american rock'n'roll band Guns N' Roses - took its place in small town called Lafayette, that belongs to
Uncle Sam's well-known state Indiana. In this town, 1962 year gave birth to the most important persons in this uncredible band's history. W.Rose, as he called himself at the age of 17, was born there on February 6
,1962. His childhood was a sad story, and before he
changed the name, he lived 17 years as William Bailey.
Later, he became known as W.Axl Rose, and his own history in detail you can read here. But before he grew up into "the world most outrageous rocker", another Lafayette native, Jeffery Isbell, made the first move in the making the legend, when he packed his things, sat in the car and scooted west at the age of 18.
Jeffery 'Izzy' Isbell was born also in 1962, but later than Axl: on April,8. (His own detail story you can also read here). He hated Indiana and after he graduated from high school (this fact became one of the most famous facts in his story, 'cause he was the only one G.n'R school graduate!), he understood he could get nothing more from Lafayette. Izzy felt trapped with its 'social limitations', and chose Los Angeles as his destination. As we know, he was right in his decision.
At this time he fell in love with rock'n'roll, and Rolling Stones were his lodestar. He played drums back then, and after playing in some local Lafayette bands he, as we already said, packed his things, put his drum kit in his "Impala" and drove to California oasis of rock'n'roll, capitol town of show business and mass media - Los Angeles.
He was only 18 when he got there, he slept in the car and kept his drums there, too. After playing in the band called "Naughty Woman" as a drummer, someone had
stolen
his car, and of course, drums that were inside the trunk. He practised
playing bass then, and eventually came to guitar. But time went by, or
so they say, and Izzy was still without record deal and no perspectives
for future. He was looking for musicians for a band he hoped to form everywhere,
'showing his face at all the right places' he only could. One night he
got boozing in famous Rainbow Bar &
Grill with
coupla fellow guitarists - one he used to know, that was young Tracy
Ulrich (who later became known as Tracii
Guns), and the second one was introduced
to him by Tracy, that was Tracy's schoolmate
Chris
Weber. They were pupils in Fairfax
High School, probably the most famous
school in rock'n'roll - it raised everyone from Flea and Anthony
Kiedis (from Red Hot Chili Peppers)
to some name you may have heard, - Slash.
So, those guys were guitarists and played in some local bands, although
they were only 16 - rock'n'roll has no ages! Tracy suggested Izzy to take
Chris in the band he started to form with his old mate, Bill as
a vocalist.
At this time, Bill was still W.Rose, and when he got fed up with Lafayette (Izzy called this town 'bumfuck'
once), he came to L.A. and met Izzy there.
It was 1983, and this trio - Izzy, Chris and W.Rose-
decided to form the band firstly they named A.X.L. Chris Weber says, that 'the first day I met Izzy and Axl was the first day of Guns N' Roses, because Guns N'Roses was essentially Izzy and Axl...'. Weber:'...In fact, the whole idea for a band came from Izzy... he was like, "We're gonna sound like this, we're gonna look like that...". Izzy came up with all the ideas, and it was he who suggested we started listening to Hanoi Rocks, UK Subs, Ramones and stuff like that.'
After A.X.L. they changed the band's name to Rose,
and, according to Weber, after this W.Rose added this name to his own name and became W.Axl Rose, eventually. But they'd seen a band from N.Y. called Rose in a magazine, and changed the name to Hollywood Rose.
Line-up of the band was completed with Johnny Christ, the drummer, and Rick Mars (not Mick Mars, Motley Crue's guitarist! -J), the bassist, who was later replaced by Andre Troxx. They spent 1984 year playing in all the local clubs and pubs in & out of L.A. They sounded like Ramones and looked like Hanoi Rocks,and they were, actually, first L.A. glam band - at least they pretended to be; when Poison later said it was they who turned L.A. to glam, Axl, to put it mildly, was not agree with this declaration.
One night, after the show in Santa Monica, Axl got pissed off, and quitted. He joined the band that was formed by one we already know, Tracii Guns, who called it L.A.Guns. Izzy, at the time, joined the band called London, which, at various points in its career, featured Slash, WASP's Blackie Lawless and Crue's Nikki Sixx.
But Axl didn't have a lot of luck in L.A.Guns, neither did Izzy in London, and they + Chris decided to reform Hollywood Rose for reunion gig at New Year's Eve 1984. This line-up featured bassist Steve Darrow, and drummer Rob Gardner. After this they rehearsed, but split up again, and eventually Axl, Izzy and Rob
Gardner
stayed from Hollywood Rose last line-up. They decided to go on with it,
and looked for a suitable guitarist. Funny, but Slash did some rehearsals
with them at the time, but didn't stick around then. Eventually, Tracii
Guns joined the band, and then (it were '85's early months), for the
name for new band Izzy simply decided to mix together names of Hollywood
Rose
and L.A.Guns,
because their "parts" were there. What had resulted, everybody from you
guys, know - the sacred name that drove, drives and will always drive us
mad - GUNS
N' ROSES.
