Last of the Giants

by Mick Wall

  It was a transformative moment for Duff McKagan. Just like Izzy, his days of hedonistic excess were now over. Others in Guns N’ Roses were still to reach that point in their journey.

  ‘I knew there were times I could have pulled up and been a real voice of reason, because I think I was looked at as a voice of reason in that band,’ Duff told Jon Hotten in 2011. ‘I didn’t know how to and I didn’t do it, but at least in my lifetime I have come to terms with it. I think the path of Guns happened the only way it could have happened. It was fucked up from the beginning, it was beautiful and fucked up.’

  In 1990, Slash had told Rolling Stone, ‘We really would all feel sort of lost and lonely if it fell apart and we had to go out and do solo records, because it wouldn’t be Guns. None of us could reproduce that. Axl’s got so much charisma – he’s one of the best singers around. It’s his personality. He can go out and do something. What freaks me out is if the band falls apart, I’ll never be able to shake the fact that I’m the ex-Guns N’ Roses guitar player. And that’s almost like selling your soul.’

  Five years later the ‘For Sale’ signs were now up. For Slash, the big turning point in his personal relationship with Axl had been reached on the summer tour of 1992. ‘At some point during the Metallica shows, I just lost Axl,’ he told me. ‘I just didn’t know where he was at any more. I didn’t know where I was at any more! Steven was already gone, and then losing Izzy … And it was all nothing we had control of. Everything was kind of … out of hand. Then all of a sudden, we got off the road after two and a half years of touring, and everything just kind of … stopped. Dead.’

  Slash spent the early weeks and months of 1994 writing new material for the next Guns N’ Roses album, drawing from a Geffen advance worth $10 million – crazy fuck-you money. No lyrics yet, that was Axl’s department. But a plethora of dirty riffs and moody melodies, songs without titles that carried on from where he’d left off on six-string-razor tracks from the Illusions albums like ‘Garden of Eden’ and ‘Locomotive’.

  But when he sent Axl a demo tape of what he had so far, the singer rejected them wholesale. Hurt but defiant, Slash decided to use them as a launchpad for a solo album of his own under the aegis of a new ‘band’ to be called Slash’s Snakepit. Not only that, but he hired Mike Clink to produce it for him, and invited Gilby, Matt and Dizzy to contribute to it. He also hired the frontman of Jellyfish, Eric Dover, to be his new singer – a 27-year-old powerhouse vocalist not a million miles in style away from Axl at his most ferocious.

  When the album, titled It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, was eventually released on Geffen in February 1995, commercially it was a flop. Critics were mostly kind, acknowledging that Slash’s playing was as scintillating as ever, but almost unanimously wondering where the songs were?

  Doug Goldstein tells the story of Tom Zutaut calling him about the album. ‘He said, “Look, have you heard the record?” I said no. He said, “You need to. It’s abysmal. I can’t put it out.” I said, “Well, you’re the A&R guy, you need to tell him.” He goes, “Never gonna happen. Not a fucking chance. There’s no way that I’m gonna tell him that his record sucks. That’s your job.” I go, “It’s not my fucking job! You’re the A&R guy. This is what you do.” He goes, “I’m just telling you. I’m not fucking doing it, and I’m not putting it out.”’

  Goldstein phoned Eddie Rosenblatt, and told him what Zutaut had said, and how he was refusing to be the one to tell Slash. ‘Eddie goes, “Well, I’m not!” I go, “Well, you’re a fucking big help!” He goes, “Look, you’re gonna have to tell the kid.” Great. So I called Peter Mensch and asked him what he would do. He said, “Doug, I always tell the truth to my artists, regardless. I don’t care if it’s Metallica, Def Leppard, whoever. I tell them the truth. You have an ethical responsibility to do just that.”’

  Goldstein took Slash out to eat at Hamburger Hamlet. ‘I said, “How many songs on the record?” He said, “Twelve.” I go, “Well, we’re only about twelve songs from being able to release the record.” He goes, “What?” I go, “Yeah. You’re gonna have to revisit this because the label’s saying they’re not gonna put it out.” And that was a huge issue with Slash and I. I believe that that was the falling out for him and I. I was trying to manage it at the time because I didn’t want other people getting involved. But Slash thought that I thwarted the success of that record, which just isn’t true. I worked as hard on that record as I would the Guns N’ Roses record. But you’re just not dealing with the same level of musicality, for lack of a better term. Certainly, lyrically, not even remotely close. The music wasn’t that bad. But lyrically it was just …’ He tails off. Then adds, ‘It made Axl look like a hell of an A&R guy.’

