2019.01.16 - GN'R Central - Interview with Dave Dominguez (studio engineer)

Transcription of selected parts:

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Sid: Were you a big Guns N' Roses fan back in the day, like when Appetite came out?

Dave Dominguez: Oh yeah, there you go. GN'R. Oh definitely. Cause in LA it's different. Cause in LA, everybody knew that Guns had been signed, I don't know, I was like 14, 13 or whatever it is. And like I said, I was obsessed with music. So I would get all the free magazines. They had magazine out like called BAM at the Music Pluses and Tire Records. And it was just out at the very, in the very back it was all local bands. So, you know, you'd see who got signed, who was doing what, and everybody knew that that GN'R got signed. So before Appetite came out, they had released Live Like a Suicide. Right. And I remember walking into Music Plus and I would make my mom take me and I go, "That's GN'R, that's GN'R, I gotta get that." So she bought me GN'R Live or Live Like a Suicide.

Sid: The original copy?

DD: I just... the original copy, and I was obsessed going-

Sid: You still have it?

DD: No. I had all my records the ex-wife got, and I don't know what she did with them. I have never asked her.

Sid: Oh, that would be worth a lot today, the Live Like A Suicide.

DD: Yeah. Yeah, and it was... Yeah, it was... It was right there, and they had a big cutout of the four band members, five band members, sorry, that were right in front of... I remember the cutout right in front of the albums, like an end cap kind of thing. And I'm like, "Oh, that is awesome." So in LA, when GN'R was making Appetite, everybody knew. So when it came out, KNAC was playing the record from day one, where the rest of the country, you've heard the story, it took a year to break that record. We'd already heard, I'd been listening to GN'R before that. I'd seen them at maybe six months in. I think I saw them at Perkins Palace in Pasadena and it was a headline show and... What was that?

Jeff: That's one of the better known shows back then.

DD: Yeah. Yeah, because I think Steven had broken his arm and Fred Coury was playing drums during that show. Fred Coury from Cinderella was playing drums for that. [?] a small venue for, you know, it sold out here, but like in the scheme of things, it wasn't a 20,000 theater, like maybe 1,500 people, maybe a thousand. It was a small venue. And then six months later that was it. Maybe less, maybe a little more. Eight months later they just... huge. And I saw them with Aerosmith at the Amphitheater in Orange County, I forget what it was called, near the fairgrounds. And I would say 90% of the people there in Southern California were there to see GN'R, not Aerosmith. They just took off. So they were a huge, huge influence on me as well. Cause at that point I just realized like, "Oh, you could look like, like a street thug. You don't have to have the hairspray." Like, you know, as a kid, I would let my hair grow and like, I thought it was Motley Crue [?]. And like, "These guys look like they're tough. And this is dangerous." Like that's what I like. So I just kind of gravitated towards that at some point.

Sid: Yeah, and that's a perfect segue because you ended up working with Guns N' Roses years later. Like, did you ever have any, did you ever meet any of the band members before you actually started working with them?

DD: No, other than just seeing them live. Like I said, you know, I was an obsessed kid. Like, I think my first shows were like at 13. I told my mama I'd spend the night at a friend's house and then his older brother, who was 17, I think, would go to shows and his mom wouldn't let him go unless he took a little brother and I haven't been a little brother's friend so like I knew like, "Yep, we're going out," and we hit, you know, at that point it was all ages, it was Gazzarri, Troubadour, so you know you'd see the hand-out flyers and you'd get... in fact I think I still do have a bunch of GN'R flyers that they would have people handing out. [?] They were playing everywhere. They were the talk of the of the Strip at that point, you know, and I hear them [?]. So I didn't have any run ins with them until I started working with them. And I think the first person I worked with would be Slash on a Quentin Tarantino thing.

Sid: Oh, was that was that Curdled?

DD: I don't even know. This was probably a month before he left the band. He was doing, they were doing rehearsals for, they had always done rehearsals. I guess they were trying, you know, writing new stuff at the place called the Complex in LA. And then he was coming in during the day and he was recording a song for a Tarantino movie. And I couldn't tell you the movie, I don't even know. That was a long time ago. So he would come in and do his thing and work all day. And then we'd be done and then he would go to GN'R rehearsals at night.

Sid: I don't know how he finds time to sleep.

DD: Yeah, no, he just worked. He just worked. He just come in and have lunch, he didn't even stop to eat, he would eat as he played. "Let's do a take," then have a few bites, "All right. Let's do one more." And then literally leaving to go to GN'R. And like, he was just like, I know he was burnt. By the end of the week, I know he was just like, "Man, I need more than like two hours of sleep."

Sid: Yeah, did he ever talk about like how the rehearsals were going when he was working on the Tarantino film?

DD: No, but I do remember him saying - I hope he doesn't get me, it's, they're together now so it doesn't really matter - but I do remember him saying like, "If I'm in this band in a week," like, "I'll be surprised." Like he would just had it. I'm not going to mention who, but he complained about, you know, a certain new member, you know, that was like bad timing, this and that. And like, "I just can't deal with it anymore." And that was it.

Jeff: We know who it is.

DD: And yeah, maybe you do. And then, so within, I don't know, it was maybe less than a month later, you know, the MTV thing where he sent a fax MTV and say he quit the band came on and like, "Wow, cool." I guess I knew, I had a warning. But he was sweet, he was a great guy. He was really nice, very polite. In fact, they've all, like everybody in the band was all very polite. And then I ended up working with... Izzy was out of the band at that point. And so Izzy was writing new stuff for his record. So the chief engineer at Rumbo, Sean Berman, had worked on Spaghetti Incident. So Izzy booked time and it was Duff, Izzy, and Slash with a guy named Taz, I think was the drummer.

Sid: Oh, Taz Bentley?

DD: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they came in and recorded, they were just in for like three or four days and just jammed to write new stuff for Izzy's... I think this was before the Juju Hounds, if I'm not mistaken. It might've been around that time after, I think it was before it. So then I got to meet those all, all those guys. And I got to meet Izzy and Duff because I was assisting Sean on that. And I was like, "This is awesome." Like, "This is three-fifths of GN'R right in the room, same room."

