My Appetite for Destruction

by Steven Adler

  Alan called us in for a meeting and he chose El Compadre, the Mexican restaurant across from Guitar Center on Sunset. He knew that by having it there, he would have the most luck in potentially bringing in all of us because we loved that place. Accompanying Alan was a white dude in his late twenties sporting an outrageous mullet cut. Alan said, “Boys, meet your new tour manager, Dougie Goldstein.”

  Dougie extended his hand to shake each of ours. He sported an infectious smile, ear to ear. He just seemed so cool. He was genuinely excited about working with us, and his enthusiasm was real. He told us that from that point on, we wouldn’t have to worry about anything. He assured us that if we had any problem, anything at all, we could count on him. He had a winning way about him, a confidence, and we believed him. After the meeting, we decided to celebrate and hit up some other bars on the Strip. We all piled into Alan’s truck. There wasn’t much room for that many of us, so I said, “I’ll sit in the back.”

  He responded angrily, “Fuck that, Steven, you’re a member of this band. You’re just as important as everybody else. Let me sit back there.” I thought, “Now, that’s cool. That’s walkin’ the walk.” During the months that followed, I went on to believe I could trust him; I felt that I could tell him anything. I felt very close to Dougie, and in retrospect maybe too willing to share with him.

  Later that month, Alan came to us and announced, “You all gotta get passports, we’re going to England.” Our Live!? Like a Suicide EP was hot, hot, hot and loved by both rock critics and our rapidly growing legions of fans. Appetite, our full-length record, wasn’t out yet, so to promote our shows we prereleased a single, “It’s So Easy,” in the UK for our tour.

  At last, I was off to see the world as I’d always dreamed. This was my first time out of the country, and I was bringing my rock band with me. We partied from the time we got on the plane until we passed out in our London hotel rooms. It was nonstop insanity. We were all pretty much travel virgins, except for Slash, who was actually born in England in a town called Stoke-on-Trent. I suggested we swing by the old homestead while we were over there, but Slash had no interest in visiting his birthplace.

  When we arrived in England on June 19, it was cold and gloomy, and it remained like that for the duration of our stay. We were scheduled for three shows during the next ten days, and as I was a bit of a history buff, I became completely fascinated with the place. At night I would look at the narrow gaslit cobblestone alleys and think to myself, “Wow, Jack the Ripper probably stalked these very streets.”

  On the first day, we were taken in this sweet vintage-model limo to where we would be staying. We were put up in two little apartments, each featuring two bedrooms. They were living quarters for tourists who would come in and stay for a week or so. Just before we left, I had given Ronnie Schneider the opportunity to come along as my drum tech, and he had jumped at the chance, so he and I ended up sharing a room.

  FATAL FLAW

  As a drum tech, Ronnie didn’t know shit. He was a bass player. But he was my buddy. He took care of business and we had a great time. There were a couple different tech guys in our crew: Slash had Andy, and Izzy had Scott, a guitar tech with really long curly hair, who was quite a nice guy. Mike “McBob” Mayhue was Duff’s tech, and later he brought in his brother, Tom Mayhue, to tech for me. My attitude was “Hey, as long as I can get onstage and play, no worries.” I didn’t care about any of the other business pertaining to the band; as long as the basic shit was taken care of, I was happy. Later, this would come back to bite me on the ass big-time.

  The place we stayed at turned out to be pretty damn old and sleazy (although coming from L.A., everything in England seemed ancient). There were cracks in the ceiling and walls, and crawling around were lots of weird-ass bugs the likes of which I had never seen before. So to get away from the Britannia bug safari, I went to a pub located across the street from the Marquee club, where we were scheduled to play. There I became friendly with the bartender, a Swedish chick. She was a cute thin girl who spoke broken English. I was chatting with her, and I complained about how there was practically no variety on TV in England and how I thought the BBC sucked. She told me that she stayed at the pub, in a room upstairs. She had cartoons I could watch on her “video machine” if I’d like. Hell yeah. Did I mention this chick was hot? This was how it would happen for the band; everybody pretty much met their own people and carved out their own recreation when we were in London town or any town.

