2021.09.28 - The First 50 Gigs - Episode 4: Chris Weber Discusses A.X.L, Rose and Hollywood Rose

In Episode 4 we pick up the narrative thread of the origin of the Appetite lineup of Guns N’ Roses. In 1983, bass player Chris Weber, singer Bill Bailey and guitarist Izzy Stradlin formed the trio known as A.X.L. They later changed the name to Rose and then Hollywood Rose. Today we talk to Chris about forming the band and his legacy as it relates to Appetite for Destruction.

In this episode, you’ll:

• Hear the origin story of Rose and Hollywood Rose and how it set the revolving door in motion that ultimately led to the formation of Guns N’ Roses.

• Listen to the demos that Hollywood Rose cut in order to book clubs and was later packaged and released as The Roots of Guns N’ Roses by Cleopatra Records

• Discover how Chris felt about the end of Hollywood Rose and what it means to him to have been a part of this history.

Subscribe to our Patreon Site to see the video version of this episode and access the deep archive of historical photographs we used to illustrate this story: https://www.patreon.com/first50gigs_gnr



Transcript:

Jason Polath: This was Axl's moment of the making of his signature sound.

Chris Weber: He would sing in that register, and some of the first times I heard it, it would send shivers up my spine.

JP: Welcome back to the first 50 gigs, Guns N' Roses, and the making of Appetite for Destruction. Today we interview Chris Weber, founding member of AXL, Rose, and Hollywood Rose, a trio that included Chris, Izzy Stradlin, and Axl Rose. Chris contributed to the genetic code of Appetite for Destruction with his guitar riffs and melodies that can be heard on songs like Anything Goes and Shadow of Your Love. When Chris was just 16, he was introduced to Izzy Stradlin by Tracii Guns in the parking lot of the Rainbow Bar and Grill. And it was there that they hopped in Chris's car and listened to cassette tapes of Hanoi Rocks and the New York Dolls that defined the style that they wanted to model. Chris talks to us today about forming these bands and laying the foundation for what would become Guns N' Roses.

JP: So welcome, Chris. Thank you for being here.

CW: My pleasure.

JP: First of all, where are we in time and what's going on? What's the scene?

CW: Well, I've been friends with Tracii from high school and we spent a lot of time together. He did have a band and his band, I think it was Pyrrhus at the time, they played Fairfax and I remember seeing them going like, "Man!" I'd just do anything just to get playing. So I'd hit up Tracii occasionally and say, "You wanna play?" And he goes, you know, "My band's a one guitar player band." I go, "Okay," you know. On the occasion that we would go to the Rainbow, a lot of the times, and I was 16, maybe Tracii was 17. So there wasn't a lot of getting into the Rainbow, which was 21, but there was a lot of hanging out in front. And that was kind of its own scene, as anybody from that time could tell you. People would stay around till, you know, after closing time till 3.30 in the morning, pairing off and hooking up and going to after hours and parties.

MC: You said you have to be 21 to get in the Rainbow if you were a guy, but if you were a girl, you only had to be 18 to get in.

CW: True.

MC: One time Slash dressed up as a girl and got in at 18. You know, they didn't even card him, but no, we were born in '65. So he would take a pencil or a chalk actually and chalk out part of the five. And we'd take a stroke pencil and we'd make that five into a three.

CW: I remember that. At the Rainbow one of those nights, you know, decked out in my glam attire, and Tracii, he came up to me and he said, "Hey, listen, I've got this guy I want you to meet. And he's a guitar player," "Oh, tell me about him." He says, "Well, he's this guy who's Jeff," who's Izzy. And he goes, "Yeah, he wants to start a band." And so I was excited. I mean, the fact that Tracii was turning me on to this guy, I knew that the guy was probably serious. I got in the Rainbow parking lot and it was actually Tracii's dad's truck, which had this nice sound system. And we sat there for a couple of hours just talking about, you know, what the band could be and musical tastes. And that's the origins of the Hollywood Rose and obviously soon to be Guns N' Roses. But initially it was AXL. It wasn't called Axl, it was AXL. And I think that there's a picture. I think it was either, well it was definitely Izzy or Axl, climbed up on the, one of the billboards on Sunset in La Cienega, like the Peterson building, and spray painted on, you know, on this white billboard because they hadn't put anything on it yet, "AXL". There's a picture of us in front of it, so that was the kind of, that was the first incarnation of that band. And I remember going over to where Axl was, which was this apartment building on Whitley, which is right in the middle of Hollywood, just on the bottom of the Hollywood Hills. And on the roof, at the very far end of the roof, I sort of see something. And as we walk closer, across this rooftop in the middle of it was a very hot day, I see Axl, and he's sunbathing on the roof, on this tar roof, like a little towel. And then as he said, this is, "Hey, this is Bill, he's my friend, he's gonna sing." And that was it. That was the origin of that band.

