by Marc Cantor
VICKY HAMILTON There was something sort of dangerous about their performance when you went to see them play live. You weren't really sure if you were going to end up in a riot or if Axl was going to jump off the stage and choke someone. They added a bit of danger to the mix, which is what the kids responded to. You didn't want to keep your eyes open, but you couldn't help but watch.
MARC CANTER Slash was like a monster; you could put two bottles of booze in him and put a blindfold around him and he would still come out and play his part perfectly. Slash played one show with a sprained left finger, a very important finger, and when I still listen to those shows, I realize that there is not one mistake. Whatever demons he may have had, he still managed to make it happen. You couldn't knock him down.
Slash with his father, Tony Hudson backstage after the Roxy show.
Act II
Chapter 5: Rocket Queen
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God Bless the Strippers (1:30).
They were beautiful, they were into drugs and they were naked.
MICHELLE YOUNG
Guns N' Roses and Hollywood strippers; the ultimate example of animal attraction and symbiotic relationships.
Serenaded by the music, charmed by the boys and always up for a party, the ladies loved hanging around their rock star boyfriends. For the band, Hollywood nightclub strippers were literally angels in disguise. These benefactresses brought in hard cash, held down apartments and had refrigerators full of food and beer, that is, before the guys arrived. Strippers bankrolled the band and their dream. Sex, drugs and a bed to sleep on, not to mention the occasional limousine after a gig, were all perks showered upon them by the goddesses of Sunset Strip.
They were not prostitutes or pushovers. They were fiercely independent, living on their own terms and earning their keep legitimately. For Guns N' Roses, the strippers acted as champions and cheerleaders, often helping them promote gigs and appearing on stage to liven up the act.
Together, they lived like the stars and starlets they imagined themselves to be and it was likely more real than the lifestyle they ultimately achieved.
ADRIANA DURGAN We had the money because we had the bodies and we had the attitudes. We were the girl version of Guns N' Roses. If Guns N' Roses had pussies, they would be us. We had a job that didn't require a lot of work. We got off in time to party and that's what we did. We were independent; we were wild; we were reckless and free. And we were young! We always had parties at our house. It was like a place you could take your clothes off and jump naked into our pool.
RON SCHNEIDER It was like, wow! These chicks have money and money meant booze. I was called the "lame-broad taxi service." I had a car and I was able to take these chicks to work and pick them up, and they gave me money to do it. They were like my best friends. They loved me and I loved them. They also had apartments. Can you imagine these apartments full of teddy bears that are hung by nooses in one corner with black 'X's made out of electrical tape on their eyes, a cat box that hasn't been changed in about a month, dishes in the sink with an empty Jim Beam collection and bottles littered all over their apartment thanks to their up and coming rock star boyfriends. We all loved to just hang at their places and jump off the balconies into the pool. And if you were fucking one of them, you'd get to sleep in the bed while everybody else had to sleep on the floor. That means you're not going to have to sleep on your guitar case or under your drum set or in somebody's car. You got in with the strippers and you got a place to crash. Hooking up with them was key.
SLASH Strippers were our sustenance for the longest time. We crashed at the stripper's houses and that's where we got extra cash.
VICKY HAMILTON The girls were kind of like the nursemaids for these band guys. The guys were like lost puppies that you left at the vet. You wanted to feed them and help them. They were very generous with the band guys because they made a lot of money.
ADRIANA DURGAN We didn't have sugar daddies with big credit cards, and we certainly weren't succumbing to the L.A. lifestyle by getting one who could take care of us. We didn't want that! We didn't want to owe anybody anything. We wanted to make our own existence, and even if we may have been a little sluttish, we weren't whores and we weren't charging money for sex. We were just being ourselves. We were normal girls. And here come these broke-ass giant turkeys, but they were entertaining. We fuckin' loved those guys! It was unfortunate if you developed a crush on one of them, like me with Steven Adler for instance, because he broke my heart over and over again. They were our friends and they were our family.
DESI CRAFT I was a choreographer and used to dance on music videos, but I had to become an underage stripper. I had to get a false I.D. to keep the band afloat, to keep everything going. It was not really a pleasant experience, but I believed in the band. I believed in what I saw and what I heard. I would always dance to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" from the Rolling Stones, play tambourine and basically go-go dance. I had thigh-high leather boots, fishnet stockings, a little top and go-go girl clothes. When I came out, the crowd would push. I remember once we played this outside fair and the stages were not bolted down. When I got out on stage and took off my long leopard coat, you could feel the stage move, people pushing to get a closer look. It was pretty scary; we were about to be mobbed by 5,000 people. No bands had strippers as part of the act, but it turned out that it brought in flocks of people. People wanted posters of us. It was quite an experience. We were happy. I could have been a stupid, ignorant young girl but I wasn't. I knew what I wanted and I wanted to make the band succeed and stand by Izzy's side. I was in love with him.
RON SCHNEIDER It wasn't like we were taking advantage of anybody. They wanted to live that lifestyle as well.
