Slash (42 page)

We all gathered in the dressing room, Axl wasn’t there, and the mood was pretty solemn, to say the least. And that’s when the racket started. We could hear this pounding; even through the doors, it sounded like mayhem. Axl suddenly came into the dressing room and said, “Let’s go back on.”

We went down the hallway toward the stage and it was like the scene in the Beatles’
Yellow Submarine
where they’re walking through a hall and it’s normal but every time they open a door there’s a train coming at them or a cat screeching: we’d open a door and there was yelling, we’d open another and see people on stretchers, cops with blood all over them, gurneys everywhere, and pandemonium. At the time we were shooting a documentary, so we have a lot of it on film.

The St. Louis locals weren’t having our cancellation—they tore the entire building apart; they did things that I didn’t think were possible. It was daunting, if anything—we learned not to fuck around with crowds to that extent. Axl, at least, should have been more wary from that point on not to take an audience to that level of agitation ever again.

We were trapped backstage, not knowing what to do. Doug suddenly appeared and said that he had to get us out immediately and that there was
a police escort in the loading dock. We ducked down in the back of these two vans so that no one would see us and we drove straight on to Chicago. There was no way that we were going to be able to play that gig because every shred of our gear was trashed in St. Louis; that show was a very expensive fluke, to say the least—the crowd did over $200,000 worth of damage to the arena alone.

We crashed in Chicago for a while as the aftermath of St. Louis was added up. It was a major disaster for the people, and for the city, and Guns N’ Roses was banned from playing in St. Louis forever.

When I returned to St. Louis with the Snakepit in 1995, the night before my show, I was walking from my hotel down to this row of bars nearby. I wasn’t going far, so I didn’t bring security because I knew that I was meeting our crew down there, but as I walked up this main drag, I saw five bikers in front of me and no one else around and for a moment I got worried. It was a pretty dark night on a pretty dark street, where tall streetlamps illuminated spots of ground every few yards. I got closer to them and they were looking at me; and I was looking at them. One of them got off of his bike and came at me and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go down.

“Hey, man,” he said, grinning wide. “I’m the guy who Axl hit.” Like I was supposed to pat the guy on the back. He had this attitude like, “Hey, we’re both anti-Axl, right?” He seemed to think we had something in common, but I don’t work like that; if any of you talk shit about Axl I’m going to get up in your face. Only I can do that; because I have that right, not some punk on the street who doesn’t even know him. Things got tense in that moment, but the guy started in with his own story, almost apologetically.

He had just won all of his money in the lawsuit; I think he’d been awarded his damages by the court like two days before. It was a tense situation: it was obvious to me that this was a guy who was riding high on that cash he’d just gotten and he wasn’t going to spend it wisely. His “friends” seemed to be enjoying his good fortune with him, that was for sure, because all of them were clearly out on the town. He was the shortest of the bunch, and as all small guys do, he was trying to impress everyone in sight. He had earned his bragging rights—and a decent amount of our cash—but as he
told me in the few minutes I paused to speak with him, in the days after the incident, he couldn’t even leave his house. He received death threats by phone, hate mail, all of it. Only after the city won the lawsuit—after which he won as well—did the whole tide turn for him.

I was totally not impressed with this guy. I told him so and that I had to go and that was that. So where was I?

WE TOOK A FEW WEEKS’ BREAK AFTER
that incident in St. Louis, and put the final touches on the
Illusion
albums. We celebrated with a few shows at the L.A. Forum, which was a highlight of the band’s career. When I thought of the Forum, I thought of Bowie, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and AC/DC; it is an iconic place. In terms of local bragging rights, it was like playing the Long Beach Arena—but better. I don’t know how the other guys felt about it, but as the limo came down that ramp all I could think about was seeing Rod Stewart there with my mom; all of those stories were going through my mind. The gigs were all sold out and they were
amazing
. The last one we did there was three and a half hours—in the history of the band, it was the longest one we ever played. That show was July 29, 1991, the very day that the records were finished being mixed. As Axl said from the stage, “The motherfucker is
done
!”

