by Steven Adler
I spotted the then eighteen-year-old supermodel Rachel Hunter hanging out with some friends on the side of the stage. Everyone was intimidated by her beauty, literally afraid to approach her, but I didn’t care. I had the smile and the charm and was armed with the fact that I was in the best rock ’n’ roll band in the world. I just went right up to her after the show and struck up a conversation. I knew I had to spend some time with this knockout, invest in some one-on-one chatting. We went back to the hotel together and talked all night. The next morning we had breakfast and then she showed me around some cool spots in Auckland. It was such a sweet, effortless time, and she was so gracious and hospitable. We never got past holding hands, hugging, and a little kissing, but that was just fine. I was in heaven and she was one helluva great kisser too.
STATESIDE MOBBING
When we flew back to L.A., I noticed more than ever how popular we had become. At the airport we were mobbed for autographs. People recognized us everywhere. A lot of folks would just stare and whisper. I guess they felt weird or too shy to actually approach us. I got used to it quickly. Everywhere I went, someone knew my name. At my favorite hangout, the Rainbow, the guys treated me the way they always had, and that was great. This was a place where I had spent a lot of time. I had partied at each booth and in every chair, and I had slipped away to fuck everywhere in the place. Different chicks had ducked under every table to give me a blow job. After the band made it, I felt especially proud just hanging out there.
So many people who hung out at the Rainbow looked and acted the part. They all had the rock star thing going. But could they really play? Could they really make it happen? We proved ourselves. I would always hug and chat with the owners Michael, Mario, and Steady. I asked Michael, “Hey, if I brought something in, would you hang it on the wall?”
“Sure, Stevie. Of course.” I gave him a signed snare drum and a framed picture and felt honored to have something up on the walls with all the other pieces of rock star memorabilia. The Rainbow is like L.A.’s version of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and to this day, my picture and drum hang on the ceiling.
After our last shows, we returned home for an indefinite period. We had no solid plans for the immediate future, no itinerary. Tama drums had signed me to an endorsement deal and they flew Cheryl and me out to Philadelphia, where I would make an appearance and do a photo shoot for drum advertisements. We spent a few days there with Cheryl’s family. They were just the most down-to-earth, caring, blue-collar folks, and I loved them.
THE LONG SLIDE
When we got back home, Cheryl and I retreated to my apartment, which was located by my grandparents’ place. I didn’t visit them much, it was just where I happened to be renting at the time. I was just partying, doing my own thing. I befriended this kid who lived across the street, a hippied-out stoner dude with shaggy hair, about twenty years old. I’d give him twenty or forty bucks and he’d pick up some heroin to smoke. At first, one run in the morning and one at night was fine. It was perfect. I had my waterbed in the living room, and I would just lie there all day watching TV. But after a couple of weeks I was shelling out $150 to $200 so he could make three or four runs a day. Hmmmm.
Cheryl was pretty oblivious to it all at first. She didn’t party with me. She’d often leave around noon to go out shopping or hang with her friends. She’d come back before dark and I’d be lying there stoned out, high and numb to the world. She’d give me this big smile and show off what she got at the shops. I’d pretend to be interested and give her my Stevie smile.
The descent happened so quickly. At first I hid my drug use from her. More out of shame than anything else. I just didn’t want her to know, because I didn’t want to discuss it, and keeping it from her was easy, because she wasn’t looking. She was naive to my ways, so as long as I was careful, it wasn’t hard to conceal. Maybe she was also looking the other way a little. We both loved each other a lot and when you’re in that phase of the relationship, you try to avoid any ugly confrontations.
I spiraled downward as the drugs took over and soon I became the selfish prick from hell. I used to look forward to Cheryl coming home. The simple bliss of having dinner together, watching a movie, or just fucking nonstop ceased. I soon started to resent hearing her keys in the door. It made my skin crawl. I resented the fact that I’d have to hide my stuff before she came back. That was classic H addict behavior, but I wasn’t willing to cut it off to save the love of my life.
