Reckless Road Guns 'n Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction Read online

  DUFF Success happened and none of us knew how to deal with it.

  TOM ZUTAUT The hardest part was finding a place for them to live, because we put them in this apartment on Fountain and Crescent Heights and they burned through that $75,000 pretty damn fast. All of a sudden they don't have any money and they don't have a place to live and I knew I needed to sort it out. So I told them, "We're not going to give you any more cash, but we will cover your rent." We gave them a monthly subsidy for food, a place to live and a rehearsal space so they could write songs and create.

  STEVEN ADLER We got a pad in the Hollywood Hills and we never stopped. We had strippers and drug dealers and everybody up there. We were playing and we were living the life.

  TOM ZUTAUT There was one particular night where I was almost ready to throw in the towel. They burnt through the first money and they burnt through another $100,000 in monthly expenses. I know the money didn't go in their pocket because they weren't actually getting any cash from us, they were just getting living support. I don't know where they got the drug money unless it was their stripper girlfriends.

  Anyway, I went over to the house and they were all strung out on junk. On one hand it was really quiet, but on the other hand it was really scary. There were a couple of girls strung out with them and they were just watching MTV, nodding in and out. A couple of them said to me, "we're really hungry." And I said, "well, what do you want?" And they told me, "cookies and milk." I went to the store on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was a Mrs. Fields cookie store -- back when there were Mrs. Fields -- and I got a bunch of bags of cookies.

  Then I went to 7-11 and got some cartons of milk and I came back. I'm there not longer than ten minutes and the door knocks. I go to the door to answer it since everybody else is incapacitated, and it's the cops! I don't want to open the door too much, and I asked, "can I help you?" And they're like, "We've got a disturbing the peace complaint about loud noise coming from this apartment" I looked at them and said, "I don't know what you're talking about." And they asked, "Can we come in?" I'm thinking to myself, "Well, they're just sitting there eating cookies and drinking milk and I suppose if I say no, that's going to make more trouble." So I took the gamble and I let the cops in. They came in and they saw some crazy, long-haired rock dudes, which, let's face it, the sheriffs in West Hollywood saw that all the time in those days. They come in and see all these guys watching MTV, drinking milk and eating cookies and they said, "Sorry to disturb you, can you turn the TV down a little maybe?" The landlord is there and she's screaming at the cops, "They're making noise!" and the cops are looking at this lady like, "We're really sorry lady, but they're just watching TV. There's nothing against the law here." So she then threw them out as soon as she could.

  After that, I was desperately trying to find the band a manager.

  The version of Your Crazy that appears on Appetite for Destruction is performed for the first time.

  Around this time, they sometimes liked to play casual, often last-minute gigs around town under the name Fargin Bastydges. They came up with the name - spelled differently every time - after watching a character in the movie "Johnny Dangerously" who has a speech impediment; everything he said came out garbled.

  Axl spilled the open secret that Guns N' Roses, bored at taking a hiatus from live performing as they readied their album, were actually the Fargin Bastydges.

  Act III

  Chapter 10a: Out Ta' Get Me

  "There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your Kindle device. The caption for this content is below."

  They Didn't Know Who They Were Dealing With (3:06).

  Whomever Tom Zutaut hired to produce "Appetite" had to have nerves of steel and the humility of Buddha.

  Creative control was non-negotiable and the band's tolerance for "professionals" with an agenda to shape their music was less than zero. Suggestions to cut songs in order to make them more tangible for broader audiences or pop friendly radio were tossed out along with the producers who brought it up. Shooting the messenger was common practice and Tom Zutaut had trouble finding the right fit.

  In the meantime, Tom hired his long time associate Alan Niven to manage - i.e. control -- the day-to-day details of the band while they searched for a new producer. Like a chameleon; Alan could hang with the guys, then shape-shift into a straight-laced rep for the press or to get the band out of any trouble. He kept the band away from bad influences, organized their schedules and managed the growing concerns of the record company. Although his role was more oriented toward management, he was in tune with the sound and feel Guns N' Roses wanted to accomplish on the album and wasn't afraid to voice his opinion. The band trusted him.

