Superstar Facts - One on One with Axl Rose 1988

Superstar Facts & Pics - No.16 - 1988

Vocalist Axl Rose: Angry Young Man
One-on-one with the man nobody goes one-on-one with. The incredible, the unpredictable, the outrageous…Axl Rose. The hottest singer in America.
by Mike Greenblatt

Axl: You dug our show?
MG: It knocked me out.
Axl: Cool.

MG: The people were literally stunned after the set.
Axl: I didn't get to see it. I went downstairs. That was one of our best shows. I know it was because it felt so good. I don't know how the hell we managed to pull it off. It certainly didn't look good going into that day.

MG: Was that story you told onstage about you passing out at MTV true?
Axl: Oh yeah. Usually on the road, I don't drink a lot anymore because it tears the hell out of my throat. But we were doing this interview for about two hours and we were bored as hell going over all these things we've gone over so many times. Finally we sent out for some wine. I started telephoning all my friends in Los Angeles, "Hey, what's happening, dude!" The next thing I knew someone was throwing me in a shower.

MG: You seem to have five different voices depending on the song.
Axl: Our sound guy said he couldn't hear the monitors and asked me how the vocals came out and I told him I thought I sang better than I have in a long time… and I didn't know the hell why. I've been working on those different voices for a long time.

MG: How do you do it?
Axl: I think I'm actually a second baritone. I used to take choir classes and sit there reading music and seeing if I could get away with fooling the teacher by singing other people's parts. We had this teacher who was pitch-perfect. He had ears like a bat, man. Like radar. So, in order to get away with singing someone else's part, you'd really have to get it down. Or else, he'd know exactly what corner of the room it's coming from. So, I guess I really started working on my different voices back then by trying to mess with my teacher's head! (laughing) He used to wonder how come he's hearing a soprano in the bass section!

MG: How many of those early horror stories about the band were made up for effect and image?
Axl: Nothing was calculated for image reasons. Nothing. When we got together with all the right pieces, we realized, wow, the way we are is gonna go over great, so, we won't hide anything. We realized all we had to do was expose the way we really were and it'll work. We wouldn't have to make anything up. A lot of the things we exposed about ourselves, other people might think would hurt their image… but we were supposed to be this hard ass rock 'n' roll band that does nothin' but play music and get in trouble. It helped us. And, we also exposed the lighter sides and other types of music we like and that helps broaden our base and pulls in more fans. If I say I like Frank Sinatra, I'm not making it up.

MG: Who else do you like?
Axl: I'm a big Metallica fan. I like the new Queensryche record. We listen to everything. It's hard to say about pop music, man, 'cause if you say you like the new Michael Jackson song, for instance, everybody thinks you like everything Michael Jackson ever did. So it's weird to say what you like. We usually only like parts of songs of just about anyone! We'll sit around and go, "Nah, that sucks, but that one bass part is cool."

MG: Crash into any stage-divers lately?
Axl: All the time. When we first played The Marquee in London, it got crazy. I don't mind stage-diving, I really don't. I like the guys who jump onstage and then jump right off. That's great. But when they get up there and start dancing, we kick 'em up. People look at the security guards and see what they're doin' because if the guards don't get 'em, we'll get 'em and it might not make the band look too good. We'll trash any dude who tries to stay onstage with us! I got photos of me holding up guys in my arms and literally throwing 'em back in the crowd in London.

MG: I heard it got pretty wild in Boston recently.
Axl: We were doing strobe lights for the end of "Paradise City" and I spun around all the way around to the back of Slash's amps. It was a huge stage. All of a sudden, there's this dude in my face who obviously couldn't see where the hell he was heading and he winds up bashing me right in the mouth. He goes running to the front of the stage with me right behind him and I got him in the back with my mike stand. Then one of the security guards did a swan dive on top of him and threw him back in the audience. I don't know, man. It was like this kid lost control of himself and just had to get on up there with his favorite band or something.