VICKY HAMILTON As a manager, it was kind of interesting for me because I would start to get to know them on a first name basis. It was like, "Hey Lois, hey Barbie," and the bands would look at me like, "how do you know these girls?" I said, "Do you think you're the only band these girls have been hanging out with?" These girls would even go buy the bands limos to drive them to their gigs. It was just insanity.
PAMELA MANNING The guys were good looking and they were fun to be around. They went to the extreme.
RON SCHNEIDER Eventually, they found their way onstage.
SLASH There were a couple of entertaining gimmicks that we came up to to liven up the show a little bit. We had the idea of having some strippers come up on stage and dance to "Rocket Queen" for a few gigs. They had good moves, these girls. Guns N' Roses was a rock n' roll band but it was a bright and lively kind of gig, and we would try to bring in sleazy elements that we felt comfortable with to sort of liven it up even more. So that's what we felt comfortable with and people actually seemed to like that because it was sort of pushing the barriers for your average club band. Pamela was great. She was very enthusiastic and did a great job.
PAMELA MANNING I was just a dancer and we were there to entertain, just like the band. We got real crazy. Axl was a good person to work with. He was just so out there when he sang; the way he would just get so into it. And then the band would just back him and get louder and louder. Then we'd start grooving to the music and before you knew it, the people were hollering, screaming. It was a lot of fun.
ADRIANA DURGAN Somebody stole our costumes right before we were supposed to go on stage. We went up and just put our t-shirts on and our underwear and Axl was trying to get me to put duct tape over my boobs, but I was too embarrassed. So we just got up there and danced.
PAMELA MANNING Axl and I used to act like we were having sex onstage. We would start grinding, then he would start hollering and that always worked for the sex scene. I remember the crowd hollering and, of course, we wanted to get the crowd hollering more. We'd come over and make sure they would get hollering. We were the cheerleaders.
ADRIANA DURGAN I don't need to close the door on my past, but I need t
o give it a rose and make it beautiful because it really was. Those were the best, best days of my life. They were like young, innocent, days. I had no responsibility; none of us did. It was a beautiful time. It couldn't have been any better. I have my memories and my experiences from that time and, oh my, how lucky am I that I had those times. It's sad now that we're all so separated.
This was an enormous free outdoor festival sponsored by the city of Los Angeles. Guns N' Roses were scheduled to play at 5:30pm, and the punk band Social Distortion was scheduled to play immediately after them.
The whole festival was running behind schedule and the punk natives were getting restless. Guns N' Roses didn't go on until 8:00pm, and although the punks, many of whom represented some of the harder core elements of L.A.'s punk culture, were still waiting for their band, most were won over by Guns N' Roses's rowdiness, even though some of them decided to spit at Slash. They began moshing and enjoying the show. The event was marked by some technical glitches.
This is the first public appearance of Slash using a Les Paul. Purchased at Guitars R Us, it was originally owned by Steve Hunter who played with Alice Cooper and other big name bands.
This was the first public performance of Paradise City.
The band was paid about $200 for this show. Four years later to the date, GNR played the first of four shows at the L.A. Coliseum opening for the Rolling Stones for which they were paid $1 million.
Slash, Steven Adler and photographer Jack Lue.
Act II
Chapter 6: You're Crazy
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The Music Industry Needed a Kick in the Ass (2:53).
The 1980's was the decade of flamboyant rock n' roll subgenres searching for a future. Hair metal, heavy metal, sleaze rock, punk rock, and glam metal were only a few derivatives of rock n' roll that spilled out of the Hollywood club scene at that time.
Although Guns N' Roses would balk at any attempt to be categorized, they modeled their music and fashioned their look from some influential bands that embodied characteristics known as Glam Rock. Teased hair, tight denim, spandex and headbands were all characteristics of glam rock that Guns N' Rose most resembled during the club days and Izzy directly modeled his look and sound after the Finnish group, Hanoi Rocks.
What distinguished Guns N' Roses from the other bands was their insistence that the music come first. Whereas many other bands at that time used their make-up and hedonistic lifestyle to attract a fan base, the music never reached beyond their particular subgenres. Guns N' Roses invigorated rock n' roll with a fusion of punk and blues that appealed to a wide spectrum of rock enthusiasts beyond the Sunset Strip. Punk rockers, metal heads and even fans of Top 40 pop embraced the band equally. They became the bridge to a next generation of rock n' roll artists from the breakthrough acts of the 1970's and 1980's like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Van Halen.
MARC CANTER At that time, the music industry was pretty dead. There was new wave stuff, punk was finished, and hard rock was pretty much out. There was some heavy metal still around, but it wasn't really great. Ratt was the heavy metal band of the year. Aerosmith had just started to come back together but they hadn't put out record yet. I remember driving on Sunset Blvd. in 1981 or 1982 and no matter what club you were near, punks were in the streets. If you went by Oki Dog on Santa Monica, fifty of them were there and you thought you were going to get attacked. Everybody made it look like they spent six hours dressing up their hair and they looked like they were going to kill you. And then they just disappeared a year later. Every last one of them was gone. The music died.
