Straight Whisky (book w/1987 GNR mentions)

[GypsySoul]

GNR excerpts from book: “STRAIGHT WHISKY: A Living History of Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll on the Sunset Strip” by Erik Quisling & Austin Williams

Page 336: “In ’81, the kings of the Sunset Strip were definitely Motley Crue. They were all about publicizing themselves and creating an image,” says Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. “What was I doing in 1981? Oh, shit. I was hanging out. I was selling Quaaludes and trying to get gigs.”

Page 339: As the first wave of glam-metal bands went on world tours to support their albums, the door was opened for a second wave of big-hair bands to take the spotlight. Led by bands such as Poison, Warrant, Faster Pussycat, the L.A. Guns, and the mighty Guns N’ Roses, this second wave would push the image-is-everything mentality and the hard partying lifestyle to its limits.

Pages 343-355** Gypsy Note: These first 12 pages of Chapter 15 are all GNR, so I’ll post it at the end.

Pages 358-359: “We had a huge tryout,” says Bret Michaels, “and all these people came. It was narrowed down to C.C. DeVille, Slash, and one other guy. Some of the tension that’s always been between me and C.C. comes from the fact that I chose Slash when we voted. The truth is C.C. is a really great guitar player, but at the time he didn’t want to play any of our songs, and it pissed me off. Slash came in and played all of our stuff note for note and had one of his own songs, which eventually became ‘Welcome To the Jungle.’ I was like, ‘This guy is great.’”

Slash recalls the audition:
“Poison was sort of the band that was going to carry Motley Crue’s torch,” say Slash. “Now, I did audition for Poison; that is true. There was a point where I was willing to do anything, and as much as I hated what Poison was about, you have to do whatever it takes to make it. So it came down to me and C.C. DeVille auditioning to replace their old guitar player, and C.C. was perfect. I could play the shit out of their material, but I definitely didn’t look the part. I don’t think C.C. was really the greatest guitar player, which you didn’t need to be in that band, but he had the look.”

So against Bret’s wishes, Poison selected C.C. Deville, a decision that ultimately proved the perfect move for everyone concerned. Slash would shortly thereafter join future ‘80s supergroup Guns N’ Roses, and C.C. would help Poison write and produce their breakout debut Look What the Cat Dragged In.

Page 360: As a matter of fact, every band that was popular on the scene at the time, including Warrant, Metallica, Jet Boy, the L.A. Guns, Faster Pussycat, and Guns N’ Roses, received a major record deal.

Page 362: However, as brightly as Poison, Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue, Metallica, and all the other bands had burned, the entire glam-metal genre was virtually snuffed out in 1991 when the Seattle-based group Nirvana released their pioneering grunge-rock masterpiece, Nevermind.

Page 363: For the vast majority of the glam-metal groups, survival was impossible. But some of the bands – Motley Crue, Poison, Guns N’ Roses, and, later, Metallica – did manage to prove with their music that they were more than just an image. They had true staying power. And, in Poison’s case, they even helped grunge gain a foothold.

Page 383: “After Guns N’ Roses and those kind of hair metal bands that took over everything, we had a lull at the Roxy, and I think the Whisky, too. But then once ’95 came around, and ’96, there was this young generation that grew up on Guns N’ Roses that came out here. It started with Incubus and System of a Down and Alien Ant Farm and Papa Roach. They’re all from here, you know, this is their home. Actually, the Roxy is their home. It’s not just one band that’s big; there’s no gimmick. There is great music coming out of here now, and I think that’s just going to build and build.”


**CHAPTER 15: METAL, THE SEQUAL (Pages 343 – 355)

September 1, 1987

“Did anyone get their names?”

The mouth that asks the question belongs to Slash, but it’s hidden under an impenetrable mask of curly black hair that creeps down from under the brim of an oversized top hat like Spanish moss hanging from a rooftop in the deep South. Slash has been cultivating this look for about a year, and he’s really starting to like it. The hair not only minimizes eye contact, which the introverted guitarist avoids like the plague, but it also acts as an organic shield protecting against ultraviolet rays. And that comes in handy, since Slash can’t seem to hold onto a pair of sunglasses for more than a day or two without losing them, breaking them, or giving them away. An essentially nocturnal creature, he’s not a big fan of direct sunlight.