So, the very first line-up of Guns N' Roses were:
Izzy Stradlin, W.Axl Rose, Tracii Guns and Rob Gardner.But, of course, as every band, they needed a suitable bass player. That was a problem, and Izzy took bass part for a first time. And then, another young fellow who came to L.A. to make his dreams come true, came across new band and so, completed Guns N' Roses first line-up: Duff McKagan, whose story you can read here.
Duff McKagan was born as Michael McKagan in the family that has seven children plus Duff, on February 5, 1964. During his teenage years, he played approximately in 30 bands, as a drummer, guitarist and
bass player; by the time Duff was in 8th grade, he had been taught some basic bass playing by his elder brother Bruce. At this time, Duff fell in love with punk, and its legend The Sex Pistols, and of course, Sid Vicious, Pistols' late hero and bassist, was his
idol. So, he played everywhere he could, but he thought he gotta move to either New York or Los Angeles, because "no-one got signed from Seattle. It was kind of dead-end town".
Los Angeles was nearer for young Duff, plus, he had his brother living there - Matthew McKagan, a horn
player,
who later played horns on Guns N' Roses albums with his band "Suicide Horns".
All rite then, Duff bought new bass and small bass amp and moved south.
When he got there, he saw this newspaper add from guitar player called
Slash, and Duff thought this name shows punk ambitions. He was surprised
to hear about Slash's main influences being
Aerosmith
and Alice Cooper,
but thought it's gonna work, and met Slash and his young sidekick Steven
Adler at Canters, some infamous 24-hour
delicatessen. Slash and Steven, the drummer, had agreed to give Duff a
trial for their band, Road Crew.
This threesome got together and started working on some material, but it just didn't work. As Duff put it, "we needed much better material if we were gonna to do anything other than disappearing our own amps". So, in the spring of 1985 Duff started looking for more active gig. As we know, he came across young band Guns
N' Roses and completed their first line-up.
Right from the start, Duff began to work. He booked a small tour for a band on West Coast, using contacts he'd made while gigging on the punk club circuit. But
just
three days before the tour, later became known as "The
Hell Tour", first ever tour of Guns N' Roses,
drummer Rob and guitarist Tracii announced that they didn't fancy it, and
left the band. Situation sucked, and nobody knew what the fuck to do. But
they (Axl, Izzy and Duff) didn't wanted to cancel the whole tour, and Duff
suggested Izzy and Axl to talk with Slash and Steven from Road Crew, to
see if they were up for it instead.
Two remaining "roadies" agreed, even though they knew they had little more than 48 hours to rehearse the set before the opening date at the Troubadour, West Hollywood's top hard rock venues.
After kicking things off at the Troubadour, they borrowed a friend's car, took a coupla roadies to help them out and...just about one hundred miles out of L.A. their car broke down. The band hitchhiked for two days to Seattle. Their roadies would try to fix the car and meet them there, and after the Seattle show they'd continue the tour, sliding down the West Coast places they booked the gigs in. Two hippy San-Francisco girls took them to Seattle, but they walked away from the gig with only $50 instead of $250 they'd been promised. The misery didn't end there, because their roadie on the way to the next place lost his petrol station card. With no transport, the june'85 tour had to be aborted. Somehow they got back to L.A. and there good news were waiting for the band - "Troubadour" wanted them back. Within a few months band was so impressing that they became a headliners and it was pretty good move.
After Troubadour success they conquested other L.A. dives like Whiskey A Go-Go, the Water Club, Scream and the Roxy. In a short time they became L.A.'s top club act, and the bands like L.A.Guns and Faster Pussycat
were opening for them. They was on the right way, and now probably no-one
would say they're not gonna make it. But money was a problem, and in this
time they all took part-time jobs - Izzy killed time in a guitar
shop, Axl worked at Tower Video on Sunset Boulevard, Slash
made a lotta clocks in a clock factory and Steven washed dishes,
moved lawns, made pizzas and such. At this time they tried to live on $3.75
a day - enuff to buy gravy and biscuits at Denny's, some rock'n'roll deli
on Sunset, and Nightrain -
bottle of cheap but 'lethal' wine to wash it down, and of course you recognize
their famous song dedicated to this drink.