Jeff: Right. I mean, when you saw Izzy play, were you just in awe just to watch?

DD: Oh, Izzy was always my favorite. Yeah, Izzy, well, during that, yeah, it was just awesome. But Izzy was like the guy that I was like, that style, that's the kind of style I was going for. So Izzy was always my favorite. I'm like, "Oh," at that point you always say like, "Maybe they'll get back together?" "Maybe Izzy will come back?" And you know, after listening to the conversation, like, "Yeah, that's just not gonna happen."

Jeff: When you were watching him play, like, I mean, that was the first time he'd really made any music since he left Guns. Were you just like in awe? Is it hard to work with your idols?

Sid: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, and he was a nice guy, very soft spoken, just polite. We didn't like, you know, the GN'R thing was just like that was all day. That was, I mean, that was on all night. We worked crazy hours. But like, it was like a normal workday for me come in, he'd do his thing, by eight o'clock, we were at nine o'clock, I think we were out. And then he's come back and do the same thing the next day, and just very like, come in, do his thing and then disappear for another few months. I think Sean ended up working on his, like, after the Juju Hounds, Sean Berman, I think he ended up like co-producing like a couple of the Izzy or one or two of the Izzy solo records he did. Yeah, but you know, it was awesome to watch them, three of them, just jam and then hear the stories about, because we were in the same room, Studio B, where they recorded a lot of Appetite. So you're like, you hear a little some of the stories and you're like, I just sat back and listened and like, "This is awesome."

Jeff: Just to be a fly on the wall like you were would be like an honor for me.

DD: Yeah. It was just crazy. It was like you said, I was a GN'R fan. So like you sit and listen to them and, and watch them and like, like, yeah, it was awesome.

Sid: [?] like they didn't miss a beat? Like where they were able to plug in and go?

DD: Honestly, I can't remember, but I'm gonna say probably yes, because they'd been friends for so long that and just jammed. And I don't even think, I could be wrong. I'd have to ask Sean, but I don't even think things were written. They were just jamming and writing parts down or, and there's like, "Oh, that's a great idea." And then riff off something like, "Oh, that kind of works." And then Izzy took the tapes and kind of, I think, wrote from that.

Jeff: Well, here's something, here's a question. Izzy was sober then. Did Slash and Duff respect that when they came into the studio or did they still do their thing?

DD: I honestly, from what I remember, yeah they were, I don't remember anybody being out of control drinking. When I worked with Slash on the Tarantino thing, I know he was buying a bottle of vodka and cranberry juice and leaving it in the freezer and then his manager would call, "Hey, did he leave anything there?" Like, "Oh yeah, there's" [?] "with any alcohol?" like, "yeah," "just get rid of it." I don't know if you know who Kenny Barr[?] is? He worked on the Chinese Democracy, too.

Jeff: OK.

DD: So he was a runner at the time. And he and I would just polish off that bottle of vodka and cranberry juice and play ping pong all night after he left. Because we were getting paid for 12 hours. And I think we worked 10. So he'd get the call, like, "Oh, yes," [?]. So we just, vodka and cranberry juice and play ping pong.

Sid: Did they get rid of it because they wanted a fresh one the next day or did they get rid of it because they didn't want them drinking?

DD: It sounded like they just didn't want them drinking. So then he'd get here like, "Didn't I leave some?" Like, "I don't know." And he'd send a runner and he'd buy a couple of bottles of vodka and throw it in the freezer and cranberry juice and yeah. But when though the three ran, when Izzy was sober, I don't remember anybody really drinking. I couldn't, it was so long ago. But I don't, yeah, I remember like the out of control times and that wasn't one of them. That wasn't at all out of control. So I'm assuming that they were all just respecting his sobriety at that point.

Sid: I want to ask you, so like around this time, how did you get the call to work with Guns N' Roses and how did you get involved with the band?

DD: I had been working with Mike Clink quite a bit. I got the job at Rumbo because of Mike Clink. I guess they had an assistant engineer who kind of froze like a deer in the headlights with working with Clink. So I got a call to come in and interview. And they just threw me in right away with Mike Clink and I got his dry sense of humor. So I've worked, I already worked with him for like two years on a bunch of different things. Like I was, when he came to the studio, I was his guy. I was his main guy. If I wasn't working on something else. And so at that, I had already been assisting for a while and I just, I was over it and I was like, "I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go independent or just get out." I hated being in the studio, which is weird for me. So I knew I was done. The manager kind of called me in and I kind of was like, "Hey, you know, I think I'm gonna give like a month notice." And she's like, "Okay." And maybe three or four days later, I got a call back in the office and she like, "Someone would like to talk to you real quick." And then Mike called me like that day and said, "Hey, you know, can you hang out? I got this band coming in." I had the most experience of all the assistants there, other than the chief engineer who didn't want to do anything to do with like unless it was his project, didn't really want anything to do with working in the studio with other bands. So Mike said, "Hey, would you mind just hanging out? I got bands coming in. I really, it has to be you. I don't trust anybody else." And I was appreciative and like honored and like, "Yeah, who is it?" But I had already heard there was rumors that Guns were ready to record. And I'm like, "Is it who I think it is?" Like, "I can't tell you anything, but you'd want to stick around." And I'm like, "Okay." So I stuck around and finally he gave me the all. He called me at home and said, "Yeah, they're coming in. They're going to be setting up for a couple of weeks." And then, yeah, so that was the call.

Jeff: [?] excited?

DD: I was excited. I wasn't too, not much anxiety because I knew my stuff. But then when we started setting up it got crazy because it was like early Pro Tools, there was a MIDI room, there was a bunch of connecting that I was gonna have to do on my own with whoever they sent. So that was my only anxiety of like, "How we gonna integrate all this stuff?" because it was A-DATs and Tape-To-DAT all at the same time. So I got a little nutty. But no, but no exact anxiety. And then Mike said he's not going to be really involved at that point, but he would be around to check in.

Jeff: [?]

DD: Mike Clink. Clink wasn't going to be around, but he would be checking in and he wasn't going to be working with them directly at that point, but may later on.

Sid: So was this around the time that Moby came in and worked with the band?

DD: I think this is... I don't think he actually came into the studio at that point. I think he was at either the Complex or went to Axl's house to do all that stuff.

