2006.05.05 - Eddie Trunk's Friday Night Rocks - Interview with Axl Rose and Sebastian Bach

Thanks to gnrfrance.com for some help with transcription.
----------------------

Eddie Trunk (host)
Chris Jericho (former professional wrestler, VH-1 personality)
Don Jamieson (comedian)
Sebastian Bach (Skid Row and Damnocracy lead singer)
Scott Ian (Anthrax and Damnocracy rhythm guitarist)
Axl Rose (Guns N? Roses lead singer)
Mike Piazza (Major League Baseball player)

Wow, not even sure where to begin. It has been an amazing week that ended with one of the most incredibly special nights of radio in my 23-year career. I always preach that I do a different type of radio show and you never know what will happen, and last night backs that up BIG TIME! It is all over the web and news that Axl Rose picked my show to break a silence of over a decade. Sure Axl has done some very small interviews in the past, but this was a 2 1/2 hour hang with me, Sebastian Bach, Scott Ian and Chris Jericho. When he walked into the studio to join us everyone was almost speechless for a second. There is WAY too much to talk about and cover. From how and why it happened, to what happened off the air, to what happened after the radio show ended and we hit the town until 6AM. Axl looked great and was totally cool. His only request was no photos, which is why none exist online. So much to tell you guys and I will post in much more detail very soon. In all honesty I am just completely wiped out and need some time to chill on all this. I was the first to play the new music years ago, and now the first to have an in depth interview with the legend himself! It was also great to clear the air and any tension with Axl between Mike Piazza and me over the leak. Mike actually called in and Axl was cool. I cannot say THANK YOU enough to Sebastian Bach for making this all possible! Bas and I spent a couple days together doing radio and TV in support of the new Supergroup show and told me he would get this to happen and he did. Simply put this would never have happened with out Bas, I owe you big time bro! Axl - thank you for this incredible exclusive and for being so cool and hanging. Who knows, maybe we will do it again soon...

- Eddie Trunk, Eddietrunk.com (5/12/2006)

Trunk: We're back. Our number 2 of our 3-hour weekly get-together and it's Eddie Trunk joined by special guests/co-hosts Chris Jericho, who is here, and our guest stars Sebastian Bach and Scott Ian in the studio. We hope to hear from Ted Nugent and Evan Seinfeld as well at some point. This new band is called Damnocracy. "Supergroup" is the name of the show which premiers on VH1 on May 21 at 10pm followed by the Supergroup post-show on VH1 Classic, every episode at 11. And basically, for those folks who haven't heard about Supergroup or don't know the whole genesis of this and what this is, why don't one of you guys take us through when you were first approached and the whole concept of the show?

Ian: Ahhh, I could probably pretty much say Sebastian and I, our careers have been on a trajectory...

Bach: You! TEXT!

Ian: ...since we started going like this and we met in Vegas...

Bach: What does this say right here?

Ian (?): What does this say right there?

Bach: Just read it.

Ian: It says, "Text message received from Axl. Read now?"

Someone: Let's read it.

Trunk: Sebastian is getting text messages and calls from Axl Rose who is down the street.

Bach: Hang on! Hang on. You want...

Trunk: And now...

Bach: I am not joking! It says, "Are you on the air? We're doing Nightrain right now".

Someone: Let me see!

Bach: Hang on, stop it! You guys, hang on, watch...this!

Trunk: He's about to call Axl Rose.

Bach: Stop it.

Trunk: On the cell phone. Listen to this, Sebastian talk to Axl Rose.

Bach: Hush.

Trunk: Eddie Trunk exclusively. He's having his call rejected right now.

Bach: [to Axl] Yo!! Axl! Dude, we are on the air right now!

Someone: He shouldn't be happy about that!

[laughter]

Trunk: You got to call him on this phone, this line, no one can hear him there!

Bach: [to Axl] You wanna come on the air?

Someone: "Click".

[laughter]

Bach: Okay, he said, "sure"!

Trunk: But we gotta do it on this phone! I will give you a number so he can call in on.

Bach: Nightrain is playing on his cell phone!

[cut out some parts]

[everybody goes nuts as Axl says he will call in on the landline]

Axl: [on the phone] Hello.

Trunk: This is Axl Rose?

Axl: Yes.

Trunk: It's Eddie Trunk, Sebastian Bach's here, Scott Ian's here, Chris Jericho's here and Sebastian just told me to call you.

Axl: Alright.

Bach: How are you doing, man? Everybody, New York City, say hello to Axl!

[applause in the studio]

Bach: Yeah!!

Axl: What's happening?

Trunk: How are you bro, what are you up to? Man, you've been New York a lot lately.

Axl: What I am up to is... [music playing loud in the background] ... we're up to rehearsal.

Trunk: Wow! What was that, what are you playing there? We couldn't hear too good.

Axl: They're playing Nightrain.

Jericho: That's awesome.

Trunk: Axl, I know you got the show's coming up at Hammerstein, of course they are all sold out, and everybody wants to know the lineup, who you got in the band now?

Axl: It's pretty much the same thing that we had in 2002 but it's, like, there will be somebody else there but I'm not gonna say who.

[laughter]

Bach: Right on!! Yeeeaaaah!

Jericho?: He's got his own supergroup!

Axl: No, no, it has nothing to do with the past.

Bach: That's very cool. Are you guys doing Madagascar?

Axl: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bach: Beautiful.

Trunk: Axl, I guess I gotta ask you the question, and everybody's obviously been asking for a long time, like 10 years, when's the record gonna come out?

Axl: Some time this fall or late fall.

Bach: Beautiful.

Trunk: Cool, and you're happy with it?

Axl: It will be out this year.

Trunk: You're happy with it? You are happy everything came out...

Axl: Yeah, way happy.

Trunk: That's cool, bro. And we're a couple blocks away from you, mid-town. And if you wanna come and hang, we'd love to see you.

Axl: Alright, uhm. I will call back and get the address and stuff. Yeah...

Bach: Yeeeahhhh!

Trunk: Come up and play some records and chill. We got cops here for security if you need it. No problem at all.

Axl: It's all good.

Bach: Beautiful.

Trunk: We obviously won't tell anyone where you are coming from or anything like that.

Axl: That's good.

Bach: Alright, bro.

Ian (?): Come talk some metal with us Axl.

Jericho?: Take it easy, Axl.

Axl: Waitwaitwaitwait... [music playing in the background, a fast solo is played] Could you hear any of that?

Together: Yeeeeahhh!

Jericho?: It sounds like a jet plane landing, man!

Axl: Alright.

Jericho?: It's heavy duty, man.

Axl: ...cell phone. [To someone else] There was a word[?].

Trunk: What happened?

Axl: Nothing, nothing.

Trunk: Dude, everybody is so pumped that you are back and you are doing stuff again, man, the buzz is tremendous and I saw you at The Garden a few years ago, after that show, and I know everybody's...

Axl: Yeah, it was fun.

Trunk: And everybody...yeah, it was in the middle of a snow storm too, man. You still came out, it was a good time.

Axl: Yeah, we just had another one out here, huh.

Trunk: Another one what?

Axl: Another snow storm, right? A couple of months ago?

Trunk: Yeah, absolutely.

Axl: I was here during that. New York's been really great to me lately. I've been out here, having a great time, everybody's been really cool...

Ian?: Is this where you have been doing most of your rehearsals, in New York?

Axl: ...checking out the pulp (?) scene and listening to different music. So it's been great.

Trunk: Yeah, I was gonna say. You've been hanging out in New York a lot. You've been popping up in the paper here and there and stuff.

Axl: Yeah.

Bach: So, are you living here now?

Axl: Ah, well, I've been staying in a hotel but basically since I haven't left I would say I am living here.

Bach: Cool man. It's a great place to be.

Axl: [more music in the background]

Trunk: Wait, we got some more music coming. Are you just opening up the door and letting us hear, is that what it is?

Axl: [music stops]. Anyway.

Bach: Yeaaah! Are you guys done, are you still jamming? You wanna come over?

Axl: I think we are about done. We're just gonna go through Paradise City real quick.

Bach: Jeeez. Well, let's go out and seems like it's a good night to fall off the wagon!

[laughter]

Bach: Hey, you know what?

Axl: I got a few places we could go.

Bach: Yeeeaaaaah! It's like a picked the wrong year to quit drinking!

Trunk: Axl, do you know about this reality show that Sebastian is doing with Scott Ian?

Bach: Who cares!

Axl: No, I don't.

Bach: You see, what, Axl...

Axl: I knew they were doing a band, I didn't know about a reality show.

Bach: Dude, we're gonna send a car right now for you and get you up here and you can pick some songs.

Axl: No, don't. I got people and stuff. If you can give me the address and stuff then I can figure out how to get there.

Bach: Beautiful.

Axl: It would be easier.

Trunk: We will let Sebastian call you back from his cell phone so he can do that off the air, okay?

Axl: Alright.

Trunk: Thanks bro.

Bach: Thanks man!

Trunk: Looking forward to seeing you man.

Axl: Have a good one.

Someone: See you in a bit.

Bach: Woooooww!!

[applause]

Bach: Who the man!? come on, come on, come on! How cool was that? Are you kidding me!?

Trunk: I owe you for life!

[everybody goes crazy]

[cut out lots of talk]

Trunk: I'm indebted to Sebastian forever! Let me take you through the back story. We shot this, Scott, Sebastian, Evan and Jason for Supergroup, we shot all this post-show moments yesterday for VH1 Classic and we're all together and Sebastian's telling me the whole day, "Dude, we're gonna hang out, we're gonna see Axl Rose rehearse, we're gonna hang out with him," you've been saying it all day. Then, of course, we're about to go, and he calls me, he can't get Axl, and I'm like, so it became like the boy who cried wolf...

Bach: I didn't know what was going on.

Trunk: You've been telling Scotty, "Dude, we're gonna hang out".

Bach: Here's how this happened: I was at home three night ago, I was in the basement mixing Edge of the World by Damnocracy and I don't know what I am doing - mixing. So it takes a long time. You don't know how many hours I spent doing that and it still isn't that great.

[laughter]

Trunk: Can we paint the scene here? About what's about to happen? Because Sebastian just went running out the room and claimed he's going to receive Axl Rose.

Ian: Apparently he just got a phone call, saying he's on his way. It's pretty mind blowing.

Trunk: It's beyond huge.

Ian: It's very surreal. I think the last time I actually saw this guy, it's gotta be early 90s, so I think Use Your Illusion or even before that. I mean, I haven't seen or talked to him in ages.

Jericho: Did you ever play any shows with him at all?

Ian: Never, no, we never actually played together.

Trunk: Is he with you or not?

Bach: I was just taking a whiz.

[laughter]

Trunk: Sebastian was opening the door and I was like, "oh."

Bach: Can I tell you something? I honestly, probably like the rest of the planet, I never knew, I never thought, you know like the rest of the world, I didn't know if I would ever see him ever again in my life. Like, ever! He's the Howard Hughes of planet Earth!

Someone: He has been a hermit. Who has seen him over the last, besides the MTV thing he did like three years ago?

Trunk: I saw him at the Garden, it was a couple of years ago.

Someone: But in the last four years...

Ian: Izzy saw him a couple of times in the last couple of weeks.

Trunk: [?]Antrax manager and you were hanging with him, Izzy.

Bach: You know what I think is crazy, though? And amazing? But wait, that's two Aerosmith songs in one sentence!

[laughter and talking]

Bach: He stays away for like over 10 years and then, like, People Magazine does a survey of like teenagers of America, "Who is the coolest person in the world?" and Axl Rose is like number 2 or something! Number 1, I think!

Someone: It's been so long since Guns N' Roses put out a record that they are now cool in a retro way.

Bach: They've always been cool.

Someone: But now even more so.

Bach: They were never not cool though.

Trunk: Let me just say something to the radio stations that run this show, thank you. And there's a little something for you, and for the ones

Bach: I am not a producer! So I come upstairs and it's like 11 o'clock at night and I'm kinda bagged out listening to you play guitar all day and I look on my phone and it says, text message, and it says, uh, some number I don't know, and it says, "Hey Baz, It's Axl. Are you still in New York City? What's going on?" I go, who is this doing this? Yeah right. Yeah, sure. So I just pressed, "Call". just watching TV, you know, not even thinking. I am thinking it is you or something. Chris Jericho, "Hey! It's Axl!".

[laughter]

Bach: And the phone rings and it goes, "Hello," and I go, "It's you," and he goes, "Ah-ha-ha-ha!". Laughing!

Jericho?: So you've had like the same cell number for 14 years?

[laughter]

Bach: No, no, he got it from Doc.

[laughter]

Jericho?: No, I thought it would be amazing if you would have had the same number.

Bach: I have had the same home number for like 15 years.

Ian?: Cause you lived there.

