Here Today... Gone To Hell!

I was just watching LAST weeks episode of That Metal Show on VH1 Classic and they had a preview for THIS weeks show, which airs tomorrow night.  They teased in the preview that Jeff Keith and Frank Hannon had a beef with Guns N' Roses.  Saying they had a demo for a song titled, "Better Off Without You" and back then they were label mates with GNR, and "Patience" sounds quite similar to their demo.  Of course there's no evidence of the song to compare that I can find, so it's a tough sell.  Here's an article on the subject.

http://www.bravewords.com/news/150336

Did GUNS N' ROSES Rip Off TESLA? Jeff Keith And Frank Hannon To Guest On That Metal Show This Saturday; Preview Available
Rock Hard
Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 14:21:00 EST

TESLA frontman Jeff Keith and guitarist Frank Hannon are scheduled to appear on the Saturday, November 13th episode of VH1 Classic's That Metal Show, hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson. That Metal Show airs Saturdays at 11 PM ET/PT.

A sneak peek of the new episode can be seen below.

Frank Hannon explaining to everyone that the GUNS N' ROSES song 'Patience' was a rip off of a Tesla demo called 'Better Off Without You':

Frank Hannon: “Let me tell you something: 'Patience', we were label mates with Guns N' Roses on Geffen, there’s a demo of a song that we wrote called 'Better Off Without You'. It is 'Patience' note for note.”

Audience: “WOOOOAHHH.”

Eddie Trunk: “Sue their asses”

Don Jamieson: “Breaking news on That Metal Show."

Jim Florentine: “And I got something else, he whistled on the song dude. You don’t whistle on a song, you sing a song.”

If it is similar, they took a crap Tesla song and made it famous. There's always someone isn't there? Like the people who say Stairway To Heaven is a rip off of Taurus by Spirit.


What a dork.

Ah, he's just trying to be funny.  He's actually a BIG GNR fan, past and present.  He's praised Chinese Democracy on the show, the other 2 hosts, not so much.  And last week they each picked out their top 5 power ballads and Jim placed "November Rain" #1.

And I agree with you about taking a song and making it better, IF it was even close to a ripoff.  I'd like to hear this so called demo.  Is there any evidence of this?  If not, I have an announcement to make.  I wrote a song in the early 80's (I was only a few years old at the time) and I called it "Song of Love".  It sounds eerily similar to Tesla's "Love Song".  I'm just saying.

Yes, the 80ies.. I wrote december rain, lane of dreams and hooker back then!

Haha, that's funny.  :rofl:

They say how GN'R ripped off their song, then they have a go at Axl for whistling, because they would never do that. So which one is it boys?, you can't have it both ways.

Jesus, some people would say anything to get bit of exposure.  ::)

The episode aired a couple hours ago and it was brought up towards the end of the show.  Each show they have a "throw down" segment, where they have to pick between two things, eg. song, album, etc.  The topic was best acoustic song and the choices were "Patience" and "Signs".  Now mind you, 2 guys from Tesla were on the panel so obviously they chose their song and most of the others felt compelled to do so as well because they were there as guests.  But Eddie and Don chose "Patience".

Anyhow, Eddie's reason for choosing "Patience" was because it was an original song.  That's when Frank piped in with his comments of how "Patience" was "stolen" from them.  He said the end part of the song was pretty much identical to one of their demos and he said he wasn't sure if it was someone in GNR or Tom Zutaut, or whoever who might've "borrowed" the idea.  But he seemed pretty convinced that it was indeed stolen.

And just some minor clarification.  The article was incorrect in quoting the part about the whistling.  It had attributed that quote to Jim Florentine, when in actuality it was Jeff Keith who made the comment.  Eddie stuck up for Axl after he made that comment and said that Axl did sing on the song too, not just whistled.

The episode of That Metal Show with Tesla has been posted.  The part where this is discussed is at 41:30.

http://www.vh1.com/video/that-metal-show/full-episodes/jeff-keith-and-frank-hannon-tesla/1652282/playlist.jhtml

Eddie Trunk: ?Sue their asses?  :P

From Frank Hannon -- who should sue who's ass now. :hihi:

Hello Everyone,

The demo of "better off without you" i was talking about is an acoustic guitar version we did live at the oasis ballroom in 1985 that Geffen Records had on a 'live' cassette tape of a show we played. They did make some copies of it with labels on them and handed them out to people before we made our first album. If anyone can find one that would be awesome. I was not talking about the piano version that's floating around on a bootleg.

ALSO FOR THE RECORD: "Better off without you" is a song in "D" and it does the "D/F# to G chord change in it. This is also the same type of change that G~n~R used at the end of patience, and also the same change that John Lennon uses in "Imagine" ...I do not seriously feel that we wrote "Patience" in ANY WAY.