Sid: Okay, yeah, because I'd always wondered whether Mike Clink was involved. It looked like he sort of got things set up from there.

DD: Yeah, he got things set up and then he at some point, maybe three or four months in... Because what they did, they just come in and jam and record everything to ADAT and tape. And then Mike would take those ADATs to Studio C and then sit and listen and make notes like this and then transfer all the little notes that he had to DAT. And then give everybody, and then from DAT, it's just a complex thing, but then from DAT, [?] to CD and then get everybody CD with like a hundred IDs on each and go, "That's an idea." Everybody would get together and go, "On CD5, ID10, let's work on that." So he was involved later on.

Sid: Oh, okay. So was the original idea that Guns was just going to come in for a few weeks and, you know, get some ideas together and then record it immediately?

DD: Or yeah, yeah. The idea was they were going to come in for four months and rehearse or, no, three months and rehearse and then, write and then in three months, they're going to start recording the record. But they didn't have a producer at the time and Mike didn't know if he was going to do it or not. But yeah, it was supposed to be just six months long. And I left after eight months and nothing had been written. It was all just ideas, still.

Sid: Did you ever meet Axl?

DD: Oh, yeah. He was there all the time. Like, I was about two weeks in. I think after about two weeks, he came down for the first time after we had set up and the band had, you know, check stuff out. Cause they didn't have a drummer at the time. Josh Freese wasn't the official drummer at the time. So it was between him and Michael Bland, who was a drummer for Prince at one point.

Sid: Oh, that would have been interesting.

DD: Yeah. So Michael, they had like a little drum off, one night was one guy, the next night was the other guy, and Axl came in. And so he came in like the day before that and kind of just kind of check things out. And yeah, so he was there quite a bit. So yeah, I hung out with him quite often.

Sid: So what was it for like meeting Axl for the first time? I mean, like he's literally like the last rock star of that era.

DD: Yeah, it was cool. That was a little nerve wracking cause you know, everybody heard, "Oh, Axl's coming down tonight." So everybody kind of like freaked out and started actually working and getting stuff done. And then the band was rehearsing.

Jeff: Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that said Jesus is coming and everything looked busy?

DD: What was that?

Jeff: I'm sorry, have you guys ever heard of the popper sticker that says, Jesus is coming, look busy?

DD: [laughs] I never saw that, but that was the theme. Cause there were times where the band would just rehearse and kind of go, cause he wouldn't get in there until like one, cause we were at 7pm to 7am, he wouldn't get in there until 1am sometimes. And so sometimes the band would come in and rehearse for a couple hours and go, "Oh," and then just hang out and do nothing. They're like, "Oh, we hear he's coming." So they'd start rehearsing again. So this is one of those times where he actually came down, he came down early for him, which is probably eight or nine o'clock. And the band was rehearsing and I was in the control room with a guy named Tommy Demetrioff, who was like their coordinator, I guess you can call him. He was like their live sound guy at some point too. And he went out of control and Axl walked in and he was like, you know, he introduced me to him. And it was him and Beta and Fernando, Beta's son.

Jeff: Now, when he walked down [?] just hear the band jam and see if they were all on point? Or would he go in and would he sing and kind of rehearse with them?

DD: No, no, he was there just to check out, see how things were going because within the first month or so I guess the idea was to rehearse Appetite top to bottom and then record Appetite.

Jeff: And you are involved with that?

DD: Yeah, yeah, I was there when they were rehearsing Appetite for, you know, for months.

Jeff: So let us ask you this, where's the master of that? Is it in Axl's vault somewhere?

DD: Oh yeah, probably. It was all on ADAT and DAT. And yeah, I know it's somewhere that with that band doing Appetite. And then he would come in and listen, you know, he sometimes he'd call and say, "I'll be down at midnight," and it would never show up. And then he'd say, "I'll be there at 1," and show up at 11. And then he would come in and just kind of check out what was going on. And at one point, like I had heard it a hundred times by that point, so I would just mute the console and just watch TV and like look out and like, "Nothing's on fire, no one's calling me, I'm good." And MTV was on and there was a Guns video on the TV and he walked in as they're playing, like, whatever it was. It was like Paradise City was on the TV and they're rehearsing like Brownstone or something. And he walked in. I don't know, this will get him in trouble, but he walked in and went, he goes, "Hey, can I hear what they're doing?" And, boom, I unmuted the console and he's [?] and he just kind of waves, and so I muted, lowered it and he goes, "That's the greatest cover band I've ever heard." I was like, "Oh, okay."

Sid: So when you guys were told you're re-recording Appetite, were you guys kind of scratching your heads? Like, you know, "We should be working on new material," or was it like, "Oh, that doesn't..."?

DD: For me, no, I was just like, "Okay, whatever you want, that's good." And then, you know, I guess the idea was later to release a song every here, every now and then by the new band of Appetite on the Internet only. Not a record, but just releasing it on the Internet of that band's version of Appetite songs.

Sid: Oh, that would have been interesting because I remember they released Sweet Child of Mine for Big Daddy, like the Adam Sandler movie. And then I remember reading that they were gonna release, I guess it would have been a Chinese Democracy song, on that Robin Williams movie.

DD: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I was there for that. This I Love.

Sid: Yeah, so could you tell us a little bit about that song? Like, was it, I heard it was recorded like ages ago and it was kind of one of the older songs.

DD: Yeah. Mike Clink had called me and said, “Hey, the producers for this Robin Williams movie are coming down at some point and they want Guns to record a song for it, a song called This I Love. But we gotta find the tapes." I was like, "Okay," because I guess they had written it and recorded it during the Illusions tour. Because I don’t know if you knew this - you probably do, because you’re a GN'R podcast - Illusions wasn’t finished when they hit that tour, so Mike would fly with them and they would finish it up in different cities. So I remember getting four tapes, one from Australia, one was in England, the other was, like, somewhere in Wisconsin... So they’d come in and they were from different parts. So when they finally got there, Axl – that was Axl who was really involved with that – said, “Hey,” he called me up. "Hey, don’t you come in?" “Yeah.” So he came in and goes, “This is what I’m looking for.” And I found the... Because then there’s always a master tape, which has usually drums, rhythm guitars, bass and a scratch vocal; and then the rest are slaves, which have different parts. So they had, like, three different slaves. He was like, "There’s a certain part of the song that I want, that I really like, so you gotta find the right tape". So I put it up and he was like, "Yeah, that’s it." And it was a beautiful song. I guess it ended up on Democracy, but just the title. It’s a whole different song.

