TRACII GUNS After Rob Gardner was out of Guns N’ Roses and they were auditioning drummers, before they got Steven Adler, we had Nickey Beat come down. He had played in the Weirdos and a version of the Germs and stuff like that. He had these real punk-rock anarchist values without being, you know, a harmful human being. But he wasn’t right for Guns N’ Roses.
But it was odd that after we played, I went outside with him into the parking lot and we’re talking and I go, “Nickey, if for some reason this doesn’t work out and I’m not in this band anymore, you’re definitely the drummer I’d like to start something with someday.” And so, lo and behold, I’m out of Guns N’ Roses and the first person I call is Nickey. And he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, sure, let’s do it.” We hung out for a couple days and then we went to see Guns N’ Roses play at this frat party at UCLA. And Mick Cripps was at this party.
MICK CRIPPS Nickey Beat told me to go see this band Guns N’ Roses. “They just got their new guitar player, Slash, and they’re playing a frat party at UCLA.” Which was a fucking ridiculous place to play. So I go there and Axl’s walking around with his chaps on, with his ass hangin’ out. I was like, “This is hilarious!” That he had the balls to do that, right?
MARC CANTER Axl had big balls. And when I say that I mean of steel. To go out in a crowd like that? I can’t imagine. But Axl did it. And he did it often. He had no issues at that frat party.
MICK CRIPPS I remember there was this grand piano in the frat house. And Axl’s got his chaps on with nothing underneath but, like, a codpiece, and he sits down at the piano and starts playing an early version of “November Rain,” I think it was. You can just imagine all the jocks at this frat party eyeing the guy with murder in their eyes. But Axl didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t suffer fools.
TRACII GUNS So at this party Nickey approaches Mick. “Hey, we need a bass player. Wanna be in this band?” And Mick Cripps was, like, the coolest-looking dude at the time in the scene. He was fresh off the boat from England and had a lot of vibe going on. So me and Nickey and Mick, we started this band. We didn’t have a name. L.A. Guns was something that had already existed but I hadn’t brought it up or anything. Then one day we’re up at my grandma’s house and there are all these old L.A. Guns posters laying around. And Mick says, “Well, since you have all these posters already, why don’t we just call the band L.A. Guns?” And I go, “I’ve got a backdrop, too!”
TAIME DOWNE Mick and I had been playing a little bit and then he started doing stuff with Tracii. And that was fine. I was already in the mindset of doing Faster Pussycat. And I liked Tracii. So we all stayed friends and everything. Everyone was friends. All the Gn’R guys, Adler and Slash and shit. And Izzy was a really good friend, so …
TRACII GUNS I spent a lot of time with Izzy. And you know, he had a quiet way about him. Very convincing. We did some weird shit with women that we probably wouldn’t have told our parents about. But it was great, man. A real eye-opening time.
MICK CRIPPS I think we were all helping each other find members for our bands. Later on, Kelly [Nickels], who was the bass player in Faster Pussycat and was in a horrific motorcycle accident, he wound up joining L.A. Guns.
TRACII GUNS I called Kelly when he was at home in New York in bed in, like, a half-body cast and I said, “Do you wanna be in L.A. Guns?” And he was like, “Ah, man, I was so hoping you were gonna ask me that!”
MICK CRIPPS There was a lot of rivalry but there was also a lot of unity and people helping each other out. Because it was a small scene and you didn’t have the internet or any of those kind of means of marketing and stuff. It was all word of mouth and just getting out there and doing it.
BILLY ROWE There was only a handful of bands that I believe—that a lot of us believe—were really part of that scene at that time in the mid-’80s. Outside of Poison, it would be Guns N’ Roses, L.A. Guns, Faster Pussycat, and Jetboy. And that’s it. Those were the bands, and I’m sure all those guys would agree, that were the core of that next wave.
TRACII GUNS Before us you had Ratt and Mötley Crüe and W.A.S.P. and Great White, guys like that that are a little older and were in a way a part of the end of the ’70s rock scene. What they did was they revived rock after punk had just stormed through L.A. So you had some viable rock bands that had record deals that were now leaving town. And the void was being filled by Poison and Guns N’ Roses and L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat and Jetboy, who were from San Francisco but they were a great band.
MICKEY FINN (singer, Jetboy) When we first moved to L.A., we were living in a hotel on Vine just down from Santa Monica. I don’t know who picked it but it was ghetto as fuck—junkies and freaks and male prostitutes and trannies and stuff. There were multiple times where we woke up to the hotel literally being under siege, like helicopters flying over and you look out your window and cops with flak vests on have guys laid out facedown on the street with their hands handcuffed behind them. It was like, “Hey, welcome to L.A.! This is it!” It was a rough time.
