04. 1984-1985 - THE BEGINNING OF GUNS N' ROSES
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Re: 04. 1984-1985 - THE BEGINNING OF GUNS N' ROSES
by Soulmonster Tue Oct 01, 2024 8:02 am
SUMMER OF 1985
THE BAND REHEARSES AT THE LOVE PALACEOne of the first places the band rehearsed was at the "Love Palace", a rehearsal studio owned by Nickey Beat (=Nickey Alexander), a drummer who would later join LA Guns [Patch.com, May 27, 2011]. This place was near Silver Lake, Los Angeles, or more precisely in Frogtown (near the corner of Gilroy and Ripple Streets) [Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 69; Patch.com, May 27, 2011], which they rented for $6 per hour [Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 69]. In June 1985, it had been rumored that Beat considered joining Guns N' Roses [L.A. Weekly, June 14, 1985; and see earlier chapter].
It is possible they decided to stop rehearsing at Wilpower Studios, owned by Willie Basse, and moved to the Love Palace since Slash had just been poached from Basse's band The Black Sheep.
Beat's rehearsal place was described as being in an "industrial wasteland" out by Dodger Stadium [Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 83] and was a "small warehouse known as the Love Palace that doubled as a rehearsal studio" [Patch.com, May 27, 2011].
So after Willie Basse's placed, they went over to Nickey's Love Palace which is Nickey Beat, the drummer for L.A. Guns. He played their first record. That was his little studio. So what happened was GN'R was there at that studio, Nickey's Love Palace, and then Jet Boy was there. And then Nickey started up again with Tracii Guns and they started up L.A. Guns. So Nickey started getting all the prime, like, spots [?] this little one room studio. He lived there and everything.
Rehearsals at this place likely started before the Hell tour [see earlier chapter] and before Steven had solidified his standing in the band as its permanent drummer. When Beat joined LA Guns at some point in 1985, the band had to rehearse elsewhere. It is likely they moved into Gardner Studios in the late summer of 1985 (see below), which would suggest that they rehearsed at the Love Palace from early June to later in the summer.
Nickey Beat's "Love Palace"
We started rehearsing at this guy Nicky B's place. His house was by the L.A. zoo. It was a dumpy dwelling in an industrial area literally plopped in the middle of nowhere. [...] That was our rehearsal spot for a while. Then Nicky B joined Tracii Guns in his new band, L.A. Guns, and we had to find another place to jam.
Steven's biography, "My Appetite for Destruction", 2010, page 82
This is also possible the place Slash would later refer to:
It was the most disgusting apartment you could imagine, but we loved it because we could rehearse. It was in an industrial district and nobody came to complain about the noise.
Slash would later talk about them renting the rehearsal space for three hours at the time and how efficient they had to be with their time there:
[...] remember Nickey Beat? We were rehearsing at Nickey Beat's place in Silver Lake and we would have three hours booked there and a lot of the material on Appetite for Destruction came during those sessions and- [...].
Slash would also mention specifically that they worked on Welcome To The Jungle while at the Love Palace, meaning that they were rehearsing at this place at least prior to July 20 (when Welcome to The Jungle was played for the first time).
Raz Cue would also mention remembering them working on My Michelle while at the Love Palace:
I went to a couple rehearsals at Nickey's Love House [?] lockout over there at Gardner Studios. Yeah, a bunch, man. I was over there all the time, like at least every day. And like I was sitting there rehearsals [?]. It was a little space, it couldn't have been more than like 250 square feet. And I would sit right there. You know, and they didn't have a PA. So I remember like once, like, right when the song My Michelle started, I heard them playing that, and before Axl showed up and we were talking out front, I was like, "Man, I really like" - I called it their AC/DC song - it's like, "Oh, I really like that," you know, and he went and got the lyrics he showed me, I was like, "Oh, it's pretty cool man." And then when they were ready for him he went in to like working it out with them and I was right there. You know, Slash's like about, you know, a foot and a half away and Axl came up and they started playing the song and he just sang straight into my ear.
Slash would suggest that the restricted time that they had for rehearsing at the Love Palace meant they wrote they music quickly:
I swear to god, that Appetite record for the most part, at least instrumentally wise, pretty much wrote itself. I don't remember, I mean, I remember the advent of certain riffs and whatnot but it all just sort of very organically came together. It is probably one of the most unorthodox arranged records as far as the songs are concerned- [...] It wasn't like when I hear sort of certain people talk about how they really worked out these parts and had an idea for this crazy thing, we were just sort of just very spontaneously, "Okay, one guy's got a part, another guy would come up with something else." We would try and get it all together before the three hours Nickey Beat's were up.