Sid: Oh, so it's a complete... I always thought it's the same song.

DD: No, it's a complete... I remember I listened to it - I haven’t listened to Democracy in quite a while, but I go, "Oh, this isn’t the exact..." Because that was a piano ballad.

Sid: Oh, really?

DD: It was a ballad, it was a really cool song. So a guy, Kenny Bara[?], who I mentioned earlier, who was a runner at the time, had become, like, my assistant during that, he would come in and he’d help me out. I’m sure you’ve heard the famous Axl stories about him just being out of control and being, you know, rude, just yelling... Well, I never really got any of that, personally. He always treated me great, and he treated my family great, and he was always awesome. The only time he ever did really get upset with me was during that session. At the end of that song, This I Love, he was repeating the... oh what was his girlfriend? Stephanie Seymour. It was like "I love you, Stephanie" or "This I love, Stephanie." He was, like, whispering it at the end of the song. And he heard it and he goes, "Just erase all that," and I was like, "Do you want me to back it up?" "No, erase it!" And he yelled and walked out of the room. So Kenny there, the assistant, and I said, "We’re gonna erase something GN'R fans are never ever gonna hear. Like, they’re never gonna hear this." That to me was like, "Wow, this is crazy. This is a GN'R song that no one’s ever heard and no one is ever gonna hear this again." I looked at him, "Are you ready?" And I put the tracks in the recorder and I erased it.

Sid: Wow. I've never heard that story before, that's fascinating.

Jeff: [?]

DD: What was that?

Jeff: I said, you got timeloop[?] on that DAT?

DD: It was pretty intense. That was the first time he got upset - I think the only time he ever got upset with me. And I was like - because I didn’t know. I was like, "Do you wanna back it up, just in case?" You know, I was gonna lock it to the A-DAT and back it up, so anybody could put it back. And he was like, "No." I go, "Alright..." And I just remember, like, that was the only time I had butterflies on my stomach. I didn’t wanna erase the wrong thing. So he left the room, and I said, "I need like ten minutes." I would’ve probably only needed two minutes to do it, but I wanted to verify I was erasing the right thing. It was like, I did triple-quadruple checking, like, "This is it, here we go.”" Yeah, that was pretty crazy.

Sid: Yeah, that's, I don't think any GN'R fans ever heard that story before. I was wondering too, like when he came in the studio, did he ever play guitar in the studio? Cause I'd always heard that he was learning guitar around that time.

DD: Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was taking guitar lessons up at his house at that point and then... I don't know if you knew about the setup. So Rumble was huge, a huge live room, and it had a lot of iso booths. So there was a Pro Tools room which was in the lounge. There was a MIDI room for Dizzy with a bunch of keyboards. And then they had a live setup, like a live PA with amps. So they had Paul Huge at the time when he was still in the band. They had his set up and then they had... This is gonna drive me nuts cuz I saw him at NAMM a couple years ago. Robin Finck. Robin's set up and then they had Tommy Stinson set up. And then they had enough iso booths so they had the exact same set up and an iso boot. So they had the exact same apps, same settings. So if they decided, "Hey, we like this part, record it," I can record it in isolation. So we didn't have to have the live set up and everything coming through those apps. And then they, all of a sudden one day they show up and I look over and they're at the piano was where Axl's world was and they had an amp there, like, "What's going on?" And then... what was his name? Sean, Sean was the guitar tech. He's like, "Oh yeah, Axl's gonna play guitar on some of this. He wants to come in and play jam." So he would come in just before the band sometimes. Like he was actually getting there a little early and recording, or just not recording, but just practicing guitar. And then he would sometimes kick the band out at 2 a.m. and just sit and play guitar until 5 a.m. Yeah, so he was definitely playing guitar at the time. And he would every so often, like, "Hey, can you record this?" And have an idea. And I'd record it.

Jeff: Wow.

Sid: So was he like shredding or was it more like playing chords?

DD: Oh, it was more chords, just a lot of chords. Yeah. Just kind of like that.

Jeff: When Axl's in the studio and he's trying to find his vocal range, would he walk over to a piano to find a key, or just use the guitar?

DD: Yeah. He would sit at the piano, and he had a mic set up, and it would come through the PA. And then he would just, yeah, he would sit and play. I remember playing a couple of Elton John things. He played a little Elton John and sing to that. Yeah, but it was always at the piano.

Sid: So during those sessions you were-

Jeff: You have like the master of all the bootlegs that everybody wants? I'm sorry.

DD: Yeah.

Jeff: I had to say it.

DD: Yeah, I don't have anything. They're all in their room.

Jeff: You were there with [?], so.

DD: Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I was there. Like there was, there was certain times that I was there that like... Because I did an interview for an author who was writing a book. This was years ago. And everybody had signed a non-disclosure agreement. And I didn't. I was the first guy on the session. I was the first one there. So I didn't sign anything. So I was a little nervous. I was like, can I say anything? And then the author called me and said, "Oh, yeah." Someone had told this story. And I'm like, "What? How'd you know about that? Cause the only person in the room were me and Axl." And he goes, "Oh, we got it from Youth," the producer Youth. Like, I was like, "Oh wow. Yeah, cause it was just Axl and I on the phone. He was talking to Youth." So someone is obviously talking. So I'll tell you what I know, that kind of a thing. So yeah, there was a lot of things I was only one in the room and I heard certain things like, "Oh, okay, cool."

Sid: Yeah, and I was wondering, I guess you were talking a bit about the Robin Williams movie. So did those producers ever come down to the studio and like-

DD: No.

Sid: Oh, so I guess it never ended up going anywhere?

DD: Yeah, it just fell through. Axl didn't want to do the song after all, I don't know why, but he decided that, yeah, he didn't want to do it. And that was it. And when Axl didn't want to do something, he didn't do it.