TRACII GUNS It was definitely a turning point music-wise because everything became more rough around the edges, more blues-influenced, more junkie, more alternative. It wasn’t just about looking like Mötley Crüe anymore. It was about injecting the Stones and the Dolls and the Germs and all these other influences into it. So what really happened is the quality of music, the diversity of music, got turned up in the scene. It got dirtier.
BILLY ROWE We all had our punk roots. I mean, Duff was punk, Mickey was punk. That’s why we connected with Guns N’ Roses big-time. We were all into Johnny Thunders, Lords of the New Church, the Dead Boys, Generation X, Hanoi Rocks. I mean, Hanoi Rocks was number one.
MICKEY FINN Poison definitely came from a different place. I don’t think they were really turned on to, like, Hanoi Rocks. I’ll explain it this way: When we met those guys they were kinda still stuck in their spandex pants and Capezio dance shoes look. Very Gazzarri’s. But after the first year or so of meeting them and playing with them they were suddenly wearing creepers and string ties and bolo hats and they definitely incorporated more of that Hanoi Rocks element.
VICKY HAMILTON I think Poison looked up to Jetboy. They played some dates with them if I recall. And you know, Poison also idolized Hanoi Rocks. I got them on the Palace show with Hanoi Rocks and we sent out a press release and everything. And of course, that was the weekend that Vince Neil killed Razzle in a car accident. [On December 8, 1984, members of Hanoi Rocks were partying at Neil’s house when Neil and Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley left to go on a beer run; on the way back the singer, inebriated, lost control of his car and collided with oncoming traffic, killing the twenty-four-year-old Dingley and severely injuring two passengers in another vehicle.] So that gig never happened.
BRYN BRIDENTHAL I know a guy who was a policeman on the beat there and apparently what actually happened was that Vince’s passenger, who was Razzle, had a whole case of beer on his lap and the glass broke in the accident. He bled out.
MICHAEL MONROE (singer, Hanoi Rocks) Razzle was dead on arrival at the hospital. He was all smashed up. I’m glad that I wasn’t there because I probably would have demanded to see him. It was our tour manager that went to identify him, and he never got over it … It was a horrible accident, really tragic, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, especially the guy that was driving. I never blamed him. You can’t blame somebody for an accident.
VINCE NEIL I wrote a $2.5 million check for vehicular manslaughter when Razzle died. I should have gone to prison. I definitely deserved to go to prison. But I did thirty days in jail and got laid, and drank beer, because that’s the power of cash. That’s fucked up.
NIKKI SIXX For us, it was kind of hard to grasp that somebody died in a car accident because Vince was drinking. We all drank and drove in the ’80s. It’s just what we did. We got lit up at home, we jumped in the car, we went down to Hollywood, we drank more, we grabbed a bunch of chicks, we got kicked out of a bar at two a.m., we went to a party, and then we got ourselves home. But when Razzle was killed, that was the first time we realized there was consequence to this. And it wasn’t that you were gonna get in trouble—somebody died. Vince changed that day, and I don’t think he’s ever changed back.
MICKEY FINN When Razzle died and Hanoi broke up, that was devastating for all of us.
BILLY ROWE We were huge fans of Hanoi and we were going to open for them in San Francisco right prior to that happening. I have the ticket still.
GREG STEELE Warrant and all those Van Halen–type bands, they would play Gazzarri’s. But Faster and Guns N’ Roses and L.A. Guns, even though it was still rock ’n’ roll, it was very different. And then you had Jane’s Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tex and the Horseheads, that whole scene.
MICKEY FINN Perry Farrell [Jane’s Addiction singer] was a little bit more of a freakish dude but Dave Navarro was always a rocker. He’d get right in there with Fernie [Rod, Jetboy bassist] and Billy and talk about Kiss and Aerosmith, classic stuff. He’s a guitar player, man. He was a ripper.
DAVE NAVARRO (guitarist, Jane’s Addiction) It was a little competitive but for the most part it was camaraderie. It was a healthy environment where they were your friends but … you wanted to crush ’em.
DUFF MCKAGAN Guns N’ Roses’ first gigs, we were playing with bands like Social Distortion and Tex and the Horseheads and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were just trying to figure out, “Where the fuck do we fit into this whole thing?”
