2005.02.17 - MetalShrine - Interview with Steven

Interview - Steven Adler and Jizzy Pearl, Adler´s Appetite

On Thursday 17 February, Adler's Appetite played at Mondo in Stockholm. At ten o'clock in the evening I had the opportunity to sit down with Steven Adler in the light of a large candelabra in their little lodge. Jizzy Pearl also came by and participated in the conversation.

Steven has several years of really heavy addiction behind him, but is by no means a sober person. He was drunk during the interview and the addiction has clearly left its mark on the recently turned forty-year-old. His mouth is slanted and it is sometimes difficult to hear what he is saying, but he is enthusiastic about his band and seems to enjoy being back on the roads, even though the Swedish gigs have not been a major audience success.

Earlier in the evening, I had been told that their car had broken down and that the band would miss the sound check and that the interview hung in the air. Luckily it was possible to implement and both Steven and Jizzy turned out to be two very likeable old rockers.

Niclas Müller-Hansen

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So Steven, did your van break down or something?

SA: Yeah, we were on a one way freeway and the van broke down cruising over here. We were stuck in the snow and it was cold and we went and had pizza and lots of soup. I'm a big soup fan!

How was the Gothenburg gig?

SA: It went really well! All the shows in Sweden have gone very well. The first show, they did not promote it so that's why there was not as many people. But the people that were there were crazy!

What's the plan with your EP? Is that released by yourselves or...?

JP: We're writing songs and we knew that we were gonna do this tour for six weeks, so that's why we really just decided not to wait and try and search for a label, and just did it ourselves. We put it out ourselves and recorded it ourselves because we wanted to have something for this tour. And to sell obviously! Let people know that were expanding the band.

SA: And we didn't even bring enough! We brought 900 cd's and they were gone even before we left England.

What's the plan after this? Are you gonna put out an album?

SA: We'll have an album out hopefully by May or June, around summertime. And we'll hopefully do some festivals, but if we don't do festivals we're certainly gonna tour worldwide. We're going to Japan soon, in the next two weeks and after that we're going to South America and we wanna come back to Europe and do some festivals.

Did all you guys know each other? I guess you knew of each other before this band?

SA: Actually Jizzy and I went to the same high school together. Robbie and I and Slash hung out at the same elementary school and we rode skateboards and bikes and smoked weed. In a way we did grow up together.

JP: It's a small community and back in the day, I can remember everybody going to the same clubs. It didn't matter if you had a record deal or not, or if you sold a million records or nothing. It was a real community. It's not the same anymore, the way it used to be! That's why it's so funny, cool actually, to see people sort of dressed up back... like how I remember my hair used to be and everyone's hair was big. And when you see that, and these people were probably not old enough to be that back then, but they really dig the scene that was. It´s a shame that they missed it!

SA: And the 80's was the decade of decadence too. People, when they went out, tried to look good and they dressed nice and in the 90's that changed. The grunge thing...!

Was it better in the 80's or...?

SA: I think it's better now because we're alive. The 80's were twenty years ago...

JP: I personally think the music was better back then, but that's just because that's what I was brought up on. I was brought up on Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and so on. It´s just a generation thing. I don't really like the music that's coming out, because it's not my thing! All the bands look and sound the same.

SA: I was watching a video on TV, MTV, the first time we went to Sweden. Which is all the same MTV in Europe and I swear to God that within a half hour I heard the same song done by five different so called bands and I was like... "Didn't I just hear that, but the band looked different?" Like Jizzy says, that was the end of really good rock and roll! But every ten or twelve years rock and roll makes it self a come back and I'm believing and praying that we'll be a part of that come back!

JP: We'll be in rocking chairs, but...(laughs).

Jizzy, have you got any new books coming out?

JP: I've written two books and I have a half of a third book written, but with this band there's been a lot of touring and recording and stuff like that. So that obviously takes priority and the writing and stuff like that is more when I'm at home and we're not doing anything. I just start thinking really evil thoughts and doodling.

SA: I have a book that's hopefully coming out in summertime too. About my experiences and my extravaganzas. Growing up with Slash and...

That should be really interesting!

SA: Yeah, it's called "Our (?) lives no bed of roses" and that title will give you an idea. It has some good stuff and some happy moments and some sad moments too. Like pretty much everybody's life!

Cool! Have you stayed in touch with any of the the guys in the band?

Slash and I are slowly getting a relationship together, but I mean... He called me on my birthday when I was in Spain or in Rome. We're starting to build a relationship together. Izzy and I recorded a song called "Do you love me". A sixties - seventies song (sings). It came out really cool. Axl I haven't talked too in ten or fifteen years.

Has anyone talked to Axl??? But do you still get money from Guns N' Roses?

SA: Fifteen percent from everything I played on!

Is he the owner of...?

SA: Just the name!!! That's why he's using it!

JP: Or not using it!

Do you guys think there's gonna be a Guns N' Roses album?

SA: It's not Guns N' Roses!

JP: You know what? I think, and there's no disrespect towards Axl at all, but I think that if there was a record, and if there would've been a record, it should've come out a while ago. I think that so many years have gone by that it's almost... it would have to be "Sgt Pepper", literally, or "Back in black"! Or "Appetite..."! It would have to be that good to be able to reignite anything and that´s a phenomenon that doesn't really happen. It's a shame that things happened the way they did! I wish it had come out earlier because I think it might have done well.

Are you still involved in Ratt?