Jeff: [?]

Sid: It was the What Dreams May Come.

Jeff: Oh, wow.

Sid: Yeah, This I Love was supposed to be in the film, but like Dave was saying, I guess it fell through.

Jeff: That movie is kind of evil[?].

DD: Yeah, in fact I saw that after, when it came out, because I was just interested in seeing what it was about. Because we had a VHS tape that had the scene where they wanted the song.

Jeff: Which part did they want the scene in, do you remember?

DD: I just remember like Robin Williams being on a boat that was floating like down a colored river. I'd have to watch the movie again.

Jeff: yeah, I remember. I think it's right after the paint scene where he's like, I think he's traveling to hell in it.

DD: Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, that's where I remember that kind of vibe where like he's going somewhere on a painted river. It was really strange. But that was a scene that we'd watch and Axl would sit and kind of like, "Oh, I don't know." He was trying to maybe rearrange lyrics or rearrange a song and it just didn't happen.

Jeff: When they approach a band to do a song for a movie like that and they send the clips, I mean when they're in the editing process, how long does a band have to get that typically on the sound track and the movie? What's the pressure time before they're like, "We have to [?] now?"

DD: I've only done a few of those and it was mainly TV, where it was on a... I engineered some stuff for, it was a weekly series on Fox. I can't remember the name of it. Maria Petillo, Petillo was in it, that's all I remember. But the band would come in and just kind of, "Oh, let's try this vibe," and play. And then like, it was weekly. So it was like every week they had to have like 10 cues. So they'd come in for like three days and get all 10 cues down. And it was like 20 second cues and then deliver it off. Yeah, so that's the only thing I've actually been. Like as far as that, I'm not quite sure. Movies.

Sid: So during those sessions, like did Axl have a really good idea of what he wanted the album to sound like, or was it just like people would throw out ideas and then they share the CDs?

DD: When I was involved, it was more like there was really nothing set. I remember he was listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and a ton of industrial stuff, a lot of industrial stuff. So I remember that vibe. That's what he was kind of like going for. There was a lot of loops. IRS was an actual... I think if I'm not mistaken, IRS was an actual loop name.

Sid: Oh, really?

DD: Yeah, I can't remember. And I think the same for Oklahoma. Like those are the only two songs that I think actually that I kind of go, "Oh, I remember that." I think they were... I don't even think they were songs, I think it were loop names. Maybe they were the songs that they were gonna call those songs and they had the idea, but those were the loop names that I would get. Like Dizzy would go, "Okay, I'm gonna play, can you record this section, call it, or label it IRS and Oklahoma," and I would record ADAT. And all it was was a loop. A four minute loop, a five minute loop, or a minute loop, whatever it was. And that's all he would go, okay.

Sid: Okay. So was there a lot of like, did Axl record a lot of vocals during your eight months stay with the band?

DD: Not at all. Not at all. I don't think I recorded one original Axl vocal at all. I did record like him... vocal ideas, him on piano, but not a lot of vocals. In fact, I didn't hear him sing a lot. He would come in and maybe jam a couple songs. When they're doing the live Appetite, he would do some of that. Then when the band would leave, he'd have some vocal ideas of piano and he would do some of that. But I do remember the one thing, like I didn't realize how powerful his vocal was until... Like my whole thing was I had to be in the room when anybody was recording. And even if they weren't recording, if they were in the library sitting on a chair, I had to be there just in case they got an idea. So Axl called like, "Oh, let's take a break," and everybody walked out except for Axl. And he walked in the control room and he goes, "Is it's cool?" And I'm gonna go get... "Oh, yeah, I'm not gonna do anything." And so he must have changed his mind about 30 seconds later because I went to go shut off the lights [?] in the live room. Shut those off and I walk out and I'm walking down the hall and all I hear is, "Do you know where you are? You're in the jungle baby!" And it's him doing it full voice because they were gonna play that song when he came back. And I just remember goosebumps all over because he was 10 feet behind me when he did it. And it startled me and I was like, "Oh my God!" It's four o'clock in the morning and I think I woke up my ex-wife at the time going, "You're not gonna believe just what happened. You're not gonna believe it. It's like," and she, you know, she was a Guns fan too, but she wasn't like me and she didn't really care that I was like, "Oh my God, Axl Rose just did that behind me," and, "I heard him, like, he was 10 feet from me and he did it." And I was just like, I had like two cups of coffee, I was like, "Oh my God!" I was wide awake at that point. I was like, "That was awesome."

Sid: So were you there when like Shaquille O'Neal jammed with the band at all?

DD: No, no.

Sid: Okay. That would have been a different time.

DD: Yeah, that was a different time. The only thing when I know [?] jammed with them, and it was before I got there, was Zakk Wylde.

Sid: Right. Yeah, I remember him and Slash were jamming together.

DD: Yeah, at one point I heard that they were thinking about asking him to join the band. I don't know if that's true or not, but yeah, that was at the Complex.

Jeff: Axl kind of wanted that too, [?] guitar idea like Thin Lizzy.

DD: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I can see that because Axl was a Thin Lizzy fan.

Sid: So one thing I want to ask you about was, I remember I read one of your other interviews Dave, you talked about going to Axl's house for like one of the parties he had, was like a Halloween party. I was just gonna say, what can you tell us about like the house? I've always heard all these crazy stories about Halloween parties.

