Maybe I'll Get It Right Next Time...

Chapter 8: November Rain

"But lovers always come and lovers always go, and no one's really sure who's lettin' go today... walking away..."

Los Angeles, California – September 2016

"So Axl was your first love?" Brian asked me.

                "Yeah," I replied, "he was my first everything." 

                "What is it like to fall in love with Axl Rose?"

                "It was easy," I grinned, "Axl is lovable in the most innocent way, the way a child is lovable, and he loves you back with that same childlike purity. For the better part of five years, everything was perfect. He was becoming this huge star yet he always had this unique ability to make me feel like I was the only thing that mattered to him in the whole world. He loved me with an intensity that I'd never known before. He tattooed my name in scrawling letters across his chest, just above his heart. His body was marked with me. It was that kind of love. Sure, it was chaotic, but isn't that the point? Love is chaos itself. Think about it, love makes you feel as if you're descending into madness. It completely consumes you and then, eventually, it collapses under its own weight..." 

                "So what went wrong?"

I let out a long breath and sat back in my chair. Where do I even begin?

                "After Appetite was released, things started to happen really fast," I began. "It went to number one in the first year. They started touring, the money started pouring in... it felt like overnight their lives became almost unrecognizable. In the beginning, it was really exciting, watching their success, but, as the 80's came to a close, the pressure was really starting to weigh on the guys. This was a band who had exploded so quickly that years later they were still trying to catch up to what they'd become. That's when I started noticing a difference in Axl."

                "What did you notice in him?" Brian asked.

                "Axl was in no way mentally prepared for fame. By the time his debut album took off, the idea of being the most famous rock star in the world changed from being a promise to a threat. People were drawn to him for the same reason I was, he was irresistibly charismatic and you couldn't help but want to be near him. Axl was born with a natural star quality and the talent to go with it, but he had no idea what being a star was going to mean. Personally, he was incredibly private, hyper-emotional, and ultra-sensitive; all qualities that were not conducive to celebrity status. Beyond that, Axl worried a lot about his legacy. 'The goal isn't to live forever' he would say, 'the goal is to create something that will.' The pressure to put out their next album was really getting to him. He started to retreat inside himself."

                "Tell me about that."

                "It started with Axl isolating himself from the rest of the band. He started traveling on a separate bus, hiding out alone in his hotel room. Pretty soon, it would take management hours to coax him out of his dressing to go on stage. They started going on later and later, sometimes two or three hours late.

                "Their lateness is legendary."

                "As you could understand, that behavior created a lot of tension in the band. Axl was combative. Every day it was new battle."

                "Did you feel stuck in the middle?"

                "Of course! The biggest conflict was between Axl and Slash. Axl, was terrified by Slash's drug and alcohol abuse but, at the time, there was no talking to Slash about that. It caused major arguments between the two of them. Slash felt singled out because he wasn't the only guy in the band who was strung out but Axl had zeroed in on him which put me in a really awkward position. In hindsight, I understand why Axl was so focused on Slash, he relied on him the most. If it came down to it, Guns N' Rose could survive without Steven, or maybe even Izzy, but not Slash. Slash was to Axl as Keith Richards was to Mick Jagger; they needed each other. They started to disagree musically as well, Axl felt passionately that the band needed to evolve artistically, he wanted the Illusion records to be akin to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's album. But Slash wanted to stay true to their roots and make a paired down, more gritty album. In the end, Axl always ended up getting his way, I think Slash would give into him to keep the peace but resentment was building and it was driving a wedge further between the two of them. As he started to spiral downwards, Axl became really... controlling. I think it was a desperate attempt to hold on to some order when it felt like everything was falling apart, but none of us could understand it at the time. He insisted that the guys sign away their rights to the Guns N' Roses name solely to him. That was the beginning of the end, I think."