JP: You know, we're doing this and we just put the record out and there's been a lot of touring and a lot of talk about some summer tours with Sebastian Bach and stuff like that, which is really exciting. I just like playing Europe better than the States. In the States the people are different and they´re not as fanatical or as appreciative, I guess, of the music and the musicians playing music, because they're so inadated with MTV and Ashlee Simpson and the lip-syncing and the fakery that goes on. People don't play their instruments and people don't sing and in Europe I think fans are a lot more appreciative and loyal and it's more fun to come back and play for seven hundred screaming fans than it is to play for fifty jaded ones.

SA: The rap and hip hop crap is so big in the States. Rock and roll is well and alive in Europe and South America!

What did you do before Guns N' Roses? Were you in other bands or...?

SA: Me and Slash played around. We and Slash had been playing, in those days, since we were twelve years old. Guns N' Roses... we met Izzy and Axl and then we met Duff. This band is like Guns N' Roses... it is so rare to find five guys, and we may all have five different personalities, but our hearts were all in the same place. Our hearts were aiming and striding for the same goal and Jizzy and Keri and Robbie, we all have different personalities, but our hearts are in the same place. It's very easy writing songs with these guys. We've got eighteen kick ass songs and we did them in nine days! We recorded eleven or twelve of them.

I'm looking forward to it!

SA: Have you heard the EP yet?

Only the stuff on your website.

SA: It's good and it´s such a rare thing... there are so many bands and people that play music, but there's so little amount of bands that are accepted and are good enough.

When did you get into the drums?

SA: I was eleven or twelve years old!

Any childhood heroes?

SA: Roger Taylor from Queen, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Rick Allen...there are so many amazing drummers and I only wish I could remember their names. I really doubt that in ten years from now there's gonna be bands, there are so rare and few bands that you are gonna still hear or are gonna be called classic rock.

Who came up with the name Adler's Appetite?

SA: Actually a friend of ours, Ryan Johnson... first we had Suki Jones and I was like...eeeehhhhhh and he said, you should call yourselves Adler's Appetite! And we all thought it was a cool name. The name is very important for a band!

You got into a bit of trouble with the Rockconfidential.com interview about Andy McCoy and his wife!

SA: Ohhh, it had nothing to do with Andy! I love Andy and I don't even know who his wife is. I don't give a fuck! Well, she´s not worth talking about! We were supposed to play in England with them and they dropped us out of the show. Whatever, because ninety-five percent of the people went back and got their money back. So that kind of says something about us! And it's a shame... and fuck it, I don't even wanna talk about it! I love Andy and I love blah blah yada yada yada...

So there will be an album and...?

SA: Yeah, and that's also why we put the EP out. We're doing the Guns songs and I wrote those songs with Slash and Duff and they´re my songs too. I have every right to play them! Those guys aren't playing them and you're not going to get closer to hearing the album "Appetite..." live. We're doing pretty much everything from "It's so easy" to "Civil war". And you're not gonna get closer to hearing the songs the way they were recorded. I could guarantee if, God bless Axl puts a record out, and when he plays live you're gonna hear those songs because he's so down on that time in his life. Why I don't know and I wish I could knock it out of him, but you're not gonna hear... and plus the band, this great band... the drums and rhythm to those songs... You can't be me! I don't know what the fuck I'm doing! I'm just up there having fun, so it's kind of hard to duplicate what I do because I don´t know what I'm doing and if I don't know what I'm doing, how could anyone else know? And he's got a really great band, from what I saw. I don't know if that still exists (laughs)?

What about your book again? Do you have a book deal?

SA: No, but I got a publishing lawyer who's working on publishing... You better talk to Jizzy about putting out books.

Are you writing it or do you have someone doing it for you?

SA: No, I wrote it already, it's done! A friend of mine, Brooke Ellis, he runs my website and he was so great. This guy followed me around for fifteen or twenty years and knew dates. I was asking questions and he'd go, "That was March 15 1987!". And I was, "How do you know that? It's my life and I don't even know that!" So it was very easy and a great guy to be around with. And I don't put anybody down! Everybody knows in GN'R or from GN'R who is a jackass and who isn't a jackass.

That's got to be an interesting look into the 80's and the heydays of Guns N' Roses.

SA: Yeah! The first person who me and Slash saw together on stage was Nikki Sixx at this club called the Starwood. It was on Santa Monica Boulevard and Crescent Heights and he was in a band called London, and they opened up that purple curtain and this guy had hair a foot off his head and a black and white striped bass and was all in leather. I just went "Holy shit, that's what I wanna do!". So it was kind of cool that we got to tour with Mötley, saving his fat ass. He's a great guy, he does it right! The kind of rock star I wanted to be.

Yeah, it's gonna be fun checking out Mötley Crue! I hope it's good!

SA: Hell yeah! Tommy and Nikki are involved! It's like Velvet Revolver, Slash and Duff are involved, so it can't be bad. And I gotta say this again. You probably heard that I said that their record sucks. It doesn't suck!!!! I was just excited because we just finished ours and I was just like "Theirs sucks and ours rule!" (laughs) It was just a fun thing! Everybody took it wrong! I was getting all this crap, but people didn't see the smile and the laughter, so I was just going "Sorry, it was just for fun!!!" I love those people and I always have. I've got history with those jackasses!

Some history!

SA: Yeah it was...it is!

Well, thanks a lot Steven!

SA: Sure, you're welcome!

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