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- Intercourse
- Rep: 212
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
Back to Niven's interview..
It just adds another man to the same side of the see-saw that Duff, Slash, Matt, Zutaut and even Izzy are on. I think he summed it all up so well when he said that 'he wore us all out'.
I am worn out with Axl; I am lumbered with this massive adoration of his voice and his work with the original band but utterly tired out of his ongoing messiah/martyr complex.
Niven knew as manager that without Axl the band was a non-runner, hence the support of him. His job was to keep the money rolling in.
I think he’s been silent for so long because good music managers that are respected in the business keep their mouths shut. All the ego, drugs, sex, money etc is kept out of the public view and under wraps despite the manager witnessing the worst excesses of their client.
He’s probably had enough of seeing his name pissed upon by Axl when he was instrumental in the guy reaching the pinnacle of his game. I’m sure he’s no angel but Izzy hiring him says to me that he had honour and could be trusted to do his job.
Next will be Robin and the others once Axl confirms he’s done with them. Hell, he probably blames them for CD doing badly...
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
I would say Izzy has proven to be neutral on the S/D vs Axl seesaw. I also am not worn out on Axl because he doesn't really do anything. I am worn out trying to defend him and don't really bother at all anymore outside this forum. It is not worth the aggravation and some things just aren't defendable. 
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
No way. Posion would be sweet. Fun, energetic show by guys who appreciate their fans rather than act like we owe them something for doing us the honor of performing
Poison would be a kickass nostalgia trip by the original band not a cover band. Plus they'd go on at a decent time ending their show with plenty of time to hit a bar for last call. All in all I think Posion would probably be a better show for for your dollar these days. I like Gn'R better but if you gave me the option of seeing either show on the same night I'd take Poison at this point. Of course this all gets thrown out the window if Gn'R was actually Gn'R. But I have no desire to see a punk like Axl masqerading as Gn'R anymore. I honstly think a Poison show would be more enjoyable these days.
i'd rather they went on later. it would give me enough time to "hit a bar" before the show which would be necessary in order for me to sit through that nonsense.
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
I would say Izzy has proven to be neutral on the S/D vs Axl seesaw. I also am not worn out on Axl because he doesn't really do anything. I am worn out trying to defend him and don't really bother at all anymore outside this forum. It is not worth the aggravation and some things just aren't defendable.
Agreed. It's hard as hell to defend Axl, because when you play it back in your head, you realize how much of a freakin' retard you sound like. Been there, done it.
Like you said, some things just aren't defendable. Like the lateness, calling a solo act - GN'R - the revolving door of band members, and Axl clocking near 50, still doing this fuckin' lame war with the old band members. They ALL were contributing factors, and they've all got their stories. Can't we move on?
Izzy's stayed neutral in this whole thing, and WOW, how ironic, he's been the coolest fucker in the whole thing, put out the BEST music, and put out the MOST albums.
Take a fuckin' clue. Be like Mike, fuck that, be like Iz. To all of you guys, Axl, Slash, Duff, Alan, Tom, whoever.
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
Izzy's stayed neutral in this whole thing.
Q: What was the last straw that made you leave GNR?
Izzy: After the first leg of the UYI tour, Axl wanted to make me sign a
contract which meant that I was less involved and less paid. I couldn't
believe it. This contract was coming from someone I grew up with for fuck's
sake. We always considered GNR as a best friend band, and now Axl was
telling me:" now we are doing business." Why should I carry on? Where was
the fun? That was the last drop.
Q: Do you still see Steven, Slash and Duff?
Izzy: Yes, I spoke to them on the phone three days ago, I even have lunch
with Steven last week. He is clean now but physically and mentally...
Slash is well, so is Duff: he just did the Hawaiian marathon! A fucking
marathon. Not bad for a guy whose pancreas exploded because he was drinking
3 1/2 liters of vodka every day? He is my band by the way, that is very
cool. The only who doesn't speak to anybody is Axl. He doesn't call the
people back on the phone. I like to ride my bike and I know where he
lives. Once in 1995, I went there and ring the door bell, he opened the
door, we took each other in our arms, he made me visit his house and we
had a chat. Cool. We called back each other after that, but one day the
old Axl was back; He was taking notes on the phone of what I was telling
him, and then, no news. Since then I go to his place, that makes me laugh:
I ring the door bell and there is always a bouncer telling me he is not
there! I am happy anyway that he did two gigs in Vegas and Rio in the
beginning of the year. I am especially happy that his microphone did work
properly. Who knows, He might have left the stage (he laughs).