Duff would later talk about the extensive rehearsing they did to sound good, and especially how he and Steven worked on the drums and bass:
[...] we were really dedicated musicians and songwriters and worked very hard. We rehearsed twice a day. You know, Steven and I would rehearse early in the day.
Steven and I would rehearse every day, rhythm section rehearsal and kind of hone that thing in. And then we'd rehearse as a band and we worked hard [...] So Steven and I would listen to a lot like Cameo. [...] Sly and the Family Stone. Stuff with groove, and a beat, and we'd play along with it. And I hadn't been a bass player until... I played bass in punk rock bands and I played guitar in punk rock bands and I played drums. I really had to figure out which one of those I was going to do. So I moved to LA thinking, "Well, I'll do one of these three." And so that band, you know, I went to play with Steven and Slash, I was a bass player. And then Guns started as it is, as it was. And I'm like, "Well, I'm gonna be a bass player. So how do I do that? Which base place do I emulate? What style? What am I going to be? How am I going to be different? How am I going to be this thing and get serious about it?" And back then bass players were, you know, there was Lemmy, Paul Simonon from The Clash, Nikki, Motley Crue, bass playing was a cool thing to be. There was a band called Magazine where the bass... Killing Joke, all these... like, the bass player was the thing. So like, "Let's make our rhythm section a thing." And you have also Jane's Addiction where their rhythm section was unreal. Like, "Okay, we gotta be unreal." So we'd listen to a lot of that kind of stuff and would sometimes play along to it. And then we play our songs with, like, the [?] real pocket. So you hear semblances of that sort of R&B and funk and stuff, but we made it our own thing, very rock'n'roll. But it was a lot of work, because I wasn't really a bass player.
We cultivated good tones cuz we played so much, we rehearsed so much, and just to sound good.
Last edited by Soulmonster on Tue Oct 01, 2024 8:13 am; edited 1 time in total
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Re: 04. 1984-1985 - THE BEGINNING OF GUNS N' ROSES
by Soulmonster Tue Oct 01, 2024 8:13 am
THE MUSIC SCENE OF HOLLYWOOD IN THE EIGHTIES
The music scene of Hollywood in the 80s was vibrant and much more alive than it is today - it was a reason why Duff, Axl and Izzy moved to Los Angeles to make it as musicians. It had well established bands like Van Halen, The Beach Boys and Motley Crue but maybe even more important: it had many concert venues, promoters, and record labels just waiting to host or manage the next big thing in music. It was the place to be to succeed, but this also brought thousands of aspiring musicians to the city; musicians who fought over space to hang their posters, fought over attention from the A&R reps, fought over coveted places on the weeknight bills at the biggest clubs, in various and often-changing bands and constellations.
Back in the 1970s, a punk movement had arisen in Hollywood (as a mirror to the punk movement on the East Coast) and in the 80s parts of it was slowly transforming into a hard rock scene - or reacting to it and becoming a more vapid glam rock scene.
Hollywood, in that day-- I mean, Guns N' Roses probably came on the scene, I'd assume, around like '85 -- There was a very small contingent of people who thought bands like The New York Dolls, and even like The Clash, and Hanoi Rocks, and things like that, were cool. So those kinda people just kinda like, you know, knew each other. So that's how I ran into Izzy. It's like, you know, we all just kinda liked the same kinda music..
It always felt like a good place to be. I'd say from 1985-1990, I don't remember a greater time period for music as far as the scene that I'm in. The camaraderie that went along with the drama... the women, drugs, everything rock 'n roll is supposed to be. Our scene kind of came out of the whole, like reading interviews of Van Halen and Motley Crue, and all the bull shit that those guys said. And all the chicks were at those same interviews so they were willing to do all the things that they did. You know, the reason why there was no more scene is everybody got signed. They had to do records and the tours, so the whole scene disappeared. But it was the best time of my life, and to be associated with it now, even with the stigma that's attached to it from a bunch of other bands that kind of ruined it for one reason or another, I'm not sure exactly how it happened, it's great.
There were thousands of bands from all over the world trying to make it there on the Sunset Strip. 'Cause that's what you had to do. It was crazy. [...] it was tough. None of us had jobs, we were constantly having to find a place to sleep and something to eat. But you had nothing to lose. Everyone was going for it.
