2020.07.21 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Short conversation with Alan Niven about Appetite For Destruction

Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon... and Alan Niven presents TRIXTER guitarist, Steve Brown (recorded July 21st 2020)
On this episode both Alan & Mitch interviews guitarist Steve Brown about his latest Tokyo Motor Fist album, Lions, as well as his work with Def Leppard & Dennis DeYoung. And in a small twist near the end of the episode, Steve interviews Alan about Guns N' Roses Appetite For Destruction album on its 33rd anniversary (July 21st 1987).



Transcript of relevant parts:

Steve Brown: [...] and aren't we celebrating today the release of the debut Guns N' Roses album that changed so many lives and I'm sure changed Alan's life forever.

Mitch Lafon: Yes, for fans we are recording this on July 21st and of course the album came out on July 21st 1987, I believe it was. So yes. Happy anniversary, Alan.

Alan Niven: Yes, in the last millennium. Oh, thank you. Bring back the memories and all the anxieties again.

ML: Did you call Axl? That's my only question.

AN: No, and he hasn't called me either.

ML: Fair enough. But I will give the floor to Steve. I will hit the mute button. Steve, you're on your...

SB: Well, I wanted to just ask Alan, you know, because I just love hearing these stories because, you know, I knew what it was like when Trickster, when we started getting that momentum. And I just want to ask Alan, you know, Alan, what was the coolest part of the Guns N' Roses ride? Was it before they hit it, when you knew that the momentum, when you could see the song going up the charts, when you get the radio reports, when you knew that the engine was really starting to rev. Was that the most exciting part of the Guns N' Roses experience or was it, let's say, when Sweet Child O' Mine finally broke and all hell broke loose? I'm curious to hear what your take is on that because I have my own opinions on my career when Trickster started taking off and then once we finally, let's say, hit the peak. So I'm curious to see what your take is on the Guns N' Roses, and again, happy anniversary and I hope that you take some time to enjoy the good times. Forget about the stress and the anxiety.

AN: Well, for me, particularly with Guns, the coolest moments for me were gigs that made me proud. The Ritz, which I think was February 2nd, 1988. That was a cool moment because that was, that was the band exhibiting that they had a sense of themselves, of their power and of their potential at an early and critical moment. And that was an amazing night. The fact that I had to spend, I had both bands on that bill that night and I had to spend the interim, the interval, finding the right bandana for his nibs[?] because he was having a freak out. Like everybody, Axl has stage fright. There was one day at Farm Aid, I was standing next to Don Henry and he was a little bit jittery. So I made a wise ass comment, a dumb wise ass comment to him about, "Oh, you got nerves, Don." You know, hard for me to imagine that Don Henry with his history would have nerves. He turned around and he looked at me and he said, "You all don't have butterflies in your stomach before you go on stage, then you don't know what you're about to have to try and do." You know, everybody gets it. But it was the gigs. I mean, there was one in Philadelphia that I remember that was just incendiary. And those are the coolest moments. A lot of the rest of it was stress and was anxiety. I knew what I was getting into when I signed a contract with that band. I'd done my research. I'd turned them down twice, or turned down being part of the cattle call for a manager twice. And I knew it was going to be stressful and difficult. And in hindsight, I can say that my sense of the carefree in being involved in rock and roll evaporated in September of 1986 when I signed that contract. The other thing is that it's a great privilege to be involved with something that is that momentous. I try to avoid the word "success" because I think success is usually a figment of an envious mind. But with moments like being number one in Billboard for the first time, I'd sit there in my office and look at it and go, "I thought I'd feel different. This isn't going to change my life. And it's really just a number. It doesn't matter." Because ultimately what matters is what you write, what you record, and how good it is, and whether it stands the test of time. So if you have songs that are being played on the radio now, then you've done it. You've achieved it. Your life has been worthy and worthwhile, because those songs provide, at the least, entertainment and sometimes maybe a little bit of insight and sometimes a little bit of fortitude. You know, when I was a kid growing up in England, I started to feel more and more alienated in my school and in my family. And the only things that made sense to me were the records that spoke to me. So there's a profound value in it. And to contribute that to the world is better than becoming somebody at a military school or going and fighting in Afghanistan or beating up protesters. It's a better contribution to life. So you should feel really, really good about that, Steve.

SB: Yeah, certainly. Yeah.

ML: And of course, music does provide salvation sometimes too.

SB: Yeah. Oh, of course it does. I mean, it all it's, you know, kind of-

AN: Mitch, I thought you were going to say sometimes you get... KISSED by salvation.

[laughs]

ML: You do! You do get kissed by salvation. And then sometimes you get inspired by the Scorpions. But all right, Steve, go ahead.

SB: So the other question I had is, Alan, when they finished recording Appetite for Destruction, when you guys mastered it, I think George Marino mastered it, were you there with them when they finished mastering the record?