DD: Oh, it was awesome. It was, so I get the call. Just, so real quick, before that is we would take weekends off and I would do sessions on the weekends. I get bands, it was extra money and I get bands in on the studio because it was down time, there was two rooms. So I would get bands in whenever I could. So my ex-wife had to work. So I had to take my, I had two young kids, I had to take them with me to the studio because I had a session. I'm like, "I've got to do this." And it was only half a day. It wasn't a whole day. So it was like six hours. So I was like, "You gotta go with dad, you gotta hang out, you gotta watch TV." And as we get there, like, he's like, "Hey dad, we're hungry." And like, "Okay, we'll order pizza in a few minutes." I start working. I've never taken them to work with me before. I forget they're there and it's like three hours later. And I'm like, "Oh, shoot, the kids are here. They're hungry." So as I walk out of the room, I hear this voice, deep voice talking. And I look up, we had runners there and it's Axl. And he said, "I hope you don't mind, the kid, they said that they're your kids and they said you're going to order pizza, I ordered them pizza. Is that okay?" Like, "No, I apologize. Thank you." And I started giving him, like, "No, no." It's like, "I just like talking to them." So he's talking to my kids. He bought them pizza and he's talking to them. He's hanging out with them for like an hour with the runners. He was out there just talking to them for like an hour. And they're young, they're like nine and eight and five at the time. So it's like, "That's great. Okay. Thanks, Ax. All right." So I get invited and he goes, "Hey, bring your family too." I had my first son at 17. So like, you know, my ex-wife and I had four kids. So I took three of them, cause the youngest was like two, like a year and a half or two. So I'm like, "Let's go." And he said, "It's a family thing, bring them." So we get to the house and it's up in a Latigo Canyon in Malibu, really beautiful area. I parked the car I'm walking with the kids. I tell the kids, "Don't touch anything," you know, I'm being the daddy, "Don't go anywhere you're not supposed to go, stay by me."

Jeff: [?]

Dd: It's a rockstar party, I don't know what's going on so I'm like, "Just stay close to dad." So we walk in and they have Barney who's greeting all the kids, and there's Barney dancing, and he greets the kids and he's playing with the kids and all of a sudden I hear, "Hey Dave," a deep voice, and he takes the head off and it's Axl in the Barney costume.

[laughs]

DD: And I was like, "Yeah, Axl!" He's like, "There's a kids area in the back, there's food over here, help yourself. You can go in the house," you know. So it was awesome. There was a lot of people. And I guess at whatever time it was, six o'clock or so, the party's culled because he's taken everybody who's over the age of 18, he rented a bunch of buses and rented out the Universal Studios, the Halloween thing that they do. He's taking everybody down there. And I got my kids so I can't go. So I'm like, "Oh, I'm sorry." It's like, "Oh, no problem." It's like, "Oh, no problem, let's go." So I'm trying to find my oldest son. I'm sorry, I asked Beta, like, "Did you see my son? He's dressed as this and this." And she's like, "I think he's in the game room." And I'm like, "Oh my God, I told him not to go in the game room." I go back there and it's my son and this other kid are playing games with Axl. And I was like, "Hey, I'm sorry," "No, no, no, no," like, "I told him him could come back and play," you know, I was like, "I have to get away." From what I understand, like he always wanted kids. Like, he always wanted kids. And was great with my kids and he was always so nice. And then when Christmas came, he invited us to the Christmas party. I got a call from Beta, like, "Axl wants you to come to the Christmas party," and like, "I'm going to be there anyway." No, I wasn't going to be there because I had left at that point. I left in November. No, I had left before Halloween too. So I got the call for the Halloween party and the Christmas party and I wasn't even on the session. But he had remembered the kids. So he invited me and the kids. That's what it was. It's been such a long time. So I get a call like, "And Axl bought the kids gifts. He'd like you to come down." I thought, "Great." So I take the kids down there and he bought them like gifts. And every time I saw him while I was in the session, after that incident with my kids and the pizza, he always asked me, "How are the kids doing?" "How are the kids doing?" "How are your kids doing?" "Are they doing good?" "Yeah, great." And I was invited to the Halloween and Christmas parties, even for a couple of years after that. For a couple of years after that, I'd get a call, like, I think I took, took Dave [Buckner], the drummer from Papa Roach who were making that record. I took him down to the - cause he was a big Guns fan - I took him down to the Christmas party, cause I got a call from Beta, "Hey, Axl wants you to bring the kids down," like, "Oh, they're with their mom, I can't." He got them gifts. So I took Dave down there and he got to me Axl. No, Axl, so that's when people say, when I hear the stories about, "Oh," like, "he's this and that," from people who don't know him, like I've seen the bad side of Axl, I've seen him ignore people to their faces and act like they were never there, I've seen him just destroy people verbally - he never did that to me, ever. He got [?] me once and he was always nothing but polite and respectful to my family. It was awesome. He was great.

Jeff: [?]

Sid: Yeah, that sounds awesome. So for his Christmas party, would he dress up like Santa? Or was it just like a normal, like, there'd be a ton of people there?

DD: No, it was actually at the studio.

Sid: Oh, it was at the studio.

DD: It was at the studio. So he had it catered. And he just invited everybody down to the studio. They took the day off. They worked for some of that day. And then they took the day off. And it was at the studio. I think he even bought a tree for the studio and put it up and there was food and drinks and everybody was just there having a good time.

Sid: Nice. So when... sorry, go ahead, Jeff.

Jeff: Speaking of trees, is this true about the Halloween tree?

DD: What's that?

Sid: I had always heard that Axl has like a Halloween tree and then like he would ask the kids like, "Oh, your parents don't put up a Halloween tree?" It was just like a joke, yeah. That's what I'd heard.

DD: Yeah, I don't remember that. I might ask my kids that, but I don't remember that.

Sid: Oh yeah, I was gonna ask you, you said he had a game room. Like was he a big gamer himself?

DD: He never mentioned it. Oh, he never mentioned it. He just had one of the push down projector screens where you push a button and it just comes down. And he had a couple of gaming systems in the thing. I never heard him talk about games ever.

Jeff: Maybe his outlet.

Sid: Yeah, it could be his outlet.

DD: Yeah, could be his outlet, but yeah, I never heard him talk about games but when I would look for my son and, you know, and-

Jeff: What kind of games did he play? Sports or like first person?

DD: It was probably Mario Kart or something like that. Something like a little kid thing.

Jeff: [?]

DD: Yeah, I couldn't remember. I don't remember. I was so flustered that my kid was in the house where he shouldn't be. And Beta said [?] I came out and I said, "Oh, Beta," I apologized and I apologized to Beta too. And she's like, "Oh, no, no." It's like he was in there, I think it was her nephew or someone's nephew, Beta's like, "Oh, yeah, they're here all the time." It's like, "Oh, okay, great. Thank you."

Sid: So when the album came out in 2008 and then you heard it, did you recognize a lot of the stuff you worked on?

DD: Not a thing.

Sid: Not a thing? Wow.