  So I took cute little hot thin girl who spoke broken English up on her offer, and we hung out and got stoned. Later on, I discovered that she was a natural blonde and that she dyed her hair jet-black. I laughed and she asked why. I told her that in L.A. it was usually the other way around. We watched Bugs Bunny and I loved every minute of it. I spent most of the eight days we were there with her. We were in Amsterdam the other two days.

  For rehearsals and our first show, we had to rent our gear. They gave me a white Sonar set, which sucked. We were only there for two days before the first show, but we rehearsed five times. Everyone was serious about establishing a solid beachhead: rule Britannia and you can rule the world.

  On Thursday, June 11, we were ready to perform our very first gig in Europe. During the sound check, the guys started into a rocking song that I wasn’t sure I had heard before. I was like, “Wow, this is a cool new tune.” It had a haunting familiarity to it that I couldn’t quite place. Since Axl wasn’t there yet, Izzy and Duff started singing it the second time around and only then I realized it was “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” I smiled; “Oh yeah, it’s that song.” I realized we were taking the classic Bob Dylan tune and rocking out on it, taking it solidly under our wing into Guns N’ Roses territory. That night we recorded it live, and it appeared as a B-side to the European release of our single “Welcome to the Jungle.” We also rehearsed “Whole Lotta Rosie,” the classic AC/DC tune, to perform at the upcoming shows.

  It was Axl’s idea to do “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” He told Slash about it, they learned it, and we did it. They never even mentioned it to me though, just expecting me to pick up the beat on the fly. I didn’t know if this was a tribute to my drumming adaptability or a sign of their abject disregard for my needs as a member of the band (but I could venture a pretty good fucking guess). I should have put my foot down right then and there and insisted that I get as much time as everyone else to rehearse new tunes, whether they were well-known covers or not. I say this now because this growing disrespect only snowballed until it put me in an awfully embarrassing situation at Farm Aid.

  We played the next Thursday, then again on Friday, June 19. The first show was great, although there were only about thirty people there. Afterward, I met a chick who, of course, wanted to party. I guess it should go without saying that I met a different girl after every show, 100 percent of the time. So I smoked a nice fat one with her. Usually after the shows, the band would go backstage, and we’d gather ourselves, get our heads together. I’d always take a shower, but I couldn’t get one because the place didn’t have the facilities. So this girl offered to let me take a bath, and she took me back to her apartment for a typical night of misadventure.

  The next day during rehearsal, as I sat on my stool, I was experiencing some serious itching in my nethers. I was in so much pain. Then it dawned on me: I had crabs. “What the fuck? Dougie, help!” All the guys were cracking up, teasing me, but Doug ran right out and he got me this stuff, a shampoo called Rid. I went up on the roof of the building where we rehearsed, because it was the only place I could be alone and wash up. There was an outhouse-style washroom on the roof, a little room with a tiny bathroom inside. It had a hose to rinse off with. I filled the sink up with water. First I soaped up even though I was seriously freezing my ass off, then I rinsed the soap off with cold water. I scrubbed my entire body, lathering up a few times to be sure that I was completely rid of the critters. There I stood outdoors, stark naked, looking at all of England in the middle of the
afternoon. Downstairs, the guys waited for me. Afterward I went back to the apartment, which had only a bathtub. It sucked. I really needed a shower.

  The shows went really well. But for some reason, not all of the reviews were flattering. The press always seemed to want to “take the piss out of” GNR, and word got out that our first gig in England wasn’t good when in fact it totally rocked! To be sure, there were some hecklers, but we won them over.

  Now, Kerrang! magazine is the big weekly European rock rag. We did pics for it, and the photographer had the idea to have us lie all over one another. It became our first European magazine cover, out a couple of weeks before our show. We were doing so much stuff, photo shoots and interviews, twice a day, every day. I loved it, drank it right up.

