My Appetite For Destruction (33 page)

I just wanted money when I needed it. He could see that I was always fucked up and clueless, so he must have thought it was a sweet situation. Who was going to find out he was bleeding me, getting rich off me? He figured I’d die soon enough, so he set out to gouge me with a vengeance while he could.

“Stevie, I need you to sign this,” he’d say. Then I’d ask, “Oh hey, can you give me a thousand dollars?” He set me up with an
ATM
card that allowed me $300 from the machine daily. You’d think $300 would be good enough for one day, but almost every day I found myself walking into a bank branch to withdraw more than the
ATM
allowed. I was buying everything that I could get my hands on, coke, heroin, pills, weed, whatever.

The final time Josh cheated me, he got me good. He had me sign a check and claimed that it was for taxes. He said, “If they don’t ask for it after a while, you can just keep the money.”

I was so naive. “Oh, okay, great.”

A few months later, I asked him, “Hey, what ever happened to that tax money?” He said there never was a tax money issue; I never signed anything of the sort. “Steven, you know how you are. You were probably high and signed an autograph or something.” I was immediately pissed. What!?

How dare he try to dismiss the matter by saying I was delusional? My driver at the time was a woman named Mary. Thank God she was present when we had the meeting in question. She knew from the beginning that I had signed a personal check and felt it was cagey. She reminded me that she had originally brought it up to me because she thought it was suspect, but I wouldn’t believe that Josh was being dishonest. He lived like a king off me for years, but after I had everything audited by an independent service, he was out. No court case, no fanfare, no threats, just count your blessings that I let you drain me for this long and get the fuck out of my life.

W
ith Lieber gone, the coffers were suddenly wide open. I upped my intake of everything and ended up barely cheating death again. I drove my Jeep to get some heroin, and as soon as I scored I pulled alongside the road and attempted to shoot up. I couldn’t get it in a vein, so I just shot it randomly in my arm. I resumed driving to get some sodas and beers. I turned the corner, and the next thing I know, I’m crawling up the sidewalk in a dusty haze. Some guy ran over to me. I looked up at him and he was just going on and on. “Oh my God. It’s a miracle!”

I had sideswiped four parked cars before crashing between two others. The front end of my Jeep was pushed in past the windshield. I escaped with a bump on my forehead and a little cut on my eyebrow. While the eyewitness was going on about my good fortune, I passed out on the sidewalk and woke up in the hospital.

Later I was charged with driving under the influence and lost my license. But when you’re an addict and you have places to go, having or not having a license doesn’t really slow you down.

A
court order gave me three months to turn in a clean urine test. I knew I was very fortunate because they could have stuck me in jail. I felt that even I could pass a drug test given that much time. I figured getting out of L.A. would give me a better chance to clean up, so I rented a house in San Francisco, where I intended to detox (at some point). The first month I partied insanely. My good friend Steven Sprite accompanied me. Steve didn’t party. He didn’t want me to spend all my time in the apartment and occasionally talked me into going out. I’m so glad he did, because we went to a local bar where the center of attention was a blond-haired bombshell. This was a girl I absolutely had to meet. With my usual confidence I approached her. Her name was Cherry. We went back to her place and hung out a bit. We exchanged numbers, and she eventually became my girl of choice, a special friend for life.

While in Frisco, I also got to hang out with my ex-bandmate and local resident Davy Vain. Davy has a big heart and had forgiven me for fucking up our band’s recording contract. One night we were on a rooftop in the city and found ourselves sharing the evening with Linda Perry, former 4 Non Blondes front woman and current A-list producer. I thought she was so hot.

Being in Frisco was a blessing in disguise. I had rented a room in my Calabasas home to a friend of my brother, Weasel. Just before I left we had acquired some really good pot seeds. I gave him a bit of cash, and he fixed one of the closets up as a green room. He was familiar with the complete growing process. The walls were layered with foil and he used special equipment, such as timers and growing lights. It was a convenient situation for all. Weasel could live in a great home for low rent, and I’d be able to smoke some choice weed when I returned. I couldn’t imagine anything going wrong with this arrangement.

