2021.05.08 - Full In Bloom - Inside 'Appetite For Destruction' With Engineer Micajah Ryan

Description:

This is a full in bloom interview with producer/engineer
Micajah Ryan.

INSIDE THE ALBUM:
Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction

Micajah talks about his experience recording 'Appetite for
Destruction,' the 1987 debut album from Guns N' Roses.

More Info @ fullinbloom.com

Excerpts from UG:
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Asked if he has any wild stories from those days, Micajah replied (transcribed by UG):

"Oh yeah, I'll tell you one. It was a Thursday morning, [producer Mike Clink] came in, he had a call - we were waiting for the band to show up, and he got a call.

"The call was from the manager of the apartment that the band lived in. So he looked at me, he kind of chuckled, and he goes, 'Wanna go for a ride?'...

"So we hopped in his car, we drove up to the apartment, and we got there, the manager was there, and she was just flustered.

"She opened up the door to the apartment and let us proceed, go ahead of her into the apartment, and we walked in there...

"Every single thing made of glass in the apartment was broken. Windows, mirrors, cups, saucers, everything made of glass was broken - the mirror in the bathroom was broken.

"And she was absolutely flipped out, she just didn't know how to handle it all.

"Mike just handled it with great grace, he said, 'Don't worry, the record company will pay for all this stuff to be fixed, we'll take care of all of it. You don't need to worry about it, I'll talk to the guys, find out what's going on.'

"So we drove back to the studio, he just chuckled all the way. He was shaking his head, 'I can't believe that... That's unbelievable.'"

Was anyone of the band in the apartment?

"Well, Slash, Duff [McKagan, bass], Steven [Adler, drums], Axl didn't... They all crashed at that apartment, so I'm not sure who was breaking the stuff.

"It was deserted when we got there. They only used it I think as a kind of a place where they could crash when they were going between the Hollywood and the studio."

It was a long kind of development period with Guns N' Roses, I know they went through a few producers for a year or so. By the time they're working with you, is Axl cutting vocals, or is it just straight-up guitar solos and things like that?

"Well, we started out with rhythm guitars, we did rhythm, then Slash started doing some solos. But the reason why we were doing rhythm is to cut the vocals.

"So we would work during the day cutting the rhythm tracks, and then we would start on solos, and then in the evening Axl would come."

Did they come in separately, like Slash by himself or would he and Izzy [Stradlin, guitar] come in at the same time?

"That was one at a time. I hung out with Slash, it took us at least two and a half, maybe three months for all those guitar parts.

"And then Izzy came in, we did all his parts in probably about three weeks. He seemed to have more focus, and Slash seemed to be experimenting a little bit. And then Axl would just go in and sing."

What kind of mics, were they 57s? And the amp - there was some crazy story of going through a gazillion amps, right?

"Well, I wasn't part of that. They did all that before they came to the studio. When they came to the studio, they showed up with the amp."

It wasn't a JCM 800?

"I think it was the JCM 800 on the outside, but I think it had been modded, so nobody was sure. What the big source of controversy is, nobody is sure what that mod was, nobody can find that amp anymore.

"It was a great-sounding amp, no question about it, just blistering loud and really warm, so it was just a great amp, but it was definitely was something that nobody was sure where that went or what happened to that."

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

More excerpts from UG:
----------------------------

When asked, "Are there any Slash stories that stand out?", Ryan replied (transcribed by UG):

"He did have a habit, I don't if you ever noticed it, he concentrates so hard when he's doing the solos that his lower lip protrudes.

"And he drools, and it will eventually spill over to long strings of saliva all the way down to the ground.

"And it happened in the studio. He's so focused when he plays, he doesn't realize he's drooling. or doesn't care. I never figured out which one it was, whether he didn't realize it or he didn't care.

"Another thing I want to point out is- when they say that, say, Slash is going to go into the studio and play his music, Slash doesn't play, he works.

"He works his freaking butt off, and to me, that's this, 'Oh, they're going in to play and stuff.' It's a lot harder than playing, there's nothing frivolous about it at all."

Any Izzy [Stradlin, guitar] stories while he was cutting his parts?

"Izzy was great, but he would play, and he got through his stuff so fast. He got through the rhythm parts and his lead parts about three and a half weeks, maybe a month.

"He just got through it real quick, and Mike [Clink, producer] didn't spend a lot of time going through all of his stuff because Izzy knew his stuff.

"I was constantly reminded of that line by Bob Dylan, 'He knows his song well before he started playing.' Izzy was that guy.

"He knew his song well before he started to play, and he was a great example of that. He spent all of his time while Slash was doing his parts.

"He spent all of his time in the studio playing his guitar and listening to his tape player. He had a tape player, he carried his tape player around everywhere, and he listened to a lot of different songs.

"But the one I remember the most was 'Keep Your Hands to Yourself,' remember that song? The Georgia Satellites. Because Izzy, when I did solo work with him later after the album, he hired a guitar player from that band to be in his band.

"Great guy, can't remember his name, but he was a great guy and a great guitar player. He and Izzy blend really well together, they read each other's thoughts, pretty amazing to see."

Then Axl [Rose, vocals] comes in at night. What time do you guys get started?

"We always started at 11. He would shoot for 7:30, didn't always make it. The thing about Axl is, he has to be in the right frame of mind to sing, and it's taken him a while to figure out that he has the ability.

"I think he figured it out that he has the ability to get out on stage and perform and get it right away, but back then, he believed he had to get into a state of mind, an angry state of mind in order to sing.

"I don't think he has that anymore. I don't know for sure, but I don't think he feels that way. He still sings great."

When Axl would come in to do his vocals, you said he would have to get in an angry state, would he kind of just be to himself when he came in?

"Yeah, he would be very inwardly focused, he was quiet, except when he went out to sing, but he was quiet in the studio, he was never loud. He was a real gentleman in the studio."

Did Mike Clink have a system, that he wanted Axl to sing through the whole song, like one complete time, and then try it again and start comping from there?

"That's a good question - because it seems like that it varied depending on the song. Some songs, he could blow right through them. Some songs took a little more work on piecing it together, doing different parts at different times.

"And Axl was very good at knowing what he needed to do, he had a very sharp mind about knowing what needed to be done on a song, so he would just go in and do it.

"I don't even know how to describe it. Some songs he'd blow through, but other ones were a little more pieced together, but it was a matter of some of those things were difficult to transition between."

Are there any standout moments with Axl?

"He always - well, didn't always, but many, many times, he brought his girlfriend with him, and I always expected her to make a comment about what he was doing, and she never did.

"He never asked her, but all the time, she's standing there. I would expect them to say, 'Well, what do you think? How did that sound to you?' He never asked her one time.

"Axl knew, they all knew, they just knew there was something in that band that I can't really put my finger on, but it was a definite magical time. I had such a great time making that record.

"That record was - I learned so much, it was such a new experience for me, it was the first time I ever worked on an album a long period of time. Every other project before that I've been at most a week out.

"Then all of a sudden, I'm on a project that lasts three months, so that was a real-big learning curve. The pressures were different - they were just intense, but they were different.

"It didn't have to get it done immediately - we had a week to do this, two weeks to do this... That was kind of cool, so we really took the time to do the job right."

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