  Duff, Slash, and I walked around town, shopping at used-music stores and checking out the pubs, just like Mott the Hoople had done fifteen years earlier in the U.S. At some point during our visit, we took the ferry across to Amsterdam. While there, we received word that due to overwhelming demand, another show was added at the Marquee. We returned to perform a kick-ass set. The show went great, and we thanked the English fans for being so gracious.

  On our final day, the limo came and picked us up at the motel. We were in great moods; we came, we conquered, and we’d be back. On the way to the airport, the sky became unusually bright. I looked out the window and thought, “Oh great, now the sun comes out.”

  Back in the U.S. we continued preparations for the release of the record. The choice for cover art was resolved pretty quickly. While checking out some shops on Melrose, Axl became quite taken by the artwork on a particular postcard that he found in a novelty shop. He purchased it and presented it to all of us. The title of the piece was Appetite for Destruction by Robert E. Williams.

  We all liked it, and I was like, “Fuck yeah, that’s perfect.” It featured a monstrous demon with knives protruding from all its orifices and below it, a young female in distress, who presumably had just been raped. The people at Geffen agreed to run it and loved the opportunity to grab a little extra press, maybe a lot of extra press, with such controversial artwork.

  Apparently, they were well aware that many retailers would never carry a cover that contained such a graphic misogynistic image. They went ahead and pressed the first shipment with it anyway, knowing that they’d probably have to change it for the future pressings. It was done intentionally to create resistance. Word got out about the offensive cover, and the story got some extra ink for the band. The black-and-white picture of the band on the inside cover was taken by Robert John at the Hell House. We were on the front porch with a keg of beer. The collage inside Appetite was designed to look like the inside of Aerosmith’s Live Bootleg. Slash came to me with a stack of photographs and said, “Here, pick out seven or eight pictures that you want in the album.”

  The album was released on July 31 and the first shipment sold out immediately, because record buyers wanted an instant collector’s item knowing that the controversial first pressing of the record would certainly be pulled. Slash and I went to Tower Records on Sunset and saw the little display they had made to promote the album. It was a bunch of our promotional posters and record flats glued together around words that said “$7.99 cassette, $11.99 record or CD.” We just stared at it for like ten minutes. We were in some blissed-out primal state, so happy. We rejoiced: “We have an LP out that happens to be a kick-ass record. We did it!”

  The day after the record’s release, August 1, we shot our first video. It was described to us as a performance piece, which would be edited with graphic news footage and dramatized scenes of the band. The shots of us “acting” were first, and they created a couple of sets especially for the video. One was a big room with a bed and a TV, which was set up in an old dress shop. Another was a display of an electronics store, which they dressed up with TVs for sale in the windows. Then they placed Slash, half drunk, in front, drinking a forty in a paper bag, looking like a homeless derelict.

  The following day we shot the live material. We invited all of our friends and filled the historic Park Plaza Hotel with an audience that truly loved us. We played “Welcome to the Jungle” live, five or six times, to get all the footage needed for the video. My little brother, Jamie, even made the cut. You can see him in the front of the crowd, pointing drumsticks at Axl. It did me good to see my brother Jamie in the video. There was someone who had seen me at my lowest but had only love and adoration for me. After we nailed down all the shots, we played a complete set for the crowd.

  When we saw the finished video, it felt like another personal victory for me. Slowly but surely, we were building the appetite: we had the band, the label, the album, and now the video.

  Chapter 12

  Tearing It Up on the Road

  WHAT’S NEXT?

  Ideas for tours began floating around. Originally the plan was to do a Midwest tour with Stryper, the Christian band I had dug on so much when I saw them play locally. They would throw Bibles out to the audience during their set, so me and Duff joked around about passing a couple of bottles out to the fans during ours. Another thought was to go up the East Coast with Y&T, another band that I saw often when I was younger. Those ideas, however, fell through. The very first tour to support our album was as the opening act for the Cult.

  I remembered that a couple years before, Slash and I would dance at these clubs where they would play the Cult’s videos on a big screen. In the early eighties, they called themselves the Southern Death Cult. They dressed all in black and wore white makeup, very gothic. Ian Astbury was the vocalist, a statuesque man with long black hair. He was so great. He would always let me go onstage, play tambourine, and sing in his mike. He just was the nicest, sweetest, most down-to-earth person. No wonder he had a beautiful, loving girlfriend.