Then I received an urgent call from Weasel. Cops had come pounding on the door. They had obtained a warrant and searched my house. When I asked why, I was horrified by the explanation. My ex-assistant, Rocko the pervert, introduced to me by Davy, had been living in Santa Rosa. Now this terminal whack job, who had tried to videotape unsuspecting people in my bathroom through a hole in the ceiling, had just been arrested for suspicion of murder. What the fuck?

Apparently, he was kidnapping girls, drugging them, and then videotaping the unconscious victims in various positions and sex acts. The drugs he was giving them were so powerful that the girls would awaken on the side of a road somewhere with only a nagging suspicion that something had gone wrong. I was blown away to learn that the cops had found a badly decomposed body in his yard!

Rocko must have eventually fucked up on the girls’ drug dosages, because all of a sudden one girl did remember. Then another. They gave the police enough information to lead them to Rocko. They raided his home and found dozens of videotapes containing the graphic rape footage. They also found pictures. Among the motley assortment were pictures of my ex-girl Analise and my mom, Deanna. One had been taped in the shower and the other on the toilet!

Rocko had been spying on us and taking pictures the whole time he had been staying with me. I felt so terrible that I had allowed such a monster under my roof. Especially for my mom and Analise. Their privacy had been horribly violated. But I thank God that his madness fell short of doing anything worse to us.

Here’s the biggest kick in the balls: Rocko told the cops that he was able to finance his disgusting habits because he lived with and worked for me. I told them that I never had any sort of social relationship with the guy. He was a gofer for me and that was it.

During the routine search of my home, the cops discovered our growing room. We had three or four plants in midbloom. In court, Weasel and I both pleaded the fifth. He was just renting a room there and had no idea what was growing in the closet. I was away for two months cleaning out, unaware that such mischief was happening in my home. Our strategy worked and we got out of it without any hassles.

F
rom time to time I would drive up to San Francisco to see Cherry. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and I knew she saw other guys. One time I got sidetracked on the way with Laurie, a woman who was cutting my hair at the time. We were hanging at her place and I was just smoking a little rock. Now, Laurie smoked speed and she was entirely spun on the shit. She had her stereo cranked and kept on playing it into the night. To make matters worse, the music was that techno shit. I had a bottle of Valium and I had already taken eight V’s to combat the noise. Even though I moved to another room, I could hear it through the walls, a constant annoying
thump, thump, thump.
There was no way I would be able to sleep so I had to get out of there. At five a.m. I took off. I hopped in the Bronco and headed for Cherry’s. Not a good idea.

I
was fucked up from the pills, swerving on the road. Cops pulled me over somewhere around Bakersfield. I didn’t want them to confiscate my last ten hits of Valium, so I quickly popped them in my mouth. Next thing I remember someone’s shaking me, yelling, “Adler. Adler!” I was lying on the jail cell floor. I had been there all day. They let me out, but it was pitch-black, and I was in the middle of nowhere.

Two other guys who had been released at the same time gave me a ride to the bus station. I was freezing, shivering uncontrollably. I went into a gift shop and stole a shirt to help me warm up. The security guard saw me and tackled me. He was this huge fat guy who proudly said to me, “I may be big, but I’m fast.”

I told him, “You idiot. You may be fat but you’re an asshole. You just caught someone who’s on eighteen Valiums.”

He called the cops, and it was the same guys who’d picked me up earlier. They drove me down the road two blocks and let me go. This time they just told me, “Get the fuck out of our town. Now.” I got my truck out of impound and took off. If I had just gone to Cherry’s none of this would have happened.