At this time Guns N' Roses could call their residence 'some decadent little sweatbox' on Gardener Street - tiny rehearsal room, where boys stored their equipment and rehearsed, but also lived, after covering with some timber holes in the ceiling. And last, but not least, girls wouldn't be a problem; Slash later agreed that he would've slept with anything with a pulse. And of course, girls were pretty important thing to get finances from. As one girlfriend of the band, Arlett Vereecke once said, "your credit card would go sky-high whenever the Guns were around".
One of the Guns' girls was some not unknown person Vicky Hamilton, who actually was almost first manager of the band. She was the first person in Hollywood to show serious interest in the band then. Vicky helped the band get gigs at the Roxy and Whiskey, supported them, and even promised them to raise $25000 they needed to buy some equipment.
Vicky was, in fact, first person in Hollywood to show serious interest in the band then. But in the beginning of 1986 they were already something more, than just 'another band'; they made so much noise in the city, that soon some 'big persons' came to them. Guns N' Roses eventually attracted to themselves major record companies' attention. But most of these guys who offered them a deal didn't have a clue about what they were doing; and they finally got signed to Geffen Records, Slash's family old friend record label. Izzy explains the reason Guns opted for Geffen was because "they were the coolest; they were very hip to what was goin' on. They know about rock'n'roll. There were labels... who didn't know who fuckin' Aerosmith was, that wanted to sign us. At one label, something came about Steven Tyler, and this chick said,"Who's that?"".Guns N' Roses finally 'inked the dotted line' on March 25, 1986, when Geffen A&R man Tom Zutaut came to the 'Hellhouse' - their Gardener St. apartment. Now the band needed some 'big name' manager - Vicky Hamilton slipped off from the picture. And first "official" management Guns N' Roses got from Oxford - educated manager of Great White - Alan Niven.
And now the band could start working for the label.
But, at first, Geffen wanted to check out the things - they still didn't believe that people will buy products with the name Guns N' Roses on it. They had some tape of Guns' show in L.A. earlier that year, and was decided to press it up to vinyl - eventually only 10,000 copies were printed - and to release it like EP, introducing the band to theworld cheaply and, at the same time, checking out the band's selling status. They also got the idea to release the EP on 'indie' label called UZI SUICIDE Records. The label, actually, didn't exist, and it was Geffen who stood behind - Geffen wanted to insure against failure.
The
EP was eventually released at the outset of 1987 - and was called "Live?!@Like
A Suicide".
It quickly became collector's item, because all 10,000 copies were sold
immediately. '...The sleaziest record to come
out of Smog Angeles since Motley Crue's 'Too Fast For Love' debut' -
it was Kerrang!'s
review of the album. Guns' fans were still paying $100
to get their hands on the '...Suicide' until its live material was included
in Guns' 1989 release 'G.N'R
Lies'.
Now Geffen could be quiet about Guns', and so they started recordings of their world revolutionary album, that now everybody knows as "Appetite For Destruction". These sessions was Guns N' Roses' first work with producer Mike Clink, who produced all of their later albums. Mike Clink was known as a producer of such names, as Heart, UFO, Eddy Money, and later Megadeth.
After quite success of "...Suicide" it was decided to release the debut LP on summer 1987. And meanwhile Alan Niven decided to travel with the band to England, to 'stir up some interest in the english press' - band had to play three gigs in famous Marquee Club. They took metal publicist Arleet Vereecke with them, that worked with Motley Crue, Sex Pistols, David Lee Roth... In London, boys tried to live £5 a day - and solved the problem: what to buy - food or alcohol? Their first show at the Marquee - their very first show outside of the America - was on June 19, 1987 and wasn't pretty good: crowd didn't behave very friendly, and British
press
stars critized them pretty hard. But after second show they all shut up:
it really rocked, and it helped to the Guns make an excitement in London.
Plus news about Slash's drunken adventures that week, like getting kicked
out of some club, pouring the drink over the UFO's singer Phil
Mogg's head in the pub, smashing a window
after being refused entry to St.Moritz rock club, helped band's reputation
really well, too. As a result, third Marquee show, on June 28, truly was
their best in England and maybe one of their coolest gigs ever. On this
show were played perfectly early versions of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"
and AC/DC's
"Whole Lotta Rosie". They really had London on their side now, and could
go back home with a feeling of satisfaction.
