1987-05-DD - RIP Magazine - Live like a Suicide

Guns N’ Roses, Live Like A Lunatic

“You know, we’re not your normal band,” reveals Izzy Stradlin proudly.

“We stand for the things we want. That’s the only reason we’re doing rock n roll.” Adds W. Axl Rose. “We’re not doing this because someone said, ‘Son, I want you to grow up and be a singer in a rock n roll band.’”

“We’re definitely not a product of the industry,” says Izzy. “We are going to leave some heavy marks on the music scene."

Meet Guns N’ Roses. They are definitely not your everyday kinda band. During their short history, which their current manager says spans “Who knows?” they have gone through ump­teen different managers and negotiat­ed their own record deal (with the help of a lawyer). Once they were signed, they were put into the studio with Spencer Proffer, with whom they ar­gued profusely and forced to leave the project. In the interim between Spencer Proffer and the real recording of their album, they decided to re/ease an EP titled Live?!* Like A Suicide on their Uzi Suicide label. Their album is currently pending.

In other words, what you’ve got are the rowdiest, raunchiest good-time rockers who are out to out-motley Mot­ley Crue. Just examine vocalist W Axl Rose, guitarists Slash and Izzy Strad­lin, drummer Steven Adler and bassist Duff McKagan. Their words are punc­tuated by curses, their minds by sex and their bodies by music. They are gut-level rockers who live on the streets of Hollywood and put their ex­periences to music.

“We’ve lived too long on the streets, sleeping behind fucking garbage cans, in 24-hour restaurants and parks. We’ve fucked in the backs of cars only because that’s where we lived,” declares Axl.

‘So, when we see some fucking punk faggot from Beverly Hills walk into the Troubadour with spikes in his hair, we just want to smash his fucking face. We’ve been playing rock ‘n’ roll for too many years for people to call us posers,” Duff vehemently spews.

Watch out for Guns N’ Roses. They are your new role models. Boys want to be like them, girls want them and everybody’s going to hear from them.

RIP: Tape’s on, anything you say can and may be used against you. Now in­troduce yourself.

DUFF: Hi, my name is Julio. I’m the bartender.

IZZY: (adopting a sing-song Mexican accent) Ooh, ooh, my head, some­body stole my jacket. My jacket’s gone.

STEVEN: Hi! My name is Steven Adler, and I play drums and cymbals. I was there, and I’m here now.

DUFF: I’m Duff, I play bass, and I’ve lived a good life. I’ll live until I’m 29, maybe just long enough to get out a few good records.

IZZY: Estimated time of death in this band is 29, and that may be pushing it.

AXL: My name’s Axl and I’m 14. Now and then I sing in this band.

DUFF: He used to be 12 a couple of years ago.

IZZY: Spell my name right. That’s S T-R-A-D-L-I-N. I’m going to talk for Slash since he’s not here. My name’s Slash. I play guitar with Izzy. I also play banjo and maracas.

AXL: Those are leaden maracas.

DUFF: And I come from Uruguay.

[A waiter arrives . . . .]

DUFF: Two double margaritas with salt.

IZZY: Gin and tonic.

STEVEN: Okay, we got that one down. What’s next?

RIP: Why is the average age of this band going to be 29?

DUFF: To die?

IZZY: That’s the estimated time of death.

STEVEN: That’s what we were told by our record company.

IZZY: We were just kidding. My doctor said…..

AXL: Wait! Wait! Wait! (glares at the waiter) Did you get my order? I want a Long Island (iced tea).

DUFF: The average age of death is 29 because my doctor told me that. My liver dropped three inches. I have the liver of an 80-year-old.

RIP: When was the first time each of ‘you got drunk?

STEVEN: I was eight years old. It was in my grandmother’s bathroom when I smoked a joint.

RIP: Who were you with?

DUFF: My little sister.

STEVEN: Just me and my member, my personal friend (switches to a Mexican accent). Oh, my head.

