2021.03.08 - Appetite For Distortion - Lisa Maxwell Talks 976 Horns

As a sax player, Lisa Maxwell led the horn section on the legendary Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion world tour. Lisa talks to us about GN'R and just how busy she's been since!



Transcript of relevant parts:

Brando: [...] do people ask, you know, "You used to play with Guns N' Roses," does that happen? Do they know that going into it? Or they're like, wait a minute.

Lisa Maxwell: Well, the people on my album are all my friends and like they've known me for a long time, so they all know. But some of the people I, yeah, people I meet, it's not the first thing I'll tell somebody, but usually people know or have heard or something. So, yeah, it's always an interesting and fun talking point.

B: Because where, this is the, I guess the 30th anniversary of Use Your Illusion and the beginning of that tour. I mean, it's just insane. So, because-

LM: It was such a blast, yeah. And when I first joined the tour, it was right after, it's probably Roberta and Tracy told you, we all joined at the same time. It was right after the riot, the St. Louis riots, you know, and Izzy had just left. So Gilby was also new, cause he was Izzy's replacement. And I was not like a Guns N' Roses fan. I was familiar with Welcome to the Jungle and Sweet Child O' Mine, cause that's what was on the radio. But I was like, "Well, we'll see." You know, I was playing on a TV show band, you know, in LA they have the... or wherever they shoot sitcoms, they have a live studio audience in between shots. They may have 20 minutes or so while they're changing the camera or whatever. So they have a band playing for the audience. And I was in one of the bands with Teddy Zigzag Andreadis, who is the fabulous other singer and keyboard player. And he recommended, he was friends with Slash. So he recommended me. He's like, "Hey, I'm looking for some chick singers." I mean, "Some chick horn players. So I recommended you to Slash." So I was like, "Great, thank you." And then Slash called me and said, you know, "I'm playing at this club next week, why don't you come down and sit in?" So I did, and then we talked after. He's like, "Great, can you put a horn section together?" I said, "Sure, and I'll write all the charts." And well, that's the way that happened.

B: How did the, and I should know this as somebody who hosts a GN'R podcast, but how did the name of the horn section come about?

LM: "976 hornz?

B: Yeah.

LM: With the Z? Well, in New York at the time, this is pre cell phones, the Village Voice had all... it was like, you know, newspaper and on the back pages were all these 976 numbers, you know, there were like sex numbers. So anything that started with nine seven, it was like, and then they'd have advertisements on TV, on cable TV. They'd be like certain channels be like, "Call nine seven six," you know, or whatever. And so I was born in LA. I'm a native Angelino, but I've been living, you know, on both coasts and more in New York. So I was, I came up with the name. I don't, and like, I don't even know. I think that CeCe and Ann were aware of it, but they were just like, "Okay, whatever." It was funny at the time, yeah, it was really funny.

B: You know what, I definitely didn't know that and forgot about it, that's funny. Now that's gonna have me giggle every time I listen to Move to the City and you go into your insane solo. So if I can ask, cause you played on Move to the City, Bad Obsession and also Live and Let Die, was there anything else that you played on?

LM: Oh yeah, we played on November Rain... Initially there were just a few tunes and then I realized how long, you know, the sets were like, you know, they're like sometimes play, we would play for up to three hours a night. And I'm like, "This is, we're just going to be sitting there." So I wrote charts for several of the other tunes. Axl doesn't, well, I don't know what he does now, but he didn't rehearse at the time and Slash loves to rehearse. So we rehearsed for two or three weeks prior to going out on our first leg, which was their second leg of that tour, I guess. And every time one of the songs, a new song would come up that I'd written a chart for, I'd be like, "Hey, I wrote a chart for the song." You're like, "You don't like it, that's cool, but we could check it out." And they were always, Slash was always willing to listen. And they were like, "The song's great, let's do it." So we ended up playing on a lot more tunes. I should have reviewed. I can't remember what they are.

B: Yeah. I was going to ask you, do you remember any of the songs that weren't initially, you know, involve you, but they-

LM: Can I get back to you on that?

B: Sure. No, good. Not a problem.

LM: Yeah. Because the songs that have horns on the album are, they're just a few of them. I think like the ones you mentioned. There was one called Bad Apples we played on and a couple of, maybe three more or four more.

B: Okay, I guess what I can ask you, and hopefully you do remember, then again it's, you know, I don't, obviously I'm 37, so I'm not gonna remember what happened 30 years ago. So when you would play the songs, but you would go back and write, was that all you did in between? Like what, like, was that enough time? Or did you find yourself bored, or you're just, I don't know, I guess in between the songs that you weren't playing on, how did that go? Or you just always-

LM: Oh, during a performance?

B: During a performance, yeah.

LM: Oh, well I wasn't writing during a performance.