Almost right after their home-coming,on July 31, 1987,
Geffen had released so long-awaited album. As you know, it was titled "Appetite For Destruction" because of original name of painting featured on the album's cover, that was made by the artist Robert Williams. Soon after release, as many record stores refused to sell the album with such 'offensive' cover, and Guns had to change it to famous now picture of bands' members, presented as skulls on a cross. The album, though, was not gonna be a chart-breaker roght after its release. It was taking months to get in Top 100 albums, and Guns N' Roses meanwhile toured with the english band The Cult - as opening act, of course.
And then, "Welcome To The Jungle" was chosen as theme for Clint Eastwood's movie, "The Dead Pool". The band even got a chance to play some cameo role in the movie. As a result, video for the "...Jungle", that was shot by Nigel Dick, and was,in fact, the very first Guns N' Roses' video, was very successful on MTV.
In october 1987 the band returned to UK and did there a small tour on their own, that was pretty rocking. And back in the States band's management already planned a new tour to them, that was gonna start in 1988's first weeks. The band was chosen as the opening act for Motley Crue's "Girls Girls Girls" winter tour. It was
really
hellraising: both bands weren't known as quiet, sane rockers. Crue tricked
Steven Adler into inhaling large amount of toilet disinfectant, later he
broke his hand by drunkenly pushing a lamp-post in Muskegon, Michigan.
Slash destroyed his hotel room in Dallas, Nikki Sixx of the Crue nearly
'died' after overdosing, and Slash with Steve actually saved his life,
when the came in time and called the ambulance. So, it was pretty wild,
tour-in-style.
After completing two weeks of dates with Alice Cooper, most of '88's March and April band spent in the studio, recording tracks for their new album ("G.N'R.Lies", that came out in december). Such tracks, as "Patience" and "Used To Love Her", written by Izzy, were recorded then. And in May '1988, they came on the road again, now as a support act for Iron Maiden's US leg of the world tour. The Maiden's ticket sales were slow until Guns N' Roses were annouced as the opening act, and, of course, Maiden's couldn't feel pretty good with it. Camaraderies between two bands weren't really hard, and eventually relations between them stopped, and Duff even took some time during May to marry his long-time girlfriend Mandy Brix, the member of L.A.'s band "Lame Flames".
Summer '1988 was really hot for Guns: they finally got a chance to play with their boyhood's idols, Aerosmith. These all-time rock'n'roll idols came back sober with their 1987 new album "Permanent Vacation", and Guns', young rock'n'roll generation fellas, of course were the best to keep their company. And really, everybody recalls that this tour was great, with jamming for each other and such.
And at this time "Appetite For Destruction" was burning the charts with the new single, released from the album, that was called "Sweet Child O' Mine". This video quickly became an MTV's favour, and the single eventually hit No.1 in States, with "Appetite For Destruction", that also reached the top of the album charts, a year after its release.
In the August Guns N' Roses flew to England once again, and took part in Donnington Metal Festival. Sadly, two fans were killed in the crowd, while Guns' were performing, though they tried to calm the things down by stopping and changing their set to softer songs. The critics, of course, accused them for that tragedy. No wonder that Guns felt right when they came back home and continued tour with Aerosmith.
By the end of the year the long-awaited "G.N'R Lies" album was released, on December 1988. It featured 4
tracks
from the "Live Like A Suicide", represented on the album, and 4 new tracks.
Some controversy had started immediately with the release, because of the
'scandalous' lyrics of "One In A Million",
song from this album. And despite of that, in February 1989 "Lies" stormed
into Billboard album charts, where he stood together with "Appetite For
Destruction" in the Top Five.
In 1989 Izzy and Slash's heroin problems came to light, Izzy was put on probation for 6 months at the time, and Slash's stories that featured drugs came to rumours and were spreading around. Plus Steven with his own drug problems, that's all could make you ask a question: "What's gonna be next for them?"
Meanwhile, their records sales were awesome - over 15 million worldlwide. Guns N' Roses really became very popular band back then, and of course, shocking reports about them really helped their popularity growing bigger and bigger. In 1989 came news about Izzy, who was drunk at some plane and pissed in the trash-can instead of the crowded bathroom, and later Izzy was again at the headlines, for having a fight with Motley Crue's singer Vince Neil who accused Izzy of being his wife lover.
Next big show Guns N' Roses had in 1989 was, of course, October 18, the first of four shows supporting the... ROLLING STONES in U.S.! On one show, Izzy and Axl even joined the Stones to play their '68 classic "Salt Of The Earth". Slash, at the time, cleaned up his act, and got healthy.
