June 1985: Sunset Superstars – Guns N’Roses outpace all the other hair metallers in Los Angeles
“When the drugs and the yes men came, the band went to the dogs,” remembers bassist Duff McKagan of his time with Guns N’Roses. “But some nights we were the best damn band on the planet!” Their first gig in June 1985 wasn’t one of them. When McKagan, guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin, drummer Steven Adler and singer W. Axl Rose made their Troubadour debut that night, the audience consisted of exactly two people. Back then, the Sunset Strip was the capital of hair metal, where aspiring young rockers formed droves of bands modeled on local legends Mötley Crüe.
But that obviously wasn’t enough: on the very night she sang the heroin anthem “Mr. Brownstone,” Slash overdosed. “We tried Mexican heroin – Izzy and his girlfriend brought me back,” he says. “Those were fun times.” …There was no bathroom, no shower, no kitchen. It was so narrow that only three people could sleep at the same time. Most of “Appetite For Destruction” was written in this dreary place. “One night we got some acoustic guitars and bongos and wrote ‘Nighttrain,’” McKagan says. “We drank Night Train because it was only $1.19 a bottle and it made you feel like you were drunk and on acid at the same time.”
Guns N’ Roses currently:
If there’s one band that has taken the saying “good things take time” to heart, it’s Guns N’ Roses. They like to go to concerts 180 minutes, significantly longer than those of other artists. In an interview, bassist Duff McKagan reveals what’s behind the longer-than-average live performances and why they don’t shorten them.
“There are just too many songs”
Opposite “Heavy Music” McKagan discusses how he and the other band members feel about the extensive setlists: “Man, Axl loves it – you know, I think it’s – damn, it’s like, what songs do you take out, you know, when Do you want to play for a shorter time?” He himself experiences a dichotomy in this regard: “Don’t get me wrong – my body would love it if we only played for two and a half hours. Most bands play for two hours. Two hours and 10 minutes or so and we play for three hours and thirty minutes. I would like to play for a shorter time because then I would have less pain the next day. But there are just too many songs and people stay the whole time. Nobody goes, so it’s like, ‘Okay, they have to like it.'”
Duff McKagan in an interview:
“I really love it”
McKagan explains that her own enthusiasm for the songs basically guides the decisions: “We pull out other songs. I really love playing ‘Bad Obsession’, you know? ‘Pretty Tied Up’. This is so great… We all play them. ‘Reckless’ and ‘Shadow’. I look at Axl and say, ‘Yeah, are you sure, man? We have to play again in a few nights.’”
But her strong motivation has left its mark in the past: “But he’s a monster, man, that guy. Axl. Like its longevity. We just had to cancel one show because of the singing because he got a swelling – no surprise – a swelling on one side. He still wanted to do the gig and the doctor said: ‘You could ruin your voice forever’. A few years ago we canceled a show in Glasgow. We made up for it.”