  Even Gilby now worked up enough material for a solo album. Only Axl, who would retreat into the Malibu hills and the strange half-life of the reclusive rock star, had no plans for music outside of Guns N’ Roses. He didn’t need to. Though the outside world hadn’t become aware of it yet, W. Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses were now indivisible – legally.

  In 2008, during a conversation on GN’R’s online forum, Axl explained how the contract that Doug Goldstein had renegotiated with Geffen contained a clause that gave Axl legal control of the use of the name ‘Guns N’ Roses’. It was a clause that wouldn’t fully detonate until 1994, when things had really begun to fall apart, but, according to the singer, it caused little upheaval at the time.

  ‘When Guns renegotiated our contract with Geffen, I had the bit about the name added in as protection for myself, as I had come up with the name and then originally started the band with it,’ he said. ‘It had more to do with management than the band, as our then manager [Alan Niven] was always trying to convince someone they should fire me. As I had stopped speaking with him, he sensed his days were numbered and was bending any ear he could, along with attempting to sell our renegotiation out for a personal payday from Geffen.

  ‘It was added to the contract and everyone signed off on it. It wasn’t hidden in fine print, etc., as you had to initial the section verifying you had acknowledged it. Now, at that time, I didn’t know or think about brand names or corporate value etc. All I knew is that I came in with the name and from day one everyone had agreed to it being mine should we break up, and now it was in writing. I still didn’t grasp any other issues until long after I’d left and formed a new partnership which was only an effort to salvage Guns, not steal it.’

  Beautiful logic. Fucked-up repercussions. There were now just three original band members left in Guns N’ Roses, but only one of them owned the name. According to Doug Goldstein, though, things weren’t quite that simple. ‘The most important date in the band’s history is July fifth of ’93,’ he says. ‘What transpired on that day, the band was in Barcelona, Spain, and I’m given a directive to go to Axl’s room. Axl says, “Look, either the band signs their rights to the name back to me or I’m not going onstage and there will be a riot and people will die and that will be on them.” Well, I’m not a dumb guy. If you present a contract like that, that’s signing under duress. You might as well wipe your ass with that contract.’

  Maybe so, but on that night in Barcelona neither Slash nor Duff saw things like that. As Duff relates in his memoir, he and Slash were handed documents signing over the band’s name to Axl a short time before going onstage that night, by their tour manager. ‘What the fuck?’ Duff asked. Only to be told it was simply about the fact that he and Slash were ‘not in good shape’ and that if one of them died ‘nobody wants to have to spend years battling your families or whatever’. According to Duff, though, ‘There was nothing about death in these documents.’

  In the end, convinced, as Duff writes, that, Guns N’ Roses could not ‘possibly exist without us’, he and Slash signed. Anything to get this shit out of the way and the band onstage without any more hassle. ‘I was so fucking exhausted,’ explained Duff. ‘It felt as though I’d been dragging a house around behind for me for those two years.’

 
Now, a year later, the reality of the situation began to kick in. Slash and Duff still owned their equity in Guns N’ Roses – but not the name, and as Mick Jagger, David Lee Roth, Liam and Noel Gallagher, even Paul McCartney would attest, in the music biz it’s the name of your band that counts for everything. Suddenly, the hideous truth dawned: Slash and Duff no longer had a real say in whatever direction Guns N’ Roses took next, because Guns N’ Roses now in effect belonged to Axl. Slash and Duff didn’t even have a manager to turn to for help. Doug Goldstein had long since recognised that there would never be an active, working Guns N’ Roses without the consent of Axl Rose. All that had changed in that regard was that it was now official.

  As Stephanie Fanning says, Axl ‘put the screws to the band, took the name. The things that he’s done, for whatever reason he does things, he had the power, he used it. And at that point Doug went with it and did stay loyal and went with Axl – and so did the band.’