Slash is wondering if anyone knows the names of the two teenage girls who just stepped off the bus licking their lips. He doesn’t get any straight answers from the other thirteen guys on the bus. Instead, his bandmates in Guns N’ Roses, along with their seven-man road crew, reply by heaping piles of verbal abuse on the guitarist. All except Axl Rose, who is too preoccupied refilling his beer cup and probably would remain silent even if he weren’t. The others more than compensate for Axl’s silence, ripping Slash mercilessly for being soft enough to ask the chicks’ names. What an amateur move.

The bus they’re sitting in is painted a classic bright yellow. It is the property of Laidlaw Education Services, which the Los Angeles Unified School District contracts for the purpose of ferrying small children from their homes to hallowed halls of learning and then back again in one piece. It’s really no different than any school bus you’d find in big cities and small towns all across the country. Except those vehicles usually aren’t rented out by ascendance rock bands who don’t have the means for more glamorous modes of transport.

[GypsySoul]

As the autumn of ’87 starts to simmer off from the heat of the summer, the Gunners have not yet arrived at the stretch-limo level of stardom. All in good time. The current situation is actually fine with them, because it’s a lot easier to fit two kegs of beer into a school bus than a limousine.

One silver barrel is already dead, lying forlornly on its side in the back of the bus. A few inches next to it, the other keg is still kicking. Barely. Axl Rose pumps the tap with a steady vicious hammering of his tattooed left arm, like an oil derrick plumbing the Earth for hidden reserves, while he clenches a red plastic cup in his right hand. The tap hisses and gurgles on the verge of extinction. Axl keeps leaning on it until the keg can produce nothing more than carbonated air. Satisfied he’s gotten the last drop, Axl wordlessly returns to his seat while the rest of the Gunners continue to go to work on Slash, which they do at great volume.

Indeed, as it idles in the right lane of Sunset a half-block west of the Rainbow, chugging out lungfuls of carcinogens, the bus practically sways with the auditory force of blaring music intermingled with wild jeering and laughter. Guns N’ Roses is capable of making a hell of a lot of noise, with or without the aid of their musical instruments and a good P.A. Right now they are relying only on a small boombox and their own haggard vocal chords, but they’re still generating enough decibels to piss off the neighbors. They really need to either disembark from the parked bus or get it in gear before the cops show up. But no one seems in much of a hurry to do anything right now. Except taunt Slash.

Sitting in the second-to-last seat on the right side of the aisle, within his customary arm’s reach of the beer, Slash accepts the barbs with stoicism. Being a member of Guns N’ Roses involves taking a bag of shit from your bandmates on a pretty regular basis. A certain strain of mutual hostility, thinly veiled by laugher, is an essential dynamic of the band, and a thick skin is almost as important as musical ability if you want to survive in this outfit for very long.

After a few minutes, the conversation switches from insulting the lead guitarist to the next pertinent subject: dinner. The band seems content to leave Slash alone for a while, until fellow six-stringer Izzy Stradllin takes up the banner again.

“I got an idea,” Izzy says, reaching across the bus’s gum-specked aisle to slap Slash on the shoulder. “Why don’t you hop out and try to track those chicks down? They can’t move very fast on full stomachs.”

This vile remark produces gales of laughter and a resumption of the trash-talking.

“He’s right,” says drummer Steve Adler (no relation to Lou, as far as either man knows). Adler struggles to speak as he tugs on a smoldering joint until it disappears into a fragment of ash. “We’ll meet you at the ‘Bow, dude. If you don’t show up by morning, we’ll know you’re in love.”

“You guys are fucking hilarious,” Slash says in his low-pitched mumble. “Do you rehearse this shit or what?”

“Okay, okay,” Izzy says to Adler. “I think he’s had enough.” Izzy punches Slash on the arm and returns to his seat. Still, he can’t resist adding, “But, really, asking their names? What the hell?”

