by Steven Adler
The tour dates for our shows started getting paced farther apart, and to pass the time we did what anyone who was bored shitless would do: we drank a lot. I also smoked a lot of weed while the other guys supplemented their booze intake with blow. Alan would pop up from time to time. And Dougie was with us all the time. He really made good on his pledge to take care of us. He had proved to be a real asset, particularly with his most important task: making sure that Axl got onstage on time.
Dougie ran everything. He was mom, wingman, and butler all rolled into one. He knew as long as Axl had hot tea with lemon, Izzy had his vino, and Duff and Slash had a steady supply of vodka, the boys were happy.
In late September 1987, we began a small tour of Europe again, this time with our good buds Faster Pussycat from L.A. The guys in FP were great. Of course, we knew Taime from years of partying at the Cathouse. Izzy and I really liked Brent, the band’s guitarist. Me and Duff were hanging out with FP’s drummer, a very nice guy, and after a night of hard drinking, he passed out in Duff’s bed.
I couldn’t understand it, but this made Duff super-pissed. Duff’s the mellowest guy, but the booze could turn him into one mean mother. “Fuck this shit,” he said. He wanted to play a practical joke on the guy, so he had me help him grab and tie the drummer’s legs and wrists with duct tape. We taped all around his mouth and head too, and we carried him to the hotel elevator. It was one of those really old lifts with the gate that you have to pull open. We threw him in, and at that point, I thought it was funny as hell.
Then Duff pressed all the buttons in the elevator, closed the door, and let him go. The next day at the show, Duff and I saw him, bruised and very hungover. He avoided us completely, never uttering a word about the previous night.
When we got to Amsterdam, we went to the red-light district, where we met many stunning ladies. During that Euro tour, we hooked up with chicks everywhere. The girls were always there, always all over us. We were young, our dreams were coming true, and we reveled in it. Slash, Duff, and I would have contests to see who could get the most blow jobs in a single day. I won every time.
Slash and I would have orgies with five or more chicks. If I didn’t like the way a chick looked, I’d send her over to the crew. Axl and Izzy weren’t into that scene, however. They were more conservative; no orgies, no ménage à whatever, and I respected that.
AMSTERDAM GOOD TIME
Amsterdam is the greatest place I’ve ever been. Slash and Izzy were into heroin, and when they checked in, they couldn’t wait to score some pure, quality shit. As soon as we got there, we all went our own ways in search of drugs.
For years, all I heard about from other rock musicians who had been to Amsterdam was how great the Bulldog was. The Bulldog’s a popular bar in Amsterdam and I couldn’t wait to hit it up. It was the first place I scoped out, and I was immediately directed to the Bulldog’s pot bar downstairs. It was just a room full of thick sweet smoke.
On the wall were two menus; one had about fifteen different kinds of marijuana, and the other listed about nine different varieties of hashish. I was positively salivating over the prospects. Finally I said, “Give me the California Purple Indigo Bud” (I know, fly all the way from L.A. to Holland just to order some California bud). There were rolling papers on the bar in cups, much like napkin dispensers in a regular restaurant. They were huge cigar-size papers, Cheech and Chong’s Big Bambú style all the way.
The Bulldog also had a drinking bar that was located upstairs. I stayed in the smoking area for the most part. It was amazing. Everybody’s dancing, the lights are flashing, and I’m drinking beers and smoking bud, definitely feeling right at home.
The venue we performed at, the Paradiso, was located directly across the street from the Bulldog. At the end of the show, I walked to the front of the stage and said, “You rock my world. Thank you very much.” I threw my sticks out to the people and jumped into the crowd. They gently set me down so I could walk right out the door back over to the Bulldog. That’s how much I loved the place. I never wanted to leave.
Of course Slash and Izzy continued with their fix-ation. All they could talk about was scoring heroin. That was all they talked about. When they finally scored they were horrified to discover that the shit they got was fake. They got screwed and they were depressed, because heroin was supposed to be good and plentiful. The truth was that smack actually was there in abundance; they just had shit luck.
