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Born January 22, 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio, Steve "Popcorn" Adler found Guns N' Roses arduous touring nothing new. He was unceremoniously tossed out of his home when he was only 12 years old. "A super bad guy just seemed to come out of me when I was a wee youngster," Steve explains. "I was really bad: got thrown out of eight, nine different schools, I used to fight with the teachers, I'd get in a fight every day ...I was just a feisty little kid."
"Feisty" though he may have been, his mania for music manifested itself early on. Steve remembers listening to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons back when he was only five years old. Adler's early drum role models were Roger Taylor of Queen, Gene Krupa, Led Zeppelin's John Boham and The Who's Keith Moon. Naturally drawn to the skins, Steve never took a lesson in his life and didn't own a kit until he was 18 years old. The frustrated novice contented himself by pounding on books and Tupperware. "I learned from watching and listening very closely to other drummers. That, plus wanting it real bad and believing in myself."
Steve and Slash became very good friends since the day Slash found this kid (Adler) had falling of his Skateboard. Slash thought that he had killed himself and went over to see if he was alright, and after that accident they started to hang out. They went to Bancroft Junior High together, and ended up ditching the entire seventh grade. Steve had a guitar at his grandmothers place, so he and Slash used to sit there and play together. Slash remembers: "He used to play Kiss songs. Actually he couldn't play anything, but it was a huge turn on for him."
Later, Steve Adler and Duff McKagan played together in Slash's band called ´Road Crew´, it became a short-lived career with this band. And before Guns N' Roses became Guns N' Roses, they played together in L.A. Guns. After a while W.Axl Rose left his band ´Hollywood Rose´ for L.A. Guns. This created some problems cause in the meantime Izzy (who played in the same band as Axl) had booked a gig for Hollywood Rose, and there was no band left, then Tracii booked a gig for L.A. Guns and there was no band there either. The problems in those 2 bands was the begining of a new band, they mixed what was left of them and Guns N' Roses was born. The new line-up was finalized on June 6th, 1985. Adler became the band's drummer, and after two days of rehearsal Steve & Co. played their debut gig with GN'R on a Thursday night at "L.A.'s Troubadour".
The summer 1990 became the end of his career in Guns N' Roses, since the band had made an agreement with him which said that if he didn't stop taking drugs he was out. When this didn't seem to help, he was fired. Adler's compensater became "The Cult's" drummer Matt Sorum.
Slash explains why they had to fire Steve: "A lot of rumours have been going around suggesting that we abandoned him because he had a drug problems. Yet we all came, came through ours. And we sat around for a year waiting for Steven to sort himself out. I personally spent hours on the phone with him and also visiting him when he was in a hospital trying to clean himself up. I gave him every possible encouragement and help. We all did. But there came a point when if we had continued to wait for him then the band itself might have been in serious trouble and it could have split us up.
In 1991, Steven tried to resurrect the "Road Crew" name with San Franciscan frontman Davy Vain. However Steven had apparently not put his problems as far behind him as he'd though. As a result Road Crew slipped quietly off the agenda.
In the meantime, Steven filed a suit against the GN'R and his former managers, because he claimed that they were responsible for his drug problem. At the end they reached an out of court settlement. Steven collected about $2.5 million from the band and managers. Slash commented about this:
"I feel sorry for him, because he didn't get any money we paid him. It all went to the people that made him do this. He's still on junk (heroin) and I still love him. But he's gonna die. It's just a sad fuckin state of affairs."
Fortunetly, Steven did not die. In a few years he attempted to join The Bulletboys, but that didn't really work out. Then in late '90, he served some jail time for assulting two women who owed him money. Now, out of jail, Steven seems better and sometimes plays some clubs. He is also writing a book about himself and his GN'R experiences with his mother.