  Producers were brought in who had a history of making records that Axl and Tom appreciated and which provide a sort of blueprint for the sound they wanted to achieve with "Appetite." Axl was a huge Nazareth fan and Manny Charlton, the guitarist and co-producer of Nazareth, was flown in from Scotland to record over two dozen tracks with the band, known as the Sound City Demos. Their work was productive, but Manny returned to Scotland after three days. He never heard from the band or Tom again and realized they'd be better off working with an engineer, not a producer. Once prospective producers got wind of the band being too difficult or controlling, or recognized the clear direction they had internally, the engagement period quickly ended. As the revolving door of producers continued to spin, Tom decided to end the search and produce the album himself, seeking out an engineer to lay down the master tracks.

  The road to record "Appetite for Destruction" continued with Spencer Proffer, who Geffen Records hired for his talent at fashioning a great sound and taking acts mainstream through his bold marketing tactics, as he did for Quiet Riot just a few years prior. The band cut several songs at Pasha Studios in Hollywood and Spencer adjusted to their idiosyncrasies when it came to showing up late for call times or intoxicated recording sessions. Spencer attributes their sudden end to a confrontational moment with Axl, but for the band, Spencer's treatment of their material wasn't to their liking. They completed the Pasha demos and Tom was again on the hunt for a new producer.

  Again Axl and Tom brought up names based on albums they admired and singled out "Stranger in the Night" by the English seventies group UFO. It was a live album that had just the right balance Guns N' Roses wanted to capture for "Appetite" and they invited Mike Clink, the co-producer and engineer of that album, to cut a demo. In their first meeting, Mike immediately understood the direction they wanted to take "Appetite" and subscribed to the band's need for creative control. He cut a demo, just like all the other prospects before him and Axl and Tom were pleased with the results. The only question remaining, was if Mike had the personality to tolerate the absurdities and discipline the band.

  SLASH When we wrote the songs and put the songs together we never allowed any outside influences. It seemed like we had to make compromises or sacrifices to work with a producer that we didn't want to work with. Every manager or producer that they tried to hook us up with either couldn't deal with us or we didn't like them.

  STEVE ADLER All the other records companies and producers wanted to change us. And we're like, "fuck that! We're not going to change." Either you liked it or you didn't.

  TOM ZUTAUT I would play the demo for producers, who would listen and be intrigued. Then they would sort of back off and say no. Axl was very picky and this made it difficult to find a producer, because when I talked to him about a bunch of different producers, he would say, "Yeah, but he made this record," or "That record was crap and I don't think I can work with him because I don't respect the fact that he made that record." You know Axl had a definite opinion on almost anyone that I brought up.

  One of the things that Axl responded pretty positively to was that he and I were both huge Nazareth fans. Manny Charlton, who was the guitar player for Nazareth, produced some of the records and his name came up. Axl said, "yeah, lets do a session with him." So I flew to Scotlan
d, found this guy in the middle of nowhere in Edinburgh and played him the demos. We talked about the band and then Manny said, "yeah, I'll come to L.A. and do a session with them."

  MANNY CHARLTON Tom Zutaut came over to Scotland and asked me if I was interested in producing the band. At the time I was recording an album with Nazareth called "Cinema," so I had commitments with my own band and the schedule was kind of tight. He asked me to come to L.A. and meet the band anyway. The board mixes that Tom brought with him weren't very good. I couldn't hear the vocals properly. I said to Tom, "let's get to the bottom of this. Let's go into the studio, cut their set live, straight to two-track and then I can listen to the songs and get a handle on this."

  When I arrived in Los Angeles, I was supposed to see them the next day for rehearsals. Tom picked me up to go to the rehearsal space and there was nobody there. None of them showed up. We hung around for a while and I looked at him and asked, "Are you sure you know what you're doing here?" To me, that was not very professional to have a guy travel 6,000 miles to see a rehearsal and none of them even showed up.