MICKEY FINN I remember partying up at the first Guns N’ Roses house and being taught how to chase the dragon. Which, if you know anything about that, it’s the act of smoking heroin out of a piece of foil, with a foil tube. I’d been way deep into many drugs, but I’d never got really deep into heroin. Luckily it was not something that really clicked with me long-term. But yeah, man, those were the days.
TRACII GUNS Weed was not a thing then in our music scene. It was more about cocaine and heroin. And there are no good, positive stories to tell about that. From 1984 to 1987, all the girls I hung out with were strung out on dope. I stayed away from the coke chicks. For some reason I liked the ones that did heroin. And it always led to heartbreak.
The funny thing is, at that time I was sober as a basketball. I didn’t even drink beer. Nothing. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, all of that. I was not into any of that shit. But I was surrounded by it. I’m attracted to melancholy sad stuff, and at that time it was plentiful.
MICKEY FINN Heroin was huge at the time. And in L.A. it was easy to get. And cheap. And everybody worshipped the Stones. Everybody worshipped Johnny Thunders and the New York Dolls. In that light, being a junkie was a cool fuckin’ thing. You walk around all sleazy and fucked up like Johnny Thunders!
BILLY ROWE I remember one time Jetboy and Guns N’ Roses played with Johnny Thunders at Fender’s Ballroom. And that was a highlight for all of us. But Thunders was a mess. He was pretty fucked up at that point.
TRACII GUNS I played guitar for Johnny Thunders one night in Long Beach. He was actually sober at the time. And right before we walked out of the dressing room he goes, “Watch this.” And I looked at him and he just put the persona on. That’s how glamorous it was in everybody’s heads.
MICKEY FINN I mean, definitely there was a period where I was injecting drugs. It happened before and after shows at the Troubadour, the Roxy, the Scream. Todd [Crew, Jetboy bassist] got into it, too.
BILLY ROWE Mickey had his demons that he dealt with, and him and Todd connected in certain ways with that shit. But Todd was definitely going down and getting worse and worse.
MICKEY FINN All we do is rehearse and party. Every night you’re going out to clubs and shows and events. There was sex in the bathrooms, drugs in the bathrooms, all the cliché stuff that went on that was super fun.
TRACII GUNS We did a video for our song “One More Reason,” which is the thing that ultimately got us our record deal. We had this good song, and we had a manager named Alan Jones, a Welsh guy who had been the saxophone player in a band called Amen Corner. Their biggest thing was they toured a lot with Pink Floyd in the late ’60s. And what happened was Bob Skoro at Polydor wanted to come see us play, so we set up a last-minute gig at the Troubadour. Warrant was playing, and they were really new. But they agreed to let us come on and do a half-hour set. So we went and did the set and Bob Skoro makes a beeline for me and goes, “I’m gonna do a deal with you guys.”
That was a Wednesday. The following Monday, Alan Jones calls me. “Listen, Bob would love to give you guys a development deal.” I’m like, “What’s a development deal?” “Well, he gives you some money to demo up some more songs…” And I go, “That’s not a record deal!”
But anyway, we follow through with demoing up some more songs, and now Polydor wants to sign us. So we go to their offices, which at the time were on Sunset near the Rainbow. And we’re up there and Bob Skoro starts asking each guy some questions: “What do you want to get out of making records?” “How do you see yourself as a musician five years or ten years from now?” Everybody gives their spiel. And then he gets to our singer, Paul Black. He asks the question. And Paul just falls asleep. Like, right there on the couch. I had no idea what was going on. And then Bob Skoro goes, “Sorry, guys. I can’t do this.”
And just like that, it’s over.
MICK CRIPPS I don’t remember that.
TRACII GUNS I remember leaving the meeting, walking out with the guys, and I go, “What the fuck was that?” And they’re like, “Well, you know, Paul’s strung out.” I’m going, “No. I don’t know that Paul’s strung out!” And they say, “Well, should we try to find another singer?”
MICK CRIPPS Alan knew this singer from a band called Girl. And that was Phil Lewis.
TRACII GUNS I said, “That’s who I want to sing!” And Alan tells me, “He’s not a great singer but he’s really great onstage.” And I go, “No—he’s a really great singer.” I have the Girl records, you know? I’m like, “Get him out here, now!” And Alan had him out here a week later. This was, like, the most unbelievable spoiled-brat musician story I could possibly conjure up. “I want this guy … now!” Because Guns N’ Roses was solid. They got Slash and they were rollin’. And I had this band, we were gonna sign a deal … and we lost our singer. Now I’m getting fidgety. So we brought Phil out and we met at the Cat & Fiddle, which was a British pub on Sunset. I remember sitting there with him, and it’s ninety degrees out and he has a leather jacket on. I think he had a couple hundred bucks and a little suitcase with a hair dryer and a pair of pants in it. Something ridiculous. He didn’t think he was staying.