B: Okay.

LM: No, no, I meant like-

B: Oh, I misunderstood.

LM: In the beginning when we were first initially hired, I listened to the whole album and all the other tunes, you know, from all the albums, and they were like, "Here are all the tunes we're doing," and then I listened to each one and where I heard, "Oh, the horns could be cool on this one," then I just wrote a chart. So when we rehearsed it, I was like, "By the way, I wrote a chart. There weren't horns originally on this, but I wrote a chart if you like it." So then when we did go on tour, we ended up playing on more songs than, you know, there are horns on more songs on the tour than there were on the album.

B: Nice. Okay, cool.

LM: What I did, what we did between songs was, well, there was never any set list. So we had to be listening, you know, every musician or group of musicians had a little room under the stage, like a little waiting room with a TV monitor so we could see what was going on on stage. And then we had to just be listening and ready for, like, if we weren't on, if we were sitting down there waiting, we weren't on Welcome To The Jungle, let's say, so then at the end of the tune, we would get ready to run up on stage. We had to listen to the first few notes of the next tune. And you know, by the end of the two years or two and a half year, however long we were with them, like it was pretty easy to tell like, "Okay, we can name the tune in one note." But in the beginning it was challenging, like, "Are we on this tune or not?" You know, and then we'd run up. And we were on the position on the very top of the stage in the middle, so we had to run up all these stairs. It's pretty funny.

B: All right, I'll give that, because people are excited to hear from you, I'll give credit to that question from one of my listeners, Dirk, from Germany. Because I can only imagine you at the beginning, it's like, "Ready?" You have like one foot on one step, like ready to go. Or if it's Welcome to the Jungle you have a break for four minutes.

LM: Yeah, heels and horns, and you know, like [?], our hair was down to our ass, you know, it wasn't all our hair. But you know, I mean, like we had to just, we were in like costume practically, you know, with these high heels and the horns. And the very first, I think the first shows we played got reviewed by the New York Times and the reviewer said, "And they've added models holding horns," like a horn section of models pretending to play the instrument. And I was like, "Flattered that you think I'm a model but like, you know, we're really playing." I remember doing a couple of interviews, one with the Boston Globe. I had a friend who was working there and she's like, "I'll interview you." And you're like, "get the word out that you're actually playing." So kind of funny.

B: Yeah. I guess so. I mean, I know I'm going to put this out and it's going to, it's going to make sense cause people are looking at you like, you know, at the beginning, you're a model. They know why they could be playing an instrument. So I'm going to release this on international women's day, March 8th as a, you know, cause that, that, that article all those years ago made me mad. I don't know why I'm like mad for you. Oh, you read that article? No, no. I'm like, you telling me right now, I'm angry for you. You know? Because it's just like, you guys are so gals. You're so insanely talented. When you had to, I guess, dress up, was that your normal attire? Because to promote this interview, I took one of the pictures from the Use Your Illusion booklet. You know, you're-

LM: With the fishnet body stocking and the leather chaps and stuff?

B: Yes.

LM: That was not my normal, and that was nobody's normal attire. They had a costume designer make these outfits for us. And I still have a couple of them. They're pretty... like the leather is really cool. [?] chaps and the vest and stuff. But if I could still fit into it, it's my barometer, right? "Oh my God, I could still fit barely." But no, so that was part of it was like, "Could we wear, can we pick out our own outfits?" So we kept going back and forth with the band. And I don't know if it was the manager or Axl or Slash or whatever. But so they were, I think they were trying to make them look like, you know, sort of slutty bondage-y kind of thing. And some of them worked and some of them just looked like, "Oh, you look like Heidi wearing lederhosen," you know. But then at one point, I think we asked like, "Why don't you guys just give us some money and we'll go buy some clothes that we would wear to a club, like that we actually would wear." And I think at one point we pushed for, you know, the Robert Palmer video with like, addicted to love with all those women wearing like Chanel type suits. We were like, "That would be really cool." And they almost said yes, but then they were like, "No, no, no, we like the sturdy[?], slutty look." So, we ended up buying some clothes, you know, halfway through the tour maybe. And then, so it reached that highly stylized costume look sort of relaxed part way through the tour. So, everybody felt comfortable with what they were wearing.

B: How do you feel about that? I guess I had you feel about that at the time because you were kind of hesitant, I guess, to initially join Guns N' Roses and then dressing differently. Like what was the atmosphere? I guess, was it uncomfortable?