HARD ROCK MAGAZINE JUNE 2001 (FRANCE)
Read the whole interesting interview here:
http://www.snakepit.org/izzyart1.txt
Izzy also called Axl an asshole, a dictator and if my memory serves well, he once compared him to Hitler. These all were on Jarmo's website, but some years ago the articles magically disappeared. As I remember he blamed the 'lack of server space' for the deletes.
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
Classic Rock Magazine, Izzy Stradlin Interview 2001
He blows off about a lot of things in this interview, Axl bearing the brunt of a lot of things.
"
The lowest point was the notorious riot that ensued halfway through a show in St. Louis in 1991, after Axl first dived into the crowd and then refused to continue the show because someone in the audience had taken a picture. Possibly the most unsavory incident in the band's crazed, incident-driven career, as Izzy says now: "When something like that happens, you can't help but think bac to Donington [in 1988, when two fans were trampled to death in the rush for the stage at the start of GN'R's set]. What's to stop us from having some more people trampled - because the singer doesn't like something? Like, what's the point? What are we getting at here?"
Travelling in his own trailer-truck from gig to gig while the others flew - no longer able merely to lose himself in the illusion - Izzy knew it was only a matter of time before he bailed out completely. Steven had already gone - hypocritically bumped out of the band for failing to deal with his own drug problems. Things just weren't the same anymore. "The music had taken a back seat, there was nothing new coming from us. We didn't sit around and play accoustic guitars anymore. It was like, oh, time to go on - where's the singer? The singer walked off? Now what do we do?"
Izzy's decision to leave Guns N' Roses was announced officially in November 1991. Looking back at the cuttings, it seems like nobody made much fuss about it. The downsizing of GN'R to the Axl & Slash Show had begun long before that."
"Musically, at first he found it hard not having the rest of the band to bounce off of. "In Guns N' Roses I'd write a bunch of songs and I'd play them for Axl and he'd go 'Oh, that sounds like Thin Lizzy's 'Jailbreak'. Or 'That sounds like Queen!' He would always pick this shit apart and sometimes it was annoying. But suddenly I'm in this new thing and I don't have somebody [like that]."
On the plus side, unlike Slash, who would eventually have to find a new frontman for his songs, singing was not a problem for Izzy. "It felt pretty natural. Axl was never usually there for rehearsals, so I'd be the guy singing a fucked-up version of 'Paradise City' or whatever. It became a matter of, well, now I always have to sing them."
"He says his last face-to-face contact was six years ago. "I'd moved back out to LA. I bought this old Norton Commando 850 and was riding around one day and I thought, fuck it, I'll go by his house. Bastard, he lives up in the hills, in this big house. I'll go and see what he's up to, what he's doing, you know?
"And I go up and he's got security gates, cameras, walls, all this shit, you know. So I'm ringing the buzzers, and eventually somebody comes and takes me up and there he is. He's like, ''Hey, man! Glad to see you!' Gives me a big hug and shows me round his house. It was great.
"Then, I don't know, probably a month later, one night he calls me [and] we got into the issue of me leaving Guns N' Roses. I told him how it was on my side. Told him exactly how I felt about it and why I left. And man, that's the last time I've talked to the guy!
"But, I mean he had a fucking notepad. I could hear him [turning the pages] going, 'Well, ah, you said in 1982... blah, blah, blah...' And I'm like, what the fuck - 1982? He was bringing up a lot of really weird old shit. I'm like, whatever, man. But that's the last time I talked to him.
"Every two or three years I'll put a call in to the office and say, 'Hey, tell Axl gimme a call if he wants to'. But I mean... the weirdness of his life. To me, I live pretty normal. I can go anywhere. In 2001, I don't think people really give a shit. But for Axl, I knew for the longest time, because his face was all over the television, and stuff. I don't think he could really go anywhere or do anything.
"And I think because of that he kind of got himself in a little hole up there in the hills. He kind of dug in deeper and deeper and now I think he's gone so fucking deep he's just... I mean, I could be completely wrong. But I know he doesn't drive [unheard of in LA] and he doesn't... he doesn't do anything. I've never, never seen him in town. Isolation can be a bad thing, but Axl's been at it for a long time now. you know, he always stays up at night..." He drifts off, not even trying to find the words this time.
The key to Axl's personality, reckons Izzy, still lies back in Lafayette. "In high school, you know, Axl, he had long, red hair, he was a little guy and he got a lot of shit [because of it]. I think he never got laid, too, in school. I hate to bring this up cos this is getting nasty," he laughs. "But he never got no pussy at school, Axl. So now the guy's a big fucking rock star, he's got the chicks lined up, he's got money and he's got people... and the power went to this guy's head. I mean, he was a fucking monster! Nuts! Crazy!