Bach: But I never answer that one. I never even check it, actually. That's for the goofy people.

[laughter]

Trunk: Oh well, so anyway. Here's the coolest thing, in the four years that this show has been on this radio station, if Axl does walk through the door, and even if it is late in the show, I just got permission from the Assistant Program Director, to stay on as long as he needs. That's big!

[cheering]

Ian?: Let's be honest though, if he comes in that will be the biggest star you've had on your show.

Jericho?: Yes, definitely.

Someone: Ah, Gene Simmons? Kiss?

[laughter]

Someone impersonating Simmons: "Chris Jericho, you might not be aware of my [?] standing. Axl Rose was in diapers when I was having [?]"

[laughing]

[cut out some talking]

Bach: Let me say this, everybody would always come up to me over these last 10 years and say "What's Axl like?" and first I say, "I haven't seen him in a long time, but he was just a really nice guy, like, to me, and it was always, a really good guy, you know? I have the same kind of mystique, I go on the Internet and read this stuff, and it's like, "He's an egomaniac!" "He's a crazy man!" "He's wild!" and stuff. Me and him. But I don't even, you know, people make up these big mystiques, and they create these mystiques about certain people and I have only seen Axl be like the nicest, coolest guy, the best singer...

Ian: He was always like that to me, every time I met the dude he was....

Trunk: I met him after the show at the Garden, I was with Piazza when I met him and, uh, and it was cool and then, obviously, I played his record after that not knowing what I did but it was cool the way I handled it and I will talk to him about that.

Someone: And Piazza accosted him about his t-shirt...

Trunk: Yeah. I don't know if he will remember that.

[cut out some talking]

Trunk: Our new intern Jeremy, he's two weeks in, he's answering calls from Axl Rose, I think he's freaking out (laughs). Shawn, talk to me baby! Talk to me! What is it Shawn? Is he coming up? He's coming up right now, oh my goood! (everybody's freaking out). Wait, I don't know if Shawn knows who we're talking about.

Bach: Wait! Get some music on!

Jericho: Steven Adler is coming is what he's saying

Bach: Get some music on something, dude! Come on, Nightrain! Come on, play Nightrain for me!

Trunk: Jericho, get away form the microphone will you? Ladies and gentleman, Axl Rose has just walked into the studio. I am not kidding you! Axl Rose is here. Sebastian Bach and Axl are having an embrace and, this is absolutely an amazing moment. I am speechless right now, man. (everyone's introducing to each other) Axl Rose has just walked in...fresh from Guns N' Roses rehearsal. Let the man get to the microphone!

Bach: ...in New York City, we were coming from the Giants Stadium show, with Mike Monroe in a limo, and then we dropped some Splenda, I do believe, on the carpet, and you went to the hotel, and me and Mike Monroe were scooting around, on the bottom of the limo, trying to find some Splenda...

Axl: We invented Splenda...

(laughs)

Trunk: Axl, thank you so much for coming in man! I appreciate it, it's an honor...thank you. What the hell happened? In 2006, everybody's on the Redbull all of a sudden! It's like the new thing. Do me a favor, swing that mic around.

Axl: A little while later it should be with the Vodka, Redbull/ Vodka...

Trunk: So, dude, I don't even know where to start man! (laughs) We kinda weren't prepared for this, but we couldn't be happier that you came in and hung out with us a little bit. Eh, tell us what you got going on with the show. You just been in town rehearsing and stuff, right?

Axl: Yeah, I'm just doing four warm up shows to get ready for Europe and we'll see what happens, and it just feels great you know. Everybody's excited, the band is excited. They were rehearsing in L.A, and then they're out here, and they're all excited to be here. It just feels good.

Trunk: Can you do me a favor with that mic and can you get it just a little bit closer? Thank you.

Axl: (...) easier too. I'll move closer to your mic.

Trunk: Thank you, I appreciate that Axl. So, you guys are doing the shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom here in New York and obviously, all four sold out, like immediately. Did you entertain the idea of doing a bigger venue or is it just a case of you wanting to do something smaller?

Axl: No, we wanted to do something small.

Trunk. Yeah...and the band is the same you had at the Garden when you played, except for no Buckethead right?

Axl: Right.

Trunk: And you can't announce who the new guitar player is, or you don't have one yet?

Axl: No, we have one, but I'm not announcing him.

Bach: Oooooh, so that's how you're gonna play it, huh? Okaaay, alright! This is, this is what he has been doing.

Trunk: Let me ask you this dude, because obviously everybody has been waiting forever for your record, and over the years there are certain songs that we've heard in certain places in certain times...

Axl: Oh yeah, what times were those there...!

Trunk: That would be my friend Mike Piazza who's not with us right now...

Axl: Huh-uh...

Trunk: But let me tell you something about that: Axl, I need to clear something up with that, because, and in all honesty, we turned that song over and I had it stripped out of my replays of my show and everything and like I...

Axl: No, no that's really cool...

Trunk: And I hope you know that, I never, it was not intended. Mike is the hugest fan on the planet of you guys and if you remember...this is a funny story I told you a couple of weeks ago. Mike and I went to see GN'R at the Garden a few years ago, and Axl came out onstage wearing sport jerseys from all the different teams in New York, but the only he didn't have was a Mets jersey, and Mike was...(Bach laughs)

Bach: I think he knew that though! I think he knew that!

Trunk: If you could have been in the audience...Me standing next to Mike, who was on his chair, pumping his fist the whole time...

Axl: And then kinda bummed...

(laughs)

Trunk: Axl, with each jersey, it was like a little more air came out of the balloon...

(laughs)

Axl: My chiropractor is a Mets fan, I gotta be really careful around him...

Trunk: Exactly, right!

Axl: He'll break my neck.

Ian: Imagine Axl, if you actually you walked out in a New York Cosmos jersey. He's got a Cosmos jersey! (laughs)

Trunk: Oh man, so is this the start of the whole onslaught that people have been waiting forever for GN'R, the record, and the touring...?

Axl: Hopefully. I mean, the last time when we did it it was like, a lot of people kinda pressuring to do it and thinking it was and stuff...and kinda talking me into it, you know, like, I psyched myself up. And, that US thing did really good for the guys in the band, I mean, they're all still there, I mean, Bucket's Bucket, you know, and he's kinda been in the same trip he's been before he was in, with us, and now he's out, he's kinda in a world of his own. But the rest of the guys, it did just enough that it helped everybody feel like a band and they stayed a band. So it worked out pretty good for us.

Trunk: So, essentially the story is it feels better for you this time around, like it's become more organically, the timing's right for you, you're ready, you're in the right space, you're ready to really commit...

Axl: Yeah, but at the same time, what I'm saying is that we needed to do the shows that we did, back then, to feel like a band. And we did just enough shows for ourselves as a band, and especially, the way the show went down, and the performance at Madison Square Garden, it just helped solidify things for as long as it needed to, to keep that band together.

Trunk: And that was the last show in New York, before the tour ended, can you tell people why the tour ended at that point?

Axl: Ah, no, not exactly.

Trunk: Ok (laughs)

Bach: Are you guys opening up for The Stones too? Coming up?

Axl: We're doing a couple of shows in Germany.

Bach: That's cool...

Trunk: That's unbelievable. I mean, so the European stuff, and then you come back, and the record hopefully in the fall finally...

Axl: Yeah, absolutely.

Trunk: And you also have Brian May on the record right?

Axl: I don't know if he'll actually be on the album. This hasn't been completely decided.

Trunk: Cuz I read a quote from him, he said: "Yeah, I recorded that a long time ago."

Axl: Yeah, he did. But that's still on the demo of the song.

Trunk: Right, and that's when I'm gonna ask you about the leaks. Not only what happened here years ago, but also recently, which I have nothing to do with...

Axl: I haven't listened to the leaks, so I don't know...

Trunk: Are they actually songs? Is it stuff...do you know what it was? Was it music that's gonna be on the record, or is it old stuff that's not even been used, do you know?

Axl: No, it's stuff that's gonna be on the record. Except, it's still debatable like...there's songs we're still shuffling around, I mean we recorded about 2 and a half/ 3 albums worth of material. So, there's still stuff that's gonna bounce between one and two.

Trunk: How long is the record gonna be? Is it like 2 CDs?

Axl: No, it'll be a regular CD.

Trunk: One CD. And since you're here, and there's so many rumors...and so much stuff people have said over the years. Let me address this one with you. Was there any...

Axl: (kinda tired) Weren't you guys doing an interview?

(everyone laughs)

Trunk: They're speechless.

Bach: We're all fans man!

Axl: Yeah, I mean, come on...

Trunk: This is all about you right now!

Bach: We're rock fans, man!

Trunk: You know what, this is funny Axl, this is the first time everyone in this room has shut up in the last two hours!

(laughs)

Axl: I don't have to worry about the clubs closing out here...

Bach: Yeah, that's right!

Trunk: I couldn't get a word out of Edgewise (??) until you walked in the room, and then there's this whole room full of loud noise (laughs). Let me ask you one more question that I want to find out too. There were some rumours circulating recently that there was talk that you would do or that there was rumblings about possibly doing shows with the original line up of the band and then...all rumour...

Axl: No, that's all nonsense. That's just people starting stuff for whatever reason. They'll hear the leaks, and they'll decide, who wrote the solo, you know because they don't like the guy that's playing it, they'll say someone else wrote it, people make up all kinds of stuff.

Trunk: Do you keep up with all that stuff though, or do you roll it off your back?

Axl: I have to keep up on it, because, there's a lot of the stuff sometimes you need to shut down, you know...so you like, have to be on top of what the people have...the people are doing the nonsense of what they're doing, so you can kinda stop some of it. Otherwise it would be a lot worse.

Trunk: Right. Dude, I mean, I'm so thrilled that you're here. What do you want to do man? Do you want to play music?

Axl: You guys do your thing!

Trunk: No, no, this is about you.

Bach: Do you want to pick some songs?

Trunk: Do you want to take some calls from people?

Axl: Noooo...aaaaah...Ace of Spades!

(everyone's clapping)

Bach: How about Dread Zeppelin?

Axl: Yeah, there you go!

Trunk: Do you need anything man? Food, drink, do you need anything at all?

Axl: No, I'm good. Brain was in a band called Ted Zeppelin.

Bach: Who was?

Axl: Our drummer. Yeah he had a band called Ted Zeppelin. It was a Zeppelin/ Nugent band.

(laughs)

Axl: Yeah, Ted Zeppelin.

Ian: Let me ask you Axl, we always talk about metal, we just talk about nothing else...the ongoing debate, I have to go there, I said I would ask you, who do you like better? Priest or Maiden?

(laughs)

Axl: Old Priest. (everyone's clapping) And the first Maiden album.

Trunk: (...) Well, as requested by Axl Rose, who's in the studio with us, this is Motorhead and Ace of Spades...

Bach: Yeaaaahhh!

Trunk: Kick some ass!

(Motorhead's Ace of Spades playing)

Trunk: Alright, there was Motorhead's Ace of Spades requested by Axl Rose, who's in your studio, yes you heard me right, it's Eddie Trunk, we gotta do a quick break and then we're gonna come right back with more with Axl Rose right after this, please, I know you're not going anywhere...

(Commercials)

Trunk: Alright, we're back on the air. Just a bit of a distraction going on back there for a second. Eddie Trunk with Sebastian Bach, Scotty Ian, Chris Jericho and you know this guy Axl Rose (laughs) you may have heard of. Axl's been nice enough after he called in to join us from rehearsal with GN'R rehearsing in New York City, getting ready for shows. No sense of mentioning the shows here in New York, cuz theyre all long sold out, and then you go to Europe, and then, hopefully from there...

Axl: We'll start doing the fall here. In the States.

Trunk: We'll see what happens. Baz, you orchestrated this thing, and you...

Bach: Axl orchestrated it...

Trunk: He showed up and you were the catalyst so...

Axl: I sent a text...I didn't what you guys were doing, your thing, I didn't know what was going on, I was just going hey it's time to call Bas...

Bach: Right on!

Trunk: Axl, can you get up on the mic? I'm sorry...

Axl: I just knew it was time to call Bas...It was like ok 13 years...and 40 days...(laughs)...call now!

Bach: How do you make that like window...?

Axl: I don't know...

Bach: Ok, well I've just got so many great memories of him like...

Trunk: You guys toured together right?

Bach: Yeah, but we also hung out a couple of...you know, quite a bit, you know....Everybody has you know this image of him, you know, and me of like this mystique or whatever, and people always say like: "what does that guy like?", and I go let me describe to you Axl, ok. We get in the nicest car at that time I've ever seen, some Mercedes or something, I think it was black, or it could have been silver, I can't remember, but this beautiful car, and I'm like, we're driving around Hollywood, and I'm thinking he's gonna put in you know, some music on man, and I don't know what he's gonna put on, cuz, you know I'm intrigued about people's musical tastes...