MG: Did you ever get hurt?
Axl: Not yet. But when it happens, you just don't know. You might get a little bitty cut on your lip and it'll hurt at the moment and all you'll do is taste a little blood. But you don't know what it looks like and you start to think, "Am I gonna have a permanent scar across my lip?" Then you find out the day that you're fine, but at the moment it happens, you do get upset. I got hit in the arm when somebody was being nice one time and threw a beer can. It didn't hurt. It was amazing, it came from all the way up in the bleachers and bam and I thought, "Wow, that really sucks." But all I said to the crowd was that I didn't like warm beer.

MG: How are you coping with success?
Axl: OK, but the bullshit first starts after you make it big.

MG: How so?
Axl: Because of the success of the record, everybody in the business is getting so damn excited. (mimicking) "Gee, we have such a big seller now, we can push this one." So because in the record company world, our album has been moved into a position where it's now the record to push. And with us being out on the road all the time, things are getting goddamned out of hand! There's people preparing to put out different mixes and edits of songs before we even get a chance to get a grip on what's going on. It's really not a representation of what our band stands for… or what our sound is. Hopefully, what will happen is they'll do their bull, we'll sell another million records, and that'll give us more power next time to say, "No, you sons of bitches."

MG: That's something everybody has to go through once they reach a certain plateau.
Axl: Yeah, but it's rough to hear about some of our "b"-sides being put out while we're on the road and can do nothing about it. We only hear about it after they go on and do it and we ask, "What do you mean?" It gets kinda weird with people taking liberties with your music. We could throw a big monkey wrench into the thing but that would mean a complete halt and right now we don't wanna do that, so we're gonna have to put up with this over the next few months and we're not real happy about it or proud of it. We'll show a change by our next record and I just hope the kids out there don't think we're coming out with some of the stuff they'll wind up seeing… because it has nothing to do at all with us. Y'know, you battle to a certain point and all of a sudden you're face to face with the big monkey-making machine. What's funny - what keeps coming up - is that groups like Pink Floyd actually write songs about this stuff.

MG: Somebody has to keep up the good fight…
Axl: Well, it's just that there's so many good battles to fight out there right now. Real big ones, man! There's so many advertising dollars being spent on radio. Radio won't even touch material that is of a certain nature unless you have four records out and debut in the charts at #1. And even then! Look at George Michael. They tried to stop his stuff and look how huge it's gone. They tried to stop his last record for awhile. Whether you like him or not, that's not the point. What I'm getting at is this… the (bleepin') record companies and the (bleepin') radio stations are a real (bleepin') pain in the ass right now! Y'know, people found out that the dreams they had in the 1960s were dead. Roger Daltrey once said, "I found out you can't change the world with a song." Well, people didn't know that! Now they do. Now they're saying, "Well, might as well make a dollar." And it's the music that has to suffer for it.

MG: Thank you, Axl, very much, for taking the time to talk to us. They warned us you'd never do it.
Axl: That's next year. Axl Rose does no interviews next year!

Fast Facts

Name: W. Axl Rose
Instrument: Voice
Birthplace: Lafayette, Indiana
Birth Date: February 6, 1962
Height: 5 foot 8 and ½
Weight: 137
Currently Lives: "Back of the bus."
Favorite Band: The Four Horsemen
Favorite Musicians: David Lank & West Arkeen
Favorite City: "Paradise City"
Favorite Actor: Robert DeNiro
Favorite Actress: Erin Everly
Favorite Movie: Once Upon A Time In America
Favorite TV Show: The Gong Show
Favorite Food: Steak
Favorite Sport: Sex
Favorite Book: His Way by Katie Kelly
Favorite Thing About Travelling: "Second day on the road."
Least Favorite Thing About Travelling: "Second day on the road."
Dream Date: None. "Every date can be a different experience."
Favorite Song: "I'm Not In Love" by 10cc
First Concert: Roadmaster "but I was a bit too drunk and in a bit too many fights and a bit too busy being chased by cops to see what was going on."
First Favorite Band: Sweet
Major Musical Influences: Duff/Izzy/Slash/West/Steven
Former Jobs: "Too many… once got $8-an-hour to smoke cigarettes."
If Not Doing This, You'd Be: "Photographing women"
Biggest Turn-On: Imagination and aggressiveness… (censored) while hanging upside down on a London tube train"
Self Description: Blank