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Authors: Craig Duswalt

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Rich & Famous

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  • Hotels overseas are known for having smaller rooms than we’re accustomed to here in the United States—Japan and Europe, especially. I had the pleasure of staying in what I would call the World’s Smallest Hotel Room in the amazing Hôtel de Crillon in Paris. The Hôtel de Crillon is one of the most beautiful and most expensive hotels in France, but there is a room in that hotel that stood out in my mind for years, and I had the “pleasure” of staying in it. The elevators in the hotel are tiny as well, but all the rooms (except mine) were normal-sized European rooms. Usually my room was right next door to Axl’s Presidential Suite. Unfortunately for me, the only room next to Axl’s “big” room was the tiniest room you could ever imagine. It fit a full-sized bed, a tiny dresser, a tinier nightstand, a closet about fourteen inches wide (no, that is not a misprint), and a tiny bathroom. But there was
    no place to walk
    . The bed took up the whole room, except for the space that was occupied by the doll-sized furniture. I had to walk over the bed to get to the dresser, and back over the bed to get to the bathroom. And I’m claustrophobic. I drank a lot that night just so I could fall asleep.

    Typical hotel room list. Notice that six of the first seven names were all aliases. Those were the band members. Axl was Dash Riprock during this leg of the tour. Also notice the name Paper Klog. That was Blake Stanton, Axl’s first assistant. He needed an alias as well because it became well known that he was Axl’s assistant and fans found out that his room was always next to Axl’s. When he left, I got an alias for the same reason. Crazy!

  • On May 26, 1992, at the Berlin Olympic Stadium, built by Adolf Hitler for the 1936 Olympics, a lady had a baby in the audience. From what we heard, they took her to the hospital and everything went great.
  • I am a huge Queen fan. I had that in common with Axl and Slash. It was such an incredible honor for me to get to know Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen. Brian opened up for Guns N’ Roses for various parts of the tour and it was incredible getting to watch him perform from the side of the stage. Every night I sat there in awe of his talents. Brian loved Guns N’ Roses, and he especially loved Axl.

    The worst existing picture of me, and Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen. Simply put—Brian May is an amazing guitarist, but even better person
    .

  • One of my favorite Brian May moments happened after the tour. Axl was recording
    Chinese Democracy
    , and he had asked Brian to lay some guitar tracks down for the new album. Brian was honored. My wife, Natasha, and I were invited to dinner at Axl’s that night, with Brian, and we got to hear all the songs they recorded the past few days, before they were ever finished songs.
  • During the tour, Gilby Clarke broke his arm riding his motorcycle while we had a few weeks off in Los Angeles. Original rhythm guitarist and songwriter Izzy Stradlin replaced Gilby for a few weeks.
  • I had Learjet companies all across America on my “speed dial.” Speed dial back then was finding a telephone number in my “Wizard” (electronic phone book) and then finding a pay phone, or using the production phone at the concert. If Axl wanted to go somewhere different than where the band was going, he would get a Learjet. If he wanted to stay at the venue a little longer after the show, and not hold the band up, he would have me rent a Learjet. That is so rock star!
  • When we flew on a commercial airline, it was my worst nightmare because getting Axl to the airport was virtually impossible. You think getting him onstage was hard? Ha! I used to have our travel agent book three to four consecutive flights, so that if we missed the first one, we could catch the second one, and if we missed that, we could catch the third one. We would pretty much always miss the first one for sure, and usually get on the second or third flight. Our poor limo driver, Gavin, used to get us from Axl’s house in Malibu to LAX in world record time, and somehow he never got a speeding ticket. Thanks, Gavin!
  • I carried a pager with me at all times, because believe it or not, cell phones were just coming out and they were originally the size of a Fiat. So I got paged (a lot) and had to find a pay phone. I actually carried a detailed map of easy-to-get-to pay phones all over Los Angeles. It was so much harder back then.
  • Saturday, October 3, 1992. Guns N’ Roses performed at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. I remember that show very well, and I remember Axl saying after the show, “Now, I feel like I’ve made it.” His goal was always to play at the Rose Bowl. Maybe because of his name, or probably because it is one of the biggest venues we ever played. I vividly remember thinking that day that Axl Rose, for the first time I noticed, seemed extremely proud of his accomplishments. It was the only time I ever saw that in him. We ended up leaving the venue at about 7 a.m. Long night. Great night.
  • Axl always wore a bandana. Well, at least 90 percent of the time. His favorite one was red. He had a bunch of red bandanas (backups), but only one favorite. It was worn, and it was soft. He wore his favorite red bandana during concerts, in public, in music videos, and so on. We were very careful to
    never
    lose that red bandana. But something started happening on the road. After every show we would send Axl’s clothes to get dry-cleaned through the hotel’s dry-cleaning service. But as I came to find out later, hotels outsource all the dry-cleaning to local stores. After one of the shows we put in the dry-cleaning, and yes, we had his red bandana dry-cleaned. Seems silly now, but we were guys on the road and since we knew nothing about laundry, we just threw all the clothes into the hotel-provided plastic laundry bags (we would need to grab all the bags from the rooms next to ours), call for a bellman to pick the bags up, and it would all come back clean the next day. But the next day came. And when the dry-cleaning arrived, something was missing. The red bandana. Robert and I immediately turned into detectives. We searched the hotel, we went to the dry-cleaning store and searched the premises, and interviewed everyone who worked there. Nothing. But at least we had backup red bandanas. So we pulled one out, and found that it wasn’t even close as far as fadedness and wornness. I’m not even sure that those are words, but that’s what we thought at the time. So Robert and I went into action. We washed, and dried, and stomped on, and smashed against rocks, two red bandanas to try to get at least one of them to look and feel like Axl’s favorite. Apparently it worked, because we laid out his red bandana that night for the show, he put it on and never said a word. It took about ten lost bandanas to figure out that the dry cleaners often knew that Guns N’ Roses was staying in the hotel that they worked for, and that it was common practice for dry cleaners across the world to “lose” Axl’s red bandana. We finally got smart and just started washing them in a sink after each show. Who knew that Axl’s red bandana would be so popular? I know one thing, Axl never knew any of this … until now.
  • The Spaghetti Incident?
    was a Guns N’ Roses album that featured eleven punk cover tunes, the old song “Since I Don’t Have You” by the Tokens, and a mystery thirteenth song. I was honored to get a credit in the album liner notes. The thirteenth song is not listed in the liner notes, but if you let the album or CD play through the twelfth song, you will eventually hear the very controversial thirteenth song. It’s called “Look at Your Game, Girl.” It was written by Charles Manson. To say the band got bad press because of this song is an understatement. But even worse was that the Manson family found out about it and there were death threats on Axl, which meant there were death threats on us because we were at his house every day in between tour dates, and after the tour. There was a two-week period where I feared for my life just showing up for work at Axl’s house. I’m not a big believer in guns, but I must say that I was glad that Axl had some guns in his house, just in case. Luckily nothing ever happened, and the death threats and letters from the Manson family just went away after a while. I heard that the song was eventually removed from the newer copies of
    The Spaghetti Incident?
    .