Axl: I'm getting scared...

Bach: ...and he grabs a CD, he looks through all the CDs and he goes: "I got it!", he puts it in, and, Axl cranks up W.A.S.P (laughs)...and he's rocking his head off... (Bach singing WASP)...and then I turned and I go: "I cannot believe, this is the choice of Axl Rose!" (Axl laughing his ass off). It's like this guy rocks man! And then, he's like, OK, Sebastian, I gotta...(radio playing WASP)...he's got a lot of taste, and then we stop, and he goes: "I gotta make one stop", so as the WASP is cranking, he pulls in some alleyway and he goes in the back of this restaurant and buys a tin of caviar, but $800! (everyone laughs) And he goes in the car and he goes: "Have you tried this man?" I don't know! He goes: "I paid 800 bucks for this man!" It's like: Geez!

Axl: Everybody else was doing blow so I was doing caviar and champagne (laughs)

Bach: To a WASP soundtrack!

Ian: Is the new Guns N' Roses' guitarist Chris Holmes? (laughs)

Axl: Yeah that's it! The Mean Man!

Jericho: (Unintelligible)

All: Woah (Laughter)

Jericho: Leave it to me to be the first guy to break the cherry

Bach: Have another brew.

Trunk: Leave it to the pro wrestler over here, huh

Jericho: Its always me

Trunk: Axl, were you into a lot of metal growing up? Where you a metal freak like all of us?

Axl: Yeah, yeah

Trunk: What bands did you love? Like the bands you just worshiped as a kid?

Axl: Well, Sabbath

Trunk: Yeah, of course. Now let me ask you this because a lot of people who come in here, like I'm 41, Baz is a couple of years younger, Scotts the same age.....

Axl: Oh, we gotta get into that, great

Trunk: Oh no, no, no, I'm not asking you that, I'm just trying to get the time line....

Axl: Where's my Geritol?

Trunk: I'm not asking you like that.....

Axl: I need some ensure

Trunk: For me my first Sabbath album was actually Heaven and Hell so I'm wondering where did you come in Sabbath where you into... I got Heaven and Hell and than went back, but I mean where you a Dio?, did you come in on Ozzy?

Axl: Like, Technical Ecstasy

Bach: Yeah, right on, right on!

Trunk: Because so many people its surprising they come in, no we started with Dio around 80 and than we went back and learned the other stuff, so...

Axl: No, no. I had a friend in like 7th or 8th grade who sold all the pot but I didn't smoke pot but I'd go to, like, he had this black room and his dad was a guitar teacher and I'd go sit there and he was actually cool about, he didn't, like, where other people would mess with you if you chose to or not do drugs or whatever you know he didn't, but turned me on to Sabbath you know and....

Bach: That's cool

Trunk: Wow, and what else?

Axl: I was just really into Ozzy singing at the time

Trunk: Right

Bach: Yeah, you liked Dan McCafferty to though right?

Axl: I don't know, I would listen to about everything, I can't right now trying to figure out what I listened to at the time

Trunk: Where you a Kiss fan at all? Cause Baz...

Axl: I liked the hits that were on the radio, I mean the same car he's talking about I would, like, ride around you know and like sneak up on people at the bus stop, because I had a really loud stereo, sneak up on them at the bus stops and start Dr. Love....

Bach: Yeaaaah, Dr. Love

Axl: Dr. Love has always been one of my favorite songs because they played it on AM radio and if you know Gene and you know Gene's world and you think about Gene's world backstage and where his tongue was going, it just, I can't believe they play that song on AM radio back in the day

Trunk: Especially the little bridge part....

Axl: (Singing like Gene Simmons) "You're not the only one I ever had". You know?

Bach: What about "Christine Sixteen"?

Trunk: Right!

Ian: What was that about?

Bach: What is the middle part? He goes...

Axl: Yeah, I don't understand the meaning

Bach, Trunk: "When I saw you walk out of school that day"

Bach: "That day I knew, I knew I've got to have you, I've got to have you"

Axl: And he's like twenty something and he's in this beat up car, stoned, cruising the high schools

Trunk: Wait the best part about that, here it is (Christine Sixteen starts to play)

Bach: Ooh, its creepy

Axl: It is, isn't it

Trunk: And the best partt is out of that he goes "She's been around, but she's young and clean"

Ian: the best Gene lyric though is in "Going Blind" when he says...

Ian, Bach: "I'm 93, and you're 16"

Ian: 93!

Bach: I know that's perfect, (Unintelligible) is scaring me in that song

Jericho: 63 wasn't bad enough

Ian: By the way, Ed Trunk, Gene will be expecting a royalty check for...

Trunk: No, I just played, (Impersonates Gene Simmons) "You just played Christine Sixteen on New York radio, Ed. I get three cents on that please. Payable to Gene Simmons Empires."

Axl: You'll get that call!

Trunk: No doubt man. So what do you want to play? Do you want to play some music? Do you want to talk to some people? Do you want to just hang? What do you want to do? I'm asking the room

Bach: Let's play some music

Axl: Play some music

Trunk: What do you want to hear? "Christine Sixteen"?

Bach: He wanted the Nazareth song

Axl: It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to me.

Trunk: I have the Nazareth song but it's the live version, I don't know if it's bogus or not

Ian: Thin Lizzy

Bach: Thin Lizzy, Hey, "I'm A Rocker" by Thin Lizzy. "I'm A Rocker".

Jericho: Do you have that?

Trunk: Yes, of course I do

Jericho: With your close personal friend John Sykes, Ed

Trunk: Yeah but this is pre John Sykes

Bach: Or you know, "Bad Reputation" could be appropriate

Ian: "Bad Reputation", cowboy song

Bach: Yeah, you know "Do What You Wanna Do" is a great song

Axl: Ehh, you really want to play a cowboy song in the Brokeback Mountain Days?

Jericho: He's on fire

Bach: Nice, he hasn't changed a bit

Trunk: Baz, give us one story from when you toured with Guns N' Roses, besides the one you just told. Anything from the road that you recall?

Bach: Well there's many things, you know. There's one thing Axl wasn't afraid to kind of tell it like it is a couple times.

Axl: Or tell it like it wasn't.

Bach: Well, I remember when we were doing Slave To the Grind record, I was literally out of my mind you know, partying a little too much in Hollywood and you know Axl called up Doc and Scott and said you gotta get your boy out of Hollywood and Scott's like why and Axl goes "Cause he's gonna die".

Trunk: Did you say it like in "Welcome To the Jungle"? Did you scream "You're gonna die"?

Axl: No, but sometimes you all have to watch out for one another...

Bach: That's right.

Axl:.... and don't let it get to far over the edge.

Bach: And I don't forget that, I never forget that.

Axl: He had to get out of Hollywood, I had to gey out of New York. I'd come here and after about a few couple of weeks we'd be like "W w w we need to get out of here, w w w were gonna die". You know because you're the one who's now the bartender at the hotel.

(laughs)

Bach: And than you were telling me the other day that you lived in China for three months?

Axl: Yeah, we went and stayed in China for about three months, Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian

Bach: What was that like?

Axl: We'll he filmed like, you know they eat alot of bugs.

Bach: What is it like the Fear Factor show?

Axl: Absolutely

Trunk: How long ago did you live there?

Bach: Did you eat bugs?

Axl: Well, I didn't live there, we just went and stayed there a couple of years ago.

Trunk: A couple of years ago. That inspired the name of the album at all?

Axl: No it was before that but then I just thought I should go. I wanted to go before they banned me. So, you know, I mean Chinese Democracy that doesn't quite work for the government over there.

Bach: Hey, I want to ask you this. What do you think of that jack-off band The Offspring?

Axl: It doesn't mean anything. I mean I'm not saying that they don't mean anything , it just doesn't matter you know?

Bach: No, its just, I'm like, Get your own scene dude. It's like get your own thing

Axl: But what I would say is like didn't they have a song for I think the movie Orange County or something?

Trunk: I don't know I'm not a fan.

Axl: But they had a song that I liked its message and everything and it was like "Well aren't you, you by the stuff you're talking, aren't you going against your own song?" You know I dug what there song was about standing up for yourself and this kind of thing and then they were turning around and being the opposite. That what I thought was interesting.

Trunk: The story was that they tried to take the title of the record or whatever

Axl: Yeah, well you know

Bach: It didn't work

Axl: Every time a lot of people are putting out a record its like ok well let's talk about this

Jericho: Do you even listen to that Axl? Do you even care like the speculation in the media and all that do you even pay attention...

Axl: No, Oh no, not at all never, Um mmm......

Trunk: None of you guys were obviously at the Madison Square Garden show.

Axl: .... never, I'm unfazed

Trunk: And you remember man we went to that show and after the show.......

Axl: When have you ever known me to be reactionary?

Bach: Dude, the first time I ever met you, we were opening for Aerosmith at the L.A. Forum and the first knock on the door was David Lee Roth. He goes "Heeey, man.....

Axl: No, he.... You and I were telling him that he was one of our biggest influences, our biggest inspirations. First thing is like, we meet and he...... has........ two joints and two beers and hands me one of each.......

Trunk: Is that Sebastian or Roth?

Axl: Uh, Sebastian, and....and ...... and then we started singing "Train Kept A Rollin'" because now I'm gonna get to go sing it with Aerosmith, and so the whole room kind of freaks out and starts staring at us, you know, and then later were telling David Lee Roth he's like one of our biggest influences.......

Bach: He took us out!

Axl: .....and to his defense he later apologized but he comes up, puts his arms around both of us and goes "You guys aint nothing but pretenders to the throne"...

Bach: I'll never forget this in my life

Axl: ..... and he's, Baz, is like (higher voice) "Dude! Why are you being such a dick?"

Bach: No, let me give my side to that, ok? So here I am with like my heroes and stuff hanging out, Rick Rubin was the guy who drove us to the Rainbow and David Lee Roth wanted to take us out so (Phone rings), that's my "Balls To The Walls" ringtone.

Trunk: Baz has a ring tone from Accept?

Bach: Yeah

Axl: I heard Izzy was.... I was hanging out with Izzy here in New York and I heard that, uh, he was telling me that Udo's wife wrote all those lyrics..

Bach: Wolf's wife, Wolf's wife

Trunk: Her name was Dioffy(sp?)

Axl:.... and she wrote all the lyrics to "Balls To The Wall", he was kind of freaking out about that

Bach: And their kind of like gay lyrics, kind of...... but anyway

Trunk: Well, but there written by a woman though

Axl: "London Leather Boys"

Bach: So they...

Axl: I had this friend that wore this Judas Priest shirt, he goes "I wore that "Ram It Down" shirt for like a year"

Jericho: Don't get me started. There was "Jawbreaker"....

Axl: ...... he was really upset about that. Go on

Bach: Oh my god. Just my side of the David Lee Roth thing, he.... um, I remember him taking us out there and I was in the middle of Axl and David and I remember vividly Brett Michaels came and to the table and goes "Hey man, can I sit down with you guys?" and we go "NO!" So anyway Dave is really being cool and he's being funny. He orders a drink and he's like this "Medic!" like he's being total Dave, but the more whiskey he drinks the meaner he gets, and I just sense this vibe and than, uh and than, the way I remember it, he takes one shot of Jack, looks over at you and me and he goes "Well, it looks like I got a couple pretenders to my throne right here.", and you looked at me like "What did he just say?" Cause I......

Axl: I just remember you going "Duuude!", it was like.... (higher voice) "Why are you being such a dick?"

Trunk: I can't believe Sebastian would ever say something like that

Axl: I know its hard to picture

Bach: But than the next week I got this letter...

Axl: Yeah, I got a letter too

Bach: .......yeah, hand written from David Lee Roth saying "Hey man..."

Axl: Well mine was from a judge

Bach: .......he goes "You two guys remind me of why I first got into music and stuff..."

Axl: Yeah, but than he goes and turns around and does it again, later and, so I just, you know, whatever

Bach: Yeah, yeah

Jericho: At least you guys are on the airwaves in New York City and he's not

Axl: Dave's great

Bach: I love Dave, I love Dave

Axl: You were just playing some, right?

Trunk: No we haven't played Van Halen yet. We can though.

Axl: Oh that's because I was listening to your competition, that's right

Trunk: Well you know what, you're on this station now, not theirs, so there you go, enough said.

Bach: I want to hear "Out of the Tiles" by Led Zeppelin though

Trunk: Alright we can do that. Do you want to do that right now?

Bach: Yeah, this is one of the songs we did in the Damnocracy band...

Trunk: Tell Axl about your thing man, he doesn't even know

Bach: Well we have Jason Bonham in this band so we did each song by each of us, we did Only by Anthrax. We didn't know if we should do a Bonham song like Air(Race?) His other band....

