GUNS N` ROSES SPECIAL

  Here you will find only special and exlusive stuff about the Guns n' Roses, that
I search all over the Internet. Today I'm gonna present you an essay about Guns n' Roses controversial relationships with the press. Many Guns` fans still wonder what went wrong between Axl and the media, what "Get In The Ring" is about and why it was written. If you wanna know more about it, read about it here in killer essay that was written by Natalie Sutherland exlusively for the NIGHTRAIN.

    I want to thank Natalie Sutherland for this essay and I hope you will find it interesting.
                                                                                                                     -Ronnie Slogun
 

GUNS N` ROSES vs. PRESS

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From the beginning of their career, Guns N' Roses, one of the most controversial rock bands in music history, have been under the uncomprimising interrogation of the press, as Lonn M. Friend, writing in RIP 1992 tells us: "For every million fans they've gathered, they've attracted a million critics... Of course, along with the success has come the scrutiny of an often jealous and bitter press which has gone out of its way to exploit the GN'R phenomena. When the band finally put its foot down, refusing to play the game any longer, the resultant backlash of negative opinion from the legitimate and metal media was astounding." Finally making a stand at the peak of their career, Guns n' Roses released the controversial song Get in the Ring (Use Your Illusion II, Geffen Records, September 1991) which attacked the press and specific figures in the press who supposedly printed falsehoods concerning Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses (I am not interested in the actual lies printed by the press but wish to concentrate on the actual conflict between the press and Guns N' Roses and their fightback against this persecution).
 

The only direct response to ‘Get in the Ring’ came from Bob Guccione Jnr. (editor/publisher of Spin at the time), who announced to Rose, via the press, that he would be more than obliged to “get in the ring” with him:
 

I take the fact that there has been absolutely no response from you to indicate how busy you must be, I mean, what with cancelling concerts, starting riots and beating up paying fans trying to take pictures of you, what a schedule you've had! I sympathize. So I just wanted to let you know that as soon as you’re ready, I am too. Perhaps until then you shouldn’t sing that song. At least not too loudly, eh?

accusation that he had printed lies about Guns N’ Roses.
 

Spin was also mentioned in ‘Get in the Ring’ because it had printed a full article on the future of Guns N’ Roses (date unknown) which was based on a very short conversation that writer Danny Sugerman had had with a very drunk Axl Rose in a bar one night. I wasn’t able to find a copy of the article, but AJ Rosner of "Stacey and AJ's Uzi Suicide Homepage" says:‘it wasn’t a terrible article ... but it really was rather speculative in the interpretation of Axl’s comments.’ Rose (indirectly) responded to this in an interview in Rolling Stone, admitting that "things are always going to get changed or taken out of context, but some magazines will make up an interview just to sell issues. One’s written that Slash said I run over dogs. I think it sucks when a kid has three bucks and he buys... a magazine because he's really into Guns N' Roses and he gets bad photos and an interview that's not true."
 

Slash supported Axl's viewpoint in Metal Masters 1992, saying that "this band has generated bullshit hype for so long... Some people seriously want to nail us, y' know? This band is a magnet for it... sometimes too much shit gets hard to take though."
 

Apparently this conflict extended back to 1990 when the band, sick of being harrassed by the press, proposed a contract which gave them the ‘right of final approval over everything that was written by anyone who signed it’ (Kim Neely, Rolling Stone 1992). In June 1991, Spin printed a copy of the contract, sparking hostility between Rose and Guccione Jnr. Following the argument above, I couldn’t find any reason why they would choose to use this power over the press to glorify themselves, as Rose states in Rolling Stone:
 

We were trying to cut down our exposure... We were also trying to weed out the assholes from the people who were gonna be cool. You know, if you were willing to put your ass on the line and sign the damn thing, then we pretty much figured you weren't gonna try and screw us.

Except this is where the line is crossed: yes, they will experience all the tribulations in the face of the press that other celebrities must also endure; but in addition to this, not only have they been the victim of lies and half-truths, but the issues in their personal lives have not been used to "celebrate" their identity, nor to unconsciously reduce their famed status, as celebrity culture would demand, but rather, to antagonize them and debase their music. Revealed here is the precise extent of power which the media posseses; they are able to target and antagonize a particular figure or group whom they view as negative. Guns N’ Roses contract proposal seems not to be a device for their own dictation but simply a realisation and comprehension of the press’ abused power.
 

In terms of cultural and historical contexts, I have to declare that much of the media's antagonism has come from the general aversion that existed (and still does) in the 1980s towards rock/heavy-metal (I do not mean to combine the characterisitcs of these two genres or to suggest which genre Guns N' Roses belongs to; but their connected consideration is fundamental to this argument).

Academic material revealed that the attitude of the press has always been negative towards rock/heavy-metal music. Robert Walser in Running with the Devil says of heavy metal music and the press: ‘The enthusiasm of metal fan magazines is paralleled by the hysterical denunciation of the mainstream press and smug dismissals of most rock journalism.’ Likewise, John Hartley in Popular Reality and Michael Parenti in Inventing Reality both acknowledge that the press can be corrupt, with Parenti writing: ‘Like any liar the press is filled with contradictions... the absence of supporting evidence, the failure to amplify and explain.’
 