Soon, I resented the fact that I had to have that big smile ready for her. I began to get sloppy, and one day she came home and my shit was all over the blanket. There were burn holes in the quilt, there were pipes on the carpet, and I couldn’t have fucking cared less. She pretended not to see it as she leaned over to kiss me. Then she said she was going to take a quick shower, which I took to be my cue to hide everything. I even resented that. Any lingering guilt was banished and the drugs became all that mattered. Steven the selfish motherfucking drug abuser took over and the light went completely out of my life.
And I mean literally. I actually hung blankets up over the windows because the blinds didn’t do a good enough job of blocking the light and blacking out the entire living room. Cheryl thought it was funny at first and tried to make a joke of it. But then I would just scowl at her and go to the bathroom for an hour.
It is all so tragic when I look back at it. I snuffed out this sweet creature’s love for me because the other jealous lovers in the room, Mr. Brownstone, Mary Jane, and Joe Blow, couldn’t stand her. Cheryl learned to stop making suggestions about what we could do for fun. She learned to stop talking to me. She could feel my body recoil at her touch, so she learned to stop holding me.
Anything could set me off and soon Cheryl was spending as much time out of the house as possible. I stopped bathing. I wore the same shirt for two or three weeks. I wasn’t thinking or caring. I was totally self-absorbed. This was it, the lowlife’s high life.
HOUSE HUNTING
When Christmas rolled around, I hadn’t been in touch with the guys for a while, since we returned from New Zealand. Then I made no effort to see them over the holidays. Dougie sent each of us a large, framed print of the Appetite for Destruction artwork, personally signed by the artist, Robert Williams. It was a nice, thoughtful gift that still hangs in my living room today.
Early in 1989, Cheryl finally got her wish. I got off my ass, and she and I went house hunting. Dougie set me up with a real estate agent. She asked me where I wanted to live and I told her, “Studio City.” They had a list of available homes there, and they drove Cheryl and me to them. Cheryl had a list of homes she thought I’d love. But like an ass, I just picked the second house we looked at. I didn’t care to check out any others. It was a two-bedroom home up Laurel Canyon, by an elementary school. I quickly had the master bedroom redone with a higher ceiling, but that was all the redecorating I did, because I spent 99 percent of my time holed up in that room.
The same month, Slash bought a house by a country store on Lookout Mountain. We were right down the hill from each other. He was on the Hollywood side; I was on the Studio City side. It was not far at all, so we started hanging out again.
One day he called me and asked, “You got any money?”
I said, “Yeah, I got money. And you got money too, fucker.”
He laughed and said, “Well, come on up.” He had his hand out before I got in the door. I gave him $300, and he gave me a thin little piece of heroin. I smiled and got out a crumpled piece of tinfoil. At the time, I didn’t realize that he was ripping me off. I was just getting $20 worth here and there, so I wasn’t sure what the right amount should be. Meanwhile, he had this huge chunk of the shit. He was shooting it up, I was smoking it.
Somehow I had it in my head that not shooting it gave me some moral high ground to shake my head and feel that Slash was out of control with the shit. Even though I had dabbled with needles, I had backed off a bit and was a little freaked by Slash’s behavior. Not long after t
hat first day of scoring together, Slash started to really lose it. We had been partying for a few days, and as the sun was peeking up, I couldn’t find Slash in the house.
I went out back, and he was sitting by the pool. He was so out of it, just blindly jabbing a syringe into his arm, over and over. I said “Dude. Stop it. Look, just come in the house. We’ll watch a movie, and after that if you want to party some more, we will. Just stop it for now.” He didn’t listen. He just gazed at me, but at least he had stopped the pincushion routine. About a half hour later, I was sitting in his living room watching TV when he came in, walked right past me, and went upstairs. The last thing I heard was his bedroom door slamming shut.
