Covering the past and continuing adventures of Guns N’ Roses has probably been the story of Classic Rock’s lifetime. This book features pretty much all of Classic Rock’s coverage collected for the first time. Some stories have only ever been published online, and one was published by our sister magazine Metal Hammer. It’s a story of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll – but that’s the least of it. This is the stuff of Russian novels: full of hopes, dreams, treachery, egos, power, money, ambition and – on one particularly strange occasion – a chicken coop.
Classic Rock Special: Guns N’ Roses
Editors’s Note
THE WILD ONES • THERE ISN’T A METAL BAND ON THE PLANET THAT HASN’T BEEN AFFECTED BY GUNS N’ ROSES. THIRTY YEARS ON, THE IMPACT OF THEIR TURBULENT INCEPTION IS BEING FELT AS KEENLY AS EVER.
LONDON CALLING • ON JUNE 28, 1987, GN’R MADE THEIR FIRST SERIOUS SPLASH IN FOREIGN WATERS AT LONDON’S LEGENDARY MARQUEE CLUB, AND MALCOLM DOME WAS THERE TO SEE IT ALL GO DOWN.
RECKLESS ABANDON
DRAW POWER
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Guns N’ Roses’ Live?!*@Like A Suicide EP • On December 16, 1986, Guns N’ Roses released their first-ever record. Here’s 10 things you might not know about it.
IF YOU WANT IT, YOU’RE GONNA BLEED • 20 years on from Appetite For Destruction’s release, Paul Elliott – the only UK journalist at the album’s LA launch party and the author of many early GN’R interviews – recalls the drugs, the women and the chaos. Plus: Slash, Adler, producer Mike Clink and the Rocket Queen herself on the making of Appetite…
“It’s not like it’s a Zeppelin or a Queen record…” • Still hungry: Slash on 20 years of Appetite For Destruction.
Never mind the ballads • The man who signed GN’R, A&R man Tom Zutaut, on his struggle to keep the slow songs off of Appetite…
“I slept with Axl to get Steven jealous…” • Adriana Smith was Steven Adler’s girlfriend. Until she had sex with Axl for the recording of Rocket Queen. Here she remembers the heady days of wine and roses.
Adler cleans up his act • When there was laundry to be done, the drummer’s mom was ready and willing.
Get in the Clink • “It holds up just great. Appetite is a timeless record,” recalls the album’s producer, Mike Clink.
Welcome To The Jungle • It was the album that kick-started the story of Guns N’ Roses – and introduced the world to a guitarist named Slash.
THE DESTRUCTION YEARS • HANGING OUT WITH GN’R AS APPETITE EXPLODED…
APPETITE FOR FACTS
ANARCHY IN THE UK • The world domination of Guns N’ Roses began not in LA, but with three chaotic weeks in London in June 1987. They came, they drank, they fought, they conquered.
Guns N’ Roses Welcome To The Jungle • A song that came out of life “in the trenches” in LA and the struggle for survival, it lit the fuse and flung GN’R on to the road to becoming the greatest rock’n’roll band of their generation.
ONE GUNS SHOT WAS ALL IT TOOK
GN’R LIES • “Alan Niven was the sixth silent member of GN’R,” says Izzy Stradlin. The manager of Guns N’ Roses from 1986-1991, he talks here for the first time about what really went down at the height of the band’s crazy days.
THE LAST GANG IN TOWN • Alan Niven on the young Guns.
Why I Love Appetite For Destruction • Alter Bridge frontman Myles Kennedy on the primal power of Guns N’ Roses’ debut album
Ever Meet Hendrix? • He met Keith Moon when he was 11, spent a long night with Lemmy in a Soho boozer, had an unlikely on-stage encounter with James Brown, thinks Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas is one hell of a rock chick, and looks upon Alice Cooper as his rock’n’roll dad. And while all that mayhem was going on, Slash always kept his hat on…
THE YEAR OF LIVING Dangerously • If 1988 was the year Guns...