Ian: Jason didn't want to do a Bonham song. He was like "Let's do a Led Zeppelin song"

Bach: Yeah, so we wanted to do "Whole Lotta Love" because Ted knows that and its good for my range. Right, that's a good song for me. So, uh, but we had to get clearance from them, right? So Jason had a meeting with Robert Plant........

Axl: What do you mean "Its good for your range?" When you have a.......

Bach: Well its in there. Its in there

Axl: I mean that's a pretty big parking space

Bach: Awww, thank you, dude, that's nice of you . Coming from you that's.......

Trunk: Axl Rose that's, you know, look at Baz he's glowing right now baby

Bach: No. You know the only other time he said that "You gotta hear this guy, his friend Shannon, is when you said that to me. You go "He's got a higher voice than you man." and I was like "What?" And he did have a higher voice

Trunk: Yeah and the first time anyone saw Shannon Hoon was in the Don't Cry video, that was the first time that, uh.......

Bach: So anyway, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page go "Why are you doing that song?" Like its so obvious, and Robert goes "I wonder what Sebastian would sound like doing a song like "Out On the Tiles" by Led Zeppelin. Then I was like cool. Than I started learning it and the second verse is completely out of time. Coming in, its not on a count, it's a studio flub. So I know he was having a little chuckle, like, have at it. You know what I mean.

Trunk: Speaking of Zeppelin stories, Kramer told me once that the echo back in "Whole Lotta Love" "Way down inside.." you hear it down in the background, that that is actually a mis... that the tape was over saturated, it was a mistake on the tape and they played the play back and Eddie heard it and he's like "Oh man, that take is bad" and Robert and Jimmy were sitting there and they go "No, play that again" and they listen to it again, cause it was a different take on the track and they left it like that. That was a mistake that they intentionally left. You couldn't even do that now because nobody has analog tape anymore, you know.

Bach: Hey, how do you feel about Pro Tools on lead vocals?

Axl: What do you mean?

Bach: Like, I mean I just went through this horrible experience doing this album with this guy that like took my lead vocals and like put them and made them so perfect that it was nauseating, like that's the style now of producing lead vocals, like making it so perfect that to me it sucks

Axl: I think that there all types of different ways to do it, I mean you can definitely overproduce it and make it too perfect that it's a nightmare and it makes it sterile. Or you can use a little bit of everything. You can push it every way possible using the technology and doing it, everything you can do. We.... the only thing you have heard has been the leaks but there's different things where its just like.... I don't like to stretch things with Pro Tools or anything like that. I don't like that kind of cheating...It's a lot faster.

Bach: Yeah, yeah!

Axl: It depends on the quality of the sound.

Bach: But it's like one of my favourite vocal moments is like...

Axl: But like, the whole auto tuning kinda thing...

Bach: It makes me sick!

Axl: ..house music. Hey I got a good - Wait. House music. So I was talking with Jimmy Iovine and he says - I love this story. He says he was with Bono back, you know, way back on...I think it's Joshua Tree or whatever. "With Or Without You" was on it, ok? So, Bono plays him some music and goes: "This is house music." Jimmy listens to it, and then he plays "With Or Without You", and Jimmy goes (impersonating Jimmy Iovine): "No, this is house music! If you put that out, you can buy a house!"

(aughs)

Bach: That's funny.

Trunk: Axl, let me ask you something real quick, and we're gonna put a song. I wanted to ask you this: Tommy Stinson's still in the band right?

Axl: Absolutely.

Trunk: And I had read, cuz I'm a huge Soul Asylum fan, and I had heard that Dave Pirner, is he on the record too? Or did he do something on the record? On the GN'R record?

Axl: Not that I'm aware of. (laughs) Not that would be a bad thing, but I don't know anything about that...

Trunk: Cuz I knew that Pirner, I mean that Stinson also did some stuff with Soul Asylum, so, and like I said, there's all rumors...

Axl: No, but we haven't crossed any path with them, other than that.

Trunk: Oh ok. Cuz again, I heard Brian May, Dave Pirner, I hear about all these guests that were on this record...

Axl: Well, we just have...We worked with different people over time, on different ideas here and there, and then you've ended up keeping some of the same songs. But maybe you don't work with the person that you did something with a long time ago. We did a lot of different things with, a lot of different guitar players so...

Trunk: Yeah. How many songs? It's been, you've been working on the record for, what has it been now? 10 years? Is it that long? Or longer?

Axl: I don't know...

Trunk: (laughs) On and off...

Axl: It's definitely on and off. So...

Trunk: So, how many songs total exist? Like, how much of a body material did you have to ultimately pull from this record? Was it like, 50 songs? You had to come up with the 10 that are going to make the record? I mean, that's part of the process, you just...

Axl: That's kinda like everybody's thing, isn't it? But, there's a lot what we've kept. I mean, there is, there's 2 records that the majority of the music's done, and the majority of the vocals are done. And there's another half of a record that's being worked on. We were actually working on a song a little bit tonight that's not, even on the first two records.

Bach: Cool! I can remember when they were doing "Use Your Illusion"...and the...

Axl: Well "Use Your Illusion" has got...You know, there's a much longer...I won't, there's a much longer story that..."Use Your Illusion" is...(sigh) basically Slash wanting to take over the band, Izzy being in his drug world, and the only way that we were able to even survive as a band was to make this double thing you know, like Slash's solo record, Izzy's solo record, and then I wrote stuff, but I mean, I had the phone calls of calling these guys going: "I'm not doing yours, if you don't do his!", and then calling Izzy and saying: "I'm not doing yours, if you don't do his! And I'm not doing either of yours, unless we do mine, and we'll do mine last!" But, it was that kinda fight for years. You know...

Trunk: How about the videos from those records man, for the Illusion records, I mean, those...

Bach: I got the best Guns N' Roses video, and you never seen it...It's...

Axl: I don't know...

Bach: ..."It's So Easy"

Axl: No, I just think it's corny, so...I don't know, I just, I like the filming of it, that whole aspect, but...

Trunk: Is there a favourite video that you've done? Like "Welcome To The Jungle"? Like that first...

Axl: Look, all I know is all I really wanted to do, this is dead serious. "Sweet Child". Huh, what I really wanted to do for that and...that was having about this woman from the Orient bringing her baby and getting it you know through customs and stuff, and carrying this baby and everything, but at the end, some guy splits it in half cuz it's dead and filled with heroin...

Bach: Ooooh...My God!

Axl: ...but the record company wouldn't let me do it. That's what Sweet Child was supposed to be about.

Bach: Dude, I gotta mention, Del James gave me a copy, maybe he shouldn't have...of the "It's So Easy" video.

Axl: Oh, that's fine.

Bach: That's a good one. That's my favourite Guns N' Roses video.

Trunk: What's going on in there?

Bach: It's...

Axl: That's where I'm spanking Erin (Everly)...I'm spanking Sweet Child so...

Bach: There's an S&M, very quick shot at the end, oh man! But it's all like, you know...

Axl: Yeah, but the messed up part of that is: you remember Earl, you know the security guy I had?

Bach: Yeah, yeah.

Axl: So, Earl is this big huge black guy you know, and we went to the Pleasure Chest to buy the bondage gear for the video. But the guys behind the counter just seen me with this huge giant black guy and they think that...(laughs)...they're looking at me like: "Yeaah! You're one of us, it's cool! Thumbs up man! Right!" And I'm like...(laughs) that was messed up. They were like just..."Alright man. You rock dude!"

Bach: You're taking one for the team!

(laughs)

Trunk: You know what's amazing too, I remember, I worked for a label in the 80's, and I remember back when they had the WEA conventions. The very first time I heard Guns N' Roses. Because, they had all these sweets, and all the WEA labels got together and showcased their new music, and I'll never forget, walking into the room, and the guy from Geffen bringing me over and saying: "This is a new band I want you to check out. They're called Guns N' Roses. I want to show you the video." And he put the video on for "Welcome To The Jungle", and cranked the hell out of it, and I remember everyone just jaws on the floor like: "Oh my god, everything is about to change..."

Axl: But it didn't, it didn't. We released that thing 3 times.

(untelligible)

Jericho: ...I remember seeing the Ritz in New York the first time.

Axl: They were shoving it down. I tried to get you to do that with "Slave To The Grind", with the song.

Bach: To what?

Axl: I tried to get you to push "Slave To The Grind". I told you to keep releasing it until people finally go like: "Ok, we give up!"

(laughs)

Bach: I actually...

Axl: Yeah, but I wanted him to release it again, and again.

Bach: I like the way you're thinking! Can I say something? The first time I ever saw or knew Guns N' Roses, I was in a band called Madame X. So anyways we were on tour, I was about 17 years old, or 18 years old, and I was in a supermarket in, like, I don't know, Maryland or something, and I bought a Hit Parader magazine and I saw, I never heard of Guns N' Roses, just one picture, and your hair was completely teased, but on your pants you wrote: "Glam sucks!!" And I literally got mad in the supermarket! I go: "Who? Why does this guy have teased hair but he has Glam sucks! on his pants?"

Axl: I think that was wide out too. (laughs)

Bach: But you were making a statement right there! And in the supermarket you were messing with my head.

Axl: I think it's like Kurt Cobain on the cover of Rolling Stone and like "Corporate mags suck" or whatever, too.

Bach: But you did it first.

Ian: The first time I saw Guns N' Roses was in Winnipeg, Canada, that's where I grew up. Yeah, you guys were touring with The Cult. And no one really knew Guns N' Roses by the summer of '87 and these like bums walked onstage, and this guy walked up to the microphone and said: "You wanted the best? Well they ain't here, this is Guns N' Roses!" (laughs) And Duff plugged in and it was like "eeeeeee" and started "It's So Easy" and within about 3 seconds it was like: "These guys are the greatest ever!"

Axl: "It's So Easy"...was originally a hippie ya-ya song. And Duff and West wrote this song like on acoustic, and it literally went like: (singing country-like) "I see your sister in a sunday dress..." Oh absolutely, and we were rehearsing in L.A and Slash basically just starts raping the song and I ran up and started like, doing like the evil Iggy Pop over it, while West is standing there and his face is like drooping, like: "My song "

Bach: "Look what they done to my song?"

Axl: Yeah. We just destroyed his song right there.

Bach: How's West doing?

Axl: Huh, he's not.

Bach: No?

Axl: West is no longer with us.

Bach: Oh my lord...

Axl: So, maybe he's doing better. (laughs) He appreciates that you cared...

Bach: I remember hanging out, and drinking, and doing a bunch of stuff. I also remember, remember when I punched Izzy's brother in the face cuz he called me a homo? Like, I didn't know who he was...remember?

Axl: (laughing) I remember something like that...

Bach: It was at Alpine Valley, you were like: "Sebastian, I'm taking you on the road", I was like: "Thank you so much!". And I sit there watching your gig, and some guy comes up to me. I'm sitting there and he goes: "You're such a pretty boy, man! Look at you man! Look at you!" I go: "Hey man, come here!" Boooom! and I punched him right in the face!

Axl: Probably Joe.

Bach: (untelligible) and they get me up against the wall. And they go: "Dude, that's Izzy's brother!"

Axl: Skid Row was second choice...for the tour you were second choice.

Bach: Who was number one?

Axl: N.W.A (rap band). I tried SO hard to make that happen and...couldn't. I mean, I wanted to do this. But I was trying to like, cuz I just wanted to take...you know, cuz nobody knew who those guys were at the time. You know, and it's like...I turned Izzy onto it and he was talking about that the other night. He goes: "All I know is you put this thing in and I heard it and I was like: Yeah let's buy guns!! (laughs) And I did, I went out and I bought all these guns!" (laughs)

Trunk: What's Izzy doing now?

Axl: Huuh...he's probably gonna be out here. He might show up for the shows or something, we'll see.

Bach: Ooooh...wooooooh...I'm trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Axl: I don't know, I don't mean like being vague. I have no idea. Izzy does what Izzy does. I mean, it's like, you talk to Izzy one day and then you think hey we're gonna go over here to this record store but whatever. The next day you find out he's in Trinidad you know...or he's like, no I just had to go to the desert and do donuts in Nevada, you know. He races like hardcore racing trucks in Baha. He does stuff like that, so...

Trunk: Where does he live?

Axl: In L.A.

Trunk: In L.A. Alright, the point I was trying to make with the whole Guns N' Roses story, with the "Welcome To The Jungle" story, is that I remember that whole introduction vividly. Working in the records industry and how it happened, and now, here we are, whatever it is, almost 20 years later, and are you amazed at what that song has become? And the point is that you cannot turn on a live sporting event...

Axl: They play a lot of things, I mean...

Trunk: But that more than anything now man...

Axl: (humming something)

(untelligible)

Bach: Some young dude...

Axl: Fambla(??)