DUFF: My old man gave me some whiskey when I was real little. It was a Hawaiian whiskey, and it had this long Hawaiian name, and he said, “Take a swig and pronounce the name.” And after about four swigs I couldn’t pronounce the name because I was too drunk. That’s a true story.

AXL: The first time I got drunk I was 16. I know I was late. I was with these three guys, and I had never smoked or taken any drugs before. We brought a case of beer, and we bought joints, and I bought 40 Valiums-10 mg Valiums for $5.00 a piece. I ate ten them, drank a bunch of beers, and smoked all these joints. Then we went to this rock concert downtown at Morris Theatre. This band called Road Master was playing.

IZZY: (laughing) They were the big shit back home in Indiana. They were the only shit.

AXL: I went down to the theater, and girl goes, “You’re just too fucked “So, I tore up her ticket and threw it her. Then I went out in front of the hall and directed traffic for a while. I threw a beer at this fucking cop, so friend grabbed me and put all these different jackets on me and snuck me into the concert. It was packed. I walked in, and one of my friends passed out in the aisle. Then this guy stands up, looks at me and says, “What are you looking at?” He was a big guy; so I hit him. I saw his teeth go back down into his throat, and I ran.

Lots more happened that night. I fell out of the window of a two-story build­ing and broke my hand. I broke into an insane asylum; broke in one side and out the other because I didn’t know how to go around the building. I wrecked a bicycle that had no brakes underneath a train. Then my friend Paul put me in his car, and I went flying over another car, and my friend’s dad came running out of the house from across the street. He was going to shoot my friend because he thought that somebody was out to kill me. It was a really exciting night.

DUFF: That’s a better story than mine.

AXL: I went and got drunk the next day to forget about it.

IZZY: (unphased) I don’t even remem­ber. I was drunk, period.

RIP: How does drinking affect your music?

AXL: It fucks it all up.

STEVEN: Fucks it all up, but not Duff though. He can’t survive without a drink first thing in the morning.

IZZY: That’s a good question.

DUFF: I know that if we play good, there’s a possibility someone will give us more beers.

IZZY: So, actually, it’s inspiring.

AXL: Motivation is a driving force.

STEVEN: With me, it’s a family inherit­ed trait; so when I drink, it just makes me normal . . . like these guys. If I don’t drink, I’m like, “uggghh.”

RIP: Describe your music.

STEVEN: A way of life.

DUFF: That’s the ticket.

IZZY:  Its rock ‘n’ roll.

AXL: It’s just rock n roll. Some of it’s aggressive; some of it’s fucking mel­low. Some is sexy and sweet.

IZZY: It’s a summary of our lives. We just put into a song whatever comes out. You know, like getting up at about seven o’clock, but I don’t get out of bed until about nine. That’s seven o’clock at night.

STEVEN: Head up to La Brea and Sunset.

IZZY: Get on a bus. Play a show.

AXL: He’s jacking you off, you know.

IZZY: No, I’m not. That’s the lyrics to a song.

DUFF: You get out your gun and shoot. Shoot!

RIP: How did you all meet?

DUFF: We just met, everybody met.

IZZY: Hanging out on the street up on Sunset.

AXL: On Saturdays they give out free food at the mission.

STEVEN: And we were all there together.

DUFF: Actually, we met at the gay club, Rage. They have a five o’clock buffet. You can get all the food you can eat for a dollar.

EVERYONE: Yeah, Rage, yeah.

STEVEN: Of course, you take very many risks, but for one buck, all you can eat, you’ve got to take those risks.

DUFF: You clench your butt cheeks and eat. Chomp on those fried squid.

AXL: Actually. Izzy and I came out here from Indiana. I mean, where do you go when you’re young? You go to the city, right? We came to L.A. be cause we were skateboarders.

IZZY: Fucking Indiana.

AXL: We’re not necessarily proud of it, because back in Indiana people say. “Why do you put ‘Indiana sucks’ in your song?” Indiana sucks because they threw me in jail 20 times, and at least 15 of those I was innocent. It was a fucked-up place for me.