IZZY, SLASH, ME, AND MR. BROWNSTONE
Another night, Slash and I paid a visit to Izzy at his new place. He had a loft in his apartment where he would hide from the world, shooting smack and smoking coke. We came by unannounced and evidently disturbed him. He was all weird and strung out from the drugs. He just said, “Hey,” and kind of circled the room a few times, scratching his shoulders and his head like he had lice or something. A few minutes later he headed up to his loft. He was completely strung out, yet at the time we thought little of it.
Slash and I were just hanging out, assuming Izzy would show when he had done whatever. Eventually, through our moronic haze, we realized that Izzy didn’t want any company, so we let ourselves out. We hit up the Rainbow and Barney’s. It was so pointless; we were zombies. At Barney’s, Slash nodded out with his mouth full of chili. It started to drip out of his mouth and go all over his shirt. When I got back from the bar, I shook him awake. We ambled out of there and headed back up Laurel.
REHAB THIS
During the last week in January 1989, Dougie suggested I go into rehab. I remember his remark didn’t make me angry, take me by surprise, or hurt my feelings. But like all true drug addicts, I didn’t think I was having any trouble with drugs. Dougie sat me down and, without being preachy or pushy, convinced me that it might be a good idea. I trusted him, and I guess I felt deep down that I could use a little tidying up. That was proven by the fact that I didn’t make a big fuss about it. This would be my first time in rehab, and I wasn’t at all sure what was involved, but I was curious, I guess, and kind of resigned myself to just going with it.
WTF!
When I got out, someone asked me why I hadn’t appeared on the American Music Awards. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He proceeded to tell me that GNR performed “Patience” during the American Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium with someone else on drums. I found out later that it was Don Henley of the Eagles who took my spot. I was completely blindsided by this, so stunned and hurt, I can’t begin to describe the feeling of betrayal. Nobody in our organization ever mentioned anything about the AMAs to me. My first thought was: “And I didn’t even need fucking rehab!”
To be fair, the downward spiral had already gathered momentum and I’m partly to blame for what was certainly the beginning of the end with me and the band. Like the broken finger incident, I’m sure I’d done my fair share to irritate them. I ticked them off just enough to have made them feel indifferent about insisting I be kept in the loop.
Compounding this was the fact that I never let people know if I was hurt or felt cheated. Looking back, if I had been more vocal, I could have at least gotten a feel for what the boys were thinking, and if they were furious with me about something, at least we could have gotten it out in the open. I should have taken the temp and realized trouble was brewing big-time. I kept things so internalized that I never bothered to find out if Dougie made the rehab suggestion just to get me out of the way and substitute Henley. Frankly, I’ll never know.
At the time, I was more riled over the fact that they performed “Patience” with any drummer. Like the timeless “Lady Jane,” “Going to California,” and “Yesterday,” the song didn’t need any fucking percussion at all. They could have been noble and told people they chose “Patience” because their drummer was in rehab and they wanted a song that didn’t require me to play.
So for all you fuckers who conspired to do me in while pretending to be a close trusted friend, I forgive you. Like I noted at the beginning of this story, God gave me incredible good fortune and I was the one who screwed it up. It’s on me, and now I can handle that fact, think back, and just shake my head.
MUSIC VIDEO TIME
On Valentine’s Day 1989, we shot the video for “Patience.” It was at an old, abandoned historical landmark, the Ambassador Hotel. This was where Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 while running for president. I was smoking weed in the kitchen, walking around, tripping out on the tragedy that happened within these very walls. I had the same feeling of loss and doom when I was in Germany, thinking about the Holocaust. It just welled up inside me.
The place was big, dark, and empty. It definitely had a haunted vibe. Very quiet, no one around. I explored the entire building. One of the building security guards asked me if I wanted to see the exact spot where RFK was shot, and I just kind of stared at him. He took me over to this dark corner of the kitchen and showed me where someone had scratched a rough “X” in the dark red cement flooring. I bent down to look at it for like ten minutes. To think this father of eleven children, who had worked so hard to capture the hopes of the youth of America, had come to such a tragic end made me positively ill. I was too young to remember the actual assassination, but I do remember my mom crying in the kitchen when it happened. With Martin Luther King Jr.’s death the same year, this must have been one of the darkest chapters in American history. Everybody loved what RFK and King stood for, and those incredible men paid for their beliefs with their lives.