Bach: That's horrible! That's kinda like I cringe when I hear that at the sporting events. I cringe when they play a Great White song man...I mean...I'm like: "How can you play this band?" Like on VH1 Classic.

Ian: They play "Rock Me" like every week.

Axl: I have the quintessential Great White story though.

Bach: You do?

Axl: I do. Ok, so Jack is doing all of these blow...(Baz' laughing)...with all these guys...

Trunk: You guys had the same management at one point, didn't you?

Axl: All these middle-eastern guys right. Ok, and he runs out of cash. Right, and he wants some more. So somehow he manages to catch a fly, right. And he goes in the bathroom, he chops the fly in half and he puts it in a veil, an empty veil right. And then he comes out, and he puts like half a fly in front of these guys sitting there you know, it's no big deal. He's got a straw, he pisses it off, he acts like he snorts this fucking half a fly...(laughs - because of the swearing on live radio)...There's half a fly up his nose right. Ok. So, they're like: "what are you doing?". He goes: "It's this Afghanistan titsy fly you know and it's like, they'll annihilate you, and you'll be hallucinating all this stuff." And he eventually trades the other half for a bunch of blow. Right, so, then he gets the blow, this other guy snorts off half a fly and it gets stuck up in his nose. (laughs) You know. And Jack goes running down the street...

Jericho: How did he catch a fly? Was he Jack Miagi? (sp.?)

Axl: I have no idea! Yeah. Wax on, wax off.

(Bach singing Great White)

Trunk: Oh my god. You guys wanna play records or you got stories like this...?

Axl: I don't understand, a titsy fly.

Bach: That's some goood fly dude!

Trunk: Oh my god. Alright, well we're gonna play, you wanna hear "Out On The Tiles" right?

Bach: Yes!

Trunk: Alright, we're gonna do that but I got a 3 minute break and then we'll come back and I promise you we'll play that. We're gonna go as long as we need to go so...Axl Rose, Sebastian Bach, Chris Jericho, Scott Ian. By the way, the Supergroup show May 21st on VH1. Scott Ian and Sebastian...

(laughs)

Ian: (ironically) By the way...

Trunk: (laughs) at 10 o'clock. And look for the GN'R record to come out in the fall and the tour to follow as Axl Rose is hanging out with us. Baz! What have I gotta do? Buy you dinner for a life or what? We'll come right back...Oh my god, hold on a second, we got a little problem with these commercials...

(commercials break)

Trunk: Alright we're back. Eddie Trunk here. Scott Ian hanging out, Sebastian Bach, and Axl Rose in the studio, and you know what man? We are gonna go past our end time because...

Axl: (ironically) I've never done that before!

Trunk: You never got past ti...(realizing) (laughs)

Bach: Axl's always on time! I gotta paint that picture! I gotta paint that picture! Nassau Coliseum, 1991, we're on stage, Doug Goldstein...we do our all set...

Trunk: Doug Goldstein is the manager, just for people listening right now.

Axl: At the time.

Bach: So I turn around, I'm ready to leave, we've done our set and he goes: "Keep going!", I go: "Whaaat? What do you mean keep going?". So we do a couple of Aerosmith songs,and we do "Youth Gone Wild" again, we actually did it twice in the set, I swear! And I go: "What is going oooon?" So, we come off stage finally, and then...

Axl: That was a mess. But that is another night that WASP saved the day. All these things went really bad and all of a sudden I put WASP on, I got fired up and stuff, starting jumping over all the furniture, and I went through the show...

Bach: (laughs) Are you serious?

Axl: Absolutely. I kinda got set up to got things go wrong. And so, the person that was involved in that was staring at me when I discovered the WASP, like: "How did he...And why...And certainly why is he turning around and he's now fired up when before he was suicidal, and he was exactly where I wanted him to be, and now HE'S PULLING OUT OF IT! AND NOW HE'S GONNA DO THE SHOW! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??" And I'm like: "YEEEES!!" And then I went onstage and blamed it all on Tom Zutaut. It didn't really have to do with Tom I guess, but...

(untelligible)

Bach: The definition of cool, alright. The definition of cool. Everybody's FREAKING OUT backstage, like the whole arena is imploding, all the fans are screaming...

Axl: I find that very hard to believe. That's very unusual.

Bach: It was like midnight. So anyways. Everybody's freaking out, and me and Mariah are walking down, we see all this commotion down on the hallway, right. Like, people jumping around, just going...I go: "What is going on?" So I walked down the hallway, and it's you surrounded by a maelstrom of people, jumping and freaking out...

Axl: I was afraid with the maelstrom (male-strom), I wasn't sure where that was going...

Jericho: Male love!

Bach: So you got Stephanie on your hand, and you looked like bored, you were like whatever. And I go: "Dude! Where were you?" And you go like this, you go "I was taking a shower..."

(laughs)

Axl: Yeah, I don't know, man.

Bach: Yeah that's what you said! You said: "I was taking a shower"! It's like, right on dude!

Trunk: Scott, do you have any GN'R stories? You've been quite silent in this whole thing.

Ian: I'm just taking the whole thing in.

Axl: We've never really crossed paths, though, did we?

Ian: Not so much, I saw you guys a couple of times in the early days, those early Ritz shows.

Axl: I met some of the guys in the band and stuff, you know. They were always really great so, and then... Not the Ritz, there was a place, a smaller place...

Trunk: Cat Club?

Bach: Cat Club?

Axl: No, no, not in the city.

Ian: I remember in '86 when you guys played The Ritz...

[someone suggesting L'Amour, the famous Brooklyn club that GN'R played in October 1987]

Axl: Yeah, that's it.

Ian?: I remember in '86 at The Ritz...

Axl: We played with M.O.D [= Method of Destruction] there I think, or something.

Ian?: And I walked in the dressing room and I didn't know any of you guys. I just walked in there and Izzy looked up at me and he goes, "S.O.D.", just like that. And that was that, like instant bond, and Slash was wearing an Anthrax shirt on stage and I couldn't believe it.

Someone: Super cool.

Bach: That is the heaviest riff ever, by the way [humming a riff].

Axl: And Izzy turned me onto 2 Live Crew.

Trunk: Interesting, interesting. And Jericho, anything you want to share? A Guns N' Roses story?

Jericho: I actually have a bone to pick with Mr. Rose.

Trunk: Oh come on, it's been going so well up to this point, dude!

Jericho: I have to say it, man, I have to say it.

Trunk: Dude, if you blow this you are never coming in here again.

[laughter]

Jericho: I wouldn't do that, you know, you know how much of a fan I am of everything. So I saw Axl and the boys with the Cult in 87, then about a year later you guys came back..

Axl: Did I just hear "a boat"?

[laughter]

Bach: I gotta go, I got a skadoo.

Someone: What are you talking about? Hey Sebastian, help me out...

[Bach continuing to speak in exaggerated Canadian]

Jericho: So we, I saw Guns with the Cult and then you guys came back with Iron Maiden on the Seventh of the Seventh Son tour. You were hanging out in the backstage area, like in the parking lot.

Axl: We were singing, "We want some..." [= We Want Some Pussy by 2 Live Crew from 1986 album The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are].

Bach: Pool? [?]

Axl: No, the 2 Live Crew song. Yeah, we wanted some vagina monologue.

Someone: Right, we want some pussies but like kitty cats. I'll just come out and say it because I get beeped...

Axl: We wanted some smoke...

Jericho: So anyways, you were on a skateboard, you were skateboarding up and down the ramp and like like a total nerd fanboy, " Axl, can I have your autograph?" And you're like, "Yeah dude, I'll be right back."

Axl: And I never came back?

Jericho: And then you skated into the arena and you never came back and I was waiting!

[laughter]

Bach: You're still waiting!

Jericho: I am still waiting!

[laughter]

Ian?: You're not getting it today, either.

Jericho: My friends were like, "Dude, [?] Axl's gonna come back"

Axl: It's better to be waiting for that than, like, you know, when they guys outside the hotel going, "Dude, man, my girlfriend like went up there with Izzy. I've been waiting." It's like. "Yeah, I think you're gonna be waiting a lot longer, dude!"

Bach: I can remember, I can remember staying up all night with Slash in his room, uh, snorting Splenda and, like, you know, after the show...

Ian: The snorting just gave it away!

Bach: It's like noon, you know, and I look like, you know, just walking death and stuff, it's like, "Time to try to go to sleep," I walk out of the hallway and there's Izzy playing frisbee with his dog in the hallway, like the dog's doing flips!

Axl: Yeah, but better than that, in Indiana he had this rig hooked up with like a parachute and a pulley and a tree - I don't know. He had, and the wind would catch the parachute, pull you up in the air, and then he would shoot his Uzi at stuff, you know. It's something weird he had rigged up. We came to New York during the making of Use Your Illusions and his face was like just one big scab, it was all messed up, because he had got a brand new Beamer, M-something at the time, and then took a corn fielding and hit like a ditch in a culvert, right? And air bagged and everything, right? So we get out here and then, like, we go meet WASP! That's what we did today [?] Oh my god, it's a lost night.

Trunk: Do you want me to get Blackie Lawless on the phone because his ears got to be ringing.

Axl: So anyway, we meet WASP and then Izzy leaves the room and then I tell the story about that and they go, "Whoa, because, man, I thought he had like the worst case of herpes I'd ever seen in my life!"

[laughter]

Bach: I can't believe...

Trunk: We should play a WASP song for God's sake! I've never seen anything like this! Lucky Lola's never got so much publicity...

[laughter]

Jericho: So let me ask you a question, at the Freddie Mercury trib... What's with the, "Oh no"?

Trunk: Everyone cringes when Jericho says something!

Jericho: I got good questions! At the Freddie Mercury tribute you sang, uhm, with Elton John and it was obvious that you were a huge Elton John fan just from the stuff you've been doing. How cool was that for you to play with him in front of so many people?

Axl: That was amazing and I didn't know they were going to do that pyro, though, and that was, that was really amazing and really fun. But it was pretty intense because meeting Elton... Elton came to to my room and he sits on this couch and we start talking about the song and Elton is like sitting there and he's getting more tense and more tint and he's turning really red and stuff, because what's going on in his head is, like, he doesn't know me and, you know, and this is a big AIDS thing and he's, you know, dealing with people telling him different stories about me and homophobic or whatever and One In A Million and everything's and he's... we're trying to talk but he's getting more tense and finally goes "I'm a gay man!"

[laughter]

Axl: And I went, "Cool, so when we hit the bridge..."

[laughter]

Axl: And then we were fine, we were fine, you know it's like...

Ian?: Once he told you he was a gay man you know he's

Axl: And I was like, "Peace, I don't have a problem," and then he was like, "okay, all right."

Bach: And now I remember when you came out on stage with him he kind of looked at the camera he went, "He's cool, I like him, he's a good guy."

Axl: And we've got along, you know, ever since.

Bach: We gotta go and see Lestat.

Axl: I saw him a little while ago so...

Bach: Have you seen the new play, Lestat?

Axl: No, I haven't.

Bach: You want to go see that?

Axl: I do want to see it.

Bach: Definitely.

Trunk: I heard that one person told me that it was no good.

Bach: Yeah but people...

Axl: I heard mixed reviews so, you know.

Trunk: That was actually Geoff Tate that told me he didn't like it a couple weeks ago.

Jericho?: Ge-off didn't like it.

Axl: Ge-off? That's messed up

[Laughter]

Jericho?: Ge-off Taté.

Trunk: Didn't he say that, Eric, he said he went to see it he didn't care for it, he thought it was that he was disappointed.

Jericho: He didn't like a whole lot of anything.

Axl: I mean, it's like, you know, it's a Broadway thing though, right, I mean. I think you got to judge it in a different criteria. A different way of looking at it. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, I really like Silence of the Lambs but I'm not really sure how much I dig the Broadway version. I think they do that little dance for a lot longer, they'd extend that scene.

Ian?: With the whole chorus line of guys with their wieners between their legs.

Axl: The tuck and roll will be going for, like, you know, an extended version.

[laughter]

Axl: I just got that on the radio, you know.

[Laughter]

Trunk: I think  at this hour we could say just about anything we want, I would think.

Jericho: So did you do We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You with Elton or just was it.... Bohemian Rhapsody, right?

Axl: Yeah, but we did something else too, I think. We Will Rock You or something, IU don't really remember, yeah.

Jericho: But it was just you two on Bohemian Rhapsody, I think, wasn't it?

Axl: Yeah.

Jericho: Okay, I just had to get that straight in my head.

Trunk: Why does everybody cringe when Jericho opens his mouth?

Jericho: I ask good questions, though, don't I? Just because I had a little bit of a of a friction with Geoff Tate last time now I'm like...

Bach: What was your friction?

Trunk: There was an incident a couple weeks ago.

Bach: What was the incident? Come on!

Trunk: Well it happened off the air and then it spilled onto the air.

