1993.11.26 - Goldmine Magazine - Kim Fowley: Living and Dying in L.A. (GN'R related excerpt)

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By the time the most recent generation of rockers came along and started to make an impact on the Hollywood scene, Fowley was fed up with the selfish, every-man-for-him-self attitude that had overtaken the local music community. He feels that the musicians themselves were just as much to blame for poisoning the well, as were the greedy "pay-to-play" club owners.

"Around the mid-'80s, Poison became the first of many L.A. bands. As L.A. changed, so did the musicians in it," Fowley said. "So the knife was stuck in quite a bit, into a lot of backs, not just mine. I'm really happy that L.A. bands are all failing now, and that Seattle bands have taken over. Because these guys here have a rotten attitude: 'Give me, give me, give me!' People like me would attempt to be of assistance, and got nothing back but 'special thanks' [in the small print on their album notes]. You can only be 'specially thanked' so many times. It's tokenism and it's offensive."

Also in the mid-'80s, Fowley received a letter from a pair of ambitious rockers recently relocated to Hollywood from their native Indiana. They were members of a struggling band called Guns N' Roses. Izzy Strandlin and William Bailey, a.k.a. Axl Rose, needed Fowley's help.

"They didn't know what they wanted me to do for them," Fowley said. "Be their manager, producer, publish their songs. And I didn't do any of those things for the band, because the self-destruction thing was too much to deal with. So, I chose not to. It was all done over the phone and through the mail."

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