Ronnie and I were walking down the street, and we saw this derelict wandering aimlessly. Two police officers walked up to him, sat him down, searched him, and found used syringes on him. I just assumed he was busted. But no, they broke the needles, disposed of them, and handed him new ones. They also gave him a box that contained a syringe, a rubber, and an alcohol swab. Then they sent him on his way. I thought that was so great, so enlightened.
Later that night, Ronnie and I walked out of the Bulldog. We stood there for a bit enjoying the night, and then this guy came up to us and asked, “Hey, you wanna party?” I smiled. He said, “Well, a friend of mine has a little flat.” He explained that he was a big fan of the band, so I figured he was totally cool.
We followed him into a dark alley behind a Holiday Inn. He told us to wait for him a minute, and he ran inside. We were standing in this alley for about twenty-five minutes and started getting impatient. Right when we were about to say “Fuck this” he finally came out and told us, “Okay, guys, it’s cool, come on up.” We entered the structure and it was pitch-black; I couldn’t see a thing. We were walking up a long, spiral staircase. Someone had their ten-speed bike locked up in there, just where you couldn’t see, and I tripped right the fuck over it. “Oh, watch out for the bike,” he said. Yeah, thanks.
We entered into this cool little den, which was illuminated with red, yellow, and green lights. Heavy, flowing beads hung in the doorways, very retro-psychedelic. He introduced us to his friend Sven, a scruffy-looking fellow in his early thirties. Sure enough, he had heroin and coke laid out before him. I’d done heroin twice before, but I never shot it up. We were in Amsterdam, smoking buds, feelin’ great, and we said, “Okay. Fuck it, let’s party.”
GO SPEED RACER
He had this brown powder heroin and a little pile of clean white cocaine. I asked the guy if he wanted some money for us to party, but he refused, saying we didn’t have to pay. The guy reached underneath the couch he was sitting on and pulled out a spoon. To the right of him was a brown paper bag full of factory-fresh syringes. He took the spoon and dipped it into the pile of coke, and then repeated with the heroin. He was mixing up a speedball. I never did this; both times I smoked the shit I got so sick. I don’t know why I was going to do it again, but I was just there, and that was reason enough.
He held the spoon over a candle and cooked it up. He dipped the point of the needle into the hot liquid and filled the syringe with the concoction. They wrapped a piece of cloth around my arm and tied it up nice and tight. I guess being in the presence of a pro lowered my fear of needles, because I just relaxed and stared at all of the colorful lights in the room.
He’d barely started plunging the syringe, and some red flag popped up in my head. I screamed: “Take it out, take it out, take it out!” I instinctively pulled away from him as he quickly removed the needle from my arm. I could see that I had gotten about a quarter of the intended dose. I was instantly in a dazed euphoric state, but I was barely able to hang on.
I swear, if he had shot the whole thing in, I would have been in dire straits. The rest of the evening he just poured us drinks and played great tunes. I settled down pretty quickly, and we went on to have an incredibly fun night.
Early the next morning we went back to the hotel. The sun was barely coming up and there’s Slash and Izzy sitting inside, still completely bummed. I boasted, “Yeah, we partied all night. We were doing coke and heroin, we were fucked up.” They were so pissed. “Why didn’t you come get us? You asshole!”
That night, Ronnie and I went back
to the Bulldog. After getting nicely lit, we left to go exploring and check out the local culture a little more. We walked down the red-light district, where hookers and sexual decadence abounded. Just like window-shopping, you could view all kinds of girls literally on display. They were dancing, gyrating, trying to sell themselves. Whatever you wanted, tall, short, black, white, stacked, you picked her out for an hour or half hour, whatever.
I didn’t need that shit; I did just fine for myself. We passed by this one porn shop where this Middle Eastern guy waved us over. “I want to show you something.” He pointed up to a TV monitor in a corner of the place and we were mesmerized. A man and a woman were fucking and sucking off every farm animal you could think of. We couldn’t stop staring. We stood there for forty-five minutes, mouths wide open. The guy tried to sell us videotapes of the action we were watching, but no thanks; I could go a long time before seeing that woman with Mr. Ed again.
