1987.06.13 - Sounds Magazine - Rock Outlaws (Axl mention)

ROCK OUTLAWS

Guns N' Roses singer rushed to hospital after a brush with the law.

Gns N' Roses, the Los Angeles gang whose exploits make Zodiac Mindwarp look like a wimp, have had to cancel their London Marquee show this week after singer Axl Rose was taken into intensive care following a brush with the police.

The band have had numerous run-ins with the law in their unfriendly neighbourhood - their hard reputation is based on fact. The full details of the latest incident are not clear but the result left him attached to tubes and drips in a local hospital.

But he'll apparently be well enough to play the band's second scheduled Marquee date on June 19. And their debut album, appropriately titled "Appetite for Destruction", will be out later this summer.

This is the first mention I have of Axl's OD in June 1987. Axl was dealing with stress connected to their forthcoming trip to England and to the release of Appetite, took a bunch of pills and ended up in a fight with the police where he got tasered or knocked on the head, and ended up in hospital and a coma for two days, probably mostly connected to the effect of the pills rather than the fight with the police.

More about it here: https://www.a-4-d.com/t4947-07-1987-appetite-for-destruction#19008

What was news to me was that this hospitalization caused the band to cancel their first scheduled show at the Marquee. Jeopardizing the first overseas tour, and possibly the release of Appetite, could also help explain why Axl wondered if he had any friends left when he came out of coma.