2020.03.26 - Appetite For Distortion - Quarantined with Doug Goldstein

Excerpts from Ultimate Guitar:
----------------------------------

When asked by a listener: "How was it to deal with Bucket? Was his behavior so bad as people said?", Doug replied (transcribed by UG):

"It wasn't bad. His behavior wasn't bad, it was head-scratching, that's the best way to put it. To hear that he can't play his leads until we build him, literally, a chicken coop in the studio for him to play in, I mean... it's just something you're not really used to dealing with. But to be honest with you, I was so used to dealing with anomalies at that point, you know? When you're hired as a manager and you get a phone call that somebody had pushed a grand piano through the window, and it's over-hanging houses below it, that's not a normal manager's job, to then call a heavy-equipment company and get something called up so they can actually put it back inside. So, dealing with Bucket was kind of easy, that was, 'Alright, he wants a chicken coop, that's fine.' But he was a really nice guy. He's very shy; very, very, very shy."

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/manager_recalls_bucketheads_insane_demand_for_guns_n_roses_recording_a_chicken_coop_in_the_studio_for_him_to_play_in.html

*

During an appearance on the Appetite for Distortion Podcast, former Guns N' Roses manager Doug Goldstein - who managed the group from 1991 to 2008 - talked about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, commenting on GN'R performing a concert in Mexico City on March 14 despite the outbreak. You can check out a part of the conversation below (transcribed by UG).

Concerts are shut down, sports are shut down, but we did get to see Guns N' Roses once. Were you - at the beginning - where everybody was saying, 'We should not do a concert'...

"I've said this to you, the reality is that I don't manage the band anymore since 2004. But I would've probably handled things a little differently. The one frustrating thing for me is: there's not a whole lot of communication from either management to the band, to the fans in general... "Taking it back all the way to when they started the announcement for the original reunion tour, 'Not in This lifetime,' it was like one paragraph, 'Hey, by the way, we're out, be out there.' And then I saw the ticket sales in Toronto, and I thought, 'Well sure, because nobody is out there really marketing this whole project.' It was a little frustrating when, as the ex-manager, we certainly used to get in front of that stuff."

I guess it's like a temperature reader, they were pulling people aside, it's scary. Do you foresee that now people have to take their temperature before they go to a gig?

"I don't think so. I think in a pandemic situation like this, people are pulling all the stops and doing this, that is the responsible thing to do. I think once everything settles back down, I don't think it's gonna get to that. I could be wrong, but I certainly don't see that chemical warfare is gonna be needed to be checked at the door. [Laughs] What happens if you have to make a decision like that, A) You are then profiling by pulling somebody to the side to measure them. Or in a worst-case scenario, you actually have to take the temperature of every single person. What happens when you need to start letting people in? Because it is going to take hours to be able to do that."

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/ex-manager_comments_on_guns_n_roses_playing_show_to_70000_fans_in_mexico_despite_coronavirus_outbreak.html

*

During an appearance on the Appetite for Distortion Podcast, former Guns N' Roses manager Doug Goldstein - who managed the group from 1991 to 2008 - looked back on the band's crazy 1992 show in Bogota, Colombia.

"That was an interesting stop," Doug said, adding (transcribed by UG):

"Back then, Bogota was an incredibly dangerous place - Escobar was still in reign. And so we show up, and there was a coup attempt, we got out, but our gear did not make it out. So we landed and immediately the promoters and the guy who runs the newspaper, they wanted to meet with me because they wanted to cancel one of our shows because the gear wasn't there. 'No, Saturday we'll play. Saturday-Sunday because the gear will be here.' 'No, no, no...' So we decided to do one show. At about 3 o'clock in the morning, I got a phone call that they had our publicist and they were going to hold her for ransom, and I said, 'Well, go ahead, she's not that good anyway.' And she was, I was just calling a bluff, basically. They played the next night, there's no roof over the stage, and it starts pouring during 'November Rain,' and they had oversold by 30,000 tickets. So there's 70,000 people inside, and 30,000 people that have tickets outside that can't get in, and the band has no idea what's going on, there's cops on horseback with these huge mallets, and they're just beating the piss out of people, and so we were trying to put a stop to that.