AN: Of course I was there. Damn straight I was going to be there. For one thing, George was the master of mastering and to be in his, and I'll call it laboratory, the sonic laboratory, and have him work on something was always enlightening and a little bit of an education. And you know when you're recording somebody has to hold the vision, so in a studio if I was producing, yes, I'd have an open ear, yes, I'd want people to feel that they were able to make their observations and contributions. But basically I felt the responsibility of holding the vision. So there was a little part of me that was like, "Well, yeah, you can make that observation, but it's wrong. And I don't care because I have to hold the vision on this." The minute you walked into George Marino's room. It was like going and getting your homework graded. And it was the one moment that in any recording process, I'd feel intimidated as I handed over the half inch to George. And the most magical thing that George would ever say to me was, "Ah, you pretty much got that. All I'm going to do is add one dB at 16k to put a little bit more air in there, and there you go." And that would be like I got an A on my essay. [laughs].

SB: Sure. That's fantastic. Now when you heard the record for the first time did you have any idea the effect it would have been the fact that Guns N' Roses... I mean, I put Guns N' Roses is one of the you know top ten top five biggest rock bands ever you know. I mean, that record was ground breaking for the time, especially and it certainly changed the landscape of the whole 84 rock thing. Did you have any idea how culture changing and musical landscape changing that record would be?

AN: Oh good god, absolutely not. My concerns are immediate and in detail and in terms of the record itself, I had to dismiss the first person that Geffen wanted to produce the record, and [?] and Tom Zutaut sat down and said listen, "This is what we've got to do here. And we've got to find somebody who can conform to this philosophy." And the philosophy that Tom and I had was, "Let Guns N' Roses be Guns N' Roses." And we did not want them being smoothed out. You know, Mutt Lange is brilliant, but Mutt Lange is probably the perfect example of who should not make a Guns N' Roses record and couldn't make a Guns N' Roses record. We wanted the spirit of the band and the feel of the band to be uncompromised. And once I got the final mastering, I knew I was going to be in for a really tough time at radio. Radio, AOR, wouldn't just not touch us, they called us out as being leprous and a pox on the world when we first put the record out and pinch their noses for the aroma. And having that perception from the get-go, the strategy I had for breaking the band was entirely based on press and getting to England first and getting a relationship, either good or bad, but a relationship of noise[?] with the British press because I felt that we had to break out of England first. You know, England's a small island. It's easier to make a mark there than it is on continental USA, where you have so many radio stations you have to pull in, you have to get through the MTV door. In England, you can get to your audience more directly and more quickly if you're smart about it. So that's why all my initial work and effort was through England first. And of course, you know, I'm no genius. I just sit there and watch what other people do. I watch Tom Petty being a star in England while they were still playing clubs in the USA. Jimi Hendrix broke out of England. J.J. Kale broke out of England. The Pretenders, who were a London band but have got an American swagger to them because of Chrissy, you know, they were on fire in England long before they were known in the USA. So there was there was no sense of, "Oh, this is going to be a slam dunk and it's going to go over the fences easily." And if you think like that, you're probably going to set yourself up for a problem. You've got to hope for the best and expect the worst, like in most situations and plan that way. So, no, I didn't think it was going to change the world. I was just happy that when Eddie Rosenblatt took me out, he was president at Geffen, he took me out for lunch just before Christmas in '87, and this was the guy who wanted to drop the band before they even started recording. And he looked at me and he said, "You know, you've done a good job here, kiddo, and it's time for you to bring the band back and start thinking about a second album." And I was apoplectic. You know, we were at a quarter million sales at that point with no radio airplay and no MTV. And I looked at him and I said, "There's no way I'm going to do that." I said, "We're going to keep playing because let me tell you something, if we get just a smidgen of airplay or just a little bit of MTV airplay, where do you think we're going to be? Because we're already at a quarter of a million." So over that holiday, we managed, Tom and I managed to turn the company's head around and support us going forward. And of course, you know, by March they were gold and on April 7th they were platinum. And then I don't know if you know the legend of Sisyphus, the guy who has to push the rock up the mountain all the time? Well, we got the rock to the top of the mountain and then it started rolling down the other side and we had to run like hell to try and keep up with it. Yeah. Then it became something bizarre. I remember the first time I went, "Oh, things have changed." Slash and I were in a town car driving down Manhattan, going to Electric Lady Land Studio, and as we were coming up to, I think it's 6th or 4th Street or 8th Street, and we're about to turn left, there were people who were starting to run after the car because they saw Slash in it. And at that moment, I knew our worlds were upside down.