JP: And so you were still in high school, I think at this time. They were probably a little bit older. What was that like for you? I mean, did you, you know, could you see yourself going from hanging out in the parking lot to actually playing in some of the venues? What was that like for you as a teenager?

CW: You know, to be honest with you, I didn't think that far in advance. I really liked playing and music. And I mean, the gigs were great, but I didn't grow up thinking I want to be on stage and I want to be a famous rock star. I just wanted to play. That was my whole thing since nine. I got introduced to music through one of the guys that played with Steppenwolf and then a couple other guys from some other bands that were friends of my parents, came into my life and they were sort of mentors and I really was inspired by that. So it was really about the music. So I didn't really think that far about gigging, but soon it was, "We need a tape because we need to get gigs. We need a demo tape." And that's the only way that you could get gigs.

JP: So Axl and Izzy, you know, they came out from Indiana to Los Angeles. Did you get the sense that they were more focused or had a mission to make it?

CW: That's a really appropriate way to describe it. They were driven. They were driven. And they knew where they were going. They knew what that looked like, or at least enough to kind of like get it to the next stage.

CW: You know, the writing process was interesting. You know, at the time Izzy, I mean, he played a lot of instruments. His strong points were his style and, you know, his song writing, right? But as far as the guitar playing, I mean, I had been playing for years and I was pretty competent. So between his songwriting skills and my... I was more riff oriented, listening to a lot of, you know, stuff when I was younger, Zeppelin and Judas Priest and bands like that. I was more sort of guitar driven. So the songs kind of came together with me and Izzy putting them together. We would record them on a cassette tape, give them to Axl and Axl would take them away. And then he'd write lyrics over the top. Reckless Life was written that way. Anything Goes was written that way. Some of the other-

JP: What about Shadow of Your Love?

CW: Shadow of Your Love would have been written that way. I think that's how we wrote all the songs. And I'm sure that Izzy contributed to it as well. Izzy's really the reason that that band, I think even had anything, was because of Izzy. I think he was the spark that really made everything work.

JP: This was Axel's moment of the making of his signature sound. Coming from Indiana, he did have a musical background. He had a singing background, but nobody sings like Axl. And everybody knows who he is as soon as he opens his mouth to sing. So he created a signature sound that was different than anything else going on at that time. It would be great to hear from your perspective what that was like, the voice in the making.

CW: He would sing in that register and some of the first times I heard it, it would send shivers up my spine. How he got there, I mean, I've never listened to any of the songs that he... From bands prior to our band. And I know that there's some Rapidfire, some other bands that are out there that he was in. I don't know what he sang like in those. I don't know if it's the same sound. But if it's not, then that would be in line with sort of him sort of doing that around us and saying, "Yes, let's have more of that." That's my memory of it. And I think Izzy would have really had been instrumental in kind of pulling that out of him, or sort of encouraging it at least, cultivating it.

JP: Yeah, so it's great because it wasn't just like you were in a band. There was a real intention behind what you guys were trying to create.