The song "Patience" is a great song that they wrote themselves, and it is only the end part that has any similar part to the guitar chords we used. I apologize for any controversy or dis-respect I may have projected in my joking around with eddie trunk about this.

Thanks, Frank Hannon

http://www.teslatheband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3577

Yeah, that teaser was a little misleading.  After watching the episode, it certainly didn't seem like the guys from Tesla were holding any resentment towards GNR for stealing from them.  They were just playing along, on what is a comedy based show.

The quotes you posted from the show seem to be accurate.  But the response from Frank Hannon appears to be a bit of back peddling.

Not really.  They mentioned during the show that it was the end part of "Patience" that sounded like their demo and they said that it didn't necessarily have to be a band member that "borrowed" the idea.  I think some people might be blowing this story out of proportion.  Overall, I don't see it as a big deal.  Hopefully GNR fans haven't been bombarding Frank with angry e-mails, thus the need for a response.

I didn't watch the entire show, but to go from:

Frank Hannon: ?Let me tell you something: 'Patience', we were label mates with Guns N' Roses on Geffen, there?s a demo of a song that we wrote called 'Better Off Without You'. It is 'Patience' note for note.?

"I don't know if they [GNR] ripped us off -- or Tom Zutaut or Geffen."

To:

Frank Hannon: "I do not seriously feel that we wrote "Patience" in ANY WAY.

"The song "Patience" is a great song that they wrote themselves, and it is only the end part that has any similar part to the guitar chords we used."

Appears to be back peddling to me.

That's what I thought might have happened, just a similar chord progression in a part of the song. It seems to me as well, that they are backtracking from their previous position.

It may have been something they said in the moment, and got themselves carried away. But at least they have commented and gave a more accurate picture of what they meant.

Yeah I think that's what happened.  You have to take their comments in the context of the show.  It's a comedic based show, and they were having a "throwdown" between THEIR song and another band's.  So I'm sure the comment was made A) in jest, B) to help their case in winning the throwdown.  I just don't feel there was any malicious intent behind the comments.  He did say it was note for note originally, but then he changed it to the end part being similar, so he began backtracking on air.  It's not like this is all of a sudden or anything.

Now THAT was funny.  Thanks for the laugh svdv22.  :beer:

I had never read this in patience ... sounds like a joke!

Just getting caught up on listening to Eddie Trunk's Sirius/XM show from this past week and Steven Adler called in to speak his mind on this subject.  He said it was a ridiculous claim, though he did say the guys in Tesla were great guys and they were a good band.  But he said that "Patience" was written by Izzy in 1982/83 when Tesla wasn't even a "sparkle in their daddy's eyes".  He had been fired up about it ever since.  Speaking in more detail about the "Throw Down" between "Signs" and "Patience", Steven joked, "Signs wasn't even their song.  Talk about stealing songs".  He said they had never even met the guys in Tesla at the time, even though they were label mates, and they had only heard their first album, which he described as a "great record".

Just with the song being Written by Izzy, is enough proof for anyone that GN'R copied no one. Izzy is a songwriting powerhouse, and all his work is as original as you can get.

Izzy wrote the main chord progression in Patience, and Patience is a credit to Izzy's amazing songwriting capabilities. These Tesla guys were just having some fun, in relation to the throwdown aspect of the segment.

Don't mean to be a jack ass here...but Don't Cry much?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2CnPkzO53k

It's way to similar for Guns to have not noticed/cared...but that intro is essentially Don't Cry. It's bound for certain chord progression to end up a like. You have 24 notes on a guitar, maybe 6-7 notes in a scale, narrow it down to the same genre. It's inevitable.

The guitar is not the same as GN'Rs don't cry, but maybe the vocals and Ooohhs in the Hanoi song, can be heard in the guitar arrangment in Don't Cry.

For example, when Axl sings "There's a heaven above you baby" in Don't Cry. The guitar chords does sound exactly like the OOoohs in the Hanoi song, but it's not the same guitar work.

But Izzy probably did get ideas from this song, as he makes no secret that he's a massive Hanoi Rocks fan. But thanks, for posting that , because I had no idea of that comparison until today.  :)

From Slash:

I heard that one of the guys from Tesla claimed GNR stole "Patience" from them. I'm assuming he's smoking super crack. Or dreaming out loud. Iii|; ),

I didn't hear the actual interview so I won't jump to conclusions based on hearsay. I'll just make emotiphants! ,/( _ [ ' \J

about 6 hours ago via Facebook

A couple of tweets from Eddie Trunk on the matter.

therealedtrunk Eddie Trunk   
The original Guns lineup not happy that Frank Hannon said part of "Patience" was lifted from one of their demos on TMS.

