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| Current line-up of GNR: Rick Ross wanna-be, Rob Zombie wanna-be, Andrew WK wanna-be, Ron Wood wanna-be, Crocodile Dundee wanna-be, Adam Lambert, Paul Westerberg wanna-be, and zzz. |
Yep, they'd pedal around the neighborhood on their Big Wheels telling all the other kids who wanted to be doctors and firemen and middle management cubicle jockeys that they were gonna grow up to be a member of Guns n' Roses.
See, back then, such claims would have been laughable because Guns n' Roses was already a huge band and its members - Duff, Slash, Axl, Izzy and Steven - were household names that kids and parents alike knew by heart.
Still, by the time '92's "Use Your Illusion" concert video was released, Axl's special brand of "team building" was now in full motion and, as a result, certain concessions had been made to "keep the singer happy".
The first, and ultimately the most damaging, was the departure of drummer Steven Adler, who had become, for all intents and purposes, a non-functional heroin addict. Matt Sorum, fresh from his stint as the main reason The Cult sucked now, was named as Adler's replacement and immediately set about making GNR sound like the Vegas version of a Sunset Strip metal band. Izzy Stradlin was so taken aback by Sorum's complete "lack of swing" that he abruptly left the band.
In a 1992 Musician magazine interview, Izzy Stradlin is quoted as saying, "The first time I realized what Steve did for the band was when he broke his hand in Michigan. Tried to punch through a wall and busted his hand. So we had Fred Coury come in from Cinderella for the Houston show. Fred played technically good and steady, but the songs sounded just awful. They were written with Steve playing the drums and his sense of swing was the push and pull that give the songs their feel. When that was gone, it was just...unbelievable, weird. Nothing worked. I would have preferred to continue with Steve, but we'd had two years off and we couldn't wait any longer. It just didn't work for Slash to be telling Steve to straighten out. He wasn't ready to clean up."
Secondly, Axl fired Alan Niven, the manager who had essentially gotten them to the top and whose job now seemed to consist entirely of cleaning up Axl's messes.
Third, Axl hired keyboardist Dizzy Reed. That's right, keyboardist. Apparently, Dizzy was a friend of Axl's and had gotten evicted from his L.A. apartment and had called Axl looking fora place to crash. Axl responded by letting him crash in his band. For over twenty years now.
By the time Use Your Illusion I and II hit the street, the millions of rock fans around the world who'd fallen in love with the brash and hungry band that had recorded Appetite For Destruction a few years prior were now seeing a decidedly different rock band, one in which the singer was now channeling Freddie Mercury and Elton John in some off-off-off Broadway rock opera.
That Axl Rose hasn't had to get a day job in the years that followed owes more to the staying power of Appetite For Destruction, not the bloated carcass that was Use Your Illusion. Over the years, Axl has replaced everyone except himself time and time again, like a woman breaking up with boyfriend after boyfriend, all the while failing to realize that the problem just might be...her.
Why would she have to? She owns the name. She never has to take responsibility for sabotaging everything because she can always fire somebody and imply that it had been their fault all along. This new line-up isn't Guns n' Roses any more than five random employees at Hot Topic, but, here's the kicker, they aren't any less Guns n' Roses, either. The only thing missing is Axl.
And Axl knows this.
So until the rest of the world realizes this as well, Axl will continue trotting out one hilariously cockeyed incarnation of GNR after another and charging fans good money to relive their past glories while he continues making millions reliving his. In the meantime, hey everybody, it's DJ Ashba! In 3-D!