CW: A good amount of what was going on was image and style. That was, there was a lot of focus on that in the early band. You know, that was... The music maybe came sort of organically without a lot of thought, at least from my perspective. As far as the sound was concerned, I know that we listened to a lot of bands that Izzy brought into the mix. And we were inspired by a lot of those New York Dolls or Hanoi Rocks. They made a big contribution to the sound. And then my style, which was more sort of a rock style. Again, more Zep, [?], Judas Priest, I think Aerosmith. I pulled that into it and you can hear that in some of the songs that are on... At least my song contributions that are on the records, have got more of a riff-oriented approach to them. Initially, the EP, which ended up being re-released as Guns N' Roses Lies, has Reckless Life and Move To The City on it. And both of those, the guitar parts are sort of riff guitar parts. It's not just some strummy chords. And that was kind of more my contribution would have been sort of bringing that element into it.

JP: So let's go back to kind of the evolution of the band. So AXL changes its name to Rose and you start booking some gigs, right? You start taking some promotional shots for your flyers. You guys start kind of coalescing as a real band that's now going to start playing some of these venues.

CW: I mean, before any of those venues, we had to provide a demo tape. That's how any booking agent would hear you. So one of the songs I wrote, which is Anything Goes, which is on Appetite for Destruction, Anything Goes, Reckless Life, and then a couple other songs, we went and we did a demo tape of those songs. The first thing that we did was, just as us three, we didn't even have a rhythm section, booked some time to go in and record those in the studio. And then we did find a drummer, which is Johnny Kreis to play drums on it. And I think he came in for one rehearsal. We showed him the songs and he was like, "Okay, I'm ready to go."

JP: So once you recorded the demo, what did you do with it? Did you start taking it around to the different venues?

CW: Yeah, basically, you know, the Vicky Hamilton's or the Dale Gloria's or the whoever the booking agents of the day were. You know, you would go, some of them worked out of the clubs themselves. So you go down to the club, you give them the tape and they call you up and they say, "Okay, you can do Tuesday at eight o'clock, eight o'clock on Tuesday."

JP: So when you guys were starting out and you were starting to perform as Rose and then Hollywood Rose, who was top build? Who was at the top of the food chain at that time?

CW: Right, Wasp, Black 'n' Blue, I think was a band. Motley Crue, had just broken, so they weren't in the scope of the clubs at that time, but they would have just been in the year before. Hellion, I mean, there was lots of rock bands. Ratt was just breaking at that point. If you were a musician in the mid-80s, you know, the stuff that people would talk about, at least at the levels before the people were signed were, you know, the dream of sort of meeting a music industry attorney that can get your, kick your taped to the right people. And it's like, "I got a guy in the industry. He's an attorney. He's our attorney. He's going to get us a deal." Or, "We got a demo deal from CBS," or something like that. And all those little, small little step ups created a little bit of a buzz. To get to the next level was really, lots of bands were big, but nobody was really breaking. I mean, certainly Motley Crue was sort of breaking. But other than that, there was just a lot of bands that were trying to pivot for the best spots and at the different clubs every night.

JP: So for you, when did you feel the momentum was building? Did you get a sense that as you moved from Rose to Hollywood Rose, that there was beginning to be a following? There was the sound that people were gravitating to?

CW: To be honest with you, I had such a great... I felt so fulfilled just having a band that would rehearse and these guys that I kind of looked up to, which is, you know... I didn't have any brothers and sisters, so Izzy was like my big brother. I really looked up to him. Kind of showed me how to, you know, we worked on how to dress and sort of about socializing. When you're trying to get people to your shows, you got to, you know, you have to turn on the charm. Most people were from, you know, Ohio or, you know, Mississippi or, you know, Nebraska. And they would just get on a bus or driving a car and get to Los Angeles. So a lot of people did leave their families to kind of make it in Los Angeles. And that's where everybody was getting signed. That was more, the LA scene was the 80s sort of... Although it didn't end up creating as many bands, there were signed bands that were big, there was a lot of buzz around that. And that's where certainly the company's headquarters were. So you could be seen at least.

JP: Yeah, but you know, some people took it more seriously than others. I mean, there were kids who came out pursuing the dream, but whether they were, they wanted to take it all the way or not was another story. There were also people on the street were really, they really didn't have anything else. They didn't have a family to go back to. They didn't have a job to go back to. This wasn't a hobby. This was like life or death. I mean, this was, you know, no failure. Right. This was, this was it.

CW: I don't think Axl was ever going to go back. I mean, he was definitely rooted in Los Angeles. And, you know, that's why I think that they were driven is because it's this idea that there's no going back.