Meanwhile, Steve Adler has returned to his own spot on the bus and is hammering his drumsticks against the padded back of the seat in front of him. Under no circumstances does Steve relinquish his drumsticks – or his role as a drummer for that matter. He’s constantly tapping out a beat on whatever surface presents itself. Right now that happens to be the back of Axl Rose’s seat. Steve’s really getting going until Axl reaches over his shoulder without turning and yanks the sticks from his hands.

“C’mon, Axl! Fuck!”

“I told you to give it a rest.”

Steve is usually too stoned to get angry about anything, but he really doesn’t like anyone messing with his sticks. “Give ‘em back, dickhead!”

Axl takes an unhurried sip of beer. His voice is calm. “They’re mine now, Steve.”

“I’ll fuckin’ take ‘em if I have to.”

“You want them? Go fetch, bitch.”

Axl tosses the drumsticks out the window directly into oncoming traffic. Steve Adler watches them spiral through the air, his jaw slack with shock. One of the sticks clatters against the windshield of a passing BMW, causing the car to swerve into the adjacent land. With an angry honk, the driver slams on the brakes and pulls over. A balding geezer in an argyle sweater and tasseled loafers steps out to get a look at the punk who had the nerve to launch a wooden projectile at his car. Seeing not a lone teenage delinquent but an entire busload of tattooed rockers, the old man decides to let it slide. He gets back in and peels away, but not before flipping G N’ R a gnarled middle finger.

Watching through the open window, Axl laughs. “That guy was all right.”

“Are we gonna get out of this fucking bus or what?” bassist Duff McKagan wants to know. “Beer’s gone, what the fuck?”

Though the band is need of a meal and the culinary delights of the Rainbow’s kitchen beckon from less than a block away, everyone seems a little reluctant to leave the bus. They’ve become almost irrationally attached to it.

[GypsySoul]

G N’ R finished a blistering gig at the Whisky about an hour ago, as planned. They knew perfectly well that the postperformance dinner would be held at the Rainbow, all of two blocks away. A rented vehicle is hardly necessary to make the trek. But the Gunners are rock stars on the rise. Their debut LP Appetite for Destruction was released only two months ago, but the band has been touring behind it nationally, opening for the Cult, and building an increasingly large and delirious fan base with each show. Though they won’t emerge as bona fide monsters for another year, they are too far along in their upward climb to be seen walking down the sidewalk like a bunch of unsigned hackers. Especially on the Strip, where they are sure to be noticed. So they rented the only vehicle they could find that met both their capacity and budgetary requirements. On a certain level it makes sense. The bus will get its fair share of use before the night is over, as the boys will almost certainly opt for a late-night mission to the Seventh Veil, the infamous strip bar located about three miles east on Sunset.

From the moment they lifted the kegs through the back doors at five this afternoon, everyone took a liking to the yellow school bus. It just seemed to emit a good vibe. But in light of what happened after the show, they have grown more attached to it than they would have ever thought possible. For the rest of their highly combustible careers, both together and apart, the original members of Guns N’ Roses will remember tonight and the big yellow vehicle known simply as “The B.J. Bus.” It earned this moniker about twenty minutes ago, when two stiletto-heeled maidens casually approached from the sidewalk and asked if they could get autographs. Upon gaining entrance to the bus, these ardent G N’ R boosters promptly proceeded to give head to everyone inside.

Slash is still stunned by the matter-of-factness of the whole encounter. The girls didn’t see the need to introduce or explain themselves. They simply went to work. Each taking an aisle, they started with the musicians sitting at the back of the bus and worked their way forward. Even the sweaty, barrel-chested driver, Vic, a full-time Laidlaw employee rented along with the vehicle, was treated to some joy. The girls must have figured he was the official bus driver for Guns N’ Roses and therefore worthy. After all fourteen flies had been rezipped, the girls stood up and left, sweetly waving goodbye. They never even bothered to get autographs.