While the records were packaged for release, we went on to do the other shows with Skid Row opening—you can imagine the degree of debauchery Matt, Duff, Sebastian Bach, and I got into. Sebastian was totally enthusiastic and totally green; we’d done it all before but we did it all again with Sebastian. That leg of the tour through the States to Europe was debauched and sick and took hedonism to a new level. It was way too much fun because Skid Row was blowing up at that point and was as young and hungry as we’d been with Mötley.

It’s too bad that Sebastian doesn’t like Duff and Matt and me much anymore: we tried him out when we were looking for a singer for what would become Velvet Revolver but it just didn’t work out. The combination sounded like what I’d call Skid Roses. I must say I’m surprised to hear that Sebastian has been bad-mouthing the rest of us lately.

In any case, when we went to Europe with Skid Row, everything went
along very well, business as usual, until we got to Mannheim, Germany, on August 21, 1991. We had Nine Inch Nails on the bill as well for that date, and we went on late—late even for us—then, pretty early in the set, something happened and Axl walked off for what reason I have no idea. He wasn’t getting heckled as far as I could see, no one hit him with a bottle or anything, but he wasn’t having it. The stage at that venue was literally about a mile away from the production office and dressing room, so a van was there to shuttle us back and forth. When Axl left the stage, he went to the van and headed off to the dressing room.

The rest of us came offstage and were standing around, waiting to find out if Axl was coming back or if his van had taken off to the hotel. In terms of how he felt and dealt with Axl, Matt Sorum was like Steven—he just didn’t understand why Axl couldn’t just play his part.

I remember standing there with Duff while Matt was fuming. He’d been in the band long enough that his “new guy” reserve had been earned and dismissed.

“
Fuck
that guy,” he said. “I’m gonna go straighten him out.”

Matt felt that Duff and Izzy and I had played it too delicate with Axl for too long. Like Steve, he just wanted to get in his face and belt the guy because that would probably have worked with most people. I appreciated the sentiment but it seemed like the wrong answer to a volatile situation. All I wanted was to finish the show.

By this point we’d discovered that Axl’s van had not left for the dressing room; he was sitting in it but he refused to come out and return to the stage. Both Duff and I had already gone down there to try to talk him into it, to no avail. So Matt went down to Axl’s van to rally him, but as he got down there, he ran into Axl, who had emerged to head back to the stage. Matt was so fired up, though, that he got in Axl’s face regardless, to the degree that it almost got physical.

“What the
fuck
are you doing?” Matt yelled. “Get back onstage!”

I ran up and got between them, because it wasn’t a good situation. Axl can get completely psycho when he decides to fight and Matt weighs twice as much as I do—and he plays drums—so it wasn’t exactly a good place for me to be. Axl went back to his van, and it didn’t look like he was coming out again. The clock was ticking.

The promoters saw the drama going on and closed the gates around the venue so that we couldn’t leave. They’d heard what had happened in St. Louis, and it’s a good thing they did; if they hadn’t, I’m positive that the thirty-eight thousand fans there would have rioted, we would have been held liable and arrested, and people might have died. The local police were already there in riot gear, ready to deal with a full-on situation. It was a scary, tense scene, and a very near miss.

We got Axl back onstage once he realized he had no choice, and the rest of the show went as planned. All I could remember thinking as I walked offstage after the encore was
Fuck, that was close
. Well, too close, as it turned out: by the next morning, Izzy sent a message through Alan informing us that he was quitting the band. He would finish the last few dates on the current leg of the tour, but after that he was done.

Seeing that potential for disaster was too much for Izzy, and the truth is, we all should have followed suit. With that many fans out there rabid to see the band perform, I couldn’t see any reason why we should let this crap derail us, let alone potentially put people in danger. I’m obsessive-compulsive and dedicated when it comes to my profession, so I couldn’t let it go.

Izzy completed the tour, and I tried to talk him out of leaving a few times, but at the same time I couldn’t blame him at all.

