2015.08.26 - Loudwire - Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? (Dizzy)

Transcript:

Dizzy: Hey, what's happening? This is Dizzy Reed from Guns N' Roses and the Dead Daisies and you're watching Loudwire.

Gruhamed: Hey everyone, Gruhamed from Loudwire here. Wikipedia, Fact or Fiction time once again. Today, my guest, Dizzy Reed of Guns N' Roses and the Dead Daisies. Thank you so much for coming, man.

Dizzy: My pleasure.

Gruhamed: I totally appreciate your time, thank you for coming. So, scoured Wikipedia, your page, Guns N' Roses, Dead Daisies, other stuff, things about you, things about the bands, so let's prove what's right and what's false, shall we?

Dizzy: Awesome.

Gruhamed: Yeah? All right, let's do this. First off, we'll start simple, you were born "Darren Arthur Reed in Hinsdale, Illinois, and you were raised in Colorado"?

Dizzy: Fact.

Gruhamed: Okay. Doing well so far. They get that stuff wrong sometimes. Instruments listed, pretty various, there's synthesizers, piano, organ, keyboard, mellotron, guitar, bass, vibraphone, percussion, and vocals.

Dizzy: I'm gonna go with fact.

[laughs]

Gruhamed: Did they miss any?

Dizzy: No, I was trying to think of... no, that's fact. There might be a few things missing but that's-

Gruhamed: Alright, I thought mellotron was super cool, it was like-

Dizzy: I have recorded and played with a mellotron before.

Gruhamed: Bbeautiful.

Dizzy: And it's an amazing instrument, very outdated and very [?]. But nothing sounds like it.

Gruhamed: I know. Any prog rock fan will tell you how amazing a mellotron is.

Dizzy: Or any Beatles fans.

Gruhamed: Oh my god, yeah, absolutely. It says that growing up, it describes you as reclusive and introverted.

Dizzy: Fiction.

Gruhamed: Oh really? Okay.

Dizzy: Fiction, for sure.

Gruhamed: Could you describe what you were like growing up?

Dizzy: Well, I was in my first band when I was... think I was in the sixth grade. I was not... it was not reclusiveness... a little bit introverted when I was very young because I'd knocked all my teeth out and had replaced and I had some speech issues.

Gruhamed: How did that happen?

Dizzy: I was riding my bicycle and I flipped over the handlebars and landed on the curb with my face.

Gruhamed: All right, oh yeah, then I guess that the normal childhood thing-

Dizzy: Sure.

Gruhamed: [?] smashing your teeth out.

Dizzy: It was pretty tragic but I was not reclusive, I was definitely not introverted.

Gruhamed: At least it was your baby teeth, right?

Dizzy: Some of them were, some of them weren't.

Gruhamed: Oh boy. All right, well, your teeth look wonderful now.

Dizzy: Thank you.

Gruhamed: It says that your grandmother began teaching you to play the organ when you were young and, as you said before, you were out of elementary school, you formed small local bands.

Dizzy: Fact.

Gruhamed: Fact. So, like, with these bands, were you writing original stuff all the way back then?

Dizzy: We were.

Gruhamed: Really?

Dizzy: But we made our money and we got our gigs by playing covers songs.

Gruhamed: You made money back then?

Dizzy: We actually got paid to play. I've been playing music professionally, "professionally", since I was 12 years old.

Gruhamed: Tell me you were playing the bar scene.

Dizzy: We started playing bars when we were 15.

Gruhamed: Okay. Yeah, you hear about that. But back when you're that young, you're playing-

Dizzy: It was kind of a gimmick, I guess. I think people like... you get those kids to go play, you know My mom manages for a brief period of time but we would tour around - we were kind of based out of Colorado, and yeah, I've been doing it for a very long time.

Gruhamed: Cool. It says that you met the original line-up of Guns N' Roses in 1985 while your band, The Wild, was rehearsing in a neighboring studio.

Dizzy: Fact.

Gruhamed: Okay. So this was the first time that you had met Guns N' Roses-

Dizzy: Yeah.

Gruhamed: Did you know who they were back then?

Dizzy: Just their reputation around town was pretty big at that time.

Gruhamed: Okay.

Dizzy: So yeah, I knew who they were, and we all knew who they were. But I had met them... and met Steven first, we were actually moving out of a smaller studio into the bigger one next door, and so it was in the this thing called The Recycler, which is like Craigslist-

Gruhamed: Oh yeah, of course.

Dizzy: But it was a... you know, before the internet basically. And so the manager of the place had put it up, you know, that it was available for rent so we were sort of in this transitional period and we were hanging out in there and Steven walked in to look at it. So we met him and then the rest of the band came later. And then I met Axl later after that. And all in that same room. And then we lived next door to each other for about six months.

Gruhamed: Double-Talking Jive, the opening line of the song, "Found a head and an arm in a garbage can," refers to body parts Izzy Stradlin actually found in a dumpster in the vicinity of the studio.

Dizzy: Uhm, you know, honestly I don't know so I have to go with fiction.

Gruhamed: I mean, it if it's fact you have to know that that happened, you must have... you'd think that someone would mention that especially if you're in the studio, "Hey, I found a dead body outside when I was taking out the trash."

Dizzy: Yeah, you know, he's kind of a mysterious character.

Gruhamed: That's true.

Dizzy: But I'm just gonna go with fiction because I don't know, and I don't want any fucking part of it.

Gruhamed: You weren't a part of it?

Dizzy: No, no.

Gruhamed: It says that My World was written and recorded in three hours under the influence of magic mushrooms.

