Alan Niven - October 1986 - March 1991

Aussie

Born in New Zealand, Alan had been groomed by his father for a career in the military before he fell in love with rock music, and struck a figure reminiscent of Spinal Tap's cricket bat-wielding Ian Faith.

Background

1974-1980 Virgin/Caroline Records - London, England
Alan was first employed at Virgin working in sales and promotion. He sensed the promotional use of having his own radio show on WINZ ' The Union Jack' Show. He seduced the audience with his razor-sharp vocabulary and charming English accent into recognizing the '˜hits' he picked to play out of each week's new releases. He was the first in the US to play records by The Pretenders, Dire Straits, and The Police, reporting his selections as a contributor to 'The Friday Morning Quarterback' where he had a weekly column.

1981-1982 Greenworld Inc. - Los Angles, California
Alan was brought to the US by Greenworld in 1981, initially as a combined sales and marketing manager. While there he signed 'Motely Crue' . He subsequently negotiated a deal for Motley Crue to move to Elektra. The resulting advance from the deal prevented Greenworld from bankruptcy and saved over 30 jobs.

1982 - Enigma Records - Los Angeles, California
Alan was co-founder of Enigma Records. He worked as the sole functionary for the first six months of its existence. He signed the band Berlin then quit to enter management just as Berlin started to break.

1983-1984 - Crisis Management - Los Angeles, California
Alan became manager of Great White and they recorded and released 'Out of the Night' He took Don Dokken to Elektra and signed Great White to EMI.

1985 - 1994 - Stravinski Brothers Inc. - Los Angeles, California
Alan established his own Management Company Stravinski Brothers Inc.
Capital Records signed Great White and Alan co-wrote their entire debut record for Capitol. At his own expense Alan personally recorded, printed and promoted Great White's album 'Shot in the Dark' '. The radio track from the album was 'Face the Day' . Alan persuaded KMET radio to play the track, which was over 7 minutes long, for 16 weeks, 8 of which were in '˜heavy rotation'. He also got KLOS to play the track for 8 weeks, 6 in '˜heavy rotation'. KLOS later listed the track #2 song of the year, behind 'Arc of a Diver' '. There was no other '˜indy' record on their year-end top list.

Alan also made his debut as a producer on Great White's subsequent album 'Once Bitten' . He played a little studio guitar and did backing vocals for Rock Me' for which he supplied melody and lyric, which was another 7-minute smash. The album sold 1,750,000, the band's previous sales high was 100,000 and the album was gold by November 1987, four months ahead of GN'R's first gold. Alan also supplied all the video concepts for the album. Under Alan's guidance Great White then toured for half a year with Whitesnake.

Alan was asked to manage GN'R on three seperate occasions by Tom Zutaut. The first time he was reluctant to divide his energies between two bands. The second time he had done some research on the band and could only wish Tom 'good luck' as their reputation was of being unmanageable to the point of being unproductive. The third time Tom was afraid for his job as the band were quickly being seen by the label as an expensive disaster. Alan duly relented and in October 1986 Guns N' Roses signed with Alan's company Stravinski Brothers.

By this time the band has already spent over $150,000 in advances and demos, but still there were no releasable masters. Due to erratic behavior in the band and consistent A&R blunders perpetuated by political thinking, GN'R was a rudderless ship. What Alan did not know at the time of signing an agreement with the band was that Rosenblatt, the then president of Geffen, had told Zutaut that Alan was only going to be given three months to turn the situation around.

Calling his company 'Stravinski Brothers' allowed Alan to adopt either one or other Stravinski Brothers as an alter-ego. Alan was able to somehow duplicate himself as needed to fulfill his role as the manager of Guns N' Roses and Great White.

In December of 1986 Live Like a Suicide was released (Alan also assisted in production - he mixed the disc with a Pasha engineer). Alan sold the entire production run to indy distributor '˜Important.' He used the resulting funds to whisk GN'R to London for 3 shows. This started up the European press and got them ahead of the pack of L.A. bands coming up. It also set up their next tour of the U.K. which was a headline tour (including selling out Hammersmith Odeon).

July 1987 Appetite for Destruction was released in the US and a month later in the UK. It will go on to sell over 16,000,000 in the U.S. alone, the best selling rock debut ever. Alan supplied the concepts to videos Welcome to the Jungle and Sweet Child O' Mine. The costs of the videos were $75,000 and $45,000 respectively. To get Welcome to the Jungle done Alan had to '˜piggyback' shoot on another band's video as the label were $20,000 short of the concept's cost.

With Sweet Child O' Mine Alan got a complete second edit in black and white, creating two different versions. When the single was released this doubled the MTV airplay. Alan also supplied video concepts for Paradise City and Patience. The total cost of the first four videos was $550,000. (The subsequent video after Alan's departure, November Rain, cost $1,250,000).

Intersting Fact - on April 7th 1998 Guns N' Roses & Great White both sell their millionth copies on the same day. It's also Alan's birthday (what are the odds?).

Alan also managed Clarence Clemons and produced his classic instrumental album 'Peacemaker' . Alan remains the only manager to persuade David Geffen to renegotiate an existing artist contract.

After persuading David Geffen to renegotiate GN'R's contract (the only manager to ever achieve this feat) Alan was repaid by being fired by the band shortly after. He was replaced in May of 1991 by Doug Goldstein who was an employee of Stravinksi Brothers and had been hired by Alan as the bands Tour Manager. According to a 1991 cover story by Rolling Stone magazine, Rose forced the dismissal of Niven (against the wishes of some of his bandmates) by refusing to complete the albums until he was replaced. The rest of the band members went along with the decision to prevent a meltdown.