    • LAST CONCERT

    All things come to an end. But for GNR fans, the end came way too soon. Still, on the final night of the Use Your Illusion tour, I don’t think any of us had any idea that things would end so quickly, and so poorly.

    THE USE YOUR ILLUSION WORLD TOUR

    The Use Your Illusion world tour was the music industry’s longest at the time, with 196 shows in thirty-one countries stretching over three calendar years, with grosses around $57 million and at least two riots.

    January 20, 1991 – July 17, 1993

    Eleven Legs of the Tour

     

     
    1. Rock in Rio II
    2. Warm-up Shows
    3. North America & Europe
    4. North America & Japan
    5. Europe
    6. North American Guns N’ Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour
    7. South America
    8. Asia & Oceania
    9. North American Skin N’ Bones
    10. European Skin N’ Bones
    11. South American Skin N’ Bones

    1991

    January 20
    Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Estadio de Maracanã
    January 23
    Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Estadio de Maracanã
    May 9
    San Francisco, CA, Warfield Theatre
    May 11
    Los Angeles, CA, Pantages Theatre
    May 16
    New York, NY, The Ritz
    May 24
    East Troy, WI, Alpine Valley
    May 25
    East Troy, WI, Alpine Valley
    May 28
    Noblesville, IN, Deer Creek Music Theater
    May 29
    Noblesville, IN, Deer Creek Music Theater
    June 1
    Grove City, OH, Capital Music Center
    June 2
    Toledo, OH, Toledo Speedway
    June 4
    Richfield, OH, Richfield Coliseum
    June 5
    Richfield, OH, Richfield Coliseum
    June 7
    Toronto, Ontario, CNE Stadium
    June 8
    Toronto, Ontario, CNE Stadium
    June 10
    Saratoga Springs, NY, Performing Arts Center
    June 13
    Philadelphia, PA, Philadelphia Spectrum
    June 17
    Uniondale, NY, Nassau Coliseum
    June 19
    Landover, MD, Capital Centre
    June 20
    Landover, MD, Capital Centre
    June 22
    Hampton, VA, Hampton Coliseum
    June 23
    Charlotte, NC, Charlotte Coliseum
    June 25
    Greensboro, NC, Greensboro Coliseum
    June 26
    Knoxville, TN, Thompson-Boling Arena
    June 29
    Lexington, KY, Rupp Arena
    June 30
    Birmingham, AL, Birmingham Race Course
    July 2
    St. Louis, MO, Riverport Performing Arts Center
    July 8
    Dallas, TX, Starplex Amphitheatre
    July 9
    Dallas, TX, Starplex Amphitheatre
    July 11
    Denver, CO, McNichols Sports Arena
    July 12
    Englewood, CO, Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
    July 13
    Salt Lake City, UT, Salt Palace
    July 16
    Tacoma, WA, Tacoma Dome
    BOOK: Welcome to My Jungle
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