Dizzy: That's fiction. [laughs] That's fiction, I wish that was true. I don't know, maybe it is true. I got to go with fiction, though, I don't remember any mushrooms being involved.

Gruhamed: Okay, fine. We'll say fiction for that one. I thought this was interesting, it said you toured with Alice Cooper in 2002.

Dizzy: Fiction.

Gruhamed: No? Okay. You worked with Alice at all?

Dizzy: Never, other than, and just indirectly, you know, because he's singing on on a song called The Garden.

Gruhamed: All right, no touring with Alice Cooper.

Dizzy: That is fiction for sure.

Gruhamed: That would have been fun, I'm sure. It says in 2005 you took the unusual step of seeking admission to a college fraternity, well after the traditional age of inductees, and on January 22nd, 2006, you were admitted to the Cornell University chapter of [?].

Dizzy: That is fact.

Gruhamed: That's fact? Okay. So what was it exactly that inspired you to want to join a fraternity?

Dizzy: They called me and asked.

Gruhamed: Okay. Wow. Okay, so they just call a guy from Guns N' Roses and say, "Hey, you want to pledge?"?

Dizzy: Yes.

Gruhamed: Wow.

Dizzy: So I am actually a [?]

Gruhamed: [?] legacy [?]

Dizzy: Ivy League.

Gruhamed: I know, not a bad school to be part of.

Dizzy: It's not.

Gruhamed: Was there any... like, did you go hang out with those guys or-

Dizzy: Oh yeah. I was there.

Gruhamed: Damn.

Dizzy: But a lot of people don't know this but I'm actually part of a sorority, too, the [?].

Gruhamed: See, now that is much better.

Dizzy: [?] myself and Duff McKagan and Gilby Clarke.

Gruhamed: They're all part of sorority, too?

Dizzy: Yes.

Gruhamed: Wow, okay.

Dizzy: We were sworn into a sorority. That was back in '92. So I'm actually a member of a sorority and fraternity and I've never went to college one day in my life, thank you.

Gruhamed: Was this at Cornell?

Dizzy: No, that was at Virginia Tech.

Gruhamed: Oh, wow, okay. Tell me, they couldn't have hazed you guys? They must have been nicer than that?

Dizzy: The sorority?

Gruhamed: Either, sorority, fraternity.

Dizzy: There might have been some hazing going on.

Gruhamed: A little bit, it's a secret-

Dizzy: No, there was no hazing involved whatsoever.

Gruhamed: I figured... they're inviting you to be there, they can't smack you with paddles-

Dizzy: No, no hazing.

Gruhamed: -goldfish and stuff.

Dizzy: I think there's a statute of limitations on hazing, I don't know what that means, actually.

Gruhamed: Chinese Democracy was reportedly near completion in mid-2000 when Roy Thomas Baker convinced Axl to rerecord the entire record.

Dizzy: Well, that is fiction. That's fiction, although he was involved, I don't know if it was him that did the convincing or what not, part of that is fiction so I say fiction.

Gruhamed: Fiction. So you say it was more Axl's decision?

Dizzy: I'm not going to say that either I'm just going to say that what you said there is fictitious.

Gruhamed: Okay. When Guns N' Roses was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame you were part of the induction but you decided not to attend the ceremony?

Dizzy: That's fact.

Gruhamed: That's fact? Why not attend the ceremony?

Dizzy: There's some, just some weird things, weird issues. One of the things was they told me I could have one guest I could bring.

Gruhamed: You can only bring one guest?

Dizzy: Yes. I could purchase tickets for other guests, very expensive tickets and I couldn't afford it. So should I bring my mom and not my dad? My brother and not my wife? My daughter and not my son? I couldn't deal with that, that was one one thing. And then another thing was the current members of Guns N' Roses weren't-

Gruhamed: Sure, they weren't invited? They weren't even invited?

Dizzy: Well, they weren't to be included and that just kind of weirded me out.

Gruhamed: Former Dead Daisies' singer John Stephens performed for a while with casts on his hand and leg as a result of an injury sustained when escaping from a crocodile while on a fishing excursion in Australia?

Dizzy: That is fact.

Gruhamed: That's fact?

Dizzy: Yes.

Gruhamed: Amazing! Please tell me more about if you know anything.

Dizzy: What more do you need to know?

Gruhamed: I want to know what the hell he's doing with crocodiles.

Dizzy: He was fishing.

Gruhamed: Like... I hope on a boat?

Dizzy: I think they were, you know, I wasn't there but I think they were on some rocks and they were fishing for these giant like lobsters things that are like, this, they're prehistoric looking.

Gruhamed: Yeah?

Dizzy: And, you know, I guess crocodiles like those, too.

Gruhamed: As well as people, apparently.Tthat's like-

Dizzy: Crocodiles love people.

Gruhamed: Yeah. I used to live in Australia. I would never get like anywhere near... But they don't killed that... but damn. Is he doing okay?

Dizzy: Yeah.

Gruhamed: Was he all right after-

Dizzy: He survived it, yes.

Gruhamed: Oh yeah sure, he survived it, what I mean, like, I hope the injuries weren't that bad.

Dizzy: Well, they were pretty bad because it was very remote place so for him to get to, you know, get his necessary help it took a long time, and so, like, infection sort of sets in at that point. But he's a tough mother...

Gruhamed: Oh my god. Well you made it buddy, good job, fantastic. Thank you so much Dizzy for stopping by. Thank you for playing our game. Dead Daisies, absolutely check them out. Of course, Guns N' Roses. Stay tuned to Loudwire for all your news about those bands and Dizzy's solo stuff as well. Thank you very much, Dizzy Reed everybody!

Dizzy: All right.

Finished transcribing this.