What happened was that because there was so much music happening here, there were a lot of venues and they were in all sorts of places. There were places to play in the Valley but then in Hollywood just off Sunset Boulevard there were a number of places. What you would do when you go out in the evening, you go to one place and see a band and then you move on to the next one that was really close. It was like bar hopping! But there were numerous bands in every place so you would go down to The Troubadour and then up to The Whisky and then The Roxy. It was great and people went out just to go out. Not even to go to a club, but to hang out at the Rainbow parking lot.
I saw Ratt before they made it and I saw WASP and…I mean…they´re not the biggest bands in the world, but still. Motley Crue was around. You could go see them in a club and later in the early nineties you had Warrant and those bands, but it was the same idea. A bunch of shows and a lot of girls hanging around. That´s just what you did at night. Now it's not like that. Now you have to make a special trip to go see some band and afterwards everybody leaves. Back then you'd get all dressed up and you could show up at a club and not even know who was playing, but you spent two hours getting ready.
In the 1980's, the Sunset Strip was a thriving, micro-music eco-system, teaming with glam, sleaze and punk rockers; all attempting to bait an audience, land a deal and enjoy the bounty with bacchanalian delight like their rock n' roll predecessors. […] Although club owners could always bank on a thirsty crowd for Friday and Saturday nights, they lost money during the week. Therefore, Pay-to-Play was introduced in the 1980's: an insurance policy to cover the costs of operation during down time. It required that bands slotted to play during weeknights collect a minimum cover fee by pre-selling tickets to their own gigs. […] If the band caused trouble, however, and cost the [club] owners more than they brought in, getting blacklisted was almost guaranteed. This could be achieved by trashing dressing rooms, bar fighting and assaulting patrons. If a band was banned from enough clubs, they could kiss their dream of a record contract goodbye.
Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007
When we were in high school, bands were mainly formed by friends. There was always a drummer, because there were no lack of parents who were stupid enough to buy drum sets for their kids, The garage would end up being the rehearsal room for many budding young bands. Then there was the singer; the charismatic, cool kid. Mostly they couldn't sing for shit, but sometimes a great singer actually emerged. Then there was me, and what seemed like a million guitar players, all practicing their Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix solos. Two or three guitar players would hook up and the least talented one would be urged by the others to play bass. The band was formed, except for the name. Bands broke up before playing one gig because no one could agree on a name.
Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007
Launching a successful rock group in the early eighties required three ingredients: a dream, some talent, and die-hard ambition. The origins of Guns N' Roses can be traced to a handful of friend with similar taste in music, clothing, girls and drugs, and a collective fantasy to be the next Aerosmith, Zeppelin or Stones. Bands made their initial mark by clearing a garage, jamming cover tunes and playing underage parties. The real dream, however, required talent and skill that matched ambition, and players not up to par had to go. It wasn't personal; it was business.
For those who remained, a front-man and a few original songs were required to break out of high school keg parties and climb the Hollywood club food chain. Promiscuity ruled, as members of one band played sessions with others; everyone trying to find the right combination that could take over the Sunset Strip and land the coveted record deal. Band loyalty was achieved by growing a fan base or through the impenetrable bonds that formed while living subsistence lives together in L.A..
For those who remained, a front-man and a few original songs were required to break out of high school keg parties and climb the Hollywood club food chain. Promiscuity ruled, as members of one band played sessions with others; everyone trying to find the right combination that could take over the Sunset Strip and land the coveted record deal. Band loyalty was achieved by growing a fan base or through the impenetrable bonds that formed while living subsistence lives together in L.A..
Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007
So many of the kids who were into the Sunset Strip music scene and trying to start a band were not from California. They moved here and they didn't have a background on each other and there were so many of tese hard rock, hair metal bands to select from in the early eighties. If they were sporting the same T-shirts or the same kind of stud jacket, Conch belts and service clothes, they found a way to get together. The camaraderie began with a shared interest in the genre of music that they liked and the time they spent together hanging out on the Sunset Strip and at shows. But when personality conflicts arose, off they went to start or join the next band.
Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007
There was both an art and a hustle to promoting a club gig, especially when it came to flyering. Slash and Axl would cruise the Sunset Strip, tacking flyers up on every telephone pole an covering up their rival's flyers in the process. They gave out tickets like candy on the street to anyone who crossed their path in an attempt to raise the minimum amount to play. When they fell short, friends of the band (like Marc Canter) often stood outside the clubs on the night of the show and sold tickets one-by-one. When that failed, someone had to pony up the remaining amount or the band didn't go on. If you wanted the dream, these are the clubs you had to play.
Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007
All the bands were coming to Hollywood. It was like the promised land, because so many bands were getting signed out of this area. People were trying each other on like wet suits in those band days. It was like, a guy would be in a band for, like, two weeks and then he’d be moving on to the next band.
You know, you had Madame Wong's, which was a Chinese restaurant. The woman who owned it loved rock music. There was Gazzari's, which is where Van Halen were discovered. A lot of bands played at the Starwood. Bands like, you know, London, Nikki Sixx's band he was in before Motley Crue. They all stood in line and mixed to get into the Rainbow and, obviously, the rock stars got in there automatically, they didn't even have to pay. They let them in because Mario, who owns the Rainbow, also owned the Whisky. He did co-own even the Roxy next door.
With the local scene in Los Angeles, this was in 1980 - no, this was, like, 1979, 1980. And, you know, at that point I was going to a lot of rock and roll festivals, I was going to the Troubadour, and to the Starwood, and to the Whiskey, and seeing a lot of punk rock bands because there was a great thing happening in L.A. L.A. is so grounded, as far as I'm concerned. Everything is very trendy in L.A. So even punk rock, as great as it was, it was very sort of fashionable and just very L.A. But there was some great bands. There was my all-time favorite L.A. punk rock band called Fear that I saw in Los Angeles. And then there was, I saw The Germs, and I saw X, and I saw a handful of other bands.
But at the same time that that was going on, you also had a sort of parallel universe of just post Van Halen metal. Like the beginning of the glam scene was happening; which, all things considered, is funny, because when Van Halen came out, I hadn't started playing guitar yet at that point, but Steven Adler and I were sort of hanging around listening to that first Van Halen record. And it was really obvious to me that all the music that I had grown up listening to had just ended at this point, and that Van Halen was something that I really wasn't - it sounded great, but I just wasn't really into the whole sort of image of it. And that was really the precursor for L.A. glam. I mean, there's no other artist I can think of that had a bigger influence on that whole sort of ‘80s explosion than Van Halen. And it's true, it just ended everything from the ‘70s and before, and it all started with that record and then it all went forward from there. So yeah, in L.A. there was this early sort of glam scene. I think one of the bands I saw at the Starwood at that time was Nikki Sixx's band London, which was very, very glam, you know, but they were good.
And so yeah, there was the punk rock scene and the hair metal scene that was just beginning. And the punk rock scene died out and turned into new wave, so I remember seeing the fucking Go-Go's. But I wasn't really into that whole scene, although I saw The Knack, I saw a lot of different bands that were happening all the time, but what was really happening was the development of this glam metal scene. So all in all, I pretty much hated everything in Los Angeles when that was happening (laughs). But at least it was happening and it was exciting, because there was so much energy. It was such a scene, it was so… everybody was so passionate about it, it was so vibrant that looking back on it, it was still a really fun time. As much as I might have hated it at that time, there's nothing like that going on in L.A. at the moment.
But at the same time that that was going on, you also had a sort of parallel universe of just post Van Halen metal. Like the beginning of the glam scene was happening; which, all things considered, is funny, because when Van Halen came out, I hadn't started playing guitar yet at that point, but Steven Adler and I were sort of hanging around listening to that first Van Halen record. And it was really obvious to me that all the music that I had grown up listening to had just ended at this point, and that Van Halen was something that I really wasn't - it sounded great, but I just wasn't really into the whole sort of image of it. And that was really the precursor for L.A. glam. I mean, there's no other artist I can think of that had a bigger influence on that whole sort of ‘80s explosion than Van Halen. And it's true, it just ended everything from the ‘70s and before, and it all started with that record and then it all went forward from there. So yeah, in L.A. there was this early sort of glam scene. I think one of the bands I saw at the Starwood at that time was Nikki Sixx's band London, which was very, very glam, you know, but they were good.
And so yeah, there was the punk rock scene and the hair metal scene that was just beginning. And the punk rock scene died out and turned into new wave, so I remember seeing the fucking Go-Go's. But I wasn't really into that whole scene, although I saw The Knack, I saw a lot of different bands that were happening all the time, but what was really happening was the development of this glam metal scene. So all in all, I pretty much hated everything in Los Angeles when that was happening (laughs). But at least it was happening and it was exciting, because there was so much energy. It was such a scene, it was so… everybody was so passionate about it, it was so vibrant that looking back on it, it was still a really fun time. As much as I might have hated it at that time, there's nothing like that going on in L.A. at the moment.
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