My Appetite For Destruction (26 page)

I was shell-shocked. Numb. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, the media blamed the band, fueling our notorious bad-boy image. And we were just starting to get a broader, more friendly public image going when this happened. This was partly because “Sweet Child O’ Mine” had broader appeal than “Jungle” as a hit
.
We tapped into a larger following with that tune, reaching more mainstream rock- and pop-minded folks.

I called my mom and told her about the terrible tragedy. I never stopped to think of why I called Deanna instead of Cheryl or Big Lilly, but I immediately felt some solace as soon as I shared this horrible news with her. She was shocked but didn’t unravel. She managed to be very compassionate and real with me, explaining that I wasn’t to blame. She reasoned that the promoters have to control the numbers and the way the seating is set up. I understood, but it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. I felt like I had somehow been a cog in some bigger machine that hurt those kids. It was weeks before I felt anywhere near normal again. I let Mom know that I would be back in town soon and would call her. To this day, the Donington tragedy still haunts me like a waking nightmare.

W
e had two shows with Aerosmith at the Pacific Amphitheater in Costa Mesa, California, during September. I invited my family to the first show, but then I guess they got the idea to just come by and surprise me at the hotel beforehand. After all, they hadn’t seen me in a year. Me and Ronnie had been up all night doing coke, a lot of it. I had a huge pile of krel on this chest of drawers that was set up like a table. We were tweaking hard. At eight in the morning there was a knock at the door.

Consumed with paranoia, I asked Ronnie, “You expecting anyone?” He shook his head no. Another knock. I slowly stood up and made my way to the door. “Hey, Stevie, open up.” That voice, I know that voice. It’s cool.

So I opened it, and standing there were my mom, dad, and little brother, all sporting huge smiles. I was horribly, unreasonably pissed. “What the fuck are you doing here? Don’t just come over unannounced.” In an instant, I just saw their happy expressions turn to disbelief, then horror. Fuck ’em. I slammed the door and tried to get a little shut-eye before the show. Let’s face it, I was such a dick, I still feel bad about it. Hey, Ma, you out there? I apologize for that.

The next day we performed our last show with Aerosmith. As the crew was setting up the equipment I ran into an old bass player friend of mine, who I had set up with tickets and passes. He mentioned that he was going to score some dope, and I said, “You know, I got twenty dollars. What the hell, pick me up some.” I unzipped the fanny pack around my waist—I called it my “hippie” pack—and handed him a crisp twenty. I had done the shit only a few times up to this point; it wasn’t like I had a connection or anything. After the show, about three hours later, he came back and gave me the dope. I ripped a piece of foil off from a catering table and went to our bus. I went straight to the back for some privacy and smoked that bad brownstone.

I
was feeling all happy-go-lucky, high as a kite. I was on my way to party with Aerosmith. I was smiling, on top of the world as I swaggered toward the greenroom and opened the door, striking my best rock star pose and surveying the scene. There, just five feet ahead of me, was Steven Tyler. He was smiling, chatting with someone. He turned to me, looked in my eyes, and his smile faded. He just
knew.
He shook his head like “Oh, man” and looked the other way. I didn’t understand it at that precise moment, but he was sad for me. Then it sank in and my own smile faded as quickly as my family’s had in the hotel.

I was dumbfounded. I turned and quickly walked away. Not being cool with Steven Tyler is as uncool as you can get. He got to know me, but I was only playing along, only saying the things he wanted to hear so that he’d think I wasn’t doing that shit. He told me about how he was a loser for doing it. And there I was with those damning pin-dot eyes, busted. I felt as though I had let him down far more than I had ever let myself down. Steven Adler, the fucking fool, had deceived a man he loved and admired. I was miserable for days; I wanted to blow my fucking brains out to stop the pain.

In my head, I’ve identified that moment as the definitive turning point, the precise moment when things began to go from occasionally off-kilter to very darkly wrong in my life. Breaking my hand was the first warning shot, but I just kept going, gathering momentum, blowing right through those sawhorse barriers on life’s highway, keeping my metaphorical pedal to the metal until I ran out of road, crashed and burned.