“Hey, man, I know it’s been hard, but I think we can turn it around,” I remember telling him. “The shows are really great, man. The audiences are great, we’re playing stadiums…”

“I know,” he said. “But, man, I can’t…I just can’t do it anymore.” The way he looked at me at that moment said it all.

Izzy sent out a statement to everyone, and the next day Alan flew out to meet with him. He took Izzy’s side and came to us and told us that Izzy wasn’t going to rethink the decision. I don’t think Izzy even discussed it with Axl.

Once that was decided, once it was set in stone that the second of the founding five members of Guns N’ Roses was out of the band, we finished the European tour. Izzy’s final show was before seventy-two thousand people at Wembley Stadium, in London, a venue we sold out faster than any artist in its history. But it’s more worth mentioning that as far as I re
member, after Izzy informed us that he was leaving, not one of the remaining European shows started late.

AFTER WEMBLEY, WE GOT BACK TO L.A.
and shot the video for “Don’t Cry,” in which Dizzy Reed is wearing a “Where’s Izzy?” T-shirt. Then we took a break, though my break was occupied by finding us a replacement guitarist so that we could get back out on the road. It was every bit of the ordeal that finding a new drummer had been. Axl was convinced that we should hire Dave Navarro, which I didn’t think was a good idea at all. I think it was a question of style: whoever was going to filly Izzy’s spot needed to play like Izzy, who was a skilled rhythm player that added a unique, subtle texture. Dave Navarro is an amazing guitar player; he’s someone better suited for my spot, not Izzy’s. I don’t think Dave wanted to make the commitment, anyway. Besides, at the time he had a heroin problem and obviously that was a major issue.

Axl had a few long conversations with Dave about joining the band, and he wasn’t going to be discouraged, so finally I surrendered and tried to arrange a rehearsal with Dave. We agreed on a time for him to come down to Mates and then he never showed up. He did that three times.

I called Axl after I’d been stood up that third time. “Man, this guy Dave has issues,” I said. “I am
not
into this.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”

Axl convinced me that Dave was really committed and that he’d show up when I called him again. I did call him again, and as I expected, he didn’t show up again. That was it, I was furious; that was the last that I was willing to entertain the prospect of Dave Navarro.

I had been thinking about the one guitar player that I’d seen who reminded me of Izzy: he was in a band called Candy that had opened up for Hollywood Rose back at Madame Wong’s West before I was ever even in a band with Axl. His name was Gilby Clarke, and as far as I could recall he was the only guy that I knew with an Izzy-like feel, which wasn’t easy to come by.

I got in touch with Gilby and he wanted the gig more than anything. He learned sixty songs in two weeks; he came in for an audition and just
nailed it. A couple of weeks later, we rehearsed him with the whole band and we put a set together, and like that, we were back in fighting shape.

It was a strange moment. Izzy’s departure happened so quietly, with no fanfare, and no media awareness. It was such a major change within the band, but to the outside world it was a nonevent. Probably because it was overshadowed by the fact that the records came out right before we got back on the road.

On September 17, 1991,
Use Your Illusion II
debuted at number one while
Use Your Illusion I
debuted at number two. We’d broken a record: no other artist of any kind had pulled that off since the Beatles. We were getting all of this major, positive, super news while all of this negative drama was going on simultaneously. By then I’d gotten so used to life being such a rocky road that I dealt with it, and didn’t think twice about the possibility that it might not be normal.

ONCE GILBY WAS IN AND WE WERE
back on tour, we added Soundgarden to the bill for the next leg, which began in December 1991 in Worcester, Massachusetts. They were a favorite band of ours and it was cool to have them, but we didn’t have a good rapport with them at all. We had no common vibe with any of the grunge bands, actually, because we were such a big name; we were the Led Zeppelin of the time, so coming from their more underground, indie point of view, they thought of us as “fat, lazy, and self-indulgent.” We’d take them on tour and they wouldn’t talk to us. It was hypocritical because they didn’t really want to be there, but then again, unless I’m mistaken, they didn’t say no to the gig. All things considered, Duff and I got along with Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil really well, and I understood their wanting to steer clear of the circus all around them.