We finally decided to visit our local friends from the night before. We did the right thing and collected Slash and Izzy, then proceeded to the den of euphoria that had so rocked my world the prior night. After a small search, we found the site and knocked on the door. The same guy answered. He smiled and said that he had an idea we might be back. It became my second time ever shooting up. We were higher than high. This time they knew to give me a smaller dose, but Izzy and Slash said “fill ’er up” and it was speedballs for all as we raged all night.
After Holland we went to Germany to play Hamburg and Düsseldorf. All of our shows were practically sold out. The audiences loved us. The Germans were insanely into the show, singing along. They knew every word and it threw me for a loop. A lot of Germans spoke English perfectly. I remember hearing the band on the radio in Hamburg and jumping for joy.
The German cities were immaculate, like they had cleaning ladies come out and scrub them at dawn every morning. While in Germany, I couldn’t help but think about my family, the Jews, and the Holocaust. My grandma barely escaped to the United States just days ahead of the Nazi invasion of Poland. I shudder to think about all those innocent people packed into trains and shipped off to the gas chambers.
The next day we were to return to England, but I still had some weed from the Bulldog. On our ferry trip back, everyone was all worried and freaking out because I was bringing pot across and that was illegal. I wasn’t concerned; I would just throw the shit overboard if I had to.
The weather was overcast, foggy, and cold. As we were crossing the English Channel, all I could think about was World War II and the invasion that was staged from those frigid waters. The whole turning point of the war took place there, massive maneuvers that brought tens of thousands of courageous troops from England into occupied France. Because of their bravery and sacrifice, I could play my music in a free world.
We continued our tour with stops in Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol, and London. The shows started to meld together, but I distinctly remember the British crowds were a little more reserved than the Germans, although they clapped very enthusiastically.
Our last show in England was at the Hammersmith Odeon on October 8, 1987. We opened with “It’s So Easy” and rocked that place, closing with “Sweet Child O’ Mine” into “Whole Lotta Rosie.” Playing there cemented our popularity, which had grown during the tour. The Odeon seated over thirty-five hundred, five thousand standing room only. From Cream to Van Halen, a lot of the biggest, most legendary bands played there, and it felt amazing when I looked out over the crowd. It was nearly packed, and those Brits caught one hell of a show. GNR was moving up over hallowed ground to the big time.
When we got back from Europe, we were scheduled to have some time off. It was our first break from the road in a long time. We had been touring nonstop since our show at the Whisky back in March. We arrived at LAX with a shuttle bus sitting there to pick us up. They dropped me off at the corner of Franklin and Highland and just took off. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Before this, they had put us up at the Franklin Plaza suites. A lot of bands stay there. I never thought it was anything special, so rather than check in there again, I got an apartment down the street from where I grew up with my grandparents on Hayworth. My new place was across the street from the elementary school where I met Slash for the first time. I went to see my grandma, and as always she was very happy to see me and this time, so proud. I wasn’t in touch with Mom at this point, and it really wasn’t for any particular reason. I just didn’t think to call. I wasn’t being mean or unloving; it just honestly never occurred to me to ring her up. Anyone who knows me should understand that it’s not something I do to hurt someone deliberately. That’s the way I am, and I’ve never really dwelled on it.
It really felt great to be back home. I looked forward to hitting the Strip, checking out the clubs, and catching up with everyone. It was time to kick back and enjoy L.A. again.
Chapter 13
Hanging with the Crüe
THE BOY IS BACK IN TOWN
Something about being back home made me want to reach out to my closest friends and just reconnect. I was really burned out on band business for the time being, and dialing up my two best friends and kicking back seemed like the perfect way to decompress from eight months of nonstop touring. So as soon as I got settled, I contacted my childhood chums Ricardo and Jackie.
I planned to meet them at the Rainbow. Driving over, I was all pumped up and realized how much I was looking forward to seeing them. Friends are the gold in my life; there is no currency more valuable. And while I will put up with a lot of shit from my friends, I never had to with these guys. They always treated me well, and they loved me long before it all took off. Those are the best, most precious buddies to keep for life.