Bach: No, come on, let's hear it! I dig this! Let's hear it, like really quick.

Trunk: Sebastian loves schism.

Ian: He's an incidental kind of.... years ago we played in Seattle and he was, this is when, like, this is a long, this is when "Mind Crime, before it came out, and he's in the dressing room and Charlie, our drummer, is a huge Queensryche fan and he sees Geoff Tate and he goes over and he introduces himself, he says, "So I hear your next record's a concept album," and he goes, "Yes, it is" and he goes, "so, like, what's the story with that," like, "what is it?" and Geoff Tate just looks at him in our dressing room and says, "I really don't feel like talking about concepts right now". And we're like, "Get this guy out of here!"

[...]

Bach: I know he does want to do theater, though, at some point, because he called me, he's like, "give me the number," "who do you know," "how did you do that" and he would be really good at it.

Axl: Yeah.

Bach: You know, he's got a great voice. I would love to see Halford on Broadway.

Trunk: How about Axl? Would you ever want to do that?

Axl: I have no thoughts about it.

Trunk: You never thought about it?

Axl: I hear Paul Stanley is getting into it.

Bach: I wanna see "Axl Rock"!

Trunk: Well, we're gonna see Axl rock with the four shows in New York which of course are sold out and if you go to Europe you'll see Guns N' Roses and then...

Axl: A lot of shows there.

Trunk: In Europe, right? All the festivals, right?

Axl: Like 30 some shows.

Trunk: You're like under-playing in New York, obviously doing this small thing and then over there you're going to like hundreds of thousands...

Axl: Yeah, but we just wanted to have, you know, that different vibe where we definitely have the opportunity to do it rather than be forced to do it, so this way we can feel really... cool.

Trunk: How long has it been since you played now? How long has it been since you played in Europe? How long has it been since you've been over there?

Axl: Uh, we were there in '02... yeah.

Trunk: And the audience, is there, are they just as as rabid for GN'R as they are in America? Is it the same...

Axl: Yeah, actually, it's a lot less stress.

Trunk: In what way?

Axl: I don't know, I think it's just, uh, a tougher road about old Guns N' Roses here than it is in Europe for us.

Trunk: Oh, so there's more acceptance and less questions about what...

Axl: Yeah, this will be different press stuff but it doesn't seem to matter at the shows.

Trunk: Right, right. The people that are there. Uh, you want to play Out On The Tiles now? We were supposed to do that about an hour ago.

Bach: It's a great song! Play it.

Trunk: Did we do, did we even tell the backstory to this? Did you tell it?

Bach: Who cares? Just play it.

Trunk: Wait! I just played WASP by accident!

Someone: Blackie deserves it!

[Applause]

[Music]

Trunk: I love the groove out on this song. That whole riff right there is awesome. Out on the Tiles from Zeppelin III. People always thought Zeppelin III being the the acoustic record but there's some really rocking... and Immigrant Song, too. There's some really rocking songs. Axl, big on Zeppelin or no?

Axl: Yeah, absolutely.

Trunk: Absolutely? Because I got into Zeppelin...

Axl: D'yer Mak'er was the first hard rock song that I ever got into. I had this little radio, went to school, heard it, was making fun of it but by like the first recess I had to hear it again and learn it, coming back from lunch I'm passing out the lyrics to all the other kids.
Bach: Wow!

Axl: Oh yeah, absolutely, but, you know, by the next recess I got them all around singing it.

Bach: Oh that's cool! Like you were in the church...

Axl: But then my dad would like smack the crap out of me because I'd be on, because I'd be playing the song on the piano, right, but then, like all of a sudden I'd go, "du-du-du-du, du-du-du-du" and then he'd "what?" because he didn't know what I was doing and I'm playing, I'm playing the drums, you know, on the piano on the top of the piano, "what are you doing to the piano?"

Trunk: If we can, for one second, we referenced something earlier when Axl arrived and in case you tuned in late, it's Eddie Trunk with... we're still on which is weird but, I mean, Sebastian Bach is here, Scott Ian's here, Chris Jericho's here and...

Axl: Do we have overtime fees? Usually that's what I'm doing on stage, is negotiating overtime fees.

[laughter]

Axl: Swear to god!

Trunk: And I've got a car service waiting to take me home, I just had them go down, you know, tell him that I'll be there when I'm there and I'll pay the overtime, it's all good.

Axl: See, you're getting the hang of it!

[laughter]

Trunk: I learn from Axl! And Axl Rose is live in the studio with us on this show.

Bach: You don't have to say that anymore!

Trunk: Yeah we do because people tune in all different times. I'm usually not even on now and they're like, "What's going on?" you know. Uhm, let me if I can bring someone in on the phone from the West Coast who just got done playing a baseball game for the San Diego Padres and is the hugest fan in the world and I hope you're not gonna walk out because he is one of your hugest fans and he would love to say hello. Is this okay?

Axl: Yeah, sure.

Trunk: Okay. He really wants to say, really wants to clear this, he's been agonizing for you.

Axl: For the the Padres or he Pirates?

Trunk: The Padres, right. Now, Mike Piazza, say hello to Axl Rose. We've addressed this earlier in the show, Mike?

Piazza: Axl, I just want to say, uh, I love you man.

[laughter]

Axl: Thanks man.

Piazza: And, uh, I also would like to apologize how drunk I was after that show, I know I was completely out of control.

Axl: No, no, there was no problem, sir.

Piazza: Well, I just want to say, uh, Eddie and I are the biggest fans and especially me and, uh...

Eddie: Mike sounds like his dog died!

[laughter]

Piazza: I'm star struck now, man.

Bach: Are you gonna win any games with this spirit?

Axl: They're attacking you, they're attacking you. No, thanks a lot man.

Trunk: See, we talked about this earlier. Mike is the big, probably the biggest fan of yours that I've ever met, honestly, he really is. And when we did that, we we did it strictly as fans and we weren't sure what we were doing and like...

Axl: Do I have to, like, wrestle Mickey Rourke for that title?

[laughter]

Trunk, Mike, Mike, you know Mickey Rourke, don't you?

Piazza: Yeah, I know Mickey, I've seen him and, uh, he spent some time in Miami and I've seen him around. He's a good dude actually, I like Mickey. Good dude, man.

Trunk: And we had that moment where I was telling, I was telling Axl earlier, Mike, that we were watching the show and, you know, the one big mistake that night was there was an open bar backstage and we got there real early.

[laughter]

Axl: No, you got, I don't, I don't have any recollection of you guys being, like, too ripped or anything.

Trunk: O, you don't? Because...

Axl: Absolutely not.

Trunk: I saved Mike's career that night because I put a muzzle on him with some of the things... he was, you know, he was quoting James Dio and...

Piazza: I was just bummed because he wasn't wearing a Mets shirt, he was wearing a Yankees shirt for Scotty..

Someone: And Cosmo shirt...

Someone: That's right. How are you, Mike?

Piazza: Good buddy, what's going on, man? How you guys doing, man? I wish I was there. I'm bummed.

Someone: Yeah, I wish you were here.

Someone: We already talked about Salty Dog in your honor.

Piazza: Oh, awesome man.

Bach: Salty Dog!

Piazza: Bring it out. That's great, man. But no, Axl, dude, I just want to say, man, we love what you are doing and, uh, we hope you do more of it, man, we really want to see you out there and I'm telling you man, we love your stuff. I've always loved, I mean I've been a huge GN'R.. I got GN'R way before it hit, you know, the charts..

Axl: Yeah, I know.

[laughter]

Bach: And you let everybody else have it!

Someone: That was the line of the night!

Piazza: I'm talking about, I'm talking about Appetite for Destruction! I mean, I had that like the day it came out and I remember a friend, going friend and just going...

Axl: I had that the day after your thing came out.

[Laughter]

Trunk: This is the first time I've ever heard Mike, like, really humbled like, "oh no".

Someone: This is a Hollywood favorite who sounds sad, right?

Trunk: Hall of fame baseball player, he's talking to his hero, he sounds like his dog dies, like tail between his legs.

Bach: Axl checks his messages during this!

Piazza: Even my wife, my wife was pissed off that I did it so I had to take a lot of crap from her as well.

Axl: Oh good, she's awesome. [?] She's one of my favorite people.

Someone: Put her on the phone!

Axl: Yeah.

Piazza: She's just like, "You shouldn't do that, that's terrible," and I was like, "oh, you're right." I felt like shit...

[lots of commotion due to swearing]

Bach: Do you say that on the sports interviews?

Piazza: But anyway...

Someone: On Jim Rome?

Axl: What's wrong with, what's wrong with the word "chit". [spelling] C-H-I-T. Bullchit!

Piazza: Anyway, it was out of love, man. We just wanted to help. I hope you get out there and do your thing, man. We absolutely loved that show and we're honored that we were there. And, uh, dude, just get out there man, we want to see you. Speaking from a number one fan, I'm telling you...

Bach: He's playing next week!

Trunk: He's playing in New York.

Bach: Four nights!

Piazza: I know, man, come to San Diego, dude. Get out here!

Someone: You're coming to New York!

Trunk: Yeah, Mike's going to retire because of this.

Piazza: Dude, I'm quitting, I'm coming out. There you go. All right, man. Love you guys, man. Eddie, I'll let you go, man. You guys take it easy.

Trunk: All right man.

Axl: Thanks for calling in all.

Trunk: Take it easy, man. Wow, I have, I've known Mike a long time and I've never heard him like that. Have you Scott? You've known him a long time.

Ian: Yeah, after the 2000 series when the Mets lost.

[laughter]

Trunk: As a lifelong Mets fan that was a dagger.

Axl: And today was a hot day, it just got really cold, the temperature dropped 78 to 28.

Someone: Oh! That's the score.

[laughter]

Ian: 78-28. I remember I saw Piazza, I saw him at the Halford show at Roseland like a couple of days before that series was starting, I'm like, "Dude, aren't you in the world series a couple of days from now? Like, shouldn't you be like training or resting or something?"
Bach: Partying with Halford!

Ian: He's like, "What am I new?" I said, "Dude, you better go home and rest because the Yankees are gonna beat your ass!" He's like,  "Ah."

Someone: What happened?

Ian: He shouldn't have been at that Halfred show.

Someone: That's right. Evil Halford.

Trunk: Oh my god, unbelievable. All right. Well on that note let's do a quick break. It's just a couple minutes and we'll come right back. It's Eddie Trunk with Sebastian Bach, Axl Rose, Scott Ian, Chris Jericho and

Trunk: Eddie Trunk, we're back live, Sebastian Bach, Axl Rose, Chris Jericho, Scott Ian and we're just hanging out, talking, playing some records and talking about Julian Lennon off the air just now which is something we've never gotten into before but...

Axl: Cause he's a metal icon.

[laughter]

[talking about Julian Lennon]

Axl: I was hanging out with Sean Lennon and Sean was singing that. Doing the same stuff you were doing about it...

Bach: So let's wrap this up so I can go fall off the wagon.

[Laughter]

Axl: Where is that damn wagon? You know, where is that compounded wagon!?

Someone: Somewhere in Alaska.

Someone: Sebastian, Ted's on the phone.

Bach: Nooooo!!

Trunk: See, you should fill Axl in on the backstory because he doesn't know about the show. He does, he will care when he sees it.

Bach: You know, I haven't, I haven't... Drinking was a daily thing for me. And I don't like anything that's daily.

Axl: There are some things I like daily.

Bach: Uh, ah,...yeah. Smoking weed but, um...

Someone: Is that like [?] Can you beat that or...?

Trunk: What? Smoking weed? Why would I wanna beat that for?

[?]

Axl: Someone wanna ask a question? You can ask all the questions you want.

[?]

Bach: Have you ever seen Trailer Park Boys?

Axl: Uh, you know, I stay out of that section of the video screen.

[Laughter]

Bach: I just walked right into that.

Someone: The softball, Baz, come on!

Bach: Well, I know he collects movies and stuff but I'll tell you all...

Trunk: Just let Axl know the reason why you're about to fall off the wagon and why you were on the wagon in the first place, because you came here initially to promote a tv show that you're doing.

Bach: You know, I know everybody knows we're on the show Supergroup, uh, premiering Sunday...

Trunk: May 21st.

Bach:  ...at 10pm.

[snoring sounds]

Bach: We know we're doing that.

Trunk: Axl, do you know the concept of the show?

Axl: I heard something about this but that was it.

Trunk: The show is..yeah, tell him.

Bach: Yeah, we were, you know, I'm sure you've been offered every reality show in the world we have...

Axl: Is Flav and Brigitte in it? [Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav from the reality series Strange Love]

Someone: No.

[laughter]

Someone: These two!

Bach: Gary Coleman's not in the band.

Trunk: Scott and Sebastian are in it and tell them the rest of the time.

Bach: And, um...

