinds of things we listen to, but there's certain records and certain albums that we listen to consistently and a lot of those are AC/DC, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and old Alice Cooper, and things like that...Scorpions, that we listen to all the time. And it was really surprising to me that in the 80s the only bands that are playing that style of music are those bands. None of the kids, you know, they've grown up and have bands of their own now, know really how to dig that deeper feeling. But basically I think it's a real emotional thing, even if you're singing about something violent or... whatever you're singing about I think you have to look real deep for the emotions and that brings out the realness in the material. A lot of material is just, lately it seems to be how fast we can play or how we can do this... a lot of bands do something real fake so that they can be rich and be rock stars. That comes after the fact, that's second.

[another Japanese question]

Axl: Well, maybe in rock and roll, but, you know,  as far as hard rock goes he is one of the few, but there's a lot of different, what's the word, genres of music where a lot of... you know, that's just part of it. I can't help it. I either stand there bored or I run back and forth, and I kind of get into dancing. I don't even know that I like what I do. I just, I looked down at my feet and go, "What am I doing now?" But I feel if I stand there then the people think, "Oh this is boring," so I got to do something and I just try to do whatever happens. It's a lot of fun. I thought about taking dance lessons and stuff but then I was worried about it getting too stale, being too much like organized and everything. I like the spontaneity of just whatever it happens. Keeps it real and fresh. Yeah, if it got too ballet-out, I couldn't handle that [chuckles]

Transcript of second video:

Axl: We used to go, we knew what we wanted to do and I had an idea of what I wanted to. I wasn't able to do it then. I wasn't... I didn't know enough about blues, I didn't know enough about lyric writing and things and to write the kind of stuff I wanted to. I didn't know enough about experiences, but they were building up, to actually put my experiences down in a song. But I knew what I wanted to get at. And during the year before we were signed, the year we were starting to headline and stuff and songs that started coming together, you know, I knew, out in the parking lot one day, we didn't have a PA so the band would practice and I would be out in the parking lot listening, so I could, like, hear all the parts, if I sat there in the room with them it was too loud to what was going on, but I knew that we hit the kind of songs that I've been looking for.

[new question being asked]

Axl: It was definitely like, "Now it's reality, not fantasy". I don't know. I think I've always been one to tend to, like, imagine that it's going to be better when I get there than it really is. You know, cuz you just realize it's just another place. But things are going well and we're, you know, it'll get bigger. I don't think I'll relax until like we're headlining in a very, very big way and being able to put a full show across. And until then it's just we're still hungry, and then even when we get that then it's like we want to make a really big show, we've still got a lot of things that we want to do musically. But in, I mean, as far as, like, sex, drugs and rock and roll, that kind of stuff, it's all there. It's fun. Just got to try and keep yourself alive while you're doing it. And it's as big as the stories go but at the same time it doesn't always come free and easy, we gotta work for it […]

Just transcribed this interview. Unfortunately the questions are not translated so we kind of have to guess what is being asked. It would have been nice to have the questions translated.

Then there is the question of when was this recorded. The Youtube file says 1987 and Axl only talks about shows in 1987 (like the London show at the Odeon in October 1987). Still, it seems natural that this would have been a recording in late 1988 when the band did shows in Japan. After all, this is Japanese TV and a merchandise shirt is being displayed. Axl also talks about "back there" when referring to USA, indicating that he is somewhere else when the recording takes place. He also mentions that they did a place the very night of the recording in a venue of similar size to a 18,000 venue. And he talks about how they have become successful, which would also indicate late 1988 and not late 1987 when Appetite was still fresh and not doing that well on the charts.

So what do you think? Does this look like a 1987 Axl or a 1988 Axl?

Hmm... It's difficult to say.

On one hand, Axl looks more like 1987 Axl (although he had a lot of different looks that year): the coat, but especially this particular hat and the make-up.
And I wonder if he would say this thing about Aerosmith (that they "haven't been there in 10 years") after GnR toured with them.
I'm also not sure, from his body language, if when he says "it was a big arena like this" he necessarily makes a comparison to the show they had played before the interview took place.

But, on the other hand, it's definitely a Japanese interview. The guy who asks the questions in Japanese seems to be there, it's not a voice-over or something. So it makes sense that it was recorded when GnR were in Japan in 1988. Unless it was a case of a Japan MTV crew being in America to do interviews with various bands, not just GnR.

From what I see on Troccoli's website, there was a customized t-shirt for the 1988 Japan tour. Same design as the U.S. tour t-shirt, but with the Japanese shows listed on the back:


But the shirt displayed on the video seems to be the U.S. one:


Wouldn't they have shown the Japan shirt if the interview was recorded and broadcasted when GnR were there?

Probably. This is hard. I just can't make up my mind on it. Maybe I should ask the people over at mygnrforum, some might know more about it. I will do that.

"bigpoop" over at mygnrforum solved it for us, I think (http://www.mygnrforum.com/topic/221183-anyone-know-the-date-of-this-axl-interview/?do=findComment&comment=4617641). he posted a second YT clip from the same interview section (added to first post with transcription) where you can hear, so he say, Motley Crue playing in the background. That would put this interview to November 1988.