  We went into the studio for three days and we got on pretty good. I remember going into the studio and seeing racks of new Les Pauls and Mesa Boogie amps, so I knew Tom was taking care of them. I asked them to cut their set; everything that they were doing at the time. We just cut it live off the floor of the studio. Axl was stuck between two studio doors, with a little window watching the band and he gave it his all. He didn't bitch about it, there were no tantrums about not being able perform. He just got on with it. The band set up and they played. That went straight down to two-track because there were no multiple-tracks involved. There was no overdubbing either. I just set them up and got a really good balance and they played their asses off. They worked well together and they had their arrangements down. It was really good stuff.

  TOM ZUTAUT It was mixed down to two-track tape -- there were never multi-tracks at that time. It went really, really well. Bootlegs are probably still floating around out there.

  MANNY CHARLTON They weren't just some bar band. They were a band with a capital "B." An important band is always greater than the sum of their parts. You take one part away and the chemistry is shot and it's never the same. The five guys worked together and produced something that was great as a whole. The word is chemistry. That's what they had. They had great chemistry and they were a great band. As soon as you took one cog out of the wheel, one link out of the chain, that was it. I thought the stand-out songs were "Welcome to the Jungle" and November Rain." Axl was playing the piano and Izzy was doing a little bit of background vocals and it was fantastic. That's when I went, "wow, there's proper songwriting skills here," and I thought that I would really like to produce them.

  TOM ZUTAUT But for whatever reason, after Manny did those two days, he thought it was a little crazy. Then there was some dissension in the band about whether or not Manny would be the right guy. So we did the session with him and he disappeared. It was back to the drawing boards.

  MANNY CHARLTON I didn't disappear; I went home. I told Tom about my commitments with Nazareth. What happened was I never heard a thing from them at all after our sessions and then "Appetite" came out. If there was dissent from within the band, I knew nothing about it. I got the feeling that Slash wasn't particularly impressed. I don't think he was as big a Nazareth fan as Axl was. Maybe he wasn't impressed with me as a guitar player. The only positive thing I heard was from Izzy. He said, "Manny's really cool." I wasn't socially integrated with them. I didn't get a chance to get to know them, personally. I wasn't in L.A., I was in Scotland and I had never heard of them before. So I was at a little bit of a disadvantage. I didn't know anything about the L.A. scene with all the other bands that were going on at the time. I guess they must have looked at me like I was some kind of alien with my Scottish accent and being a father, but they respected me for what I had done with Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog." But there wasn't really a chance for us to hit it off.

  Ultimately, I think they wanted somebody who wasn't going to interfere with what they were trying to do and who would get a great performance out of them. They didn't want to be disciplined by anyone. They had their own internal discipline and they didn't want anybody coming in from the outside and tell them what to do. What would I have done as producer? All I would have done was make sure they were comfortable and that they sounded great. As far as I'm concerned, a good producer gets the best performance out of the artists and I could have done that with Guns N' Roses. In the end, I thought the album was not that far away what we did in the studio.

  MARC CANTER Spencer Proffer was also working with the band at the time. He produced a demo of Sweet Child O’ Mine and Nightrain as a test to see if the band would want him to work on their album.

  SPENCER PROFFER I was the only guy that actually got further than the audition phase to where we actually had a contract and I made a deal to produce the whole album. Randy Philips and Arthur Stevac who went on to become very reputed and integral managers in the music community, were managing Guns N' Roses at the time. They were really smart, good managers. They were doing all the right things; they were getting gigs, they were helping get the momentum going and they were attracting media attention. I got introduced to the band and started hanging out with the guys. I thought the music was cool. It had great attitude, it had great spirit, it had great energy and I smelled that it would make a major socio-cultural impact based on the fresh approach of taking the metal genre and infusing it with a lot of unique lyrical and musical elements. They had the shit that makes great rock n' roll. Axl is a great performer; Slash is a first-rate guitar player. They could have used a little guidance and blueprinting and that's the reason Randy plugged me in there. He thought I could help them and keep the raw energy.