JP: So in these first few gigs of Hollywood Rose, I mean, talk a little bit about the dynamic, kind of what played out across a couple of those gigs. And then it kind of came to an abrupt end.

CW: I think we probably played one show under the name AXL. I think there's even a flyer that says AXL somewhere. The way I remember it is Axl got mad at something and we were all kind of living at my parents' house for a time too. It was all because we were rehearsing there. So they lived up there. My parents, you know, were very supportive and my parents gave me some money for the tape, for the for the demo, so, you know. But in any case it was a bit of a disagreement and then Axl, he left, he said, "I'm gone. I'm done with this." And then it was like the dust settled and he said, "Okay well, let's do it again." And me and Izzy were never happy with the name AXL. So, you know said "Well, okay, we'll get the band back together, but we gotta change the name. We're gonna change it to Rose."

MC: So you were talking earlier about how everyone flooded the neighborhood with flyers and passing around flyers and putting flyers over everyone else's flyers. And that all stopped about 20 years ago. All of a sudden, six months later, the city sends you a bill. For like, you know, $3,000 because they charge you like $26 for each flyer they removed off of a city pole or, you know, anywhere like that. It's a shame because the internet kind of, people put their things on the internet now and there was just something about finding a flyer on the floor or seeing it on the wall and pulling it off and looking at it. And everyone really put everything into those flyers and it's just something that's just gone that will never really be the same.

CW: And you would find every band, five guys in the band be standing out in front of a club with a handful of flyers, each guy passing it to every girl that would walk by and some of the guys would take them too.

JP: So yeah, so it looks like you played that gig in January and then the name changed to Hollywood Rose and you played several gigs, you know, from March to May and then something happened. Something happened where you left the band and New Hollywood Rose was born.

CW: I think we just had a falling out. My memory was that Axl joined up with Tracii and did something with LA Guns.

MC: I remember this part of it pretty well. Shortly after that gig of the Battle of the Bands, what happened was Izzy kind of left and went to London, the band London, not overseas, and Axl was working with Slash and then Steven and Steve Darrow came in and they became another version of the new Hollywood Rose. You know, it kind of fell apart and then it became the New Hollywood Rose. Did you ever play any gigs as the new Hollywood Rose or just Hollywood Rose and Rose?

CW: Only Hollywood Rose and Rose.

MC: After three months of the New Hollywood Rose with Slash and Axl, that fell apart and Axl joined up with Tracii and he was in LA Guns for a little bit. And then that fell apart and you know LA Guns got a different singer and Slash was auditioning for Poison.

JP: So the history that I have here and we can compare notes because that's what this is about, right? It's about pulling these threads together and trying to figure out how this all happened.

CW: I'm the color guy. I can't... The stats are not my forte.

JP: No, no, no, that's okay. That's okay. This is a collective effort, Chris. So what I heard is that after you left that Hollywood Rose held auditions and Tracii Guns auditioned and Slash auditioned. And I believe Axl wanted to go with Slash. Tracii Guns didn't make a cut for Hollywood Rose. Izzy protested and he quit. And the new Hollywood Rose lineup was born, which was Axl, Slash, Steve Darrow, and who was on drums? It was Steven. So Slash brought Steven in.

CW: I've never even seen any pictures of that with Steve Darrow and Steven in the same on the same stage.

JP: Yeah, we've actually got a couple gigs documented with them.

CW: OK, yeah.

JP: So the New Hollywood Rose plays a couple gigs, but then flash forward six months later and there's some reunion gig from Hollywood Rose that you participated in.

CW: I mean, that was that New Year's ish date at the Dancing Waters with Steve Darrow and Rob Gardner played on that one. And then me, Izzy and Axl. And we played songs that I hadn't played in Hollywood Rose. So they had added Nice Boys to the set. So that song had been introduced after I had left as a cover song.

MC: What about Don't Cry, was Don't Cry at that, played that night?

CW: I don't remember. I don't remember, I've got one picture from that night. Dancing Water was this interesting old club from, must have been built in the 20s or something like that. But you would basically play in front of like a sort of a manmade waterfall, but they weren't using it anymore, so it was all kind of fenced in. It was very, it was odd. It was like something right out of Mad Max.