A year from now, Slash will be a lot more jaded about the perks of rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Such antics won’t even raise a hidden eyebrow on the guy. But right now, it feels like he’s won the lottery and been named president of Hustler at the same time. Slash is the only one in the band honest enough to admit it. Everyone else is equally shocked by the episode; they’re just so hardwired into acting cool, they are no longer able to express genuine emotions like surprise and gratitude.

“Those chicks didn’t even want anything,” Slash mutters, recklessly inviting more abuse from the other guys. “No backstage passes, nothing.”

“Nope,” Axl says quietly. He slyly reaches into his leather jacket to grab a fresh pint on Jack Daniels he’s been hoarding for when the beer runs out. He takes a pull and passes it to his guitarist. “That was an act of pure fan appreciation.”

“Fourteen acts,” Slash says, accepting the pint.

“Let’s get some goddamn grub!” Duff McKagan bellows from the front of the bus. He’s leaning with all his weight against the folding door, desperate to leave. McKagan is starving, having forgone lunch as a result of forgetting to set his alarm last night. Lurching out of bed at the crack of 3:00 P.M., he had to frantically shake himself awake and hustle over to the group’s shared studio/crash pad on Gardner Street (“the Hellhouse”) in time to assemble the gear and be picked up by the bus. It’s been a long night already, and Duff is pretty impatient to slide into a cozy booth at the ‘Bow and get some pizzas working. But he doesn’t even consider stepping out of the bus by himself. That would be completely unacceptable.

The Gunners are an extraordinarily tight-knit bunch. Like many bands who’ve had to scrape and struggle to make a dent, they embrace an “us against the world” mentality that announces itself in everything they do. They take the stage together. They take drugs together. Girlfriends and habitations are shared. Rehearsals and sound checks don’t start until everyone is present (which isn’t a problem since these guys are still so hungry that they always manage to show up on time). If tonight’s two oral starlets had entered the bus and insisted on servicing only the lead singer, they would have been immediately sent to the curb with a barrage of misogynistic insults.

One for all and all for Guns. Learn it. Know it. Live it. Now and forevermore.

Still, in this band of equals, some are more equal than others. Axl and Slash are unquestionably the musical nucleus of G N’ R, and they tend to hand pretty close to one another. Their relationship is sometimes described as “closer than brothers,” and, like many siblings, they are mutually driven by competition as well as affection. Astute students of rock ‘n’ roll, they have consciously crafted a partnership based on the great duos of the past: Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Page/Plant, etc. What neither Slash nor Axl has stopped to consider is that all those iconic collaborations, fruitful as they may have been, ended with bitter acrimony and the total collapse of the bands themselves. (Okay, Mick and Keith are still ostensibly together, but given the quality of their work post-Tattoo You, more than a few true-blue Stones fans wish the band had dissolved long ago.)

Besides, the two leaders of Guns N’ Roses, still in the starry-eyed phase of their careers, can already see their future: they will hang tight and continue to crank out immortal rock tunes until they both die, sometime in late middle age, in the same sprawling French villa, surrounded by adoring adolescent waifs and piles of money. That’s the game plan, and no one close to either Slash or Axl has the nerve to poke a hole in it. The other musicians resent their rapport and superior attitude, but what are you gonna do? Being in a band on the rise has its price, and everyone in G N’ R is more than willing to pay it.

Slash passes the bottle of J.D. back to Axl, who shakes his head when he sees there’s only about an inch of fluid left. He drains the dregs and chucks the empty pint out the window without caring to look where it lands. By some small miracle, the street is momentarily empty and the bottle shatters harmlessly on the pavement.

[GypsySoul]

Axl sticks both pinkies between his yellowed front teeth and lets out a whistle loud enough to deafen a Collie. “Okay, Gunners,” he says, conscious of not raising his voice now that he has everyone’s attention. “Let’s move out.”

With this edict, all twelve seated members of the entourage rise to their feet in unison. Axl always has the last word, and he rarely has to repeat it. The driver pulls the lever to open the door and Duff McKagan, who is still absentmindedly leaning against it, falls out ass over teakettle. It’s quite a drop to the cold, unforgiving sidewalk. His reflexes badly dulled by numerous substances, Duff is unable to break the fall with his hands and greets the cement squarely with the side of his face.