Steven Adler said on ET Live Monday it was written by Izzy in 1983. Heard from Slash about it to. Glad its not something I said for a change

I think Frank was trying to stir stuff up because it was the Throwdown, but he did say it so its up to him to clarify if he wants.

Guess I should be honored the Guns guys spent Thanksgiving watching me.... Crazy

Thanks faldor, and not to seem critical of Eddie Trunk, but...


Yeah, you just said "Sue their asses?


This was reported in a number of places.  Slash obviously got it elsewhere, if he was watching the show he wouldn't have said "I didn't hear the actual interview so I won't jump to conclusions based on hearsay."

Well, Steven has said he's an avid watcher of the show, but in turn I think Eddie said that Steven said he heard it from Slash.  So I'm guessing Eddie just made the conclusion that Slash had heard it by watching the show first, then told Steven.  And the "sue their asses" comment was completely made in jest.

Slash says he didn't see the show/interview

Slash: "I didn't hear the actual interview so I won't jump to conclusions based on hearsay. I'll just make emotiphants! ,/( _ [ ' \J"


I'm not so sure, I watched the interview, he was pretty quick to add that comment.

The descending lick on the C chord is the same...I know this only because I play guitar. It wasn't a slight at Izzy at all, just one of those things where you pick up on your influences and have no idea! That and I never had a reason to refer to Hanoi's song unitl now!

SLASH Says FRANK HANNON Was 'Dreaming' When He Accused GUNS N' ROSES Of Ripping Off TESLA - Nov. 29, 2010

During an appearance on the November 13 episode of VH1 Classic's "That Metal Show", TESLA guitarist Frank Hannon accused GUNS N' ROSES of ripping off an early TESLA track for the GN'R classic "Patience". (See video below starting at around the 41-minute, 40-second mark.)

TESLA and GUNS N' ROSES were both signed to Geffen Records by the label's then-A&R executive Tom Zutaut. TESLA's debut album, "Mechanical Resonance", came out in 1986, while GUNS N' ROSES' first LP, "Appetite For Destruction", followed a year later.

Said Hannon: "Let me tell you something: 'Patience'... We were labelmates with GUNS N' ROSES on Geffen. There's a demo of a song that we wrote called 'Better Off Without You'. It is 'Patience' note for note . . . I don't know if they ripped us off or Tom Zutaut or Geffen or somebody passed them the tape."

In response, former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash wrote on his Facebook page, "I heard that one of the guys from TESLA claimed GN'R stole 'Patience' from them. I'm assuming he's smoking super crack. Or dreaming out loud . . . I didn't hear the actual interview so I won't jump to conclusions based on hearsay. I'll just make emotiphants!"

In the meantime, Hannon took to TESLA's official forum to clarify the comments he made on "That Metal Show", explaining, "The demo of 'Better Off Without You' I was talking about is an acoustic guitar version we did live at the Oasis Ballroom in 1985 that Geffen Records had on a 'live' cassette tape of a show we played. They did make some copies of it with labels on them and handed them out to people before we made our first album. If anyone can find one, that would be awesome. I was not talking about the piano version that's floating around on a bootleg.

"Also, for the record: 'Better Off Without You' is a song in 'D' and it does the 'D/F#-to-G' chord change in it. This is also the same type of change that GN'R used at the end of 'Patience' and also the same change that John Lennon uses in 'Imagine'...

"I do not seriously feel that we wrote 'Patience' in ANY WAY.

"The song 'Patience' is a great song that they [GUNS N' ROSES] wrote themselves, and it is only the end part that has any similar part to the guitar chords we used.

"I apologize for any controversy or disrespect I may have projected in my joking around with Eddie Trunk ['That Metal Show' co-host] about this."

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=150099

TESLA's HANNON Says He Was 'Just Joking' When He Accused GUNS N' ROSES Off Ripping His Band Off - Dec. 6, 2010

On December 3, TESLA guitarist Frank Hannon went on the air on Santa Rosa, California's 101.7 The Fox radio station inside the "Less Is More Lounge" to clarify comments he made during a recent episode of VH1 Classic's "That Metal Show" when accused GUNS N' ROSES of ripping off an early TESLA track for the GN'R classic "Patience". Watch video footage of his appearance below.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=150474

Haha, that Tesla guy seems really embarrased about that comment he made. But in his defence the riff is similar, but he should not have said the comment about GN'R copying them, as that obviously wasn't the case.

I like how the radio DJ, takes the piss out of the Telsa guy even more by saying has his song got any whistling in it, and everybody in the studio starts laughing.  ;D

But seriously, not a big deal, yes the riff is similar, but he shouldn't of said what he said about GN'R period.