Slash (37 page)

There couldn’t have been a better way for Steven to reveal to us that he’d been lying about being clean—even a full confession wouldn’t have come off as honestly as his playing at that show. It was obvious we had a real problem. He was using, and had probably been using in his room up until the minute before leaving for the venue. Afterward, he was still in denial, and as open and social as ever. It was so awkward and uncomfortable talking to a guy who you know in his mind is thinking the exact opposite of what he’s saying. His whole presentation was drowned in bullshit.

At this point the truth was that if his playing had been fine, I don’t think anyone would have cared what he was doing to himself—at least I wouldn’t have. If you can handle both the music and the drugs, more power to you. We weren’t really concerned for Steven’s health as much as we were pissed off that his addiction was handicapping his performance, and therefore the rest of us. Since the bass and drums are the foundation of any rock band, the situation was very disconcerting all around.

Farm Aid was the last show we ever played with him. When we got back to L.A., Steven got even worse—I don’t know, maybe because he knew the end was near, or maybe because heroin is that shrewd of a devil.
There were a few more rehab stints, but they were short-lived, maybe twenty-four to forty-eight hours at a time. The last straw came when we were asked to donate a track to a charity album called “Nobody’s Child,” which benefited Romanian children orphaned during the Romanian revolution in 1989. We thought it’d be a great forum for “Civil War.” By then we were completely alienated from Steven. In that session, there was us and there was him. After it was finished, before Mike Clink could mix it, he found that he had to cut and paste the whole drum track together. These were the days before digital recording, so Mike was working on tape and it took him hours and hours in the editing bay to get the song to function timingwise.

The writing was on the wall, and things quickly came to a head. Axl’s patience as far as Steve went was long gone, so we had the inevitable get-together to discuss the situation; with Alan’s support, Axl insisted that we give Steven a written ultimatum. It was a contract that Steve was forced to sign, that at best we hoped would scare him sober and at worst would orchestrate his departure from the band. The paperwork was clear; it said that if Steven showed up high to recording sessions, he’d be fined. If he did this three times, he’d be fired, or something along those lines. Steven signed it, he agreed to all of the terms, and like anyone caught in the throes of smack, he ignored all of the promises he made and continued the way he had been. He made one effort—he tried Buprinex, but he was too weak to kick the smack altogether.

In my eyes, it seemed to me that Axl didn’t like Steven. Steven had an unbridled enthusiasm for drums and rock and roll and life in general. He was hyper and totally fun to be around. But he was also blatantly honest and outspoken about his opinions to Axl or anyone else in the band. Oftentimes his opinion was in Axl’s face, which wasn’t the way that Axl operated. Steven was unfiltered, saying exactly what he felt and he didn’t pussyfoot around. Duff and I were used to it and took Steven’s comments with a grain of salt, so we could tune him out. But Axl was more sensitive than we were, which Duff and I also understood. With Axl, I didn’t want to slow things down at a rehearsal or a studio by confronting him with his lateness or whatever. But Steven would make a comment or get in his face and that
never
worked. But Steven could never be calculated; whatever he blurted out was always true; it was an innocent side effect of his personality. Unfortunately, up against Axl’s hyperemotional sensitivity level, I’m sure Steven offended Axl more often than not without even knowing it. I can see how Steven inadvertently pushed Axl’s buttons; but that said, I don’t think Axl ever really gave Steven his just credit for what he brought to Guns musically, which was a dynamic that I think hurt Steven. But what do I know? There is probably much more to it than that which I can’t speak to.

Axl had made his feelings about Steven clear back in preproduction for
Appetite
. When were close to wrapping the album, it came time to discuss writing credits and publishing on the songs. We talked about it standing onstage at Burbank Studios, and someone proposed that as a band we should split the royalties evenly five ways—20 percent each.

Axl scowled. “There’s no
way
Steven gets twenty percent, the same as I do. Uh-uh,” he said. “I want twenty-five percent and Steven gets fifteen. He’s a drummer. He doesn’t contribute to the writing as equally as the rest of us.” That was the compromise we agreed to: Axl got 25 percent; me, Izzy, and Duff 20 percent; and Steven 15 percent. I think Steven was permanently scarred by that.