PHIL COLLEN (guitarist, Girl, Def Leppard) Girl was kind of a version of that glam thing already, before any of that stuff was going on in America. So it wasn’t really much of a stretch for Phil to jump into that culture. He’d already been promoting it for years.
TRACII GUNS We did our first gig at the Whisky. It was a brand-new band. Now we have Phil Lewis. Now we have Kelly Nickels. Kelly sat on a stool with his crutches and played, but it didn’t matter—the place was sold out. Then we did a Troubadour gig and Axl got up and sang a couple tunes with us, like a Zeppelin cover or something. And then after that, like the following week, Alan calls a meeting at the little shack I was living in. We were hoping to hear some good news from Bob Skoro. And Alan says, “I don’t know how to say this to you, but they don’t want to do the development deal.” And me and Mick just look at each other, like, “Shit, man. Now what?” And in the next second Alan goes, “They just wanna go straight to the record deal.” And that was it, man. The train was rollin’.
MICK CRIPPS God, within three weeks or so I think Jane’s Addiction got signed to Warner Bros., Guns N’ Roses got the deal with Geffen, and Taime’s band got signed. We got signed, Jetboy, a couple other bands … The record companies just scooped everyone up.
BILLY ROWE Jetboy signed to Elektra around October of ’86. And by ’87 we were trying to write songs for the record and we really couldn’t even continue rehearsing because Todd would just lie on the couch and pass out. We got to a point where we decided as a band that we needed to find another guy.
MICKEY FINN But it’s not like we just said, “Later.” We tried to get him into rehab. We got his parents involved. We tried to say, “Look, you’re blowing this opportunity.” I mean, being an alcoholic is one thing. When you start becoming a heroin addict and an alcoholic, you know, that’s a double whammy that few people can balance out.
BILLY ROWE After Todd was out of the band our manager said, “If you could have any bass player, who would you want?” And I said, “Sami Yaffa.” Simple as that. And our manager knew somebody in Sweden or Finland or something and she found the guy pretty quickly. And he accepted the offer.
MICKEY FINN People were like, “Oh my god, they got the guy from Hanoi Rocks!” And that was a big thing. It was like, “Fuck yeah!”
BILLY ROWE Once Sami joined Jetboy all the Hanoi Rocks guys—Mike Monroe, Andy McCoy, Nasty Suicide—started coming over to our place on Franklin Street. We had a pool there, and one time Mike, like he does onstage, he started climbing shit. He climbed up and got onto the second level of the apartment building, onto the railing. And then he got on top of the railing—I wanna say he either pulled himself up onto the roof or he balanced himself on the railing. And he fucking dove off into the pool. I remember we were all watching, like, “Wow, our hero is gonna fucking split his brains open in front of us right now!” But he just dove in and came out like it was fucking normal.
MICKEY FINN We were in Miami mixing our first record for Elektra, Feel the Shake, when we heard [that Todd Crew had died of a drug overdose]. It was a shock but also not a shock, you know? I wish we could’ve helped him. He was only twenty-three or something like that.
BILLY ROWE We got dropped before our record even came out. Peter Philbin, who had also signed Faster Pussycat, was not a guy who was really into our scene. Nor was Bob Krasnow, the president of Elektra. He was into, like, Tracy Chapman. So everything started going wrong for us. Eventually we wound up signing with MCA. Feel the Shake was originally set to be released the same month as Appetite for Destruction, but by the time our album finally came out it was already ’88. The delay totally killed us.
MICKEY FINN We lost about a year of momentum. Meanwhile, Guns N’ Roses is going out with Aerosmith, Poison is out with this band and that band … Everybody got good tours and they all went to the next level.
BILLY ROWE I think if our record came out when it should’ve things would be a lot different right now. We had everything on our side, you know? I can remember Tracii Guns saying to me one time, “Ah, man, out of all of us bands, I predict you guys will be the biggest. ’Cause you guys have songs.” But it’s interesting how things worked out.
MICKEY FINN We got some bad breaks and some of our peers got good breaks. But not many of them, really, when you look at it. As far as success and longevity, Guns N’ Roses was really the band that broke through. Poison I guess would be second in line. And then, you know, L.A. Guns had some top songs. But for a lot of the rest of us, it fizzled out quick. And we were all kinda left scrambling, like, “What do we do now?”