As we were having drinks, I was delighted by the fact that these guys hadn’t changed a bit. We laughed about that day in Jackie’s backyard when Jackie and Ricardo wanted to be in their fathers’ lines of work, and I said I wanted to be a rock star. On this day, our futures couldn’t have looked brighter. The guys were so psyched about what was happening with GNR, and they were so excited for me. They went on and on about how great the album was and how much they loved the video. We realized that each of us had, in his own way, fulfilled his personal prophecy.
Ricardo told us a friend of his was staying at a fancy hotel up Topanga Canyon. He invited me to come over and party with them. Jackie had to be up early and passed on the idea but promised to stay in touch. Ricardo and I went to the hotel, and that’s where I met Ricardo’s pal Dennis. He was a very big, intimidating guy, but like a lot of guys with his build, he was just a mellow dude.
It turned out, conveniently enough, that he was also a coke dealer. He had hundreds of little square ziplock bags filled with rocks—not crack rocks, but coke pebbles, powder that’s hardened. Each bag’s contents weighed an eighth of an ounce, “eight balls.” Dennis was very generous; he was like, “Go for it, dude, whatever you want.”
“All right!” I was truly appreciative. I remembered smoking the shit at Bob Welch’s house, so I decided to get some baking soda. Problem was, I never actually cooked it up while I was staying at Bob’s. I watched Ted take a mix of coke and baking soda and pour it in a glass tube. The tube he used was actually a cheap glass cigar container. He would then pour a little water in. He would heat the tube, waving it over a stove, and in a few seconds, clink, a hard piece of crack had formed. But I just couldn’t do it. I would end up with mush. I’d add too much water or baking soda and never got the hang of it.
I must have wasted $3,000 worth of coke trying to get that little “Kernel Clink” sound. Thankfully, I didn’t pay for it. Dennis was impressed enough with me, the rock star, that he didn’t seem to mind at all. I remember being in there totally wasting all that coke. He had so many bags and I just kept trying and trying. Ricardo was a very responsible guy and even though he was partying with us, he still went to work in the morning. Dennis and I hung for a few days before I had to get back to business with
the band. After that, I would hook Jackie, Ricardo, and Dennis up with passes and tickets whenever we were in town.
BACK ON THE BEAT
After checking out of Topanga, I went to a sushi nightclub in Hollywood. There, pop artist George Michael was waiting in line. I got in line too, and George took an instant interest. He was talking with some friends, but his gaze never strayed far from me. Once inside, I noticed him again, looking my way, trying to flirt with me. He sent one of his boys over. “George Michael would like to buy you a drink.” This was before George publicly came out of the closet. His sexual orientation, however, wasn’t necessarily in question. I graciously declined.
In the band, no one knew where the other guys were, nor did we care. Doug really kept it together. He again got us rooms at Franklin Plaza so we would all be reunited in time for our next venture. Doug would make up an itinerary every day. He would post it on the door of our hotel room or he would slide it underneath. It outlined what time to get up, what time to be on the bus, what time we were leaving, plus scheduled interviews and such.
On October 16, 1987, we began a new leg of the tour in Bay Shore, New York. There was a Japanese metal/rock band, also signed with Geffen, that was opening the shows for us. They were named EZO. They wore crazy, bright makeup, like Kiss, and their U.S. debut album was produced by Gene Simmons. They spoke broken English but they had an American crew. The band themselves did not associate much with us, but when they did, they were terrific.
TRUE LOVE
We played in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 18, and then it was on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was where I met my first true love. We were playing a club called the Trocadero. I went to sound check in the afternoon. There, Fred Coury, a genuinely nice guy from the band Cinderella, introduced himself to me. We were hanging out, walking around, shooting the shit, and smoking cigarettes. We entered the Troc from its main entrance. We opened the big doors, and there, standing at the bar straight ahead, was the finest ass I had ever seen. It was so tight you could palm it with one hand. She was standing with her girlfriend, and when she turned to talk with her, I saw just how perfect the whole package was. I said to Freddie, “I gotta meet that girl.” Freddie said he knew her. “Let’s go, right now.”