SB: For sure, that's incredible, man. And I gotta tell you, I remember the first time hearing Guns N' Roses when we were out at one of the clubs that we used to play at, there was this great club in New Jersey called Studio One, which is I think one of the clubs that we got signed out of. And a lot of the East Coast bands played there. And I remember the first time I heard Guns N' Roses, Welcome to the Jungle, and I still have the vision in my head. And it was for me, the moment that I knew that they were going to be something. And it was just a funny thing because it's quintessential Jersey and you'll probably laugh at this, but I was standing there in the club and I heard this song, it was the beginning of Welcome to the Jungle and I'm like, "Oh man, it's fucking cool. It's kind of got the Van Halen, it's got the Eddie, Ain't Talkin' About Love" with the delay on the guitar and then it kicked in and I remember that I looked over and I saw these two beautiful girls who were total 80s Jersey girls and they were dancing, like again, not to go back to the disco era, but they were dancing like they were on dance fever with Denny Terrio to Guns N' Roses, Welcome to the Jungle. And when that riff kicked in and I saw these girls dancing, I said to myself, I first off I go, "Who the fuck is this band? This is cool as hell." That guitar sound just blew me away. And then it was right after that when I got the record, when I, you know, after discovering who they were, but that vision was that thing where I said to myself, I knew these guys were gonna be huge. Did I know they were gonna be one of the biggest bands in rock history? And of course, you know, look at what they've done, a band who kind of self imploded in the nineties and then came back, what is it? 25 years after they imploded, is it 25 years when they got back together with Slash and Duff and-

AN: Something like that

ML: 2016. So yeah, 20-25.

SB: Yeah to be able to come back and basically right out of the gate sell out stadiums all around the world and make back all the money that they lost in the 90s and make more money than they ever did in their career and be bigger than they were. That's a testament. But that moment for me in North Newark, New Jersey, which is not a pretty part of New Jersey, kids, to see that and that site [?] seedy rock and roll club and see these girls, which I tell you, they were like Bon Jovi chicks and they were dancing like, I couldn't imagine what I was seeing. It's still etched in my memory. And for me, that was the moment that I knew that this band is a real deal and that I fell in love with them and I knew they were gonna take off.

AN: That's a great observation, Stevie. If the girls are there, the boys will be there. I was working with this band that I'd signed that had been thrown out of every record company in LA. I was working at a tiny little distribution company down in South Bay of LA. So bottom of the barrel, we were under the barrel. And their manager came in and brought a record. And one of the owners of the company asked me to evaluate it. And I listened to it. And I thought, well, it's a fucking mess. But there's a couple of great rock and roll songs on here. So I persuaded the company to sign them. And the next thing they did was I think was three shows at the Whiskey and then they had a show at the Glendale Civic. And when I got to the Glendale Civic, I looked around and I looked at the girls there, who were all stunning, blonde, Southern California girls wearing clothes that I can only describe as pre-ravaged, and I looked at that and I went, "Hello, we're definitely onto something here." And that was Motley. You know and that was my observation, I saw the girls and I went, "We're onto something here, we can do something."

SB: Certainly, I mean that goes back to the Beatles, I mean, you know, geez and even earlier, all rock and roll you know with Elvis, the girls started it and then the guys will come. But you know it's just a funny story and again it was like a scene out of one of these movies that you see it could have been out of, you know, if we did an 80s version of Almost Famous, to me, that would be that part in the club where all of a sudden you know Welcome to the Jungle-

AN: Let me ask you, what did you think of the Motley movie?

SB: Well I thought it was fun, you know, I mean, it was definitely a vanilla version of it you know because you were there and I was there for a little bit of it. And, you know, look, man, Motley is one of my favorite bands. And, you know, I'm a sucker for all those movies. I just watched the Runaways movie the other night. I love all things rockumentary, documentary, Behind the Music, all of the books. And, you know, I just can't get enough of it. So, you know, I love the Hollywood adaptations of the way these these things come out sometimes.

AN: Well, I'm glad you're amused but you're an East Coast guy, but god, I hate most Hollywood movies. If you haven't seen it, do take in the Netflix ZZ Top documentary. That's got a bit of style to it.

ML: Oh yeah. Yup.

SB: I've seen, I watched that. I love that and that was cool because I never knew much about the early ZZ Top. So to learn that those guys, you know, been playing together, Frank and Dusty, those guys have been playing together since they were 15 years old. You know, and Billy, Billy came in a little bit later. And the fact that they're still together, the three of those guys, a testament. And you know, their dedication, Bill Ham, unbelievable.

ML: Great stuff. And we call them ZZ Top up here, by the way.

SB: I just watched the other great one the other day who was somebody I didn't really know about and now I'm in love with which is Suzy Quatro. And I never knew how massive Suzy Quatro is around the world. I remember her as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days when I was a kid. Not realizing that Suzy was worldwide huge in Australia, huge in Europe, huge in Asia. I mean unreal. And what a great documentary on her as well. So yeah, that's my affinity for and I could talk to you, Alan. And someday we are going to break bread, have dinner and have some coffee. And I want to hear about all the really good juicy details that we can't talk about on the air, if you know what I mean.

AN: It would be my pleasure. I will look forward to that.

ML: But it'll have to be in Arizona because Alan's going nowhere. He's not moving. Man on his mountain.

AN: This is true.

Finished this.