LM: Well I can't speak for anyone else, but no, no. I thought it was fun the whole time. I loved it, I loved dressing up, I didn't mind the costume. Like I didn't mind, I thought it was all fun. I think a couple of the other women were more resistant to like, "I don't wanna dress like that." I was like, sure, "I'll dress like a slut." You're like, you know, it was all like a costume and dress up for me. Like it wasn't I think because I was like a jazz and sort of jazz and R&B funk person to me, it was like, well, I may as well be wearing whatever, you know, I may as well be wearing that because it's like, it wasn't, it wasn't like my, I don't know what it wasn't like my genre, you know, my preferred genre. I didn't really care. But no, I'm pretty open-minded anyway. And I think I probably was like, "Come on guys, it'll be fun." And they're like, "No, it's not fun. And it objectifies us." And I'm like, "So what?" But so now I probably wouldn't wear that, but it was still fun.

B: Okay, I'm glad you had to. I mean, it was the 80s.

LM: I'll be honest, I'm honest. I'll tell it like it is. I had no problem.

B: Yeah, no, same here. That's what I, you know. I want this whole show to be and I don't ask anyone if it's uncomfortable. You could have said pass, you know, but you can tell that as long as the atmosphere was fun, you know, and it wasn't-

LM: It was a blast and my attitude about that stuff is like, hey, if you got it, like, you know, if you got it-

B: Flaunt it.

LM: Like have fun.

B: Speaking of having fun, I know I'll only keep you up for a couple more minutes. What was your favorite song to perform?

LM: I don't know, off the top of my head, I'm gonna say, Live and Let Die was really fun. And then also we came in at the end of, we played on Paradise City at the end and that was always really fun because it was usually the last, I think it was always the last tune. And it was such a party and it was so like, you know, there's so much energy on the stage and hard to describe for people who have never been on a stage playing in front of thousands, if not like 130,000 people, the energy coming back from the audience was, you know, who are all singing and it's just unbelievable. And so it's like this huge release with Paradise City. And it was like, "Yeah!" It was like New Year's Eve every night. That's kind of the vibe, you know, just like a huge, you know, pop the champagne bottle kind of feeling, you know, like, "Oh yeah!" all positive. Everybody's feeling good. Everybody's dancing. Everybody's happy, you know.

B: Is there any funny story that sticks out in your mind?

LM: A funny story?

B: Yeah, I don't really like to dig for dirt. So is there anything that's kind of, you know, that's funny that you can remember? You know, Slash fell asleep in the toilet, you know, you saw Axl picking his nose. Something like silly, you know, or like the theme parties that you would have any...

LM: Yeah, the theme parties were hilarious. I mean, they had certain staples at each party which were I think every party had to have a hot tub, strippers, pinball machines and video games, sushi and maybe something else. I can't really, but they had to have those, right. And these were the theme parties during the Metallica/Guns N' Roses tour in the states. And so there was like a pig, there was like a, I remember there was a pig on a spit. I think it was probably the Roman Toga party. Or maybe it was the Hawaiian Luau or I can't remember. And then there was like a Western theme. They had all different themes and so those were really funny. The after show, the after show was fun.

B: Well, I'll say this and I'll end here. The Use Your Illusion tour, like you don't see Hall of Fame, like tours going to Hall of Fame. It's a band, it's a person. I think the Use Your Illusion tour should be in the Hall of Fame represented. And that's why Gilby should be in, Roberta should be in, you should be in. That tour, like there's nothing else like it. Like ever. Like now you can't do what Guns N' Roses did on that tour 30 years ago. So the fact that, you know, your career has been just insane since and quite different. So I hope I get to speak with you again. I wanna talk about Duckman. I wanna talk more about Animaniacs. And if there's anything, cause you also did, you can just say like if it was just a simple thing or if there's a story there, because you also played on Duff McKagan's solo record, Believe In Me, right? Could It Be You, did the string arrangement? So I'm assuming-

LM: Yeah, I didn't play on it. He asked me to write the string arrangement. I mean, it was just one string arrangement for the song Could It Be You. So I did that and contracted a, you know, LA studio string section and I conducted it and I don't even know if he knows this cause I don't know, I think it was after the tour. I can't remember what happened when it came out, but I was so excited. And back when we still had cassettes and I ran out and bought like a cassette and a CD. I was like, "This is going to be my first album credit as an arranger." And my name wasn't on it. Like, they forgot to put my name on. And I'm sure it was just an oversight. And I asked the union about it. And then I called, I don't know, the manager or whatever it was. They're like, "Oh, they said on the next printing, they'll put your name on" or something. And I don't think there was another printing. That aside, that's just an ego thing and also legal thing.

B: No, you deserve your credit.

LM: You know, exactly. But that aside, it was really fun to do that. Duff won't, you know, he won't come on my show, but I'll, I'll tweet him and then see if he, I don't know, he'll do an anniversary and then in 2023, he'll do an anniversary and you'll be on it.

LM: No, those guys are all, they're all super nice and, and I love them.

Transcribed this.