Axl: Once I saw the very... Once I saw the Brigitte and Flav thing, the very first episode. That was it. I've been a Flav fan forever so... it was just like, "no way!". He's got like three seasons out of that! [Flav's follow up series Flavor of Love].

Someone: Yeah, that's like a train wreck...

Someone: I think they're gonna go for a fourth.

Trunk: He got to buy a bigger clock!

[laughter]

Someone: That show is a train wreck on top of a car crash.

Axl: Yeah.

Someone: You can't, you have to watch.

Bach: But, uh, so they said, "you want to live in a really nice house for 12 days with four other musicians, you don't know who they are... and both me and Scotty...

Axl: Just 12 days? I mean that's...okay.

Bach: Yeah, it's all right. But both we just found out today that we both put in our contract in writing that C.C. DeVille cannot be...

[laughter]

Bach: Cause I go, I'm not being in a band like some joke or something, you know, and he's in there by name in the contract. and he's in his contract!

Ian: I told them straight up, like, if I walk in and C.C. DeVille's there I'm not going to be, like, an ass I'll just quietly turn around, grab my backpack and I'll just disappear.

Bach: So it's Ted Nugent, you know and, um, living in a house with Ted is just very intense, man, like, he's an intense guy.

Axl: So you've already done that?

Bach: Oh yeah, we already did. And, uh, you know, he just, he just, uh, you know...

Axl: Yeah, he had a kind of boot camp show.

Bach: Yeah.

Axl: As well, right?

Bach: His life is like a boot camp. He is a walking boot camp.

Ian: We kind of shut him down though because we kind of messed with him, I think, so much at one point that he stopped staying in the house with us and he went to a hotel.

Bach: Yeah.

Trunk: Really? Who did? Nugent did?

Ian: Yeah. Nugent did.

Bach: Yeah, Ned Tugent.

Trunk: Is that in the show?

Ian: No.

Bach: Well...

Trunk: Well, I don't know, I haven't seen it.

Someone: That's right.

Someone: How do you know?

Bach: That was only because.... He was waking us up every day with the Anthem so Evan Seinfeld from Biohazard, who is a bass player at, like, three in the morning he gets his whole base rig and puts it in from of Ted's bedroom door and it just goes [making bass sounds].

Ian: [...] feedback for twenty minutes.

Bach: And I go, "nooooo! Ted's gonna shoot us!" I don't want to piss off Ted, man. Like, number one, I got respect for my elder... the guy is old.

[laughter]

Bach: I mean, like, let him sleep.

Axl: Oh man, we just went down to 18 degrees.

Some one: That's a lot of respect.

Axl: We went from 28 to 18.

Bach: No! He's, you know, he's, like, almost 60, like, let him sleep, you know.

Axl: He doesn't sleep, he waits.

Someone: He lurks.

Bach: He lurks, he waits to hunt.

Trunk: He was packing the entire time you said, right?

Bach: Yeah, yeah, I kept my leathers on  to go on stage to do the show and he's, like, "Hey Sebastian! Nice outfit," and everything and I go, "yeah", "you look great," and he goes, "I got my costume right here," and he just, he's got a glock on stage with him like he goes on... and you know, I remember walking to the
stage -  I don't know if you noticed this -

Axl: And the point is? I mean...

Bach: That's his costume! He goes on stage packing.

Ian: He just has not had a gun on him in 35 years, he always...

Bach: On stage!

Ian: He's Ted Nugent.

Bach: It was cool though. he's a great guitar... he's unbelievable, talented.

Trunk: The point being, bringing it back to the whole issue about falling off the wagon, the point being is that it's acknowledged throughout this three-week period that these guys are in the house together that Ted doesn't drink at all, Evan doesn't drink at all, Jason doesn't drink at all anymore, and it's quickly realized that they start to see that Sebastian is drinking every day to excess and Ted confronts him.

Bach: If you could have seen the gun...

Axl: Ted what?

Bach: Ted confronts him and sits him down because he's the only one who had any influence over my man here, and Sebastian has vowed to Ted to not drink anymore...

Bach: Well...

Trunk: And now when he found...

Bach: I'm a human being, I'm a human being.

Trunk: The point is, when he found out you were coming up here tonight he quickly announced to everyone, including Aaron from VHI that, uh, he was proudly going to fall off the wagon in your honor.

Bach: You, wait, cause!

Axl: You don't have to do that. I think I fell off some wagon the other day, you know.

Bach: Damn that wagon!

Axl: Yeah.

Bach: That damn wagon.

Someone: I hate that wagon.

Axl: No wait, I don't I fell off the wagon, I think I was walking by and got hit by the wagon and then drug under the wagon. I think it was like a hate wagon crime. A hate crime.

Bach: Yeah, I hate the wagon.

Axl: Yeah, I hate the wagon.

Bach: Yeah, but it was, it was, he made a lot of sense and you said off off the mic before that you quit for like 10 years, kind of.

Axl: For the most part, yeah.

Bach: No reason? Just felt like doing it?

Axl: I didn't really drink that much, I just didn't... it was only like a couple of months ago that I started hanging out a bit in Las Vegas and then coming here and, you know, I want to get involved a bit with the club world and stuff like that so it was a bit fun, but...

Bach: Well, let's go.

Axl: ...but alcohol really dries my throat out so that makes it a nightmare to try to tour...

Bach: I know, absolutely.

Axl: I can do okay, I was like kind of imitating Tom Waits tonight for fun. "I sit here on the stairs".

Bach: That's good, keep going keep going.

Trunk: How do you find, do you find it, vocally, that you're doing everything that you want to do now? I mean your voice is, in rehearsals and stuff, is holding up? It's where you want it to be as far as, you know, your preparation?

Axl: [In a deep voice] I have to wear tighter underwear.

[Laughter]

Trunk: Because seriously, I mean, you use...

Axl: I mean, in my everyday thing it's a little uncomfortable, you know, it kind of rides up your crack and, you know, but for those high notes.

Bach: But you were the, you were at least soprano in your boys choir when you...

Axl: I didn't watch that show in the beginning just because I just didn't get that name.

Bach: Which one?

Axl: The Sopranos.

Someone: [?] about sopranos in general.

Axl: I went to the premiere and I met those guys and, you know, there's all kinds of people there but the actors themselves just... they went more nuts than everybody and and I couldn't have, like, you know, paid for it to be more insane because Gandolfini just lost his mind. It was so cool.

Trunk: I saw pictures of you and Steven and Gandolfini.

Axl: Oh yeah, yeah, the whole plastic surgery and yada yada from The Post and crap, so anyway, but um....

Someone: Were they just raging?

Axl: But he was, yeah, there was... he was so, he says every time that he's gonna usually beat the crap out of somebody on that show he, like, listens to Guns N' Roses before he goes and does it.

Someone: Cool.

Axl: You know, because he was like, "Get the hell out of here!" and he's like, he's just like bad, he was nuts, that was awesome.

Trunk: Tony Soprano's falling all over himself.

Axl: And the Soprano's crew... and it's so weird because you're there and they were all like in black suits, you know, kind of like the Reservoir Dogs thing...

Someone: Yeah yeah yeah.

Axl: You know, and it was like, I know they're actors but they're the Sopranos and it's also their real life characters, you know, kind of like cutting loose and being wild so part of you is thinking, you know, they're getting wild and they're successful actors, they have an amazing show and.... but they're just like that guy that could shoot you, you know. It's hard to...

Someone: Watch out for Vito.

Axl: ...reality.

Bach: Every week you read in the New York Post...

Final part, thanks to @Blackstar :

Bach: Every week you read in the New York Post, one of those guys gets busted.

Someone: Yeah.

Trunk: That just happened. Artie Bucco just got busted.

Bach: Artie Bucco got busted, like, two days ago.

Trunk: And then there was the guy who got whacked, who actually killed someone, the young guy, the guy from Bronx Tale (?)

Axl: From Bronx Tale. He was involved. It’s like, it’s not – he didn’t do the killing.

Trunk: Allegedly. Jesus got him. Allegedly. Yes, thank you, Axl. Axl’s got my-

(Laughter)

Axl: “Axl Rose is allegedly coming to the studio tonight”.

(Laughter)

Bach: Well, you did!

Trunk: You did, man. I don’t wanna... You know, I gotta be careful, because they would have strung me up outside if I said you were coming for sure and you didn’t, so... And like I said, yesterday Sebastian was running around showing your text message to anyone who would look at it, so... (laughs).

Bach: He lives!

Trunk: He’s like, “Dude...”

Bach: It’s alive! It’s alive! IT’S ALIVE!

Axl: Well, I think, you know, if I would have been hanging out with this guy for 13 years, it’s like, I’m not sure if either of us would be here. I mean, we got... It’s like, when we started, when we first met, the media was really – the rock press and everything wanted us to hate each other.

Bach: They always do.

Axl: You know, they really wanted us to hate each other. So I decided, “I’m just gonna go meet this guy and see what happens,” and we just hit it off like that. And, boy, that really pissed them off, you know? You know?

(Laughter)

Bach: And then we called Howard Stern.

Axl: Yeah.

Bach: Okay, we can talk about that on this station. I’m sitting up in the Shoreham Towers...

Axl: And you’re talking about the guy with the blue smoke at his eyeballs.

Bach: Oh my god!

Trunk: Kenneth Keith.

Bach: Yeah, yeah!

Trunk: Kenneth Keith! I love that.

Bach: But we’re hanging out and we’re kind of blowing smoke out of our own eyeballs.

Axl: (Laughing) Exactly.

(Laughter)

Axl: And of course it’s noon again.

Bach: Oh I know! And we’re having, like - we’re solving the whole world’s problems...

Axl: With that really bright midnight light.

Bach: And it was like, we’re getting a sun tan, we haven’t slept in days...  And then we get a quiet point in the mayhem, and then Axl looks around and goes, “Let’s call Howard”-

Axl: No! That was you, because it was your buddy!

Bach: I... no!

Axl: Oh absolutely. Because you wanted to call him and talk about the guy with the smoke coming out of the eyeballs.

Bach: Did I say that?!

(Laughter)

Axl: Oh yeah. Absolutely.

Bach: So then-

Someone (making fun of Bach): “Dude, that guy has smoking eyeballs!”

(Laughter)

Bach: So then we get him on the phone-

Axl: And I was an idiot. He goes, “What do you do? Where are you?” And I go, [talks slowly] “Machine Head.” I didn’t even know what-

Bach: Yeah, Machine Head, Deep Purple!

Axl: Yeah (laughs).

Bach: Like (?) Deep Purple. And then Erin was there, Maria was there, and... that was a legendary interview. I couldn’t believe we did that (?). So...

Trunk: “So...” (laughs).

Jericho: Baz, let me ask you a question, and Scott too, about Ted. You were talking about Ted before and how he’s older. Obviously you guys are a little bit of a different generation. Was there a little bit of a generation gap between you guys and him?

Bach: Yeah, a little bit, like... It was really cool, because Evan’s wife, Tera Patrick, the porn star, was there, and Maria came. And Maria and Tera did Maria’s first ever lesbian photo shoot, which was incredible - it was the greatest day of my life.

Trunk: Documented in the show.

Bach: Yeah. But Ted got weirded out by that. Because he, like, married a 14-year-old.  

(Laughter)

Bach: He did, everybody knows that.

Jericho: I know.

Bach: But then when the girls were nude and stuff, he got-

Axl: I think you can’t do that now in, like, where, Kansas or something? They just passed some new law? You can’t go there now.

Ian: What, being in a band with Ted Nugent?

Axl: No, you can’t marry anyone under 15.

Someone: Uh-huh.

Axl: It was in the news today. You know, I gotta keep up on these things.

(Laughter)

Ian: He did walk in the room, though, because I was like, “Ted, check it out.” And he walks in, and he kind of gave it to it once over, and he goes, “Mmm, naked twanger,” and he walked out.

(Laughter)

Axl: “Twanger.”

Ian: “Naked twanger.”

Bach: Well, I emailed him. I go, “Man, we’ve got”- I emailed him a picture of Maria with Shemane, his wife. And he emails me back and he goes, “Excuse me while I go hump a wood chipper.”

(Laughter)

Ian: He actually turned around and he said something like, “I’m so not into public displays of affection” and walked out of the room.

Bach: Yeah! Yeah.

Ian: Yeah.

Bach: No, no. He said to me, he goes – you know, he explained to me sex is a personal thing. It was like dad talking, you know?

Axl: Right.

Someone: Yeah, yeah.

Bach: “This is something you don’t share, it’s something you don’t give away” and everything. And I mean, I’m like, “Mom, I’m sorry.”

Ian: But you know what, the dude-

Bach: Why did we invent film? If we can’t take a picture of this?

(Laughter)

Jericho: The dude is 15 years older.

Bach: What, are you gonna go outside and take a picture of the sunset? And you got, like, two chicks-

Someone: “Naked twanger.”