“Holy shit!” cries his guitar tech, Ricky, who shoves people aside and runs to assist the fallen bassist. Everyone else is laughing too hard at Duff’s smooth move to be of much help. Their hoarse guffaws ring out into the night over McKagan’s prone form.

Ricky turns him over on his back and winces at the sight of a four-inch gash running from Duff’s forehead into his left eyebrow. Blood pools around his eye. After a few tense seconds, Duff snaps awake and screams in shock at the momentary sensation of blindness. Ricky uses his favorite Zeppelin T-shirt to wipe away the blood and assures Duff his eyes are fine. He cautiously suggests medical attention, but Duff won’t have it. Instead, he tells Ricky to take off the stained T-shirt and tie it tight around his head as a tourniquet. What choice does the loyal guitar tech have?

Duff smiles as he is helped to his feet. He bows theatrically to his hysterical bandmates as they applaud his potentially crippling pratfall. It was a good one, but probably not the most blatant performance of legless buffoonery they’re likely to see this evening. After all, it’s not even eleven. Still, it’s a solid start that qualifies Duff as an early lead for tonight’s FUBAR award. And, on top of that honor, Duff is pretty confident he can turn this nasty little spill to his advantage. The chicks at the ‘Bow are sure to cream at the sight of fresh blood.

After a couple of minutes, the rest of the Gunners have gotten their hilarity under control and are filing out of the bus in an appropriately disorderly fashion. Axl tells Vic to keep it parked here and not to take any shit from cops telling him to move.

Stepping onto the curb, Slash inhales the night air into his lungs as deeply as his three-pack-a-day habit allows. Just feeling the Sunset Strip underneath his leather boots sets him straight. He grew up here, literally. He’s been cruising these sidewalks since he was old enough to figure out where his parents hid the spare key to the front door of their house. Considering his father worked for David Geffen, whose label signed Guns N’ Roses in March of ’86, Slash was born into rock ‘n’ roll.

The other guys clamor out of the bus and cut a wide swath across the sidewalk as they move toward the Rainbow. Axl is stopped for an autograph before he’s advanced ten feet. A few passing cars honk their horns in tribute. A girl in the back of a pickup lifts her top for the band’s benefit before being yelled at by her boyfriend and sheepishly lowering it.

A green Chevy Impala low-rider carrying two Latino die-hard Poison fans pulls up to the curb where Slash is pausing to light a Marlboro. The hombre in the passenger seat yells out, “Gunners suck dick!” His buddy hits the gas and the low-rider veers into traffic, cutting across two lanes and almost causing a pile-up. Even as the car barrels west out of sight into Beverly Hills, Axl has to be forcibly restrained from chasing after it. In truth, he’s not really that angry, because any kind of recognition counts. It’s the ultimate compliment to the rising star status of G N’ R that they can’t walk half a block down Sunset without causing a minor scene.

But the real havoc doesn’t start until they enter the parking lot of the Rainbow Bar and Grill.

Two teenage German tourists with absurdly exaggerated mullets and loaded down with torturously heavy photographic equipment are milling about underneath the ‘Bow’s famous neon sign. One of them stands by the entrance holding a hand-painted sign over his head that reads “Das Haus der Lemmy!” with a crudely drawn arrow pointing toward the front door. His buddy crouches with a camera, trying to find an angle that will capture as much of the hallowed building as possible. Tony Vescio stands calmly in the doorway, waiting for them to finish. After firing off a half-dozen shots, the photographer orders his buddy to remain in position (“Schwarzweiss, schwarzweiss!”) as he reaches for another camera to preserve their fleeting brush with greatness in black and white. They are so involved with getting a good shot, they don’t even notice when G N’ R walks by.

As the Gunners work their way through the crowd to the restaurant’s entrance, they are openly gawked at and embraced. Slash puts a fresh Marlboro in his mouth and a half-dozen lighters instantaneously appear. He leans forward to get a light from a Zippo in the hands of an hourglass brunette in fishnet stockings. Grabbing her free hand, he pulls her along as he tries to get closer to the building.