DD: Not a thing. The only thing were the titles. And it'd been, by that point, I'd already been off it for 10 years. So I couldn't remember any of the loops. I remember IRS, Oklahoma. What was the first, the first big single?

Sid: Oh My God? Or Chinese Democracy?

DD: No, it was a video, like a Harley-David, or a-

Sid: Oh, Better.

DD: -a Harley-Davidson, Better! Yeah. I kind of remember some of that. So I kind of go, "Oh wait, I think I remember some of that." But he played me a bunch of stuff. When I took Dave down for the Halloween party, which was the next year after I left, I took him down. So it was probably two years. I think it was in '99 or 2000. I think it was '99 that I took Dave. I think Papa Roach's record came out in 2000. It was '99. So I'd already been in off a year. Like he played me a bunch of stuff. He played me... he has a version, I don't know if anybody else told you or it's been released, I couldn't say - he had a version of the Elvis Presley song that he did all himself. Guitar and everything. And it was a ballad.

Sid: It wasn't Heartbreak Hotel?

DD: No, it was a ballad.

Jeff: [?]

DD: Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Jeff: I heard about this.

DD: Yeah, it was an industrial, Nine Inch Nails style that he did all completely himself. So like he took me into the Pro Tools room and, "Hey Dave, check this out," and played me a bunch of stuff. I'm like, "Oh cool." Yeah, and then he took me in. And he was really nice to Dave, the drummer. I think like a year later, because after Papa Roach hit pretty big, they played Rock in Rio together. Dave said, "Do you ever try to talk to him?" Like, "Yeah," "I couldn't get anywhere near him." "[?] if you remember, I could get anywhere near him." It's like, "Oh, okay." But yeah, but he played, Dave and I, he was really polite, played Dave and I a bunch of stuff that they had been recording. It was Sean Beaven at the time.

Jeff: We talked to Sean as well.

DD: Yeah, yeah, I actually talked to Sean. I went to, like Sean was looking for an engineer for something like years later, a few years later, and I walked in, my manager had set it up and he was like, "Dave, hey man, how you doing?" Like, "my manager told me your manager said you were coming down." Like, we just started talking about stuff. And how, you know, the record and his time on it. We didn't really discuss it too much because we were talking about other bands. Yeah, so when Sean, I left, when they had, because they had hired Youth to do the record and then Axl fired Youth. Youth went back to England and then Axl came in and he found out some info that I guess Youth had signed an agreement, was gonna get like an extra hundred grand if he got him in the studio by a certain time and the record out by a certain time. Something ridiculous like that.

Jeff: A million.

DD: Was that what it was?

Sid: Yeah, well, I don't know if it was millions, but it was like, there was a lot of incentives to get the record out.

DD: Yeah, and then when Axl found out about that, he literally like, I was the only one in the room, he kicked everybody out, said, "You can stay, Dave," because I was working on something, and like, talked to the manager, I think talked to him, like for... I thought it was going to be a half hour discussion, when he started to explain what was going on, like I heard this, and it was five minutes, like, "Yeah," and "[?]," and "[?]," "we're done," and hung up. And so when they finally got Sean, Sean had his own engineer already. So once they got there, I was there for like two days just to give them the low down, like, "This is where this is, obviously you change anything you want, but this is how this is set up." And this is the vibe of how it's been going. And then I was out.

Sid: Also, I should have probably asked this at the beginning, Dave, but like, for those who aren't really familiar with like the studio, like jobs that different people work on an album, what exactly is the role of an engineer on like an album?

DD: The role of the engineers is to get tones and to record the sounds and to lay down the band's instruments. The producer will come in and make arrangement ideas and they could carve out the tones together. This is what they want the engineers job is to sit there and mic it. Make sure it's good level going to tape, make sure it's not distorted, make sure it's clear. It's all the technical side as opposed to the producer which is the artistic side. Engineer is the technical side like, "Boom, this is boom, go!" It's all technically sound. There's no distortion. The guitar is clear. The drums are clear. The bass is clear.

Sid: So when it came time, like was it difficult to leave the Guns N' Roses project and move on to work with other bands?

DD: Not at all. Not at all. Because it'd been like I told you, it'd been like they were going to rehearse for three months and record for three months and then the record would be out. I left it in August? I think we started on January 3rd. It was the first day, like the first day we actually got in the studio, they got there for setup. And I left in August. So eight months later, and nothing, nothing. It was like nothing had been written, nothing had been recorded, nothing. It was just like ideas.

Sid: Did you guys ever have people from the record label come and visit and like see how things were going?

DD: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I can't remember his name... Ed?

Sid: Rosenblatt?

DD: Yeah, Rosenblatt. We got the call that Ed's coming in with Axl. They're driving in. Axl calls me and says, "Dave, do you know that song?" Yeah, yeah," "okay, find those and set it up." And he says, "Find Tommy D and have him set those up." Because Tommy D is a production coordinator. He's like in charge. And I don't even care anymore. But Tommy D was just like, could not handle the pressure. He wasn't an engineer. He was a live guy. He wasn't an engineer. So I go to find Tommy D and say, "Hey, hey, man," "You have to do it mate." So I find it, I set it up, I do a rough mix. Ed and Axl get there and he goes, "Hey, where's Tommy?" like, "I don't know." And he's like, "Do you know what's going...?" "Yeah, yeah." So I've got Ed, the head of Geffen on one side, I got Axl on one side, and I'm doing rough mix and, "Hey, can you bring that up a little bit?" "Yeah." They listen, "Oh, great," and they leave. And I go, "Hey," and he's like, "Where's Tommy?" "I haven't seen him, like after I told him he didn't know where the song was." So he's like, "Okay." And then I see a little light, all the lights are off in one of the rooms, and I see a little light. "Why is there a long light on?" I put it in there, looks, and it's Tommy sitting in the room smoking a cigarette with the lights off. I hear nothing. Cuz Axl roasted him more than anybody. Axl completely roasted him all the time. If something went wrong and it was in Tommy's area, Tommy got the brunt of it.