"The next morning, at about 7 - I read and speak Spanish because I grew up in San Diego - so 7 o'clock in the morning, there's pounding on my door, I open the door, and this guy hands me a letter in Spanish after he shows me a machine gun to my chest and says, 'You have a mandatory meeting with the mayor at 3 o'clock.' "So, I had hired US embassy security off-duty, and so I called my guy over, I said, 'Mark, what does it say? Is there a meeting?' He said, 'No.' So I said, 'It's time to boogie.' He said, 'Yeah.' So I woke up the band members, and some of them were still awake because again, we were in Bogota, some of them haven't slept since we arrived. So we loaded up the plane, and as we went to taxi away. Bogota's like 6,000-7,000 feet in the air, so they started taxing back because they needed to pump up the engine with better oxygen, I guess. I thought, 'Oh shit, they're onto us.' They weren't going to take me, no question in anybody's mind. A couple of other funny stories during that time period, but save those for the book."

Were there any big names Axl was trying to bring in as replacement during the 'Democracy' era, that aren't public knowledge?

"No, I think everything's been talked about. I think the first person that Axl had me contact - if I remember correctly - is either Navarro first or Zakk, Zakk Wylde. I've managed Zakk's Pride & Glory, which is a great project that never got off the ground because it was a southern rock record and at the time people in America were listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, so it never really got the opportunity that it deserved, at least in my humble opinion. I'd love to see him re-release that record, he's certainly done well with Black Label Society. But I don't remember which came first, it was either Navarro or Zakk Wylde."

Focusing on the "Chinese Democracy" era, Doug also said:

"One of the people from the 'Chinese Democracy' era and after that I really love and didn't get to know him as much as I'd like to, but his work ethic is second to none as far as any musician I've ever seen, and that's Ron Thal, Bumblefoot. The guy is just - he's always, always, always working. And I've talked to a lot of people that know him, and everybody seems to feel that he's one of the greatest people on the planet, and certainly a great guitar player. Axl definitely knew where to go with great guitar players when he was looking for replacements."

He doesn't want to come to my podcast because he has a GN'R thing, it just seems like it hurts him a little bit. I hope he changes his mind because I know he's a great guy.

"You know what that's tantamount to? It's tantamount to my kid who - god bless him, Jake - with him, I still, to this day, even though I'm not in the music business, people keep always asking me, 'Hey, can you help me?' He called me five-and-a-half, six years ago and said, 'I don't want your help,' and got signed to Epitaph with no help from his dad. And he's touring with his buddies, he just came back from Europe... Originally, I respected his decision, don't get me wrong, but the reality is: could I have helped him? Yeah, probably. But he didn't want to be known as the kid who rode on Guns N' Roses coattails, god bless him, he killed it on his own."

How do you believe Guns should release a new album?

"It harkens back to when they were 32-33 songs on 'Use Your Illusion.' My argument back then was, 'Let's release one album, tour on it, and then release the second album mid-tour to kind of prolong and give new breath into the life of the tour.' It didn't manifest because Axl wanted the first album to enter one and two, so yeah, if I were in a position of authority, which clearly I'm not, what I would hope to do is release an EP, tour on it, and halfway through the tour or three-quarters of the tour, release the second. But make it balanced, don't put all the good songs on one and then the least attractive on the second one."

Do you believe in a full album, or do you believe in an EP? For instance, Nine Inch Nails just released two albums for free, out of nowhere.

"Well, it depends on what you're trying to, which your goals are. If your goals are to try - and look, nobody's making money from the sales of albums anymore unless you're country, nobody buys rock records anymore, they give them away. So if you're looking, and look, Slash and Duff, and Axl, they're smart guys, so they realized that they're not gonna make the same amount of money that they would make back in the '90s if they released an album, not from songwriting, not from royalties or the actual sales of the record. So you're trying to get people to come to your concert. So, I would argue that there's really no reason to release a full album, at least not if what you're trying to do is maximize the profitability of the project you are working on. If the project that you're working on is 'Not in This Lifetime 2,' then give the record away, five songs, and three quarters away, halfway through the tour release the other five."

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/ex-gnr_manager_recalls_crazy_92_bogota_show__how_he_reacted_to_publicist_ransom_threat.html