Bach: Take a picture of that! Like, what is film for? Why is there film?

Jericho: You know what, though, Sebastian, you gotta admit he’s 57 years old, and that dude’s got more energy. I mean, dude will run circles-

Bach: Forget it. He’s a 57-year-old 12-year-old.

Jericho: Yeah. He’s amazing.

Trunk: Did he ever come out wearing the loincloth?

(Laughter)

Bach: I wish. That would be killer. That would be killer. I don’t know where he put the gun!

(Laughter)

Bach: He’s got a holster and a loincloth.

Jericho: Did he know, like - if you mentioned, you know, Megadeth or Korn or something, did he know all the bands? Was he into the scene or just didn’t care?

Bach: No, no, he doesn’t – he gets paid-

Ian: He lives inside that A chord that he’s written for the last 40 years.

Trunk: He barely knew who Sebastian was.  

Axl: He’s doing his political talk radio, though, isn’t he?

Someone: Yeah, yeah.

Axl: He’s got his political talk radio, hunting and beef turkey or something, right?

Bach: Yeah. He cooked venison for us the day of the show. And I’m like, “Dude, I gotta wear these leather pants. I can’t, like, pig out on venison.”

Jericho: No fat, though. No fat, no cholesterol.

Bach: Right before the show. I, like-

Jericho: It’s clean meat, though.

Bach: Hear another classic Axl Rose story.

Axl: Maybe he could make you pants, too.

Someone: He could!

Bach: He could shoot ‘em, and skin ‘em...

Axl: Uh-huh...

Trunk: His publicist called me yesterday-

Bach: Dude, I gotta ask you about this: when we played Alpine Valley-

Axl: You know, I saw this sign across from this restaurant - actually, this girl saw it first. We’d just been into this hip-hop studio out here, right? And we just come out of this place, and, just kind of by virtue of being in the hip-hop studio, we come out stoned to the bejesus.

(Laughter)

Trunk: (?) contact eye, right?

Axl: So it’s, like, seven in the morning. And out of the corner of her eye there’s this church thing, and it’s got, like, the different events for the week or whatever. And one of the things they’re having was called “Yak Packers.” You know, something for little kids, but “Yak Packers”? I just, you know-

Bach: Dude-

Axl: Maybe Ted knows about this, because I don’t know. I don’t know what “yak packing” is about.

Bach: Speaking about weird words, don’t you remember one time you were getting a massage, and I was talking about something, and I had some stuff going on, like, under my pants, and I go,  “Dude”-

Axl: Wait. You’ve got something going on under your pants while I’m getting a massage-

Bach: No, no, no!

Axl: I’m really not liking this conversation and where it’s going.

Bach: No, I was just talking, and I was going, “Axl, man, I got (?).” I go, “I got hoop cheese!” You remember this?

Axl: Yeah. I sent you a picture of the hoop cheese, yeah.

Bach: (Laughing) Yeah. And he sent me a bunch of hoop cheese.

Axl: I found some kind of hoop cheese, whatever that is.

Bach: What is hoop cheese?

Axl: I don’t know (laughs).

Bach: (Laughing) Hoop cheese!

Axl: Yeah.

Bach: Those were the days. Okay. So let’s play a song and then go fall of the wagon.

Trunk: (Laughs). All right, is this it? You want to wrap this up?

Bach: What time is it? Yeah.

Axl: Yeah, I gotta go.

Trunk: You are done, Axl? Axl’s done.

Axl: Yeah, I’m done.

Bach: Alright.

Trunk: It’s quarter to three.

Bach: Oh yeah, yeah.

Trunk: Well, let’s – we should play a Guns N’ Roses song, don’t you think?

Someone: Sure.

Bach: No? Yes? No?

Axl: I’m fine, I’m fine.

Trunk: Do you have a choice?

Axl: No, whatever you want to play.

Bach: Play You’re Crazy! You’re Crazy!

Someone: Yeah, Crazy.

Bach: That’s the one! T

(Laughter)

Bach: That’s the jam one!

Trunk: It’s got curses, man. I can’t do that-

Axl: It’s got all your fun words.

Trunk: I’d like to play Rocket Queen.

Bach: Rocket Queen.

Axl: We were in Texas, before anyone knows the record, and we’re, like, on this little club thing trying to promote the album, and stuff like that. And we’d go to this radio station - it’s, like, 5:00 in the morning or something and we’re doing interviews – and the guy wants to know what song, but he doesn’t know the record. So we distract him like, “Where’s the coke machine?” and when he turns over, we put It’s So Easy on, you know? (laughs). We were, like, so happy about that.  

Ian: Play Anything Goes.

Bach: Anything Goes!

Ian: Anything Goes. Play Anything Goes.

Trunk: Yeah, that’s a good one. Uh, hold on, just-

Bach: Play the longest one!

Trunk: Yeah, that’s why I wanna play Rocket Queen.

Bach: Yeah.

Axl: That’s fine.

Bach: Alright!

Trunk: So Axl, man. First of all, I can’t thank you enough, man, for being here. I really do appreciate it and, sincerely, it’s one of the – I’ve been doing radio for a long time and it’s one of the moments I’ll never forget. So I really do appreciate it. Thank you so much.

(Applauding and cheering)

Axl: It was a lot of fun. Thank you.

(Applauding)

Trunk: And needless to say, please come back any time-

Axl: And thank you New York!

Trunk: Shows are coming up and... You know, we just found out - this show is live on the internet and we have just heard from people that about an hour ago, as word spread that you were here, our feed has actually crashed. From people all over the world trying to log on, it has crashed. I swear to you.

Bach: There’s a lot of pissed off people.

Axl: I got great prices on tickets.

(Laughter)

Bach: He’s bootlegging himself!

Trunk: That’s the other thing. Dude, can you get me on the list?  

(Laughter)

Axl: I’ll be there early, because I’m going to be outside.

(Laughter)

Trunk: So will I (laughs). But seriously, man, and just to give all the people who are listening or trying to listen right now the latest update, the record, the tour... People might have tuned in late, just tell them one more time what to look forward to from you. What you got coming?

Axl: This fall. We’ll be playing in the States and we’ll put the album out this fall, so...

Trunk: You couldn’t have been cooler, man. Again, thank you so much. And Sebastian, I don’t know what I got to do for you.

Bach: Just bend over!

(Laughter)

Trunk: It’s about the one place that I will, probably, draw the line, I think.

(Laughter)

Trunk: I think-

Bach: Hey, come over here and kiss my ass, dude! Really!

Trunk: I may have to actually do that (laughs).

Bach: (Laughing) I’m just joking.

Trunk: Look at Maria, she’s like, “Whoa” (?) She’s a little bit worried over here.

Bach: I’ll kiss Maria’s ass.

(Laughter)

Trunk: I’m gonna play this song and I’m gonna wrap it up, too then, because I’m gonna go out with the song. So Baz, I don’t know what to say. I know you 20 years, man. I don’t know what to say to you. I owe you. This is-

Bach: All I gotta say, in this business, when it rains, it pours, man. I have missed this guy - as a friend, number one, but really as a fan. You know, I’ve missed him, and he’s back, and let’s rock.

Trunk: Yeah.

Bach: That’s all I gotta say.

Trunk: And you speak for millions when you say that.

Bach: Sure!

Trunk: And by the way, that-

Someone: (in fake voice): “The voice of millions.”

Trunk: And by the way, that Skid Row platinum record you owe me, you know, don’t worry about it anymore. It’s cool (laughs). Scott-

Bach: Wouldn’t you wanna trunk it for your wall?

Trunk: I’m kidding. You know, you always joke with me, dude, remember? You always joke with me about that, that you’re supposed to do.

Bach: Well, what I know is that I have a triple platinum Use Your Illusion on my wall that I never thanked you for. You had showed up in my house one day-

Axl: I broke one of those ones, and it actually was the 2 Live Crew record.

(Laughter)

Axl: It was. I was like, “awesome.”

Someone: Oh yeah?

Someone: Awesome.

Bach: You were trying to play it?

Axl: My brother went and had it checked out.

Someone: Really?

Trunk: You know, the records were never the actual record in the frame.

Axl: It actually was “We Want Some Pussy” [2 Live Crew song], you know? Small kittens.

(Laughter)

Trunk: Great. You could find out, because you know what? I’ve got an (?) gold record and there’s only three tracks on one side or whatever, and mine has six bands.

Axl: Yeah, that’s what my brother was doing. He was looking at it, you know-

Trunk: Count the bands.

Axl: And it was just too good to be true.

Trunk: Yeah, totally. Jericho, thank you. Scott, thank you for coming in.

Ian: Thank you, Ed.

Trunk: Again, the Supergroup show premieres on VH-1 on May 21st, followed by the post show on VH-1 Classic after every episode. Don and everybody, man, thank you.

Bach: I got a new solo album coming out in September, called Angel Down. I started recording it in June.

Ian: Anthrax – Rob Zombie, this summer.

Trunk: Oh yeah. There you go.

Bach: You’re playing with Rob.

Ian: Yes.

Bach: Wow.

Trunk: You guys just came back from Europe, too. That went well, too, right?

Ian: That was awesome, yeah.

Trunk: Very cool.

Bach: What’s up with John Bush?

Ian: John Bush is going out with Armored Saint for a couple of weeks.

Bach: Are they wearing the armor?

(Laughter)

Ian: They’re not wearing the armor.

Bach: No!

Ian: No.

Bach: (Sings loudly) “Can you deliver!”

Trunk: March of a Saint.

Bach: Can you deliver, dude!

Trunk: Don Jameson, thanks. Sean Andrew, thank you for your help. And again, man, Axl Rose, awesome. Please come back and see us sometime again, bro. Thank you so much.

(Cheering and applauding)

Axl: You’re welcome.

Trunk: All right. And here it is, to take us out one of the most memorable shows I’ve ever done in more than 20 years, Rocket Queen. Thank you guys for listening. Eddietrunk.com, look for me on VH-1 Classic, and see you at the Kiss expo tomorrow. We’ll have a lot to talk about.

I am confused on when Axl spent time in China. In one quote he suggests it was a couple of years ago, so in about 2004, in another quote he says it happened before CD was named, so before 2000:



This happened before the forthcoming new album had been titled Chinese Democracy:



Do we have any other sources that help to reconcile this impossibility?

There are the sources from and about 2002, that are middle ground:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4840-2002-10-09-mtv-news-for-the-record-axl-in-shanghai-china

Also this alleged "memo" with the questions journalists were allowed to ask Axl in interviews, in which they were encouraged to ask him about his stay in China (but curiously, no interviewer asked him that question):

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4884-2002-12-06-the-province-vancouver-ruled-out

Blackstar wrote:There are the sources from and about 2002, that are middle ground:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4840-2002-10-09-mtv-news-for-the-record-axl-in-shanghai-china

Also this alleged "memo" with the questions journalists were  allowed to ask Axl in interviews, in which they were encouraged to ask him about his stay in China (but curiously, no interviewer asked him that question):

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4884-2002-12-06-the-province-vancouver-ruled-out

Alright, brilliant, around the fall of 2002, then.

It is hard to put three months of stay in China into the fall of 2002, though, since they were in US for MTV VMA on August 29 and started their fall tour in Vancouver on November 7. So maybe two months in China - September and October? To escape the fallout from the VMAs? Or maybe those three months took place before this, and that Axl (and possible the band) returned to China again in October 2002 for a shorter trip?

When Scott Ian talks about meeting the band at the Ritz in 1986, I suppose he means 1987, and Slash wore an Anthrax shirt on stage. Did he do that for the Ritz show in 1987, or was it 1988?

I just looked at videos, seems like he wore a shirt with "Slash" on in 1987 and one with "Wasted Youth" on in 1988. So Ian might mix up the shows.

Soulmonster wrote:I just looked at videos, seems like he wore a shirt with "Slash" on in 1987 and one with "Wasted Youth" on in 1988. So Ian might mix up the shows.

Yes, I just checked the videos from the shows too and I didn't see any Anthrax t-shirts.

Blackstar wrote:

Soulmonster wrote:I just looked at videos, seems like he wore a shirt with "Slash" on in 1987 and one with "Wasted Youth" on in 1988. So Ian might mix up the shows.

Yes, I just checked the videos from the shows too and I didn't see any Anthrax t-shirts.

So now we need to go through all footage from 1986-1989 looking for Axl wearing an Anthrax shirt to date when exactly Scott Ian met Izzy backstage Maybe I should ask on mygnrforum.

I looked at pictures from the show at L'Amour (the show Axl mentioned) and Slash wore a Misfits shirt. So it wasn't that show, either.

At the CBGB's post show interview Slash wore a Metallica shirt.

Jericho: How did he catch a fly? Was he Jack Miagi? (sp.?)

Miyagi (Karate Kid)