JP: Being a part of this history must have some meaning for you, to have been a part of the tapestry of the origin story of the Appetite lineup of Guns N' Roses. You're obviously credited on songs, but there's something special and unique being part of the, what I'm calling the genetic makeup of that Appetite lineup.

CW: I didn't write any of the singles or the hit songs, right? My contribution is in songs that, you know, are just, you know, that are deeper cuts in some, right? But people will routinely, they'll say, "What songs did you write?" And I'll tell them one of the songs and they'll start singing the song back to me. And it's meaningful to them. So that becomes my connection with something bigger. I don't have any other way to describe it other than it's almost like carving your name in a rock that will be there, that everybody gets to see and will be there forever. There's just some significance to that.

JP: You are a part of this history and your fingerprints are on that album and you are a part of this story. It's a story of an album that has meaning for millions of people across multiple generations. And you are a part of that.

MC: Well, when I saw you guys at Gazzarri's, Anything Goes grabbed a hold of me and that was very memorable for me.

CW: Thanks. You know, there's a comic book, right? One of the first Guns N' Roses, they did a lot of comic books apparently, you wouldn't know that, but there was a comic book made and on page two, there's these, you know, the characters of Slash and Steven looking at Rose playing at Gazzari's and saying, "We're gonna be in that band," or something like that. And when you talk about that, Marc, it reminds me of that frame, and I have no face, but there's some players on stage. And I'm like, "Well, I'm in a comic book," because that's that gig that you're talking about. And not that, you know, that's as significant as like, you know, you put your connection to that. And I think everybody puts their connection when they talk about a song, it's like, "This is meaningful because of this." And that's also an interesting space to be in in life that until I was a father, I don't have that in any other way from me to saying, "This was meaningful," pull to me like Marc just said, "This was meaningful because I saw it happening live and I remember that." That's a good thing. I have no illusions that, you know, that I got out too soon and I just missed the boat on that. It's because everything just clicked with those guys. I mean, that band worked because all those guys came together at the same time. My contribution led to something that needed other people to kind of participate in it. And we're all better off for it.

MC: Yeah, it was the right people at the right time contributing from different angles. And together was just massive amount of songwriting capability that just, you just can't really break it down. It just, they all needed to be there to do it.

CW: Yeah, I mean, and again, a lot of that comes from Izzy's contribution. Because his style of playing, if you do a hard pan and a hard left and right, you can hear Slash, but on the other side you hear this very rhythmic, kind of sporadic guitar playing, which is Izzy, and it just totally works. It makes that sound. And by itself, you probably, if you had somebody that was just doing, wanting to get the best guitar in the thing, they'd say, "Man, you've got to do that again, it's got to be crisp and clear and straightforward," but because it's unique in him, it made that sound. It made the difference between him and Slash all that much more significant. It's like two really different type of players, not two guys that are playing different parts, but two very different types of players. And I think that's a main reason that that album sounds like that is because of Izzy. I mean, the look wouldn't have been there. There wouldn't have been any, you know, everybody else in that, of that era was wearing either spandex or God knows what. We start wearing the Teddy boy jackets and the below ties and the catch of bracelets and belts, and Izzy was doing and I started to do with him, he did it for money, I just did it because I wanted to do it with him, but making making all that jewelry was kind of part of how people what you know he survived. You know, but it ended up being part of the look of the band.

JP: And then you bring in the funk and the punk that Duff brought from his influences.

CW: Yeah. And it worked. It affected people. And I think we're all better off for the fact that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant got together. I think we're better off, certainly better off when Steven Tyler and Joe Perry met. And I think that this record is in that because it created something for people to really grab onto. So what that group of guys needed to come together in that way with my contribution and other people's contribution, it had to form with that production team and all the stuff that they went through to get that sound. You know, we're better because as a society, we're better because we get to listen to that.

JP: Thank you for your contribution to this album. And thank you for being so generous with us. We really appreciate everything you've brought to this.

CW: You're welcome. Welcome. Thanks for doing it. It's a good project, needing to be done.

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