2019.03.22 - Appetite For Distortion - Bob Guccione Jr. gets in the ring to talk GN'R

Founder of Spin Magazine and WonderlustTravel.com, Bob Guccione Jr. discusses his career and the Guns N' Roses song that has immortalized him forever.



Transcript of selected parts:

Bob Guccione, Jr.: [...] And I forget when, forgive me, but obviously it was before the song and the album, Appetite of Destruction, the band sent out a contract to all journalists, and the contract stipulated they had to have complete control of every word in the article, including the captions, the headline and the sub-headline, and that they were the owner of the article, in fact, in terms of copyright law. And there could be no violation of any of their agreements, or you agreed that you owed them $100,000. I mean, it was a ridiculous contract. Clearly, no self-respecting publication would sign and agree to that. And of course, we didn't. But my editor said, "Oh, Bob, you should write a editorial about this. This is terrible." I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's just publish the contract." So we did. We published it word for word. And as we were going to press, literally as the last files for cover, we're leaving our office to go to, you know, the printer. And that's before computers in those days. So things had to be done manually and physically. You know, I said, "Wait a minute, just add a line to the top of the cover. 'How to get your own Guns N' Roses interview, page 19.'" And I did it as a joke, a sort of, you know, a sort of FU to the band, you know, like, you know, "That's it, to hell with them for this stupid contract." And as it turned out, 10,000 people signed that contract and sent it into the band's office. Because we gave their address, it was on the contract, we gave the address. So the band was driven mad. I mean, they had 10,000 people just from Spin alone who took it seriously. They actually thought you really could get an interview with them if you signed his contract. So my sort of eccentric, funny cover line was taken seriously by a lot of people. And also a lot of people realized that we were saying, "This is ridiculous." And that was our editorial comment. But anyway, I think the band after that got very, very peeved. And additionally, we actually did a investigative piece on Axl. You know, we sent a reporter, we sent two, I think, to Indiana to find out who he was and where he came from.

Brando: Is that the one called Guns and Neuroses?

BGJ: It could be.

Brando: Yeah, I'm seeing it here.

BGJ: I don't remember, it was a long time ago.

Brando: September 1991, I'm seeing Guns and Neuroses.

BGJ: Yeah, that's probably, that was definitely the right time. Anyway, and that article definitely upset the band and they were very upset. Axl completely [?] because it kind of stripped away the curtain and showed the, you know, the guy behind the curtain, who wasn't quite as grand a wizard as he was, you know, saying he was. And that was it. You know, we did our piece. We actually, as I said, we liked the band. Now, I didn't dislike the music. I never particularly really got into it. It wasn't really my cup of tea. You know, when I later on, you know, definitely came down on the camp with Nirvana. That was more my interest. They were a more interesting band. But you know, I didn't dislike the band. And there's a couple of their songs, I thought great. And actually I did not hear the song that he wrote, you know, Get in the Ring, until somebody brought it to me and said, "Oh my God, you're on this song." And I thought, you know, because I wasn't listening to the group. You know, my staff were, they were way into them. And they were listening to advance copies of the record.

Brando: And it wasn't like social media was around when you would know that stuff immediately where somebody would text you, hey, check this out.

BGJ: I mean, I knew pretty quickly because as it happened, the editor of Hit Parade, who's also one of the people mentioned in the song, he called me up and he was all panicked. And I don't know why, what he thought the danger was [?]. And I just laughed, I called my [?] and said, "Hey, play me this record." And he put it on, we had turntables as well as CD players, but this was a vinyl. And we played it and I just cracked up, laughed. And I said, "Okay, great, I got a response." And then I called the record company, Geffen. I didn't know the management for Guns N' Roses personally, I had not met them. So I called the record company and said, "Well, I accept, when do you wanna do it?" And they said, "Well, what do you mean?" I said, "Well, now you want me to get in the ring? Done. Let's do it. Anytime." You know, because at that time I studied full contact karate and I was literally training four times a week. Got in the ring at least two of those four days. You know, we didn't fight every single time.

Brando: Not a metaphoric ring for you.

BGJ: No, no, no. It was one more time. You know what I mean? And I was, had done it for almost 10 years at that point. I was really very, very fit and proficient. And it was, you know, it was my..It was my, [?] the sport, don't want to be pretentious and call it an art, but it was, it was a discipline. You know, we did it. I want to say this, not because I'm on your show - I've actually said other people too - I did it completely without malice, by the way. I never had any malice towards the guy. I just said, "He's calling me out, well, I'll do it." You know, certainly wasn't going to back down. But I never felt malice towards him or any dislike to him. You know, I'm very good friends with John Mellencamp, and he told me back in the mid-90s or something that Axl Rose once said to him, he wanted me dead or to kill me or something like that. I just laughed. You know, I mean, I honestly hope he never felt that malicious towards me because it would be a waste of energy to feel that. And I wasn't in any way angry. In fact, it was just a, you know, a perfect publicity storm. So, do us a favor.

Brando: Yeah, there's a lot of things to decompress there and I appreciate you sharing, you know, that story and how you felt at first because you seem to have gotten the most vicious attack in the tune. And other than laughing, did you like the song at least? I know you preferred Nirvana, but did you think it was, did you like it or you're like, "Oh, why did they waste time talking about me on this?"

BGJ: Oh, no, no, no. I mean, I had neither reaction. I didn't particularly like the song musically. I don't think it's anywhere near the caliber of their music. You know, it's not November Rain. You know what I mean? It's not, you know, any of their great songs. It was probably okay. You know, obviously I was pretty much subjective at that point. But it didn't blow me away as a great song. I wasn't proud to be in the song and I wasn't ashamed to be in the song. I immediately just saw it as a... it immediately made me laugh and I immediately saw it as a fantastic publicity vehicle. So I'm sure we sold a lot more of their records and they probably sold a lot more of our magazines as a result of that. And like I said, you know, it's very important because I've never had any malice and I think people might have thought I did, but I didn't. It was actually the zero malice and I was very, very happy the fight never happened because I was so much bigger and stronger than him, you know, that it wouldn't... It wouldn't have been, you know, anything I could be proud of or anything either one of us should be doing. So you know, he did not know, I'm sure, when he wrote the song, that I was a very accomplished full-contact [?]. So I don't think, you know, it would have been a good choice of words, had he known. And as I said, there was absolutely zero upside to me being a bully about it. But there was an upside to publicizing it. And I saw that and took that. And really quite most importantly, I wasn't going to be pushed around. Song didn't matter to me, but the public perception would have mattered. And, you know, I said to the one other guy I spoke to about this, I said, "You know, call him out on it," but you know, it became me calling it down, that became the focus and that became the press.

Brando: I will say that your story is, I mean, I totally believe you anyway, but Doug Goldstein, I'm friendly with the manager of that time, and he completely confirmed what you said.

BGJ: Oh, really?

Brando: Yeah. He's like, "Yeah, once he put in an offer to accept the challenge, Axl just, let's just say he never returned his call." So yeah, that did happen.

[...]

Brando: But what did [your father] think about it? Cause it's still like your, you know, your diss track, your insult is such a compliment to your dad too at the same time.

BGJ: Oh yeah, no, I always say people, you know, people have asked me about this before, this song. And we said, "Yeah, he got way more women than I do."

[...]

Transcribed the relevant parts of this interview.