B
y 1996 I was hanging with Cherry more and more often. I just enjoyed her company without having to be high. I stopped partying almost completely, had gained weight, and looked healthier. The TV news magazine
Hard Copy
caught wind of my recovery from addiction, and they contacted me, wanting to do a story. I proudly accepted. My brother Jamie was quickly establishing himself in Hollywood as a talent agent. He contacted a nearby club and arranged for me to play with a band that would be performing there. This allowed
Hard Copy
to get some shots of me playing live. While I was there, I was struck by the aura of a man sitting at the bar. He was wearing a huge sheepskin jacket, and as far as I was concerned, he had “it.” He introduced himself as Steffan Adikka. He was a musician who was in a band with the exceptionally talented Gilby Clarke. Gilby had replaced Izzy in Guns N’ Roses in 1991 and subsequently left the group in 1994. My brother was booking bands exclusively for Billboard Live, which occupied the space of the now defunct Gazzarri’s. So I asked Steffan and Gilby if they would like to form a new band. They lit up. “Fuck yeah!”

Steffan worked in a lingerie store in Hollywood. I was struck by an underwear line that spoofed Fruit of the Loom. The label said “Freaks in the Room.” I thought that was so great. I asked the guys what they thought, and shortly after, that’s what we christened ourselves. We became Billboard Live’s house band, Freaks in the Room, playing every Monday.

T
o promote the band, I made an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio program in New York. I didn’t want Howard to tear me apart, which can happen, so I brought two porn stars with me in an effort to distract him from zeroing in on me too much. I rented a limo, and I brought Steffan and my brother along too. At least a half dozen times, I would have the limo stop. I’d kick the guys out so I could have sex with the girls. Then I’d open the door and invite the guys back in.

I love Howard Stern, and I’m pretty sure he knows it. That day Howard showed me nothing but respect. He seemed to think that I was the coolest guy. “How the hell do you get kicked out of Guns N’ Roses for doing drugs?” he asked. He was impressed by my tattoos too. “This guy is hard. He’s got tattoos on his hands.” During the broadcast, I extended an open invitation to my former Guns N’ Roses bandmates to join me at Billboard Live anytime. Imagine my surprise when Slash actually took me up on it. He joined us onstage for “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” But it wasn’t the reunion I would have wished for. It was very awkward and strange. In fact neither of us could bring ourselves to say more than a few words to each other. Very uncomfortable, but in a strange way, somewhat healing. I love Slash. I hate Slash. I love Slash. You get the idea.

Freaks in the Room had been together for only about two months when it became obvious that it was not to last. One evening during a performance, the sound was incredibly screwed up. I could not hear anything. I tried my best to maintain a groove but all I heard was mush. Gilby stopped playing and yelled at me right there, on the fucking stage. “Get your shit together, you fuckup.” I wasn’t high, I wasn’t drunk, the monitors were just a garbled mess and it was impossible to keep the beat. I yelled back, “Fuck you!” That was the last time the freaks entered the room.

I got myself an apartment in Studio City right off Ventura and Laurel Canyon, near Jerry’s Deli, where the golf range is. A neighbor discovered that I was living there and stopped by one afternoon. He brought some beer and weed. He was a fan and also a guitar player. He introduced me to his roommate and sister, Debbie. The three of us became fast friends. Debbie would cook all the time and every day she would invite me over for something to eat. I could never turn down a home-cooked meal. I wasn’t terribly attracted to her, but she was cute enough, your typical sassy Italian girl from New York. It was purely out of convenience that I started having sex with her.

Debbie had an odd relationship with her brother. He wanted to have a sex change. He already had had plastic surgery on his face and a boob job. I saw pictures of him before the operations. He had a real big nose and long curly hair, looking nothing at all like his sister. But now, after the procedures, he looked just like her. It appeared to me as though he was changing himself in her image. I thought it was a scary infatuation, kind of like Michael Jackson’s obsession with Diana Ross. Regardless, he/she was a nice person and the siblings were close.

A
few days before my twenty-seventh birthday, I went to New York with them. My sole reason for going was to ice-skate at Rockefeller Center. I also got wind of a 1968 North drum set that was for sale. This was a particularly rare collectible, with four toms up front, a floor tom, and a double bass. It was a classic without a scratch. What drew me to it was that fateful moment in 1980 when Slash and I pulled back the curtain on Nikki Sixx and London at the Starwood. Their drummer played an identical North set, only in white. Now, I was gonna have one of my own for only $2,000. I got the guy’s phone number and assured him that I would be in touch in a few days to make arrangements.