Guns N' Roses: NIGHTRAIN - Izzy Stradlin's Story

Izzy Stradlin: The Story
////////////////////// //////// Izzy Stradlin, one of the greatest musicians in the world, playing his hollowbody Les-Paul

One of the best musicians, composers and performers ever - Izzy Stradlin - was born as Jeffrey Isbell on April 8, 1962 in the working class family in small Indiana town Lafayette. His father was an engraver, and mother worked in some phone company.
young Jeff ?!?!??

We don't know much about his childhood, it seemed to be some regular, standard 'beginning' of normal life road in small-town America world, but when he grew up, he fell in love with rock-music, and especially uncredible the Stones - and felt trapped by Lafayette's social limitations. At the time he was a teenager he took some lessons of the drum playing, and even tried to play in some local garage band with another Lafayette native Bill Rose, later became known as W.Rose, and even later - as W.Axl Rose.
But Jeff quickly understood he could get nowhere from there. He didn't want to spend all his life being just another exemplary citizen of Lafayette, the town, he later described as "worthless fuckin' city", and when he finished the High School, he packed his things and his drum kit, put it in the trunk of his 'Impala' and scooted west, having Los Angeles as his final destination.
He arrived there in time. It was the beginning of 80's; punk rock just started to slip away from the scene, and glam returned with the bands like Motley Crue and Hanoi Rocks. But both punk and glam was true rock'n'roll children, so L.A. at this time was really like rock'n'roll's metropolis. And, of course, that was all that young Jeff "Izzy" Isbell needed.
His first band in L.A. was "Naughty Woman", some crazy-glam band. (Don't forget, at this time Izzy was still a drummer!). He recalls, that their first gig was a pretty 'hard' one: they had to play in some club, and he came earlier than his band members,and saw that this club was full of skinheads. You can be sure they didn't like long-hair dudes + their vocalist, wearing a pink spandex! So the skinners got onstage and tried to kick the shit outta them; beat up the singer and broke the guitarist's hand. Izzy said he grabbed the hi-hat and tried to stay out of the rumble.
After two months with "Naughty Woman", he joined punk band called "The Atoms" and played with them, until something terrible happened.
He lived in the car back then, and stored the drums there, too. But someday the car got stolen, and the drums didn't have time to say the last goodbye to Izzy. Uh... that was a hard slap from the fate. Izzy decided to play bass, bought a cheap one and some time after he joined some band called "The Shire". He played bass with them till 1983, and then he'd left them, sold his bass and took some lessons on a guitar. He thought it was easier to write songs on it, plus it was more cooler.
But he was still without serious project, something he came to L.A. for. Izzy started to look for musicians for his own band he decided to form. He soon found two persons: young fellas Chris Weber and Tracy Ulrich,(who later became known as Tracii Guns), who were schoolmate guitarists. Izzy finally invited Christo join his band, Weber agreed, and they started looking for additional members. First man to join the couple was... old friend of Izzy's - W.Rose! He moved to L.A. not long ago. Rose became band's vocalist, and they decided to call the band A.X.L. Soon they changed the name to Rose, and after this W.Rose added previous name of the band to his own and finally became W.Axl Rose.
But soon they saw some band from N.Y. in a magazine, that was called 'Rose', so they had to change the name once again, this time to "Hollywood Rose". Line-up was completed with Johnny Christ, the drummer, and Mick Mars, the bassist, who was later replaced by Andre Troxx. All these facts in detail you can read in Guns N'Roses History in my NIGHTRAIN site. This page will concentrate more on Izzy.
As you know, 'Hollywood Rose' later morphed into Guns N' Roses, and Izzy was always in center of this band, playing glue-like role there. Besides, concept of 1986-88 early Guns N' Roses was, actually, Izzy's own ideas, the same ideas that he started 'Hollywood Rose' with and that shaped into Guns N' Roses of the early years. So, when Guns N' Roses came into decade of changes, his own attitude and relation with his band changed as well. All the situations Guns' were through in 1989-91 affected too, and probably the last straw for Izzy was "Get In The Ring" '91 Tour, pre-"Illusions" tour of Guns N' Roses. It was really scandalous tour, with things like famous St.Louis riot. Izzy understood that the band went too far from what he wanted it to be, Guns N' Roses became media monster, and Izzy never wanted something this big. Plus, as he said, he was already 'sober' back then - he finally managed to quit drugs, that he started using in crazy '80's, and could take things more realistic. So, after "Get In The Ring" tour he decided to quit. "Use Your Illusion" was released already without Izzy, and those were the last albums we can hear Izzy's playing with Guns N'Roses.
After leaving the band, Izzy went back to Lafayette and started writing songs for his next album. After this he appeared in L.A. again, and together with his buddy - ex-Broken Homes bassist Jimmy Asshurst - began to look for suitable guitarist. Finally they contacted ex-Georgia Satellites guitarist Rick Richards, that couldn't understand why they had to choose him from millions L.A. guitarists. Drummer Charlie "Chalo" Quintana, who made his reputation touring with Bob Dylan band, completed the line-up of "The Ju Ju Hounds" - so Izzy decided to call his new band. In 1992 they released their debut album called "Izzy Stradlin And The Ju Ju Hounds", that was acclaimed by the critics, and started the world tour. They played all over the world, traversed the globe twice and came back home in late 1993.
In 1993 Izzy re-joined Guns N'Roses for five European shows in May, because Gilby Clarke, Izzy's replacement, broke his hand in April 1993, and old mates decided to call Izzy back for this time. He wasn't against it, maybe because, as rumours put it, he got $1.000.000 check for doin' this, and after the world tour of course he needed money. But it's only a rumour,guys,so - let's stop here! J
Izzy was on the road for so damn long, that just couldn't stop travelling, and after the world tour he spend some time in some places like England and Trinidad - he recorded some new tracks with 'Ju Ju Hounds' there, that eventually ended up in his album "117" - and also Costa Rica, Spain, Denmark and Sweden, living there for some time. After that, he finally returned to Indiana and resumed one of his passions - racing. He built a quater-mile track near his house in Lafayette, and started racing 'those '70's BMW's and Alfa Romeo's'. "Racing is a great tension release", says Stradlin.
In late 1995 Izzy went to L.A. and spent some time with his old mate Duff McKagan, writing and recording songs with him. After that he contacted Rick Richards again and Reverend Horton Heat drummer Taz Bentley. They finished the tracks together, and Izzy started producing the album along with his old 'Ju Ju Hounds' producer Eddie Ashworth. The album, titled "117", finally came out in March 10 (to say, guys, it's my birthday! J), 1998. Many people say it's his best work ever - well, it's really awesome album and every Izzy and Guns' fan should have it. Critics said it's the album that's most close to the Guns N' Roses stuff. That's right - Izzy was one of the main songwriters in Guns N' Roses. Unfortunately for us, his fans, Izzy decided not to support this album by touring, videos or merchandise.
The latest news I heard about him is that he appears on Duff McKagan's latest record, "Beautiful Disease", but Duff got troubles with his record company and seems like this album will never be released. Every news about Izzy will appear on this page as soon as I will know about them, so check out this page frequently.
If you know or heard something new about Izzy that this page doesn't feature, please e-mail me and I will add it.

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This page was created by Ronnie "Stradlin" Slogun, @1999. If you wanna use something from this page, please contact me first at: Ronnie_Stradlin@yahoo.com. Thank you! Izzy rules, doesn't he? Ha-ha,yes!