Former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven is lifting the lid on his chaotic time with certainly one of rock’s most notorious bands in a bombshell recent memoir, “Sound N’ Fury: Rock N’ Roll Stories,” set for release on August 5.
The Latest Zealand-born producer and industry veteran, who also worked with Great White, Mötley Crüe, and Dokken, opens up about what it was really like managing Axl Rose, Slash, and the remaining of the unique Guns N’ Roses lineup during their meteoric rise to fame and infamy.
Article continues below commercial
Alan Niven Says ‘No One Wanted Guns N’ Roses’
Talking to Every day Mail, Niven recalled rejecting the job thrice.
“Nobody wanted Guns N’ Roses. They’d been through at the very least two other management situations,” he said. “They couldn’t do away with them fast enough. Nobody desired to cope with them. They were a nightmare.”
He was ultimately swayed by Slash’s unexpected charisma.
“It was Slash because I discovered, one, he was English, and two, he was not only articulate, he was eloquent, he was smart, he was incredibly charming. And I’m going, ‘This is just not only a knucklehead drunk like I saw on the stage of the Troubadour where he was only a knucklehead, Sunset guitarist drunk. It is a really interesting guy. He’s smart, very charming.'”
Article continues below commercial
Alan Niven Recalls Wild First Meeting With The Band
From the moment he stepped into their world, Niven said he knew he was coping with a special breed of band.
One in every of his first meetings included a broken toilet on the front porch, a wandering stripper, and Izzy Stradlin nodding out mid-conversation. Things only escalated when Slash invited him right into a room to observe him feed a live bunny to an enormous snake.
“I turn up for a band meeting and I park my bike outside and there is this broken toilet by the front door and I’m going, ‘That is interesting symbolism,'” he recalled. “Most individuals put an enormous old pots of gorgeous flowers, but they’ve got a broken toilet by the front door. That is a special message.”
Article continues below commercial
“The door opens and out wanders this quite well-known stripper and she or he smiles and walks past,” he continued. As he walks inside, Slash reportedly said, “Let me show you something within the bedroom.”
“Oh, that’s an interesting invitation,” Niven recalls pondering on the time. “I’m going in and I freeze ’cause there’s this enormous snake in there and I hate snakes.”
“He goes, ‘Watch this.’ And he takes an ideal beautiful little white bunny and feeds it to this legless monster,” he added.
Article continues below commercial
Alan Niven Recalls The Moment The Joy Left
Despite the dysfunction, Niven saw their potential early, especially Slash and Izzy. “Izzy personified rock and roll,” he said, calling Stradlin “incredibly street smart and funky.”
But as Guns N’ Roses skyrocketed, so did the chaos.
“My sense of lighthearted joy evaporated in September of 1986 once I signed a contract with five individuals collectively referred to as Guns and Roses,” Niven joked. “From that time on, we had stress and pressure on daily basis.”
The pressure included clashes with Geffen Records co-founder David Geffen, who once demanded to know when the debut album can be finished. “When it’s done, David!” Niven recalled firing back.
Article continues below commercial
Niven Says Guns N’ Roses Was Doomed By Power Struggles, Not Drugs
Behind the scenes, drug use and deep emotional wounds haunted the band. Niven believes most band members got here from dysfunctional backgrounds and were drawn to music as a strategy to recreate a “perfect family.”
He said Axl, particularly, was deeply shaped by a traumatic childhood, though Rose wasn’t the one most consumed by drugs. “Slash, bless his heart, had an appetite for anything,” Niven said, recalling how Izzy once admitted to selling drugs to Aerosmith’s Steven Tylerand Joe Perry.
Still, Niven says it wasn’t addiction that destroyed the band. It was ego. “It became about power. It became about control,” he explained.
His own exit got here in 1991 via a sudden phone call from Axl Rose. “I can’t work with you anymore,” Axl told him. Niven tried to rearrange a dinner to debate things, but never heard from him again.
Article continues below commercial
Original Guns N’ Roses Lineup Played Wembley One Last Time In 1991
Twelve weeks later, Izzy left the band too, citing the unbearable internal turmoil. “You’re playing Wembley,” Niven insisted, and Stradlin honored that request, performing one last time with the unique lineup in August 1991.
Drummer Steven Adler had already been fired in 1990 on account of his drug issues. By 1997, Slash and Duff McKagan had also exited, leaving Axl because the lone original member.
The band’s tumultuous saga reached a surprising recent chapter in 2016 when Slash and Duff rejoined Rose for the massively successful “Not in This Lifetime” tour, their first time onstage together since 1993.
Today, Guns N’ Roses’ roster includes Rose, Slash, McKagan, Richard Fortus, Isaac Carpenter, Dizzy Reed, and Melissa Reese, a far cry from the wild, snake-feeding, toilet-decorated beginnings Niven chronicles in his gripping recent memoir.