I pulled myself away from that wretched spot and went upstairs to where they were setting everything up. In the video, we were told that each guy would be given the opportunity to conceive of a silly fantasy short to feature himself. Zeppelin had actually done something like this in their film for “The Song Remains the Same.” Duff carried a tray and smoked a cigarette. I wasn’t sure why he picked that for his scene. Slash was in bed with a big snake and a hot chick. I imagined a short where I would be sitting between two annoying bitches who were gabbing it up. When the camera panned over to me, I’m just like, “Get me outta here.”
We shot the performance scenes back at the Record Plant, where we’d actually recorded the song. Mike Clink was featured in the video working the mixing board. They had the studio done up like a hippie den, with beads and lavish rugs. I had incense burning. It was great, but I couldn’t help feeling a cold wind blowing in my direction. Shit, the guys barely talked to me. Maybe I was being overly sensitive, but I was pretty sure that an “us versus Stevie” vibe was starting to fester.
WINDY CITY TIME
In March, I received word that a state-of-the-art studio was booked for us in Chicago. It would be ours exclusively for two months. Before we left, I asked a buddy if he could arrange a hookup for me when I arrived. He had connections in Chicago. He provided me with a guy’s number and I gave him a call. Slash, Duff, and I were the first to arrive. We were under the impression that Izzy and Axl would show up shortly after. We were put up in two condos, which were on the second and third floors of the building.
It was amazing; the very moment we arrived at the condo I was approached by my “new best friend,” the drug dealer my buddy had put me in touch with. I grabbed an ounce off him as we entered our new temporary home. All together, we had four bedrooms for us and the crew: Tom, Mike, and Adam. We had various ideas for songs, great songs that Duff, Slash, and I were excited about working on, and the writing for our next album proceeded right away.
The studio was right down the street from the condos. It was awesome. It had a top-of-the-line PA and a grand piano, and my drums were miked. It was located on the fourth floor of a high-rise building. In the basement of the complex was a popular local nightclub. Our presence was kept secret so fans and the press wouldn’t mob us. Also,
tight security was there 24/7. At night, Duff, Slash, and I would go downstairs to the nightclub, where we would pick up girls and fuck them right in the club. We rarely took them back to the condo.
We’d always have blow on us at the studio. But when I’d offer to cut them a line they would refuse. Then Slash and Duff would go in some other room to party. “Hey, where ya going?” I would begin to follow them only to find that they had shut the door on me. To this day I have no idea why, other than I felt they believed I just wasn’t cool enough to hang out with anymore. I ended up doing my blow all alone while they partied together.
Instead of confronting them and flushing out whatever the hell it was that seemed to be getting worse, I let the drugs take me into a dark valley of despair, where I could wallow in my own self-pity. My self-esteem was at an all-time low, and the drugs became my only friend because they would numb the hell out of me and keep the fear and depression at bay.
At rehearsals, I felt I was getting pushed out of the songwriting circle as well. We would be working on the dynamics of a song and the three of us would throw around ideas. Then suddenly the exchange would be limited to Duff and Slash. I learned just to sit and wait patiently. They would agree on something, then turn to me and say, “Okay, Steven, this is what we’re going to do.”
Was I so fucked up that I didn’t realize my drum playing was beginning to suffer? Was I lucid enough to even ask myself that question at the time? I believed I was trying as hard as I could to contribute to the songs. But had Slash and Duff sensed that, would they have let me back in the creative mix, or was I already doomed? I don’t fucking know. I just don’t fucking know. And I think that kind of answers the question. Maybe they felt I didn’t care enough to do a course correction. I’m trying to be as honest as possible here, but my emotions were turned so inside out that I find it difficult to look back and figure out what was actually happening.