  We went into Pasha Studios, worked on pre-production for about a month and we started making the record. We zeroed in on four or five songs that we started arranging. I worked with them in a rehearsal studio on constructing the arrangements, the breakdowns and the vocal approaches. Randy was waiting for the results of our work so he could quarterback the rest of their touring and the next chapter of their career.

  About the time that we were in the studio doing overdubs on the tracks, after we had the arrangements laid out, my wife at the time was expecting our first child. The baby was late and we set up a Caesarean section at the hospital on a specific day. The band would come to the studio everyday late, drunk, stoned or somehow fucked up, one way or another. I called a band meeting a couple of days early, knowing that there would be a Caesarean and that I wanted to be at the hospital spending the time with my family. I didn't want to abrogate my responsibility to work with the band, so I said to them, "would you, on the day of the birth, show up on time? Come to the studio at noon and I'll work with you for five hours, then I'm leaving to go the hospital to spend the evening with my newborn son." They, of course, swore that they would. On that day, the hours passed and they didn't show. Close to five o'clock, they show up collectively. Slash came in and he couldn't wait to get to the bathroom, so he took his stick out and pissed on the wall of the studio. Axl went into the control room and he threw up on the control board and asked if I wanted to go party with him. When I refused, he told me to get fucked, forget fatherhood, and that if I left, I was an asshole. He said either work with Guns N' Roses and rock, or be a dad, but I couldn't do both. I told him to get fucked. I told them to never show up at my studio again, I walked out and called the Geffen people the next morning and told them I was out. That was the end of my involvement. I sold the tapes back for next to nothing because I didn't want these people in my life, karmically, ethically or otherwise. I thought they were the scum of the earth. I left a lot of money on the table after however many millions of albums sold, but I don't regret it because I have my integrity.

  SLASH I just don't recall any of that. We recorded "Sweet Child O' Mine," we recorded "Nightrain" and a couple of other things during that time at Pasha. We
did all the live stuff for "Live Like A ?!*@ Suicide." We did finish the arrangement of "Welcome to the Jungle" out of those sessions over at his place. The songs didn't sound better than demo quality, so we didn't achieve record quality status yet. We were trying to check him out and get a certain sound out of him and we moved on because we thought he didn't capture it. We didn't think that the stuff that we recorded was album quality. If he thinks he fired us, I think that's bullshit. Or else, I didn't know about it and Tom didn't tell us. That's a possibility.

  MARC CANTER These songs were recorded in just a couple of days on a simple two-track system; nevertheless, they really captured the band – the blazing intensity and the sheer raw energy just jump right out. I had a chance to give the tapes a good long listen soon after they were made one night when Slash ended up in jail. He had been a passenger in a car that was pulled over by the Sheriff’s department for a broken taillight. Danny Biral, a roadie for the band, was driving. The sheriff’s deputies found a hypodermic needle in the car, and somehow Slash ended up getting arrested. This wasn’t the first time the band had been in trouble with the Sheriff’s Department, and it wouldn’t be the last. Axl and I went down to the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department to bail Slash out. By the time we arrived, Slash had already been shipped off to the L.A. County jail. So we headed downtown. On the way we picked up some Tommyburgers and listened to the demos. When we arrived at the jail to post Slash’s $178 bail, one of the officers noticed the medallion in the shape of a tiny gun hanging around Axl’s neck. Evidently alarmed at the threat posed by Axl’s necklace, the officer threw him up against the wall and frisked him. Finding no additional threatening objects, he let Axl go, and we went back to my car and waited about five hours for Slash to be released. During the long wait we listened to the demos over and over. Some of the songs from these demo tapes can be heard in the background of the making of “Don’t Cry’ and “November Rain” videotapes. They were used as fIller music between interviews.