"And I never saw it coming. I mean, this is my side of it, he'd probably say I'm completely fucking crazy, but I think he went power mad. Suddenly he was trying to control everything. Did you ever see those fucked up contracts for the journalists to sign?" he asks, referring to notorious 'consent forms' that Axl foolishly tried to foist on the media in 1991.
"The control issue just became worse and worse and eventually it filtered down to the band. He was trying to draw up contracts for everybody! And this guy, he's not a Harvard graduate, Axl. He's just a guy, just a little guy, who sings, is talented. But man, he turned into this fucking maniac. And I did, too, but it was a different kind of maniac. I was paranoid about the business aspect - I was the one freaking out going, 'Where's all the money?'"
"For [Axl] the money wasn't as big a deal. But he had this power thing where he wanted complete control. And you can say, well, it goes back to your fucked up childhood where his dad used to smack him around, you know, and he had no control, so now he's getting it back. But it's like, it's still kooky, you know? You don't have to have everybody signing stuff."
When Axl finally gave his old school friend a contract to sign, it was the final straw. "This is right before I left - demoting me to some lower position. They were gonna cut my percentage of royalties down. I was like 'Fuck you! I've been there from day one, why should I do that? Fuck you. I'll go play the Whiskey'. That's what happened. It was utterly insane."
" The decision to put 'One In Million' on 'GN'R Lies', their 1988 mini-album - with its denigrating lines about 'Immigrants and faggots' coming to 'our country' to 'spread some fuckin' disease' - was typical of the skewed thinking that now pilots the GN'R flagship alone.
"That's a song that the whole band says: 'Don't put that on there. You're white, you've got red hair, don't use it.' You know? 'Fuck you! I'm gonna do it cos I'm Axl!' OK, go ahead, it's your fucking head. Of course, you're guilty by association. [But] what are you gonna do? He's out of control and I'm just the fucking guitar player..."
How does he feel though knowing it's being said as a Guns N' Roses album?
"Well, it's obviously not Guns N' Roses. I think all the fans [know that]. It's not even right that he uses the name, because he's the only guy [left]. I think ultimately it's gonna work agaist him because people are gonna say fuck you, wanker - that's what they'll call him here, right? 'You fucking wanker, that's not Guns N' Roses!' Hopefully, the music's good, cos if the music isn't good then he's gonna get the double-whammy..."
A hypothetical question then: Axl's [solo] album flops, and he offers you all the chance to get back together - just like Aerosmith and Sabbath - would you do it? I mean, assuming Axl would be... "broke?" he cuts in, laughing. "I could hear the call." Goes into gruff Axl impersonation: "'You know, I've been, ah, thinking'. He talks really slow when he gets an idea like that. 'Aahhh, I've been thinking...' And I'd be thinking, 'He must be broke'," he chuckles. "That's how I imagine the call would go."
He said the band still get hopeful promoters trying to tempt them back together with promises of enourmous wedge. "Oh, yeah. Around the big millenium hype, for sure." Is he ever tempted? "Yeah, why not?" he chuckles, "A [one-off] gig would be easy, I'd think."
What about an album, though? Now he really does laugh.
"Well, you know what? It's funny cos like me, Duff and Slash - we could go in and make a Guns N' Roses record in a week. basic tracks. [But] vocals and leads [instrumentation] could take God knows how long..."
The full interview is here:
http://www.chopaway.com/viewtopic.php?id=542
I've got the magazine, remember the interview well, its a good read.
- estrangedpaul
- Rep: 5
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
This is a good article and helps place a few pieces of the puzzle together. However, I would like to know why Niven(and others) waited so long to speak publicly on the matter. This type of information should have come out years ago when it might have had a chance at making a sliver of an impact instead of waiting to the point where pop culture no longer cares and huge chunks of the original fan base have moved on. It would be like dropping the atom bomb on Japan years after World War II ended.
Its cool of Niven to speak out on the subject and luckily he has an outlet interested in printing it, but in my opinion its a case of too little, too late.
I think he'd prefer to keepv quiet I don't think he cares about making an impact. The reason he came out know was because he wanted to respond to Axl's recent forum allegation as "he has a right to defend himself", as he says himself.
Re: Former GN'R Manager Alan Niven Counters Axl's Claims
Great reads above, granted the same band he calls not Guns N' Roses, he performed with several times on rhythm in 2006.
Obviously a lot has changed in the last decade.
its not about what changed ts about the claim that Axl drove everyone off in the early 90's...
its pretty clear in alot of things you read from back then that nobody wanted to deal with his shit anymore