  After that, she says, ‘it was just a downward spiral … I don’t wanna take away from Doug but Doug is a yes man. He’s a sweetheart. He’s a great guy. But it was easier to just go along with it and just kind of keep your mouth shut. He’s keeping his job, he’s staying the manager, one of the biggest managers in the world, and that’s what he chose to do. And for maybe a couple of years of the Illusion tour it worked.’

  Now, though, things quickly began to unravel. When Slash showed at LA’s Complex studios in August 1994 for the recording of a cover of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ intended for the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt movie Interview with the Vampire, he was mortified to be told that Axl had brought in his own replacement for Gilby – an old pal from Lafayette named Paul Huge. According to an insider, Huge was a ‘nice enough guy’, but ‘they’re Guns N’ Roses, for God’s sake’. Huge was simply ‘not that good’ and didn’t have ‘the chops’. Or as Slash later put it: ‘Paul is in my mind completely useless. I hate that guy. I’m sorry, I’m sure he’s very nice, but in a rock’n’roll context he’s pathetic. As far as his relationship with [Axl], they’re Indiana kids, I can understand he feels comfortable, but I refuse to ever play with [Paul] again.’

  Axl, however, was not prepared to take no for an answer. To his mind, Huge was the perfect replacement for Izzy. As a guitarist, he wasn’t in the same league as a Slash. He didn’t need to be. He just needed to play the chords he was given. More importantly, from Axl’s point of view, Paul was a genuine friend – something he was no longer sure either Slash or Duff were. And though he was loath to admit it, Axl needed somebody like that right then. Somebody he could trust not to talk trash about him behind his back. Somebody who looked up to him and would be forever grateful for the opportunity Axl had given him. Somebody who would never challenge him.

  This, though, would be the final straw for Slash. Unwittingly, Slash now found himself asking Axl to choose between his original, and arguably most important, musical sidekick or his old school pal. Cornered, threatened, Axl did what he always did in that situation and simply dug in. He chose his old school pal.

  It didn’t have to be that way. Not according to Doug Goldstein, who insists that Axl had been open to Slash and Duff bringing in their own choice of replacement for Gilby, but that they simply gave up and allowed Axl to have his own way. ‘I’d get these frustrated calls from Slash primarily, and Duff occasionally, saying, “Look, get this fucking guy out of there.’ Slash would call and say, “I fucking hate the guy. He’s an asshole. He can’t play …” And I would say, “Then – find – someone – else.” But they wouldn’t even look for somebody else.’

  In fact, there had been several attempts to bring someone else in before Paul Huge appeared on the scene. First, Slash had bent over backwards trying to keep Gilby in the band – leading to Gilby finding himself fired three times from the band in as many months. Then there was talk of Ozzy Osbourne’s former guitarist, Zakk Wylde, coming in. Goldstein managed Wylde’s solo project, Pride and Glory, and Zakk was already drinking buddies with Slash. But Zakk was a star lead player and Slash objected furiously to the suggestion that he should share solos. There was a revival of the idea of having Dave Navarro join, but again Slash rejected that out of hand for much the same reason.

  ‘Slash just kept saying, “You know what? I’m not fucking sharing solos. Fuck this. I am not even remotely interested,”’ says Goldstein. ‘Had Slash been a little more pliable to that end Guns N’ Roses never would have broken up.’

  In a rare interview in 2002, Axl still insisted that Paul Huge ‘was one of the best people we knew who was both available and capable of complementing Slash’s style … Paul was only interested in complementing Slash, laying down a foundation of a riff or something. That would accent or encourage Slash’s lead playing.’

  Slash would have none of it, though, insisting that he’d actually made his mind up to leave Guns N’ Roses the day after discovering Huge in the studio, saying he couldn’t even sleep that night he was so distraught. ‘I was suicidal. If I’d had a gun with me at that time, I probably would have done myself in. If I’d had a half-ounce of fucking heroin with me, I probably just would’ve gone. It was heavy. It was a headspace I’d never been in before. Somehow I managed to go back to sleep. Then, when I woke up later that morning, I made a decision.’ At which point, ‘I felt the whole weight of the world drop.’