That second clip was more interesting to me than the first. Axl talks about realizing they were onto something back in 86 when he was listening to the band play at the Gardner studio when he was out in the parking lot. He will talk about this again in his interview with Steve Harris about a month later (https://tinyurl.com/y73sqreq), but then he will also mention that he then told Izzy that they finally had it, to which Izzy, according to Axl, would reply "Now I see what the fuck you've been talking about for the last three years." Steve Harris would go on to interview Duff and Steven about a year later (in December 88, https://tinyurl.com/yax2cdzc) and would mention this "parking lot incident" to them, and paraphrase what a some band member (Steve forgot it was Izzy) should have said to Axl: "Axl, I can see what you meant now, this is what you had in mind for us all the time." Duff and Steven would act incredulously and mock Axl for his loftiness.

Yes, the second clip is really interesting.

I found another video with the first clip (with the addition of a Slash-Steven cameo in the end) which also gives the location the interview was recorded (Chatanooga, Tennessee), so we can get the exact date. The concert there was on November 21 1987. It was the show between the two Atlanta ones. And the next night, at the second Atlanta show, Axl didn't sing more than two songs because he dived into the crowd and then arrested.

I forgot to post the video

That's great! I will update thread title, drop-down menu, and interview index.

A third video from this interview that contains more quotes and a part of the second video (which has now been deleted from youtube):



TRANSCRIPTION:
---------------------

Axl: ... not in New York, as far as the press. The press comes out first in L.A. if you’re an L.A. band, and then (?) London picks up on it quickly. That’s why... So we were, you know, quickly Kerrang discovered us, found out about us. And they were really into us and the kids found out about us. And then, as soon as we were able to go over there we did, and that’s why we became more happening over there than in other parts of the country. Cuz New York, kind of like... New York at this point, unless you start in New York, they kind of wait to see what other places think of you. They’re not really eager to, like, just have you come and do it, cuz a lot of times people can be great everywhere else, then come to New York and they bomb, so...
 
[Question in Japanese (something about Aerosmith)]
 
Axl: Is that cool for us? Yeah. It doesn’t hinder us at all. It’s a little bit different style than what we’re doing. It’s a little bit different style than anything they’ve done before, too. It’s fine for us. You know, especially since they’re on the same label. If they do really good, (...) is generally good, then Geffen will have more power to push our record. I like that (chuckles).
 
[Question in Japanese]
 
Axl: Well, I don’t know anything about how Ratt writes their songs, but I always thought it was more of a Robin and Steven thing. Warren’s playing is really good. But as a whole band they have a different approach and style to what they’re doing. That’s all I really know about it. As far as Ratt goes, Robin seems to be really cool. He’s the only one that I’ve ever, like, talked to (?) a period of time. And I really like their first EP, I really like it. Cuz I used to go see Ratt with, like, Metallica opening for them at the Troubadour. That was, like, radical. Mustaine was still in Metallica and stuff, so that was really (?). I didn’t know I was seeing, like, a piece of history there, when I saw it.
 
[cut to show VJ talking in Japanese]
 
[cut back to the interview - question in Japanese]
 
Axl: Well, we had... I had a thing that I called Axl. That was a project, you know, and I was writing songs and I had them all in this little book and I was, like, looking for people. Izzy and I were trying to put it together. Axl, eventually, became me out of Izzy’s suggestion. He goes, “Look, you live, breath, walk, talk Axl. Why won’t you just be Axl.” “Okay, I’m Axl.” So then we called the band Rose (chuckles), so I still got the band named after me, you know. That was cool. We used to go, we knew what we wanted to do and I had an idea of what I wanted to. I wasn't able to do it then. I wasn't... I didn't know enough about blues, I didn't know enough about lyric writing and things and to write the kind of stuff I wanted to. I didn't know enough about experiences, but they were building up, to actually put my experiences down in a song. But I knew what I wanted to get at. And during the year before we were signed, the year we were starting to headline and stuff and songs that started coming together, you know, I knew, out in the parking lot one day, we didn't have a PA so the band would practice and I would be out in the parking lot listening, so I could, like, hear all the parts, if I sat there in the room with them it was too loud to what was going on, but I knew that we hit the kind of songs that I've been looking for, you know, since I was a little kid. And it’s like, I’ve always stayed real focused, and I’m still real focused on what kind of music I want to do. We’re looking really forward to having a couple of weeks off here for the holidays, and we’ll be writing a lot of material, before we go back out on tour, for the next record. We’ve got, like, 40 songs already reared, and we’re gonna go write a bunch more, so that, when the time comes to put another record down, we’ll have about 60 songs and just chop it down. Hopefully we’ll do a double record, that’s the plan.
 
[Question in Japanese]
 
Axl: I have no idea. I’ve just been hearing all kind of stories about Japan. It’s been a dream of mine and Izzy’s since we were in, like, high school, junior high, to go to Japan with a band. You know, being a band and go to Japan, our band. I have no idea. I’m just hoping the sushi is better there than in California.

Does anyone have the 2nd video? Or is the 2nd video the same as the third?

Shackler wrote:Does anyone have the 2nd video? Or is the 2nd video the same as the third?

I will send out the @Blackstar signal!

Shackler wrote:Does anyone have the 2nd video? Or is the 2nd video the same as the third?

Unfortunately I didn't get to download the 2nd video before it was deleted from youtube, so I don't have it.
It was a short video containing two questions/answers. The first one (actually, the complete version of it) is contained in the third video, too. The other one is not included in the third video.