T
he day after our last show on the Aerosmith tour, Dougie called and said he had been asked if I’d be interested in a video shoot. Comedian Sam Kinison was super-hot at the time, and he was making a music video to promote his new album. I had known Sam for some time. A few months earlier, I had taken a number of friends to see him at the Comedy Store on Sunset. He invited us backstage and cut thick lines of coke for us all. He was a wild one, one of us, no doubt about it.

The video was for his outrageous video parody of the song “Wild Thing,” a hilarious retooling of the Troggs’ classic from the sixties. His idea was to have a big party, invite all of his rocker friends over, and double-duty the gathering as the cast and setting for his video. Slash and I got Sam’s invitation and went together. When we arrived, we were excited to find ourselves in amazing company. Our dearest buddy from the Crüe, Tommy Lee, was there and Bon Jovi showed with his entourage. I just looked at all these fun-loving rockers around me and said, “Fuck yeah.” It was like some perverse validation; I was so proud to be included in this group of genuine rock stars.

Fresh from the massive religious scandal involving televangelist Jim Bakker was the video’s sole female star, Jessica Hahn. She had single-handedly brought down that hypocritical Bible-thumper Bakker and his mascara-streaked wife, Tammy, and was now Sam’s current slutty girlfriend. Wonder how that played out on the religious right? Fucking hypocrites.

I thought Jessica was a pig. She had on so much makeup, she looked like a mannequin. But Sam adored her, so we went along and treated her sweetly because he was our hallowed host and friend. Her huge, rocket knockers really turned me off; they kept threatening to poke out our eyes. Sam was rolling around with her in this little love pit and everyone was pointing at them, cheering.

They had a keg of beer for us and we were all quaffing with a vengeance. As they shot the scenes we weren’t in, Slash and I camped out at the tap and became mightily shit-faced. I don’t even remember the shots we were in but I do recall that later, they insisted on doing some additional pickup shots, including one of a drunken Slash clumsily falling into a trash can. The video was in regular rotation on
MTV
through late 1988 right into 1989. It was a great idea and a great time.

The annual
MTV
Awards were held that year on September 7 at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. There was no question that we were the hottest band around. We were up for the Best New Artist award, which is now universally regarded as the “kiss of death award.” So many bands have gotten that award only to crash and burn on their sophomore album. They should outlaw that award. It’s like being on the cover of
Sports Illustrated:
instant jinx.

At this time, Slash had been hanging out with the notorious porn star Traci Lords. During the ceremony, when the envelope was opened and we were announced as the winners, the producer decided to have Slash and Traci be the ones to accept. As for the rest of the band, we honestly didn’t care who went up there as long as it was one of us.

“I’m Traci Lords,” she announced.

“I’m Slash,” he mumbled.

Traci continued. “Guns N’ Roses is very happy to accept this, thank you [giggle].” How profound. Later that evening we performed “Welcome to the Jungle” live for a less-than-enthusiastic audience. These days,
MTV
has smartened up; they pack the front of the stage with wild and crazy fans driven to delirium for the cameras. But back then, they set it up much like the Academy Awards, with all the biggest stars up front. At the end of the song, I threw one drumstick out as hard and as far as I could; the other I gently tossed right to Steven Tyler, who was sitting in the front row, hoping it would raise a smile. Tyler didn’t flinch, and the drumstick just lay on the floor with no one giving a shit. That hurt, but it didn’t surprise me.

After we performed, the host, Arsenio Hall, cracked a joke about drummers: “I’ll never understand, they throw their sticks into the audience, so there’s a big fan out there with a stick in his eye going,
‘I love them guys. I love them!’
”

On September 17, 1989, we played the final show of the
Appetite for Destruction
tour. It was a big festival outing in Texas that also featured Australian pop icons
INXS
and reggae artist Ziggy Marley, the son of the legendary Bob Marley. We flew in the day before the concert. I recall sitting in my hotel room watching cartoons when I glanced out the window. There were a lot of big Jamaican Rasta guys walking around, and they looked kind of threatening, but that was just my sick head.

