2021.03.05 - Appetite For Distortion - Fred Coury talks Cinderella, GN'R, and LA Kings

Transcript of relevant parts:

Brando: And of course, here's where we can pivot. There's you with Guns N' Roses in 1987. So I know this is a story that you've told many times, but is there any part of the story that perhaps you haven't? Or now in 2021, like, do you look back on 1987 differently? With that time filling in for Steven Adler? Because he had what broke his hand at that time. And that's when you filled in for?

Fred Coury: He broke his hand. Yeah, it's funny. That's the question that I really don't get asked that much. It's usually all Cinderella based.

B: Really? Okay.

FC: Oh yeah.

B: Interesting. All right, then I'm asking.

FC: I loved it. It was absolutely phenomenal. I was out that night, probably seeing a band, and I was staying in New York, and I was actually visiting my mom for a few weeks, a couple of weeks, and there was an, I got an answer, you know, the answering machines at the time. And I got a message from Doug Goldstein, "Hey, learn the song on your outgoing message. I'll call you back in two hours." And it was the middle of the night. I probably got home at two. So, yeah, because I got another call at four. And I had, the record hadn't come out or it was just coming out. and I had Appetite For Destruction six months before it came out. Our manager gave it to us and we were doing a Japanese tour. And that's what I was listening to before going on stage every night, this record that nobody knew. And it was just, it was incredible. So four o'clock in the morning, I get another call, "Hey Doug," and I'd known Doug because he used to be security for David Lee Roth on the first tour.

B: He's a big friend of the show and yeah, he's great.

FC: Yeah, he's amazing. So another friend gets a gig, right? So he got in with Guns N' Roses and called me and said, "Can you be on a plane in three hours? In Minneapolis, there's a show tonight." And I said, "Yeah." He goes, "You know the songs?" I said, "Yeah, perfectly." He said, "You do?" I said, "Yeah." So I got on a plane and I flew out there and they were supposed to meet me at the hotel and rehearse, just in a room. We were just gonna kind of go through the songs. There was a snowstorm and they couldn't get to the first gig until basically show time. And so no rehearsal. And other than, you know, there was a little issue with getting Axl to the arena on the first night. And I said, "Well, I'm not gonna go on stage without him." And they were like, "Well, Slash is gonna sing this and this," you know.

B: Do we have a Slash sing?

FC: It was a bass, like a bass player walk. I mean, the bass tech or somebody walked up to me and said, "What song can you sing?" He talked [?] Axl's not coming to the show, and I said, "No, I don't do that. I'm not playing if Axl's not playing. I'm not going to start on that foot." But so all of the nuttiness was not after they got successful. It was always like that. They were always on the edge and that was the beauty of Guns N' Roses. You didn't know if they were going to fall off the edge or if they were going to keep it going. That was the danger that that record brought. They never had that danger again. They had amazing songs after that and it's still a great band. But the dangerousness of Appetite, they lived it. It wasn't put on. That's why it was so successful. That was them. Axl was like, "I'm not going to the show." I met him as he was walking up the stairs to get on stage, literally the stairs to the stage. And we were, "Hey, nice to meet you, let's do this." And we played a show and it was perfect. And that was it. And then fast forward to waiting in front of jail to bail him out that night. I got to get to know the rest of the guys on the tour bus. Negotiating his release.

B: Just wow, there's a lot of things to pick apart there. You being a part of Cinderella at that time, in Guns N' Roses, a lot of people just talk about how they change things in the hair metal scene. I guess how did you view them? Did you look at your own band and be like, did you start looking introspectively? Like, why don't we do it like that? Maybe less Aquanet or they were just another one of the crew. I guess how did you, as a peer, like look at Guns N' Roses and their sound?

FC: They always had that look. So they always had the teased up hair and all of that. It wasn't until later that they calmed that down. They were still wearing jeans, but you know, and not getting too elaborately dressed. But Axl was, he was an 80s guy, his hair was teased and, and, you know, Duff had makeup and, and, you know, as street as they were, they were still entertainers. Back then, they were just a little more dressed up, just a little darker. So no, we just loved the sound. We loved everything. Very supportive of them. It wasn't anything like we wish we had done that. It was a completely different vibe. And they were, you know, they were just, they just had something. I don't think anybody should have tried to copy. I don't, you know, when a band comes out, we came out and then, Brittany Fox came out. And they sounded like us. You know what I mean? It's kind of diet Cinderella. But it had two of the guys from Cinderella in it. So that was okay. And Johnny Dee, one of my dearest friends, he was in the band. And the singer sounded like Tom. And when a band comes out, there's usually 10 bands that sound kinda like it. They come out afterwards.