August 31st 1991 was Izzy's last show with Guns N' Roses. Izzy went on to form the JuJu Hounds and asked Alan to come on board as Manager.

1995-1999 Arizona Desert
Alan realized Spiritual Quest in the Arizona desert. He composed and produced for various artists including The Angels (members of the Australian Rock n Roll hall of fame) and Roxy Lopez (signed to Elton John's Rocket Label). He also counseled and advised contemporaries such as Tom Whalley (CEO Warner Brothers) and Jason Flom (CEO Virgin EMI).

2000 - Present: Tru-b-dor and Auricle Productions - Prescott Arizona
Alan composed three concept albums for the Shen Long Project and composed and produced two albums for Australian duo 'The Brewster Brothers' (John and Rick Brewster former members of The Angels). He counsels and advises developing new talent. He was also asked to manage 'The Project' (Velvet Revolver) before Scott Weiland was appointed but declined the offer.

Leaving GN'R

Very little information regarding the split has ever been discussed by Alan or the band memebers. However, from what little information is available it is obvious that Axl was the driving force behind the decision, with the other band members against the move.

Alan Niven:
"From the very beginning, my relationship with Axl was often strained. His failure to show for the very first gig after signing a management contract rather set the tone...."

Alan Niven (Whoose Afraid of Axl Rose - Icon Magazine October 1997)
"Axl wanted total control, while my commitment was to Guns N' Roses. My assessment was that the dynamic of the five original individuals involved was what created the character and overall personality that ultimately proved so successful. Axl was a part of that - a very important part - but I had too much of a problem with this 'It's my ball and if you don't play the game by my rules then I'm taking it home, dude' attitude of his."

Nevertheless, Niven contends that Axl's controlling attitude is part of what drives his creativity. "Axl has a capacity to really focus and analyze circumstances and situations, which is part of what makes him a gifted lyric writer. However, a major element of the frustration of being involved with him was that while everyone else was basically being gregarious and dealing with a normal life, Axl was shutting himself away in his room and thinking about one thing and one thing only for days or weeks on end. It was as though he was picking something up and looking at it from this angle, then that angle, then another over and over again. That minute focus of Axl's is both a curse and a gift."
Surprisingly enough - given the contagious manner in which multitudes find themselves instigating lawsuits against the singer - Niven never wanted to take Rose to court. "He does sometimes try to exercise a sense of honor. With the separation, my desire was to get a one-time payment because I didn't want to get involved with him and with Goldstein - I just wanted out. And Axl honored that."

Axl Rose: (Axl Rose - The Rollingstone Interview April 1992)
Referring to Izzy leaving the band - "I'm angry with him because he left in a very shitty way, and he tries to act like everything's cool. He put his trust in people that I consider my enemies. People like [former G n' R manager] Alan Niven, who I think is his manager now. I don't need Alan Niven knowing jack shit about Guns n' Roses. Everybody has a lot of good and bad, and with Alan, I just got sick of his fucking combo platter. It's like "If you're involved with these people, we can't talk to you."

Axl Rose: (On Stage Las Vegas December 30 2001)
During the House of Blues concert in Las Vegas Axl states that the show is the first show in 10 years that he wanted to do and goes on to talk about how former manager Alan Niven forced them to tour in '˜91 and he fired him for it.

Izzy Stradlin: (VOX 1991)
Rose's craving for control reached its apparent zenith a month before this tour when he called for the resignation of Alan Niven, the group's New Zealand-born manager for the past five years, accusing him, from at least one stage on tour, of excessive greed. Several of the band won't be drawn into commenting on the break-up. Neither will Niven. Izzy Stradlin, however, "felt really bad about it, because I'm still friends with Alan. I felt I had to choose between him and the band. He was kinda like the sixth member of the group for a while. And he really helped put us where we are now. I still think he's a great manager.

"But Axl and he finally had too much of a clash of personalities. Alan has his way of doing things which is more like a military strategy. Axl wants to do stuff his way, at his pace, in his time." Into Niven's place stepped his former partner Doug Goldstein, an amiable, compact figure who dresses like an aging surfer and who was the group's road manager for the last tour. "Dougie's done a lot of stuff in the last couple of years," Stradlin avows, before chuckling darkly. "He's the guy who now gets to go over to Axl's at six in the morning when his piano's hanging out at the window of his house. All kind of shit like that. Now we get these fuckin' calls - 'You hear what happened?' No, what now? 'Axl just smashed his $50,000 grand piano out the fuckin' picture-window of his new house.' That's nice, Dougie. You just take care of it. Call me when it's all over."

Slash: (Slash' book 2007)
"During this process (the mixing of UYI) the animosity between our manager, Alan Niven, and Axl came to a head. The rest of us had been trying to squash it for a while, but Axl's issues with Alan had been brewing for years - since the moment he found out that Alan also managed and produced and co-wrote Great White. There was also the fact that Alan was opinionated on a lot of things and Axl didn't always agree with his point of view. So at times Axl felt like he was being forced to do things that he didn't necessarily want to do."

....."I knew it was going to happen but I didn't think it would be the tipping point. Looking back, I feel that shift was the moment, the pause at the pinnacle of the bands success...and the start of it's downfall. All the same, I saw Doug coming. He made a place for himself in Axl's life, and once Axl had made his feelings about Alan clear, I don't think it's a coincidence that Doug was right there to pick up the reins. He had been strategically moving up the ladder from the beginning. He was like an ambush predator".

Re: Alan Niven - October 1986 - March 1991

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