VSHindi Democracy cost $13 million and signed the death warrant of Guns N’ Roses, at the height of their glory, having sold 100 million albums in just six years of existence. But how did they crash so quickly? They were the most toxic group of the late 1980s, unforgettable titles alternating ballads and aggressive pieces, “Sweet Child O’Mine” then “Welcome to the Jungle”, covers with explosive design, rains of dollars, the invention of cycling shorts worn with high-top sneakers and a bandana on long hair, top hats on frizzy hair…
“When the Guns came to Los Angeles in 1983, they were different. They were dangerous. Watching them play was like watching a train go off the rails, you couldn’t look away.” Point Vicky Hamilton. “They told me they were going to be the biggest band in Hollywood. And listening on a stolen tape recorder to the five songs of their demo, some of which will appear on their album Appetite for Destruction, I realized it was true. I agreed to be their agent. And so it was that in Los Angeles, in the kingdom of money and tanned, muscular and shaved bodies, with five dirty, malnourished and constantly drunk proles, Guns N’ Roses became the biggest rock band in the world. United by a disastrous tour, they are at first like a real family. The family, a cocoon that most of them have never known.
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Singer Axl Rose, an angel-faced redhead from Indiana, was abandoned – and likely raped – by his father when he was 2 years old. Her mother, who was only 17 when she became pregnant, remarried a Puritan Pentecostal. He raises the boy between religious services and belt shots. On the day of his return to ninth grade, he meets rhythm guitarist Jeff Isbell, alias Izzy Stradlin, a calm boy with emaciated features, who lives at the other end of Lafayette. Their passion for music and skateboarding brings them together. They let their hair grow, form groups and think only of leaving Indiana and its cornfields.
Izzy leaves first for Los Angeles. Axl, imprisoned that summer for minor offences, joins him hitchhiking at the end of the year. He lives in slums, on the streets, with girls, at Izzy’s, who sells heroin to All-Los Angeles, including Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. They set up a group, Hollywood Rose, record five titles composed by Izzy, where Axl already sings with an almost animal head voice.
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In 1985, Hollywood Rose became Guns N’ Roses. The bass player is Duff McKagan. The youngest of eight Catholic siblings, he wraps his ninety-three meter tall in a leather trench coat. The guitarist is Slash, the son of an English Jew who designed Neil Young’s record covers and an African-American costume designer who worked for Diana Ross, Ringo Starr and David Bowie. He grew up in Hollywood, like his drummer friend Steven Adler. When he joins the Guns, he takes it. The latter remembers, at the first rehearsal, seeing Axl grab the microphone and start running in all directions, screaming “like an Irish witch”. A vocal specialty that will become, with its lascivious meows, one of its gimmicks.
square melons
The sulphurous reputation of the group fills the halls. With them, you never knew what was going to happen. When would they arrive on stage? Six hours later? Never ? The Guns snort coke, shoot heroes, drink a lot, smash everything in their path. They use women without pity, steal strippers, sleep with underage groupies, without protection, while AIDS has just made its appearance… They even make love in the studio to record moans for a song.
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Unfortunately, this band that knows no bounds is rapidly imploding. Steven Adler got kicked out of the band because he was so stoned he was collapsing on his drums. Matt Sorum replaced him to record Use Your Illusion I & II, a fantastic double album that sparked riots in record stores the day of its release in 1991. Axl, prisoner of his terrible anxieties and diagnosed with bipolar, arrives hours late for concerts, resulting in penalties of several million dollars. On his riders (list of equipment and approvals provided at the request of the group by the concert hall), he asks for more and more surprising things, including square melons (yes, that exists!).
The other members of the group can no longer bear his absences and his whims. If Izzy succeeds in overcoming her addictions, those of others have become intolerable to her. He leaves the group, which no longer manages to compose a single song without him. In 1993, the Guns come out The Spaghetti Incident?, an album of punk covers. Then they try to record new titles in the giant studio that their label has rented to them in Los Angeles, a luxury playground with billiards and pinball in their effigy, but they are lost. Axl is tyrannical, but his lyrics are inconsistent. For hours and days, the musicians try things, a few bits of melodies are retained, but no title is born from the weariness in which they are plunged. They don’t talk to each other anymore. Slash and Duff slam the door in 1996 and 1997.
The Recluse of Malibu
Angry with half the universe, Axl Rose lives alone and reclusive in his villa in Malibu, surrounded by his Brazilian governess (ex-nanny of the son of supermodel Stephanie Seymour, with whom Axl had a stormy affair) and the son of the latter, who are its current managers. In 1997, after having bought the name “Guns N’ Roses” from the other members of the group, he entered the studio with Dizzy Reed (who has accompanied the Guns on the keyboard since 1990) and a dozen new musicians, including Brian May from Queen, or basketball player Shaquille O’Neal. Neither will be heard on the holds. The album is not ready. They move, try to reconnect with their first inspirations by settling in the studio of their debut, that ofAppetite for Destruction (30 million copies sold), redecorated and re-equipped for the occasion. The singer hardly ever sets foot there, despite the staggering cost of renting (salaries included, New York Times estimated it at $244,000 per month). Rose is just re-recording her debut album – a totally futile undertaking. His musicians, idle, end up setting up groups in parallel.
So, Geffen Records pulls out all the stops and spares no expense: the sums invested are already enormous, they need an album. In seven years, they rent fifteen studios, hire four producers, pay millions of dollars to their diva, and promise astronomical bonuses to whoever can help finish this record. For guitarist Buckethead (who wears a KFC bucket on his masked head), they have a life-size chicken coop built, where he scratches his (musical) instrument while watching porn movies. This is not enough. In 2004, the label stopped the bleeding and stopped financing this fiasco. They’ve invested $13 million, it’s up to the singer to finish the job – and at his expense. Songs are leaking. Rose returns to the studio. His expenses are estimated at $7 million. Finally, Chinese Democracy released… in 2008! The most expensive rock album to record in history, the second in the world after Invincible by Michael Jackson, was a commercial and critical failure. Axl Rose, pink and puffy, has lost her vocal range and catlike flexibility.
Despite this cold shower (icy?), in 2016, the group reformed, with Slash and Duff. With humor, they baptize their tour “Not iin This Lifetime”, or “Never in life”, the words used by Axl when we spoke to him about reforming the Guns… This touching reunion brings them 563.3 million dollars. What to record a new opus?
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