2007.09.DD - Blender - The Worst Jobs in Rock & Roll: Guns N' Roses Tour Manager (John Reese)

The Worst Jobs in Rock & Roll

Ah, the life of a music-biz grunt. Sure, the pay’s OK — but is it worth the junkie-defending, bullet-dodging, heiress-stewarding headache?

By David Peisner

[...]

Guns N’ Roses’ tour manager
How do you solve a problem like Axl?

A tour manager’s job should be simple: Get your band to the gig and make sure their needs (drugs, girls, bail money) are met along the way. Naturally, with Guns N’ Roses, nothing is simple. “As far as trouble goes, mainly it’s dealing with Axl,” says John Reese, who comanaged and tour-managed the band between 1988 and 1997. “He walks to the beat of his own drummer. He’s not real aware of the stimuli around him.” Reese bribed customs officials and once shuttled GNR out of Bogotá, Colombia, on a private plane to escape the clutches of a drug cartel. More recent tour managers have endured their own headaches: riots resulting from canceled dates in Vancouver and Philadelphia, when Axl failed to turn up on time, and springing Axl from a Swedish jail after the singer allegedly bit a hotel security guard’s leg. “Every single night there’s a possibility of a riot,” Reese says. “Axl would go on an hour and a half late, on average. Every travel arrangement, every hotel consideration — everything’s centered on ‘How am I going to get Axl Rose onstage tonight?’”

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