“You fucked Yvonne,” I said. “What kind of cheap shot is that?”
I have to give Axl credit—he was honest and didn’t try to weasel his way out of it. He told me that of course he did but that at the time I wasn’t fucking her, so what did it matter? I didn’t see it quite the same way, so things escalated from there until he invited me to try and kick his ass. I was going to go up there and duke it out but I let it go. Needless to say, it took some time to defuse the animosity. And one day, after hearing I was looking for a job, he told me about an opening at Tower as a peacemaking gesture. Axl always chose to patch things up with grand gestures.
Tower Video was located directly across the street from the Tower Records where I’d been busted shoplifting a few years earlier. Axl was living with one of the managers, and once I’d joined the ranks it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was now one of a truly loony cast of colorful characters; I imagine that we were the most ludicrous and utterly negligent staff that any Tower location has ever employed. There were also some great, senile alcoholics who worked at the Tower Classical next door.
Every night at about eight o’clock, after the general manager for records and video left for the night, those of us in video would stock up at the liquor store across the street, throw porno movies on the store’s video system, and just drink. We’d put our friends’ bands on the stereo and generally ignore every customer that wandered in.
It wasn’t anything that the security cameras picked up because we didn’t have vodka bottles next to the cash register, so it went on unnoticed for a long time—I imagine, though, that if those tapes were viewed, we’d come off as lazy and unhelpful. We’d mix our cocktails back in the office and walk around with them in plastic Solo cups; we’d be ringing up any purchases with one hand around a screwdriver. I’m sure the customers knew what we were up to the moment we breathed on them, but nobody ever complained because they were shocked speechless. All things considered, we were way too scary for most people; they just got out of there as quickly as they could.
Unfortunately, one of the tighter-assed managers caught on to us and when he did, Axl took the fall: he was fired for the antics that we were all guilty of. Even then, I knew why: Axl has the kind of presence and star power that threatens authority figures; they see someone like Axl as nothing but a “ringleader.”
MY MEMORY IS HAZY ON THE VARIOUS events that led to the forming of Guns N’ Roses, because, to be honest, for most of it I wasn’t there. I’m not here to present the academic history of the band or set straight every misconception; I can only speak of my experience. In any case, sometime in early 1985, Axl and Tracii Guns started putting a band together; they brought in Ole Bench and Rob Gardner, who’d played bass and drums, respectively, in L.A. Guns. Not too long after that, Izzy joined their group and that is when Axl opted to change the name to Guns N’ Roses for obvious reasons. Tracii had finally gotten his dream situation—as I said, he’d been after Axl and Izzy to be in a band with him for a while. They did a few gigs, they wrote a few songs—in that order.
I was still working at Tower and had nothing else going on. I was envious, to say the least, when Izzy came in to give me a flyer for a Guns N’ Roses show in Orange County. Somewhere along the line, Duff replaced Ole; they did a few more gigs and wrote a few more songs. I believe that during those Orange County shows Tracii and Axl had a major falling-out. Tracii quit pretty soon afterward and then one night Axl showed up at Tower to ask if I’d be interested in hooking up with Izzy to write some songs and give the gig a go. I stopped for a moment to think about what that meant.
Axl and Izzy were a unit, so any other players coming into their band had to work well with both of them, and Izzy had left Hollywood Rose too quickly to get to know me at all. I liked Izzy. He was, after all, the first guy I met and I enjoyed his style and admired his talent. In dealing directly with Izzy, I’d have something of a buffer with Axl. Axl and I got along in so many ways but we had innate personality differences. We were attracted to each other and worked together tremendously well yet we were a study in polar opposites. Izzy (and later Duff ) would help. At the time, Izzy was enough to take the pressure off.
I showed up at Izzy’s apartment a few days later and he was working on a song called “Don’t Cry,” which I immediately took to. I wrote some guitar parts for it and we fine-tuned it for the rest of the evening. It was a cool session; we both got a lot out of jamming with each other.
We found ourselves a rehearsal space in Silverlake: Duff, Izzy, Axl, Rob Gardner, and myself. Everyone knew one another, so we started throwing songs together that evening and it just gelled quickly; it was one of those magic moments that musicians speak of where every player naturally complements the other and a group becomes an organic collective. I had never felt it that intensely in my life. It was all about the kind of music I was into: ratty rock and roll like old Aerosmith, AC/ DC, Humble Pie, and Alice Cooper. Everyone in the band wore their influences on their sleeves and there was not a bit of the typical L.A. vibe going on where the goal is to court a record deal. There was no concern for the proper poses or goofy choruses that might spell pop-chart success; which ultimately guaranteed endless hot chicks. That type of calculated rebellion wasn’t an option for us; we were too rabid a pack of musically like-minded gutter rats. We were passionate, with a common goal and a very distinct sense of integrity. That was the difference between us and them.
6
You Learn to Live Like an Animal
We weren’t exactly the type of people who took no for an answer. We were much more likely to give no for an answer. As individuals, each of us was street-smart, self-sufficient, and used to doing things his way only—death before compromise. When we became a unit that quality multiplied by five because we’d have one another’s backs as fiercely as we’d stood up for ourselves. All three of the common definitions of the word gang definitely applied to us: 1) we were a group who associated closely for social reasons such as delinquent behavior; 2) we were a collection of people with compatible tastes and mutual interests who gathered to work together; and 3) we were a group of persons who associated for criminal or other antisocial purposes. We had a gang’s sense of loyalty, too: we only trusted our oldest friends, and found everything we needed to get by in one another.
Our group willpower drove us to succeed on our own terms but never made the ride any easier. We were unlike the other bands of the day; we didn’t take kindly to criticism from anyone—not our peers, not the charlatans that tried to sign us to unfair management contracts, not the A&R reps vying to hand us a deal. We did nothing to court acceptance and we shunned easy success. We waited for our popularity to speak for itself and for the industry to take notice. And when it did, we made them pay.
We rehearsed every day, working up songs that we knew and liked from one another’s bands, like “Move to the City” and “Reckless Life,” which were written by some version or another of Hollywood Rose. We had a piece of shit PA, so we composed most of the music without Axl actually singing with us. He’d sing under his breath and listen and provide feedback on what we were talking about in the arrangements.
After three nights we had a fully realized set that also included “Don’t Cry” and “Shadow of Your Love,” and so we unanimously decided that we were now fit for public consumption. We could have booked a gig locally, because, collectively, we all knew the right people, but no, we decided that after three rehearsals, we were ready for a tour. And not just a long weekend tour of clubs close to L.A.; we took Duff up on his offer to book us a jaunt that stretched from Sacramento all the way up to his hometown of Seattle. It was completely improbable but to us it seemed like the most sensible idea in the world.
We planned to pack the gear and leave in a few days, but our zeal scared the shit out of our drummer, Rob Gardner, so much that he more or less quit the band on the spot. It didn’t surprise anyone because Rob could play well enough but he didn’t fit in from the start; he wasn’t of the same ilk, he wasn’t one of us: he just wasn’t the sell-your-soul-for-rock-and-roll