Up by the front door, Axl is amused and mildly irritated to bump into a kid mimicking his look down to the last detail: long red hair, storm trooper boots, black tank top revealing pale, heavily tattooed arms, and of course the red bandana tied over the head with a pair of sunglasses riding on top. The wannabe is too shocked to be standing face to face with his idol to react in any specific way. After a long, fairly tense moment, Axl just nods and says, “Pretty cool.” He walks on through the front door, leaving the copycat to go running over to his disbelieving friends so he can tell them he just hung out with Axl Rose.

[GypsySoul]

Once all the members of G N’ R get inside, they tend to do their own thing. The Musketeers unity only goes so far. Everyone is starting to get on each other’s nerves, and there are ample diversions within the rowdy confines of the Rainbow. Steve Adler is still pissed about losing his drumsticks, so he plants himself at the bar and doesn’t say much. Within a year’s time, Steve will have developed a serious heroin habit. While it is difficult to map out the absolute low point in his career, most would agree it comes in 1988 when Guns N’ Roses are playing with Motley Crue during the “Girls Girls Girls” tour and several members of the Crue trick Steve into snorting a substantial amount of toilet disinfectant. In early 1990, he will be unceremoniously and permanently booted from the band. But right now all he’s thinking about is exacting revenge upon Axl for throwing away his sticks.

Meanwhile, Duff McKagan is thoroughly enjoying himself tonight. He starts chatting up a blonde waitress whose brow is wrinkled with concern for his bleeding head. It’s all Duff can do to keep from laughing out loud; he’s getting exactly the kind of leg-spreading sympathy he’d hoped for. Staring into her worried blue eyes, Duff considers injuring himself more often.

Upstairs, Izzy Stradlin gets into a heated debate with a threesome of drunken Scots about who was the best drummer to emerge from the British Invasion. Izzy stubbornly insists it was John Bonham, ignoring the strident complaints of the Scots that Zeppelin wasn’t technically part of the British Invasion and therefore doesn’t qualify. Their unanimous vote goes to Keith Moon. The argument rages on well into the night.

For his part, Axl has planted himself in a recessed booth in the dining room, where he is joined by Slash and the Zippo-bearing brunette. Axl isn’t in any hurry to find a companion. He’s content to enjoy a mellow late dinner and reflect on what’s happened tonight. Of all the Gunners, Axl is by far the most conscious of the band’s status and progress. He may be a rock ‘n’ roll bad boy, but he’s also a ruthless careerist who recognizes the extraordinarily rare opportunity he and his cohorts face. It’s not just incredibly difficult to start a band and generate a major buzz; it’s more like a statistical impossibility. Yes, in the ongoing frenzy of the metal explosion, a lot of young bands are getting signed. But how many of them will ever have a hit single? And how many of that small percentage will be around in two years? These are the questions that haunt Axl’s mind even as he should be enjoying a memorably raunchy night.

For a while, he even forgets about the two girls on the bus. Until it’s time to pick up the meal tab and he reaches for his wallet. It won’t be too long before Axl and the rest of the guys in Guns N’ Roses will stop carrying wallets altogether. The richer they get, the less they will actually need to spend money on things like meals, guitars, hotel rooms, and the like. It’s a weird inversion of means versus expenditures that seems to accompany the rise of every rock band, until the bills get so staggering that the requisite sycophants and hangers-on are no longer willing or able to cover the debt.

Be that as it may, on this particular September evening in 1987, Axl graciously decides to pay for dinner. But when he reaches into the hip pocket of his frayed Levis, he feels nothing but his own skinny ass. And then he remembers the way the girl on the bus (she seemed to be the older of the two, but it was hard to tell in the low light) wrapped her arms all the way around his torso and squeezed while she went down on him, providing more than enough distraction for a sly act of petty theft.

Axl leans back in the comfortable booth and smiles in spite of himself. It seems he’s got one or two things to learn about being a rock star after all. Just wait till the other guys get a load of this. He’ll never hear the end of it.

(end of book quotes)