1988.02.DD - Faces Rocks - Hot N' Nasty! (Duff, Izzy, Steven)

Transcript:

I got my own personal welcome to the jungle when Duff MCKagan called to ask me to bring a bottle of vodka down to the interview. From any other band that might’ve been a cheap publicity stunt, but Guns N’ Roses debit album, Appetite for Destruction, oozes with sincerity sop thick you can cut it with a switchblade knife.

Unless the band is lying (and I wouldn’t put it past them) their much touted “bad boy” image is as real as their music. Until recently the only records Guns N’ Roses had were criminal ones. They are currently in the midst of not one, but several lawsuits, and club owners in L.A. have long been aware that wherever the members of Guns N’ Roses go, trouble follows. Hotel managers are soon to discover the same. What makes it all worth it though, is that the music is as dangerous as their personalities, a raw mixture of r&b, punk, and heavy metal.

The blonde rhythm section of Guns N’ Roses, bass player Duff and drummer Steven Adler, are joined by the dark and gaunt Izzy Stradlin, the band’s rhythm guitarist, and our cocktail party, er, interview commences. (Guitarist Slash reportedly hates interviews and singer W. Axel Rose is nowhere in sight.)

Just how real is the band’s image. “It all comes from how we were living in L.A.” says Duff. “We were like this before we were in a band. We all come from different places and we were hellraisers in the towns we were in before.”

Combined, the members of Guns N’ Roses are a true force to be reckoned with, the hardest drinking band in Los Angeles.
“There’s been a few incidents,” says Duff. Sheepishly. “We don’t rehearse it or anything. It is just a by-product of frustration,” adds Izzy. “The five of us on alcohol out at night are probably the most dangerous people around,” Duff says. “We have done a lot of damage in L.A.”

“We’ve got one friend who owns a club called the Cathouse and he likes it,” says Adler “He likes to watch us take over the club.”
“When we first got together we knew we liked the same kind of music and then we found out we had the same ideas about trashing places, “ adds Duff.

Though they are getting a lot of attention for it now, the image thing could turn out to be a problem for the band. The Stones joined the [?], the Sex Pistols self-destructed, and Aerosmith burned out. How will Guns N’ Roses be able to live up to their bad reputation while sustaining the grueling pace of touring and recording?

“We’re not trying to live up to it!” says Duff. “The press grabs on to it, exploits it and makes it a lot bigger than it is. All my friends in Seattle were way worse than this band is now. You’re having a drink with us now, this will probably lead to more tonight. Things like that happen.”

It seems hard to believe that Guns N’ Roses started out as tarted up as Poison. Now the look is just as flashy but funkier. Ut takes them less time to get ready now, which is probably a good thing when you wake up with a hangover. Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of calling them a glam band. “Whether we like it or not, we’re going to get heaped in with all that but what puts us on top is that we’re a real band,” Duff says. “We didn’t contrive anything. We literally stumbled into each other on the streets of Hollywood, wrote songs about stuff we had been through and played ‘em, We weren’t trying to get signed, we weren’t trying to have a certain stage act, we weren’t trying to wear certain clothes or nothing. We see some of the bands coming on the scene and it’s kind of funny to look at them but we don’t think about it as any kind of competition.”

In fact, Guns N’ Roses were one of the biggest [?] of the L.A. glam rock scene, helping new bands get started by giving them opening slots at their club dates. These days though, the band is anxious to leave the city that spawned them far behind. “We were the first band to get signed, well before any of the others. I suppose some of the record companies started hearing some more tapes and said we’re going to jump on the bandwagon,” says Duff.

As bands like Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns and Jetboy got picked up by the major labels in a signorama the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the heavy metal revival, Guns N’ Roses maintained a refreshingly unconcerned attitude about the working of the music business. Make no mistake, Gun N’ Roses want it all: the girls, the highs, the money, the limos, the lot. But they want it on their own terms.

“We made it very clear as to what we wanted and what our plans were and they had no qualms about it,” Izzy says of Geffen Records. “The only compromise we’ve made was we had this original album cover that has gotten a lot of flack from women’s organizations,“ explains Duff. “It’s robots and a half-naked girl. If somebody looks at it and decides those robots are raping that girl, they’ve got a sicker mind than we do.”

“The whole thing is, it’s just a piece of artwork,” adds Izzy.

Guns N’ Roses’ attitude isn’t new but it seems like it is because it’s been so long since it’s been expressed. “It’s aggressive and we let it show when we play, “Adler says. “Sometimes we let it show on the streets, which gets us into trouble. I think it’s important to be rebellious, not just in rock ‘n’ roll but life too. You’ve got to be yourself.”

“We just did three shows in London,” Duff says. “There isn’t a rock ‘n’ roll band there but there is a rock ‘n’ roll audience.”
“It was like 10 years ago when the Pistols were happening, “Izzy says. “It’s getting to the point where people are getting fed up with a lot of stuff and they get it out at our shows.”

One thing’s for sure about Guns N’ Roses: They’ll never get mistaken for Bon Jovi. “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all,” sings Duff. “What is that shit!? There’s nothing there.”

“We’ve seen one or two faces and rocked ‘em, “laughs Adler. “The reason there is so much talk about us is we’re just being ourselves. A lot of people want to be like these other people. They figure they’ve got to do this or that.”

“You see other bands and it’s like everybody’s got the same type of trip happening onstage,” Duff says. “I’ve been told so many times that it must be true that with us it’s like five different people onstage and the audience doesn’t know who to watch.”

What really separates a band like Guns N’ Roses from a band like Bon Jovi is their lack of professionalism. Professionalism is a word that has everything to do with slick entertainment and absolutely nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll. With Guns N’ Roses, the occasional off-night is sure-fire insurance that the band is capable of brilliance, “You can tell if maybe Axel had a bad day or something,“ Izzy says, “when one of the monitor’s feeds back and you see the microphone sail about 60 feet in the air.”

The last thing we need is more myth-making. We ‘ve had enough hype. We desperately need Guns N’ Roses to be real and not just manufactured realism. Let’s hope they not only maintain the lifestyle, bit continue to sing about it too.

One thing’s for sure about Guns N’ Roses: They’ll never get mistaken for Bon Jovi. “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all,” sings Duff. “What is that shit!? There’s nothing there.”

That line from Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive" stuck with Duff for years:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t6651p30-2012-mm-dd-seattle-weekly-reverb-duff-s-column#25786

Blackstar wrote:

One thing’s for sure about Guns N’ Roses: They’ll never get mistaken for Bon Jovi. “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all,” sings Duff. “What is that shit!? There’s nothing there.”

That line from Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive" stuck with Duff for years:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t6651p30-2012-mm-dd-seattle-weekly-reverb-duff-s-column#25786

Haha