So the press’ perspective is perhaps not as contrived as anticipated. Rather, it stemmed from a combination three aspects: One, the unfavourable approach to heavy-metal/rock music, as Kerrang's report on the Guns first album, "the sleaziest record to come out of Smog Angeles since Motley Crue's Too Fast for Love debut", proves (thanks to Ronnie for this quote from his Guns N' Roses Story at Nightrain); two, the role of the press to reflect the views of the general public; and three, the fact that Guns N’ Roses is a band whose domain, music and image is proudly founded on controversial and often negative content, as the dictum from Get in the Ring shows, "You may not like our integrity/We built a world out of anarchy", or as Dean Kuipers writes in Spin (september 1991) of Axl: "[he] has built an empire from the chips constantly falling from his shoulder." Duff McKagan (bassist) elaborated on this combination of perspectives in a press conference, when asked why the media hated them, he answered:
 

It's been like that from the beginning. Before anyone even knew what we sounded like we had gotten a reputation... We got famous as an asocial band and wherever we went the reputation followed.

The overarching question in assessing this argument is: where does the truth rest? Is Rose (on behalf of Guns N' Roses) standing up for what he believes in or is he trying to conceal the 'dirt' that the media has picked up and exposed? The nature of the issue forces the answer to be, essentially, the word of Guns N' Roses against the word of the press; and the press, after all, is not going to openly admit that they lie. The only indication we have that they have lied is from the assertions of Guns N’ Roses and their advocates.
 

Yet in performing this critical analysis, we must also question the integrity of Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses. If we are to dispute the press, can the word of the opposing party be trusted? Guns N' Roses have flaunted themselves as a band interested in promoting the reality in their coverage, whether it be positive or, for the large part, negative. Their willingness and audacity to acknowledge their often unfavourable behaviour and to stand by their opposing beliefs awards them much credit; they want the truth and they're not ashamed of it, regardless of how severe it may be. Rose elaborates on this in Rolling Stone:
 

I want the real story. I never wanted 'Steven Adler's on vacation.' I wanted 'Steven Adler's in a fucking rehab.’ I wanted the reality... I've always been more into the reality of the situations because that's what I wanted to read about the band. I can see where it would look like we just wanted everything to be right about us. But it was also trying to find a way to work with certain metal magazines. There are a lot of kids who collect those and we'd rather have real stories than bullshit stories.

It seems contradictory, if all this is itself not true, that Guns N’ Roses would have fought back so ferociously at such lies devised and circulated by the press, let alone released a song (partially) about it on one of their albums.
 

Many of the magazine interviews I read --the majority of them with Rose-- coveered this conflict between Guns n' Roses and the media. Although we are only presented with one point of view here, I have to comment that they are rational and Rose shows in RIP just how much he understands the media and what they are doing: "You end up with this person looking at your life not through a telescope, but rather a kaleidoscope. Everything's in pieces and distorted. I understand that everybody wants to print the dirt -- that sells magazines -- but you should first try to find out if the dirt is true."
 

More openly, Axl accuses the press of lying in one of his common speeches onstage:
 

Guns N' Roses is just a prime fuckin' example of freedom of statement. But there are a lot of people that wanna deny that, so basically they're gonna say 'Axl Rose liked about this, lied about that' when actually what they're gonna tell you is half truths. They'll tell you that 'he got into a fight with a parking attendant' but they won't tell you that fifteen parking attendants jumped him and wouldn't let him into his own concert... And according to these people [ie the press] I guess all we do is lie..."

In the same sense, an article by Paul Pottinger in the Sydney Morning Herald (Jan 1993) established its cynical viewpoint of the band and more specifcially of Rose, on his failure to uphold this "bad boy" image Rose has (which has been partially constructed in the article anyway): "the fearsome lead singer implored fans not to throw missiles [at him]. Not the sort of outlaw utterance one would expect from someone living on the edge of eternity" (yet another empty claim; who, except Paul Pottinger, assumes Rose is living on the edge of eternity?) Although Pottinger does describe the music in a positive manner, he also falls into the trap of making trivial assertions about the band. He implies, for example, that the death of two people at the Guns Donington concert in Britain was their fault (although the band stopped playing a few times in an attempt to calm the crowd) and hints that "Axl Rose" is a deliberate anagram of 'oral sex' and reprimands the crowd for perpetuating the "most dangerous band in the world hype."
 

There are journalists, however, who recognise and expose the contaminated attitude towards Guns N’ Roses embodied in other members of the press. Lonn M. Friend, for instance, writes in RIP: "Ninety-nine percent of the crap spewed forth that is critical of Axl and Guns comes from the clueless mental press the band has chosen to ignore. These 'journalists', stung by their lack of access, choose to take the vindictive route and attack rather than seek explanations. Then again, you may ask, how can these othere mags be objective and offer substance if Guns N' Roses won't talk to em? Perhaps they should've thought of that before prostituting the band year after year with rampant rumour-mongering, blatant falsehoods ... and just overall riding the GN'R gravy train until there wasn’t a legitimate drop left."
 

So celebrities they may be and controversial ones at that, but the way Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses have been treated by the press seems hardly accountable when we assess the material above. Questions of who to trust and who to believe have been indirectly answered from the band's retaliation against the press and surrounding evidence. It has been made clear that Guns N' Roses revolve around negativity (strictly speaking) and truth, two doctrines when thrown into the mix together, have drawn the criticism, rejection and subjugation they have endured from the press, who, in conclusion, are able to use their power to lie about somebody they wish to antagonize; the evidence clearly shows that this was the case concerning Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses.
 
 

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