My eyes drifted to the pool, where Michael Hutchence, singer for
INXS
, was regally sitting. He was with a beautiful girl who looked like a supermodel. They were lounging in pool chairs, chatting with each other. I thought, “How cool is this? I’ve seen this guy in music videos for years, and here I am about to play a big concert with him.”

The show was the absolute
worst
we ever played. For some reason, the guys just weren’t into it and the reason was simple: they wanted to go home. I realized, “Hey,
I
want to go home. We’ve been on the road for ten lifetimes and it’s time to shut it down for a while.”

To add to our misery, it was raining that day. We were in Texas Stadium, a partially covered arena that had a huge opening over the playing field. From the stage, I could see rain pouring down on the crowd, but we were kept mostly dry, except when it would get gusty. It was the weirdest-looking setup. We played our set in record time, just wanting to get it over with. “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” our mid-tempo hit, was practically played at twice the speed.

Christ, we had actually been on the road for two years. It was time for a break. Sure, it was a really big show, but I
never
once thought that there wouldn’t be hundreds more big shows in my future, so there was zero nostalgic wistfulness as we bowed and got the fuck out of there.

Once back home, I enjoyed my much anticipated time off with Cheryl. She was with me every minute. She came over and from the moment we hugged it was quality time and quiet time. Fresh sheets, pull the blinds, we’re sleeping in. Looking back, at least up until that point, it may have been the happiest time in my life. I woke to Cheryl’s heavenly smell each morning and fell asleep to it each night. I finally had time for the love of my life and the life that I love.

Imagine having a secure, steady flow of income in your early twenties, becoming famous doing what you love for a living, and spending each day with the woman of your dreams while not having a care in the world. You can’t beat that. But you can destroy it.

I was experiencing things in life that were beyond my wildest dreams, like when we made the cover of
Rolling Stone.
But we were just taking it all in stride, like it was no big deal. I was wearing a shirt that Tom Mayhue had given me by way of Mick Brown from the band Dokken. Dokken was on tour with Van Halen, Metallica, and the Scorpions. It was called the Monsters of Rock tour (not to be confused with the Monsters of Rock festival in the UK). The shirt was a brilliant parody of that, a sarcastic play on words dubbing it the “Hamsters of Rock.”

A few days after the
RS
cover hit the stands, I was in the shower when Cheryl came running into the bathroom. “Steven, guess who just called?”

I shut the water off. “Who?”

“Eddie Van Halen,” she said.

“No shit! What did he want?”

Cheryl said, “He was pissed. He was like, what is this shit with you wearing ‘
Hamsters
of Rock’?”

I couldn’t believe Eddie would take something so minor so seriously but was nevertheless very excited that a rock god had called me. “Oh, no way . . . Did he leave a number to call him back?”

“Nope,” she said, “he just hung up!” I had heard that Eddie’s temper flared when he drank, so I let it roll off my back pretty quickly.

In late November, our EP
GNR
Lies: The Sex, the Drugs, the Violence, the Shocking Truth
was released. The cover was a send-up of English gossip rags, labeled with all sorts of sensationalistic, over-the-top headlines, like man sues ex-wife, “she took my sperm without permission” and severed head found in topless bar.

Again, I was given a few photographs to choose from that would be featured on the cover. The package included three new songs, an acoustic remake of “You’re Crazy,” and a rerelease of our original
Live?! Like a Suicide
EP, which on the vinyl and cassette releases was the G side (aka the A side). The B side was labeled R. We recorded the new tracks at the Record Plant recording studio off Sunset by Paramount Studios. The entire process was done over a single weekend. I played on three songs and didn’t stay a second longer than I needed to. I couldn’t wait to get back to Cheryl and party with her.

Now, I regret how quickly I took off. I think I missed out on some special band moments. But there’s no way I could have known that at the time. To me, my work was complete, done. I never left the studio without everyone signing off on my work. It’s just that some songs, like the single “Patience,” really needed no percussion whatsoever. I was familiar with the song, and I actually thought it was a great idea to keep it strictly acoustic with no drums.