  *

  Everyone now had more on their minds than just the band. They were all worried for their lives. Axl especially. As well as trying to solve the riddle of what to do about Slash, he now had the ignominy of facing his ex-wife, Erin Everly, and ex-fiancée, Stephanie Seymour, across a crowded courtroom. Axl had broken up with Seymour in 1993, in the aftermath of a terrible row between the two at Christmas.

  When they had first got together, Axl gave a phone interview to Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine in which he talked about his new affair with Stephanie. When the piece ran it was accompanied by pictures of Axl and Stephanie French-kissing. Axl was quoted as saying, ‘Steph and I have a really good time talking with each other and we want to try to see if we can have that, in our lives, for our lives. We don’t know, but we’re definitely trying to communicate as much as we can.’

  He went on: ‘Sometimes your friends are your lovers, or have been at one time, or are at some time or are at different times. Maintaining the friendship and taking the responsibility of being a friend and also helping the other person be a friend to you, and expressing your feelings about your friendship … Stephanie and I do that with each other. It’s a good thing.’

  But that was then. Now, in 1994, according to Seymour’s sworn declaration in connection with the legal action she was taking against him, the trouble began after ‘a verbal argument’ Stephanie had had with Axl, after which he ‘announced that there would be no Christmas party’. She went on: ‘Guests began to arrive in the late afternoon [and] at some point in the middle of the party, [Axl] entered the house, slammed the door, was obviously very angry, went upstairs and then came downstairs and left the house again.’ When Seymour’s mother tried speaking to him, Axl ‘began yelling and screaming at her and ultimately told her in no uncertain terms that she was not welcome in his house. Thereafter, most of the people at the party left.’

  Seymour went on to claim that once they were alone Axl had pushed over a kitchen table, sending bottles and glasses smashing to the floor. According to Seymour’s testimony, Axl then grabbed her by the throat and dragged her barefoot through the broken glass. Axl would respond by claiming Seymour had grabbed his testicles and that he was merely defending himself. Inevitably, it was left to Doug Goldstein to try and fix things. ‘I had to drive up there to kind of clean up that mess. Not literally, but emotionally. Because he was distraught and down and … I loved the guy to death so I wanted to be there for him.’ Trying to put Axl back together again after a major meltdown had become a regular practice, says Goldstein. ‘It wasn’t something that only transpired through that two-year peri
od.’ In the end, he says, ‘I was making those trips for seventeen years. He could go a week long, where I’d talk to him and he’d be in tears. I could never really figure out the derivation. I would just try to be here for him … Clearly the relationship stuff with Stephanie really got to him. I mean, really got to him. He loved her to death …’

  Axl and Stephanie had had bad fallings out before, but they had always made up again. Goldstein recalls after one bad break Axl phoning him and asking: ‘“Do you know anybody with a white horse?” They had split and he was trying to win her back. I said, “Let me see what I can do.”’ Goldstein, who prided himself on always being able to come up with whatever bizarre requests his boss made, made the arrangements and the next day a trailer containing a white Arabian charger showed up outside Stephanie’s Hollywood home.

  ‘Axl gets on the horse and pulls up to the front door, and I knock on the door and go hide in the bushes.’ Next thing, ‘He’s on the horse apologising to her and, you know what, honest to god, it was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen. I’m hiding in the bushes watching this guy. I mean, he’s pouring his heart and soul out. He’s never been on a horse in his fucking life! And the horse is moving back and forth and he has no idea how to control it. It was just adorable. What we do for love …’

  By 1994, however, the relationship had broken down so badly that Seymour was ready to take Axl to court, claiming compensation for certain ‘domestic’ issues she alleged she had been a victim of. Axl was devastated. He knew Stephanie had begun seeing a millionaire businessman, Peter Brant. (According to a former Geffen employee, Axl had managed to obtain a photograph of Brant’s wife, Sandra, which he sent to Yoda, in order to ‘cast a spell around Sandra to protect her from Peter, because he felt that she, too, had been cuckolded [sic] as he had been, and he had a great deal of sympathy for her’.) Nevertheless, Axl had always hoped for some form of reconciliation with Stephanie. This lawsuit crushed that hope.