B: Still to this day.

FC: What's that?

B: Still to this day, it's unfortunately a formula.

FC: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, the cream always rises to the top. But with Guns N' Roses, I don't think anybody tried it. They just couldn't. It just came from inside. It wasn't something like you could sit and write one of those songs. It just came from their guts. And that was the beauty and the greatness of that band. And I remember on the road with them, MTV wasn't playing them. Wouldn't play Welcome to the Jungle. They would not play that song and they couldn't get any traction until Sweet Child came out. And then it was undeniable that everybody wanted this band and kind of MTV ate their words and kind of backpedaled a little bit. And, "No, no, we love you guys." And started playing them after that. But yeah, that band was still, yeah, just something special. And it was completely different.

B: It was cool that you said you were listening to the album before it came out like this Japanese version, right?

FC: Wasn't a Japanese. I just had a copy of it and then we were in Japan. We were on our way to Japan when I got it.

B: Okay. My brain combined two of those things. Okay. So when you were practicing Steven's parts, I guess, did they come easy for you to, I guess, did you bring in, did you want to kind of mimic Steven's style? Did you go into it with your own style and just learn the songs? What songs did you find the most challenging? I guess if you could just talk about learning the record a little bit and things that kind of still stick out to you.

FC: Because of my violin training. Extensive, extensive, extensive, extensive. When I learned something, I could, well, I charted out, first of all. So I get it exactly perfect, try to do every single inflection the exact same way. And the reason that I did that with Guns N' Roses, I did it with Poison when I filled in for Ricky, I did it for Night Ranger recently. To me, if you change a drum part or you give it your own flair, it's like changing a lyric and it's not allowed. In my book, you're not allowed to change it. If I wanted to go see the band Boston, I know every single guitar solo, how it goes, or AC/DC, you know how it goes, or any of these bands, you know what you want to hear. When they go and take liberties, if it's the band, that's one thing, but if somebody is filling in and changes something, it's like, no, you give the fans what they want to hear, and they want to hear what they know. So to me, changing a part or giving it my own feel is not cool.

B: Right on.

FC: Yeah, it's just not cool. You have to play it exactly like the drummer because that's the deepest respect. Try to learn it like them. Ricky Rockett was really hard because people think, oh, Ricky, you know, he's just playing the songs and this and that. That guy, when you start listening to it and tearing that stuff apart and start charting what he does, he has a swing, like a Bunny Carlos swing, where you don't hear it on the record. You can feel it. And it's a feel thing. It's like, give me something to believe in. You think it's like this straight ahead rock thing. He is shuffling and swinging so much back there that it's really difficult to kind of nail that. Much more so than something that's just straight ahead. So, yeah, I don't like to change lyrics.

B: Then what did you find perhaps the most challenging on Appetite to learn? In actually a short amount of time, no less.

FC: I don't know. I don't know. Nothing was too difficult, just some weird things.

B: Or maybe the perhaps the most fun. Is there one that, is that an easier answer? Like the most fun to learn? What was the most fun song for you to play?

FC: No, they're all the same. They're all just like, I was just, no, there wasn't anything really difficult. The only thing that was difficult was when Axl turned around live and said, "This is a song you don't know. Just follow me," and he turns around and the guitar starts and he starts whistling into the mic. But when you whistle into a mic, you don't hear *whistles* you hear *noise*, cause it's all wind. And I looked at Duff and I was like, "What the frig is this?" He goes, "Just follow me." It was Patience. So we did that one. And then we did Move To The city, which I hadn't ever heard. Now all I knew was the songs on that record. So just follow me. And it was crazy.

B: You are good on the pressure, Fred. I mean, wow.

FC: It was really, really cool, just to see how they do it. And they don't have a set list. It's not like, you know, Cinderella, you go on, see a show from the first show to the last show, you're going to see the same set list. That's just the way we do it. We can build it. You have a certain, you know, the lights are all done. Everybody learns their part for the whole show to build and then bring the crowd down and bring them back up throughout and then finish with a bang. GN'R, they were like, I think the Stones are like that too. But they didn't learn it from the Stones because they hadn't toured with them yet. They just, let's see what we feel like playing today. That was it.