And 1990 started with problems. Steven Adler, who couldn't quit drugs, was fired during May, but before it he managed to lay down the drum tracks to the new song "Civil War" (later to appear on "Use Your Illusion - II"), and played on April's "Farm Aid Show" - Guns played 3 songs: "Welcome To The Jungle", "Civil War" and "Down On The Farm", UK Subs' cover. Guns faced a problem of disintegration; Martin Chambers, Pretenders' drummer, came to help and recorded basic tracks with the band for their new album, that they were working on at the time. Izzy, at the meantime, came back to Indiana and got himself clean and sober.
And Slash at the time recorded with everybody from Michael Jackson to Iggy Pop; he featured on Bob Dylan's, Lenny Kravitz's and Alice Cooper's new albums, that came out in 1991. But he also did a pretty good job for the Guns - he found a replacement for Steven! Slash went on that Cult show in L.A., and stood amazed by their drummer, Matt Sorum's playing. He offered him to join Guns N' Roses, and he agreed.
First
show with the Guns that Matt Sorum played on, was "Rock
In Rio - II" festival in January 1991. Guns
N' Roses were contracted to headline two nights, supported by Billie
Idol and Faith
No More, amongst others, and also Megadeth,Sepultura,Judas
Priest and
Queensryche
were opening for them. These shows were a debut also for new gunner - keyboardist
Dizzy
Reed, who played previously with the band called The
Wild.
After "Rock In Rio" band spent two months finishing the album that was already decided to be called "Use Your Illusion", and working for "Don't Cry" video. At this time, Izzy seemed to estrange from the band, cause he ignored the video making and wasn't on film.
And then Guns N' Roses decided to do a long-awaited tour; it was gonna be US tour, that opened in San Francisco. The band hired First Class 727 plane and moved in style. But Izzy decided to travel between the shows on his own tour bus, along with his girlfriend Annika and his dog Treader.
This tour was called "Get In The Ring", and wasn't pretty quiet. On July 2, during the show in St.Louis, Axl jumped into crowd to take the camera from one man, because 'the lame-ass securities' couldn't do it. He was so pissed off, that he decided to stop the show and go backstage. The whole band went backstage, too. And then crowd got pissed off; fans got onstage, broke everything there, including the drum kit and Guns' equipment. It was known as famous 'St.Louis Riot'.
At this time, some rumours were spreading around, that Izzy's got fed up and gonna leave. After their super-show on Wembley on August 31, 1991, some stuff was said, that it might be the last gig of Izzy with the Guns. Jane's Addiction's guitarist, Dave Navarro, considered as a replacemnet for Izzy. And in November, Izzy left the band. Later he started his own solo - career, that you can check out here.
At this period, long awaited album, entitled "Use Your Illusion - Parts I and II" was released on Septemver 16, 1991, and in the States, on the first day of release, over 500,000 copies were sold - by the end of a first week they had more copies than Metallica had in the first six weeks of their new album's release.
Dave Navarro, after Izzy's leaving, was not considered any further, and Izzy's replacement became ex-"Kill For Thrills" guitarist Gilby Clarke. With him Guns N' Roses started their grandiose "Use Your Illusion" world tour, that continued till late 1993! All around the world tour included shows in Japan, whole Europe, plus Israel and Turkey (!), and US, of course. And maybe the most famous Guns N' Roses show from that tour was on April 20, 1992 - tribute to Freddie Mercury show on Wembley, Guns' performed there with names like David Bowie, Robert Plant, Elton John, Def Leppard, Extreme and many others.
In 1993, as you know, Guns N' roses released their last album for today, and it's was called "The Spaghetti
Incident?",
that featured 13 covers of punk and rock'n'roll stars, such as Damned,
UK Subs, Iggy Pop, Marc Bolan, Nazareth, Misfits, etc. This album was actually
Duff's idea, who, also in 1993, released his first solo-album, "Believe
In Me".
Next solo-album from the Guns' camp came from Gilby's side, who released "Pawnshop Guitars" in 1994. Soon after that, he was fired by Axl, who decided that Gilby doesn't like the situation in the band. After that Guns' really, entered the zone of the miseries.
In 1995 Guns N' Roses recorded the single for the movie "Interview with the Vampire", 1968' Stones' cover "Sympathy For The Devil", with Paul Huge, who replaced Gilby. Slash formed his own band for recording his solo album in 1995, "Slash's Snakepit", and in 1996 left the Guns N' Roses officially. Duff, who left Guns' in 1996 as well, formed with Steve Jones (Sex Pistols), John Taylor (Duran Duran), and Matt Sorum, who was still in the band back then, a new project that was called "Neurotic Outsiders", and they released an album in 1996. After that, Matt's also left the band (in 1997), and Guns N' Roses line-up since then feature only two well-known names: Axl Rose and Dizzy Reed.