I’m not sure of the exact timetable, but it didn’t take long for Steven to violate the terms of the sobriety contract we handed him, and once he did, he was done for. It wasn’t easy for me to allow, because as I’ve said, the simple truth is that Steven never had the kind of strength to give that stuff up easily—if he’ll ever give it up at all. But at that point, everyone had tried to help him—girlfriends, friends, management experts—nothing resonated with him enough to work on the problem. At this point in particular, Steven was a Catch-22, because as much as I would have hung around long enough to get him together, if the band lost its momentum it might mean the end of us. We were too many variables and complex characters, and now that we were all getting along, the window of opportunity was open—but it probably wouldn’t stay that way for long. I couldn’t deny the fact that kicking Steven out of Guns N’ Roses for drug abuse was kind of ridiculous and excessively harsh. It was also so hypocritical. Think about it, it sounds like a joke: “He got kicked out of Guns N’ Roses for
drugs
? Are you
kidding
? How does that happen?”

All I remember is that the next time I saw Steve was in court, because he sued us, which seemed asinine. He was in such bad shape that I knew what he was doing when he headed to the bathroom in the middle of the proceedings. He sued us for a couple million bucks for a glitch in the execution of his sobriety contract. He needed to have an attorney present when he signed it, and he hadn’t had one. Of course, thanks to our attorneys, we didn’t know this. I was shocked when I found out that Steven won his lawsuit and we had to pay him two million bucks.

As difficult as it was, at least it was over. Now it was time to find a new drummer.

THAT ARDUOUS TASK FELL TO DUFF AND
Izzy and me. We set up shop near Alan Niven’s office in Redondo Beach, in a little rehearsal studio, where I realized after the very first day of auditions how fucking difficult it was going to be. In the back of my mind I thought, “
Sure, anybody can play drums
.” Right…the three of us thought that finding a replacement would be easy considering that our songs were all pretty straight-ahead 4/4 rock rhythms with few fancy time changes—how hard could that be? After all, if we’d pulled it off with Fred Curry when Steven was injured, the prospects looked good. After a few horrible days of trying to play with uselessly inappropriate candidates, though, we realized the depth of our naïveté. The way a drummer plays involves such a personal feel for the rhythm and inflections on the beat that affect the entire vibe of the song—and the entire band for which he keeps time.

We ditched Redondo Beach and returned to Mates to undertake a more thorough search. We tried out Martin Chambers from the Pretenders, who is a great drummer and a great guy, but we should have known that it wasn’t going to work out the minute he walked in with that huge octopus drum kit he used with the Pretenders. It was more, for want of a better word,
fantastic
than your average drum kit. That thing had round poles that came over the top of it with cymbals hanging from them—it was just ridiculous. He was setting it all up while Duff tuned up and got ready to play with him for a bit; Duff was the front line. He and the drum
mer had to click, first of all—if they didn’t, there was no point in Izzy or me even picking up a guitar.

I was in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, reading a magazine, when Martin and Duff started playing, and as I listened through the door, I thought,
Oh boy
. I was making something more appealing than what I was hearing at that moment, which just goes to show that putting great players in the same room doesn’t mean that they will sound great together. Making great music is much more complicated; it’s about chemistry and the commingling of the players’ stylistic ticks. It’s nowhere near as simple as the sum of the parts; it’s more like building Frankenstein’s monster: you need ingenuity…and lightning.

When I came out of the bathroom, Duff was still playing but he shot me a look that said it all, so needless to say, Martin didn’t work out. We were fucked, because at the time, Martin was our best bet at the end of a short list that we’d already exhausted. To Steven’s credit, and unbeknownst to most, the feel and energy of
Appetite
was largely due to him. He had an inimitable style of drumming that couldn’t really be replaced, an almost adolescent levity that gave the band its spark.

All at once the momentum we’d built over the last few months came to a standstill and although I didn’t show it, I was panicked. I thought,
This is it, we’re done.
I was convinced that Guns N’ Roses would break up because we couldn’t find a drummer. And I was worried about what I would do with myself if we did.