B: Man, there's so many fans, I just know, I'm gonna speak for the listeners right now. They're like, I wish they did that today because, I mean, they've added a lot of older songs now that Slash and Duff are back in the band, but you know they're gonna open with It's So Easy, you know they're gonna close with Paradise City, there's certain things that don't move now. But I wanted to bring up actually It's So Easy, and I was curious if you were gonna mention that, because I believe it was in, was it 2002, I believe, yes, you did a rock tribute to Guns N' Roses, and there was a lot of different artists that contributed to that, and you covered It's So Easy. So did you do everything on that?

FC: No, the drummer was Randy Castillo. I got asked to mix.

B: To mix it, okay.

FC: Yeah, I don't know if I mixed.... Well, no, I sang it, that's me singing it. So it was Gilby on guitar, I think it's Gilby and Tracii Guns. I don't know who the bass player was. Unless I played bass. I don't know. The drummer was Randy Castillo, and I got these tracks to mix. They don't have a singer. "Do you wanna give it a shot?" I said, "Sure." So I sang it. So I sang that track. I don't know who played bass. But maybe it was Kyle, I have no idea. But that's how that thing came along. He was just like, "You wanna sing it?" And I said, "Yeah." So I sang it. And a little known note, Bobby that owns Mates Rehearsal in Los Angeles where GN'R used to rehearse. I sang on a lot of those demos for Izzy, like Bad Apples, way back when. And so Duff and Izzy would be in there all the time writing. And I used to do a good Axl impression. And they asked me, boy, I wish I could find those. But I sang on a lot of those demos when they were just writing them, coming up, "Hey, will you put a vocal on this?" So that was, I forgot about it. I had forgotten about it until we were just talking about, he was talking about that room and how he built something new for GN'R and Izzy, and he goes, "You remember singing on that stuff?" "Oh my gosh, I do, what did I sing on?" He said, "Bad Apples." And that was eight years before it ever came out. So yeah, a lot of cool stuff.

B: I have a sound bite. See, I have that ready to go. Wow. Are they still in existence? Do you think somewhere?

FC: I don't know. I have no idea. I doubt it. Like who has the cassette collection anymore? I have a bunch of things. I do find like people walk up to me, "Hey, here's my CD." "All right, where do I rent a CD player?"

B: Who gives out CDs anymore?

FC: Yeah, I'm like, "Thanks, but I can't listen to this. My car does not have a CD player. I don't have one at home." Which is, you know, I need to go and get a DAT machine and a cassette player, because I have so many cool things and so many ideas, that are probably garbage, but... It could be good, you know, it'd be nice to go back and listen to that stuff, but anyway, so I don't know if they had those.

B: Alright, well, I'll put it out to the universe somehow, because you always read stories that people find something in their basement or in the walls, so who knows, there's a dat tape somewhere in Izzy's toilet or somewhere, you know, in the toilet.

FC: There is, yeah. There's video of me playing with those guys that the crew took throughout the whole tour. I think it's in my friend's attic, but I can't get it. If I do I'll upload it.

B: Alright, let me know. Alright, that'll be a clip. Yeah.

FC: There's so much stuff out there, it's funny.

B: Right, I wanna ask, I guess, because this was continued, I guess, through your friendship with Gilby, because a couple years later, in 2004, you did the Roots of Guns N' Roses, the Hollywood Rose. You did remixing of that, right? I remember when that came out. Because for me, that was like, you know, Guns N' Roses was never gonna reunite. That was like the Buckethead days. So it was a great album. So is there any special memories of putting that album together?

FC: No, I was just, that was just something that they handed me and said, "Hey, can you make anything out of this?" And the track sounded awful. It was just like literally basement tapes and they were just kind of, "Can you beef this up a little bit?" So I just tried to do whatever I could to make them sound a little bit better. I think Gilby mixed some as well on that. Yeah, I think, I think we both did, but there was nothing that other than the fact that songs were pretty much the same way that they went down on Appetite. The band had it, you know, a lot of bands go in there and the producer does a lot to it. But then Mike Clink is great. He's a great engineer. But I think his whole job is just capture this band. First of all, get them to the studio. You can get them all in there. That's the biggest task. And then the second part is just capture that lightning. Because that's all it is. Those songs were that way when they wrote them. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

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