  You could talk to him, you could ask him anything, and he’d do anything for you. He made you feel good, and it was very comfortable to be around him. He was also a great performer. I didn’t really hang out with their guitarist, Billy Duffy much. He seemed distant, maybe a bit egotistical. Les was the drummer and “Haggis” the bass player, whose nickname was inspired by the Scottish goat-stomach dish. Gross.

  The Cult and GNR got along phenomenally well, and we had a great time together. They always had catering at sound check, great food that positively spoiled us. During our set, Axl made it a point to announce to the crowd how great the Cult was to us. As we would discover later, a lot of bands we opened up for would give us just half or even a quarter of the stage. The Cult was not like that at all; they gave us more room, more lights, more everything, the sign of a very cool, very confident group. When their album Electric came out, I really became a huge fan.

  It’s sort of a rock ’n’ roll ritual for the headlining act to play a practical joke on the opening band on the last night of the tour. I was definitely the people person of the band, so I was always in with the roadies and the bands we toured with. The Cult’s crew, and the band themselves, were all in on this particular joke. In New Orleans, during one of the last songs in our set, the Cult’s crew came out and took my drum set apart piece by piece. First, the cymbal, then the cymbal stand, finally the snare drum, until I was just sitting there looking like a dork. Izzy, Duff, Axl, and Slash were all pointing and laughing at me. Then the guys brought the drum set back one piece at a time.

  Now, usually opening bands dare not play a practical joke back at the headliners, but we got along so well, we knew it’d be cool. We got naked, with only towels wrapped around our waists. Then the five of us, and a couple of our roadies, walked out onstage while the Cult was playing. I had mixed a disgusting concoction of eggs, mustard, and relish in a Styrofoam cup. I walked behind Ian holding it. He didn’t see me, and I motioned to the crowd, “Should I?” holding it over his head, ready to pour, and they were like, “Yeah!” He turned around and started chasing me all over the stage. He grabbed at me and pulled the towel off of my waist. I was totally naked onstage in front of
everyone. I didn’t mind one bit. In fact, I ended up without my clothes on many times, backstage, on the tour bus, in the hotels, and at the bars. The band called me “naked boy,” a playful moniker and dependable indicator of how far along I was with my partying for the evening. I’d just look down and laugh—hey, I’m naked! Fortunately usually someone would wrap a tablecloth or something around me before I could get into any serious trouble.

  That evening I covered my cock (needing both hands of course), smiled, and bounded off the stage. It was a thrill being stark naked in front of thousands of people.

  The fun didn’t end there. Afterward, I went upstairs to the dressing room, where Slash was talking to this hot little girl named Toy. He was looking to score with her but I walked in and she took one look at me and said, “Oh, I want to be with him.” Thoroughly amused, I grabbed her, smiled, and said, “Sorry, Slash, that’s how it goes.”

  Toy and I smoked a fatty and went out on the town. When we were leaving the theater, another hot young girl got my attention by grabbing my ass. She laughed and explained that she was a friend of a girl I knew in L.A. named Taylor. Taylor was a cool chick who had dated Axl and had been around the band from the beginning. This girl was from Baton Rouge and heard from Taylor that we were playing and came down. So I hit the town with a beautiful girl on each arm.

  We went out on Bourbon Street. It was such a cool scene there. In one of the gift shops, I purchased a novelty cap that held a beer can, one on each side of your head. It had tubes attached so you could suck the beers dry. Wearing my new party hat, we entered a nightclub where we got drunk on Hurricane drinks. Toy had a couple hits of Ecstasy and since this was years before the drug caught on, I had never done it. It was mellow and pretty damn cool, a real body trip, like magic mushrooms. We were dancing, enjoying the lights and sounds like never before. All of us in the band had our own key to the bus, and the three of us went back to the bus and fucked and fucked and fucked. It felt incredible.