SLASH We were like the antithesis of what was going on in Hollywood at the time and we were sick to tears of the glam scene and sick to tears with everything that was happening in the 1980's like MTV and Tears for Fears. That gave us the motivation to hang on to what we did. When we arrived onto the L.A. scene, we kicked its ass in a way that nobody else was doing and people could relate to the honesty of the band. It was colorful enough and rough enough and honest and people from all different walks of life were into the band. We had people who were into different genres coming down to check us out, from punk to heavy metal and even new wave and glam people. We started a big buzz and became the biggest band in L.A. It was Poison and us and we hated Poison so that sort of fueled our fire too. We hated Poison so much that we just spent a lot of time touring around the different clubs in Los Angeles just to blow Poison's doors. There were a lot of variables as far what everybody in the band was interested in, but there was a common core: it had to be emotionally expressive. Whatever it was we were playing, it had to mean something. You had to feel it and that was just an unsaid rule. Being categorized, lumped into anything other than the wide-term of rock n' roll was a little too complicated and too knit-picky and it pigeon-holed us into a corner.
VICKY HAMILTON The persona the band took on just developed naturally and it never really changed. They always had an idea of who they were. Obviously, their styles changed a bit, but when I think about Slash; he hasn't changed since the day I met him.
DUFF We didn't feel like we were posers. We didn't feel like we belonged in L.A. to the scene that was going on at that time. I think that feeling was warranted when we would get gigs with punk rock bands and metal bands or nobody. We played Madame Wong's East, which was pretty much a punk rock club then.
RON SCHNEIDER All I can think of is big hair. That's what it was. There were no metal bands playing on the Sunset Strip anymore and Motley Crue, Ratt, Great White, Dokken, and a few others had just come out of L.A. These were all big hair bands with a big sound and a lot of make up. And Poison was another of those bands; wimpy rock with pretty looks.
They looked like girls. In fact, the guys that were handing out flyers for the gigs were prettier looking than most of the girls walking up and down the Sunset Strip. It was just pretty boys trying to be rock stars. GNR was the strongest of the bands that were up there on the Strip. They were considered a glam band because Axl teased his hair, Duff teased his hair, and some of them were wearing make-up, but the music was heavy and that gave them credibility and balls. They were strong, while every band around was weak.
MICHELLE YOUNG They didn't have to dress in these glam clothes, wear all this make-up or tease their hair. They weren't into wearing lipstick and pantyhose and looking the same to promote the band. Granted, they did that when they were on stage but they didn't walk around like that. They walked around with flat hair, duct tape on their boots, duct tape on their pants, ripped jeans and whatever they could put on their bodies.
MARC CANTER So the music industry just needed a big kick in the ass and here come these guys that were here to say, "This is what we're going to do. We were influenced by '60s and '70s music and we're going to do our own version of that. It's what we want to do, not what we think is the fad right now." So they did what they believed in their hearts was the right thing to do, whether they were going to make it or not. It was the music they believed in. And anyone that came to those shows saw that, and felt that, and liked that for what it was. Some bands may have had the look, but they didn't have the sound and they didn't have the songwriting ability. Guns N' Roses was the perfect mix of everything that made you feel good when you heard it. All five guys were just tearing it up.
ROBERT JOHN With Guns N' Roses, it was just raw talent. They're the only band I've ever seen that wasn't contrived step by step all the way. Is there natural raw talent? Is it a lifestyle? If somebody's got raw talent, they usually can go somewhere with it. These guys did what they did when they wanted to do it and it worked.
DUFF We knew we had the band. This was going to be the band that we had all starved for. This was the band that we had all gone through our separate musical journeys to get to. The music we were writing was absolutely the most important thing and we were thinking of great bands with great lineage like Led Zeppelin.
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br /> MICHELLE YOUNG From the bum on the street to the uptight lady at the office, everybody could relate to their music.
VICKY JOINS THE BAND
MARC CANTER Vicky Hamilton came to the Troubadour show and was so impressed at their performance and their great appeal to the club – they sold out their first headliner show – that she offered her services as their manager. She was experienced at managing unknown bands and had a great track record. She was partly responsible for turning around the fledgling careers of such major bands as Motley Crue, Poison, Stryper and others. Slash had met her about a year earlier when he auditioned for Poison, whom she was still managing at the time. Even though Slash decided he wasn't interested in joining Poison, he considered Vickie a very cool person and knew she was a real player in the Hollywood club scene.
The band met with Vicky and decided to hire her as their manager. Prior to Vicky, a woman named Bridgette who managed the band Jetboy, with whom Guns N' Roses played a number of gigs, managed the band for a brief period of time. But, she wasn't accomplishing much on their behalf and Guns N' Roses ended the relationship. Vicky, on the other hand, had excellent connections for getting and promoting gigs. Her task was to make sure their shows looked and sounded good and, above all, made money. The band believed Vicky's forte was grooming club bands, but realized that if they got signed, she wouldn't be able to manage them at that point. Coincidentally, the label that eventually signed the band, hired her as a A&R scout.