DURING THIS TIME DUFF AND I WERE
pretty inseparable. He had split up with Mandy, so we’d go out when the band wasn’t working—more often than not, to Bordello’s, a club owned by former Cathouse founder Riki Rachtman. That place was great, there was a little jam room in the back where a blues band would get up and play, and I would usually end up sitting in on a few songs. That place was so much fun—we’d just go there and drink and jam. But the truth is, even if you’re famous and everyone loves you and this and that, after a while that scene or any scene, to me at least, becomes sort of miserable, dull, and monotonous.
After you’ve done it twice, maybe three times, it is nothing but boring. Even to this day, the Hollywood rock-club scene does nothing for me; it’s all there, and as much as times and styles have changed, it’s all still the same. If you’ve just played a gig and you need to blow off some steam, it’s great, but if you’re just hanging around town, it’s like being in some blown-out cliché: from the chicks on down, it’s a cliché of what all the kids think life is going to be like if they become rock stars. It’s not a mirage that I want to be a part of.

What I’m getting at is that generally I preferred to stay at home, drink all day, listen to records, and play guitar and write music. I wasn’t reclusive in the way I’d been on smack, but in my mind, I had switched over to work mode, so going out and socializing was the last thing on my mind—I had committed to being productive and getting our band to the next level. On one of the nights that Duff coaxed me out to this place Peanuts to jam with this great little blues band, we ended up hanging out with this girl, Pilar, that he picked up. Pilar was a sexy Middle Eastern or Latin girl—I’m not sure which. She had a friend with her that I barely spoke to whose name was Renee. And Renee had this too-cool-for-school attitude; she held her head high, with this mightier-than-thou stance. She was really good-looking and she knew it, and that whole vibe locked me in like a tractor beam, because any girl that was going to fucking make my life difficult, any girl that was hard to get, was the girl to go for in my mind. In Lemmy Kilmister’s infamous words, “The chase is better than the catch.” Renee had
no
interest in what I did or any of the notoriety that came with it; she wasn’t a rock chick by any stretch of the imagination.

She was a model and aspiring actress and very independent. Within a couple of weeks I had ditched the Walnut House and was living in her place full-time. She had a great spot that her dad, before he passed away, had bought for her down on Valley Vista—I think there was a dinette set, a bed, and a couch in the whole place. Here’s how we spent our time: I’d get up in the morning and fucking lie on the floor and drink vodka and smoke cigarettes until she got up. She’d go do what she had to do that day and I’d do the same and that was our life. I watched a lot of cooking shows;
The Galloping Gourmet, Great Chefs of the East and West,
and The Food Network.
It was the start of a lifelong obsession with cooking shows, though to this day, I don’t cook at all. At night we’d order out.

That was my home life. Meanwhile, we still had this quest for a drummer going on.

ONCE WE’D EXHAUSTED ALL LOGICAL
possibilities, I for one was not going to let the hunt for a drummer end the band. Duff, Izzy, and I racked our brains. We discussed the best drummers we’d seen lately, but nobody appropriate came to mind…until one night, I had an epiphany. I recalled seeing The Cult a few months before at the Universal Amphitheater and being mesmerized by their drummer. He was fucking amazing; I was standing at the soundboard and was completely captivated by his playing. I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the band at all for the whole gig. His playing was extremely tight and his sound had enormous presence; it was big, bombastic, and delivered with intense authority. The moment I remembered him, I couldn’t believe that I’d sat through so many shitty auditions without realizing that I knew just the right guy.

Mike Clink, our producer, had worked with Matt Sorum, the drummer in question, before, so I called him immediately and left him a message. A little later, I was a bit drunk, lying on my back, my head hanging upside down over the edge of Renee’s bed, watching the phone on the floor and waiting for it to ring. Finally it did. I picked it up instantly.

“Hello?” Mike said, typically soft-spoken.

“Hey, it’s Slash,” I said. “So, hey, listen, do you know the drummer from The Cult? We need a drummer, and I saw this guy and he’s great, and I’m trying to find out if he’s available.”