Sid: So did you-

DD: Tommy wasn't an engineer, a studio engineer, so he couldn't figure things out. So like the live sound stuff, that's what he did. So if it was in the studio, he had no clue. So it was me. And it was nice because at some point, like I keep copious notes so like they would do stuff and Axl say, "Oh, I really like that," I wrote my note, "Axl liked this," and then he would come in like three days later and kind of go, "Man, remember that one thing we did?" I opened my notebook, "Is that that, you said you were?" like, "Yeah!" and he goes, he looks at, "What do you do?" It's like, "I take notes," and like and he literally looked at Tommy, goes, "That's what you should do." And so like two days later or three I knew exactly Axl made a comment about this and this is the time and I put those tapes up and played it and from that point on I became the guy that Axl would call me directly instead of the band. He wouldn't call Tommy, he'd call me. "Tell the band to do this," "Tell the band to do that," "I want to do this." It's like, "Okay, great."

Sid: Well, that's pretty amazing. So like at that point when you left in August and you went, you worked with a lot of different musicians, like were the Guns N' Roses, I've always heard that the, everything was so expensive and grandiose in the studio. Like no expense was spared when it came compared to some other bands.

DD: Oh yeah. No, cause for the first three months we were receiving, there was FedEx or UPS every single day, keyboards, guitars, and then - from what I understand, I don't know for a fact - Axl has a studio at his place, was that everything, all the keyboards that were being delivered, the replicas were being delivered to Axl's as well. So there was a ton of money spent, ton of money. Like I think I saw paperwork at, when I laughed it, was millions like they had spent at that point. Eight months in it had been a couple of millions.

[...]

Sid: Did you ever deal, one guy who's come on our show a lot and Jeff has actually hung out with him quite a bit, is Doug Goldstein. Did you ever deal with him back in the day?

DD: Yeah. What was the name? BFD?

Sid: Yeah, BFD, yeah, BFD management.

DD: Yeah, so I dealt with them early, early on. I think it was Jess, I don't know if she was his assistant or actually one of the managers, Rhiann. I dealt with her more than Goldstein. But yeah, they were around. And then it was probably maybe halfway through... I don't even know when they got when Axl just canned them. But he was nice enough guy. Yeah, I met him and came down, made sure everything was rolling. And then I never saw him again. Because you know, he had other bands. But yeah, Rhiann who was I think she was like the point person for GN'R. Yeah, at BFD, she was down a lot. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Yeah. So, yeah. So very little contact with him personally, maybe a couple of times and that was it.

Sid: Okay. Yeah. No, I was just curious. Cause I know he was involved with the band, but I guess he was managing a bunch of other bands at the time as well.

[...]

DD: I'm thankful they even put my name on the record. I didn't get the record until years, probably maybe a year ago. And it looked like they went in order. I think my name was the last one on the engineer side, like, "Oh, that's cool." The fact that they even remembered me is thankful. And the one quick story is, like I have this on my Facebook, I post this every so often. The picture is when the live record came out, they did like in... what is it called?

Sid: Yeah, Live Era.

DD: Live Era. Like I got to work with Del on that. And they gave me a "thank you" on that. So that was amazing to me, even though I was like, Axl walked up and said, "Oh, thanks for all the help, Dave," and gave me a couple of CDs. And I opened it like, "Oh man, they gave me a..." That to me, like, if I were to go back when I was 13 or 14 going, "Guns N' Roses is gonna thank you on a record," I would have like, "You're out of your mind." And that to me is one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. Like I've met some really cool people, I've had some pretty decent success in platinum records, but that to me will always be the coolest thing is like when the guy that you look at, "Oh my God, that's Axl Rose," and he hands you CD and says, "Thanks for your help." Like, "Oh, I'm done." I could quit now and be like, "I did okay."

Sid: Was the Live Era project like pretty quick and easy project to work on?

DD: My end? Yeah, I walked in. We just got a bunch of live tapes. Del James went through a bunch, we went through a bunch of live tapes, and he picked out songs. I was the engineer, I kind of got tones up, cuz you could hear Axl yelling on the mic to the band. So, "What's he saying there?" I like, "Great." He just kind of picked out songs. I think it was like three or four days at that. I think it was three days. He picked out songs and they sent it off to mix.

Sid: Did he ever rerecord the vocals on Live Era? Cause I've always like listened to it. It always sounds like for some reason to me that it sounds rerecorded a bit.

DD: Not with me, no. Not with me. Yeah, no. I've worked with a big band that put out a live record and I recorded the vocals. So yeah, but not with me. It might've done with Clink, cause this should record like what? The Live Era is like '87 to...

Sid: '87 to '93. Yeah.

DD: '93, yes. They might've done it with Clink at that point, but yeah, not with me.

Sid: Awesome. Yeah. I didn't know you worked on Live Era cause I guess I always think it came in '99, but there was probably a bunch of stuff that has happened before they put it out.

DD: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, that's awesome.

DD: Yeah, it was, took a year or so.

Another excerpt from Alternative Nation:
------------------------------------------------

In a new Guns N’ Roses Central interview, engineer Dave Dominguez said that Axl Rose has an unreleased Nine Inch Nails inspired Elvis Presley cover where he plays every instrument. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.

“He had a version of the Elvis Presley song that he did all himself- guitar and everything. It was a ballad. Yeah, it was an industrial, Nine Inch Nails style he did all himself. So he took me into the Pro Tools room and was like, ‘Hey Dave, check this out.’ And played me a bunch of stuff.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20190130023722/https://www.alternativenation.net/axl-rose-unreleased-nine-inch-nails-inspired-cover/

Finished with this. Awesome interview, will lead to many revisions of the history section. Too bad it was a bit hard to hear at times.

Soulmonster wrote:Too bad it was a bit hard to hear at times.

Yeah, for example the title of the Elvis song. I think it sounded something like "Why do fools fall in love", so I think it could be this one (which is a cover itself and not a ballad, though):

Blackstar wrote:

Soulmonster wrote:Too bad it was a bit hard to hear at times.

Yeah, for example the title of the Elvis song. I think it sounded something like "Why do fools fall in love", so I think it could be this one (which is a cover itself and not a ballad, though):

Yeah, I probably listened to that part 10 times trying to figure out what was being said, and then scoured all Elvis songs to see if I could find a title that matched.