IZZY: My mother lives there; so it’s okay.

AXL: Anyway, to answer your ques­tion, we came out here, met these guys and put this shit together.

STEVEN: Me and Slash, we went to high school together, and Duff’s just a way of life; so he’s always been around.

DUFF: Skateboarding, surfing, the beach.

STEVEN:  So we made this demo tape with five songs that we paid $300 for.

AXL: Then we did our record deal ourselves.

IZZY: Nobody tells us what to do; not the record company, nobody.

AXL: And it can make for problems for people that come in but don’t know what we’re about and try to work with us. They’re used to bands doing a lot of things.

IZZY: Just to make it.

DUFF: Like, “Ooooh, we want this, we want that.”

IZZY: Like sucking someone’s weenie for a phone number.

DUFF: You might want to inform your readers that we’re looking for.

STEVEN: The right girls.

IZZY: All those young, American women.

STEVEN: Big American breasts.

DUFF: For a HUSTLER layout with us and you. Who’s going to be the lucky chosen ones? Send all photos and re­sumes to 9000 Sunset, Suite 405.

RIP: What impact do you want to make on society?

IZZY: Like a warhead.

DUFF: I want to cause serious sludge in the FM bullshit.

IZZY: Destroy AM radio.

AXL: Be the meanest, nastiest, sexi­est hardcore street band in rock ‘n’ roll Remember, we’re not fucking new wave, we’re not glam, we’re not fuck­ing punk, and we’re not heavy metal!

RIP: When you have your first plati­num album, how are you going to celebrate?

IZZY: It’s going to be awesome. We’re going to go on the road.

AXL: First. I’m going to celebrate with all my friends and everybody that knows me.

STEVEN: They’re going to have to buy their own drinks though.

IZZY: I’m going to buy a Maserati and drive 500 miles per hour into a brick wall.

AXL: We try and celebrate every chance we get. Usually, if we’re in a bad mood, it’s because we can’t find something to celebrate. There’s this club called the Cat House, and that’s just great for us. We have a really good time at that place.

IZZY: It’s rocking. It’s really big and dark. You can listen to loud music, anything you want.

AXL: Our friends run the place. Joseph and Henry are the deejays.

IZZY: Say that the Cat House is cool.

RIP: I know someone who got crabs from someone there.

IZZY: Everybody’s had crabs.

AXL: Crabs ain’t shit. I’d be glad to get crabs compared to anything else that you can get.

STEVEN: I’d be glad to get crabs.

DUFF: You want to know a true tact? I just found out that if you take a crab off yourself and somebody else who’s got crabs and put them in a jar, the crabs will fight each other to death.

STEVEN: That’s an interesting piece of history.

IZZY: I like that kind of stuff. That’s pretty cool, man.

DUFF: Why don’t you go out and get crabs so that we can watch?

STEVEN: Go out crab hunting.

DUFF: In Frisco, you can sell your crabs to the VD clinic for 20 bucks. I know someone who did it five times and made $100.

IZZY: We were thinking about going crab hunting, but we got the rest of our money.

AXL: I think we went crab hunting once.

DUFF: I found some.

STEVEN: They found us.

DUFF: They were hard to get rid of.

STEVEN: I had them for six months in a row.

IZZY: Steven has this way of putting them in his pants and then going, “Do you want to borrow my pants?”

DUFF: He’s a generous guy when he’s got crabs.

RIP: Do you have any parting words for RIP readers?

AXL: Do your breast exercises and get that vaginal control.

STEVEN: I have something nice to say. Do anything that you want, as long as you think good and do it for yourself. You can do anything!

DUFF: And don’t give up.

STEVEN: Yeah! Don’t give up! Believe in yourself!

IZZY: Never miss Chanukah.

STEVEN: And for all of you drummers out there that want to be good, keep your hands tapping and your feet clapping.