GNR?s words on Steven

[Adler_Sorum_Brain]

Yeah..Iv?e read on some topics that Duff and Slash said that it was a misstake to firing Steven and Axl once said that Matt was just an employe etc

Can someone post some quotes from Axl and the guys about steven here ?

I wanna know what the deal is

Thank you..

Guns N Roses - In time // Dennis 

[estrangedpaul]

How about this one -

Slash in court - "It took Steven 60 takes to record Civil War"

[Adler_Sorum_Brain]

hahaha yeah i know 

moore...

[Neemo]

K : What about Steven Adler, your drummer? First he?s out of the band, then he?s back again. What?s the story right now?

A : He is back in the band. He was definitely out of the band. He wasn?t necessarily fired, we worked with Adam Maples, we worked with Martin Chambers, and Steven did the Guns N? Roses thing and got his shit together. And it worked, and he did it, and he plays the songs better than any of ?em, just bad-assed, and he?s GNR. And so if he doesn?t blow it, we?re going to try the album with him, and the tour and, you know, we?ve worked out a contract with him....

Only drummer Steven Adler didn't make it out the other end. "We tried our best to get Steven back together," Slash sounds choked. "Steven - he's always been the child of the band, the one that was always just the happy-go-lucky, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and that's it. He couldn't understand why the drugs were so separated from rock'n'roll all of a sudden; why he couldn't be a junkie and be in a rock'n'roll band, because the twain are supposed to meet on the same ground. But after a while it's really not like that. You have to take care of yourself. People will not go around wiping your ass for you. So a year went by (three visits to rehab) and I finally said, Steven, you've got to go."

It wasn't an easy decision. Steven Adler was the one that got Slash playing guitar in the first place - took him home after high school and played him a Kiss album.

"It still fucks with me. And I still check up on him. I won't go so far as to say he's clean and I won't go so far as to say he's still fucked up. I know he's unhappy. I hadn't seen him since the day it that it was over. Then I was at the Rainbow one night, of all the places to run into him, and I was with Duff and with Matt, who he'd never met... (Drummer Matt Sorum, a sunny and muscular Southern Californian whom Slash admits he stole from The Cult, is Adler's replacement)...It was really awkward. I haven't really seen him since. It's too deep a thing to get into. But the upside of it is that Matt has made the band - I think it was a shot in the arm, no pun intended, that the band didn't necessarily need but that took the band beyond what we were before. I think we're a little bit more - just tight, more focused, more serious about what we're doing. We're not so much the punk band as we were, only because we've been doing it for a while and we're all sort of really aspiring musicians, regardless of the lifestyle. The most important thing I've gotten out of this whole fucking stupid circus that we've been involved in all this time is to sit back and know that we're actually good. And not only that we're good, but that we're original. And if I'm sleeping in a chandelier one night - I stole this from Keith Richards, OK? - I can still get up the next morning and actually play, and play with some sort of integrity, as opposed to hitting one chord as many times as I can as quickly as I can and then continue partying. My playing is my priority, and my playing's actually a lot better. When I listen to the record, it's really good. And that's the thing that's my saving grace and my feelings for the whole thing that happened with Steve."

"I don't want to say anything against Steven, but we went through so much miscellaneous bullshit," recalls Slash. "I mean, for years all the other distractions, and with Steven for more than a year alone. Then, all of a sudden, Matt [Sorum] enters the picture. We rehearse 36 songs in a month and record the whole LP, all the basics, in five weeks - I mean all the guitars, bass and acoustical stuff; the vocals took a little longer. When Matt came in, we just went into the studio and did it. Just like that! We were entangled in the biggest procrastination situation you ever heard of."

[Neemo]

The night Izzy resigned from Guns, he had a meeting with Axl, Slash and manager Doug Goldstein. There was no fight, no shouting, no lawsuits. It was an amicable parting of the ways between friends who made musical history together - and may do so again someday. A far cry from the departure of former drummer Steven Adler, which was clouded by all of the above. Again, perception and reality. Slash talks about Steven now - for the first time since Adler filed his infamous legal action against the band last year - because he wants to set some things straight.

"We turned him onto drugs? My f?!king ass!" Slash say about Adler's allegation. "That's so pathetic. Steven is scared to death of me. If he sees me in public, he just turns into a grovelling heap of defeatism. He just doesn't know what to say. He mumbles. I ask him a straightforward question, 'What's your motivation behind this?"' and he doesn't know what to say. Until now I haven't said a word about Steven to the press. I haven't attacked him; I haven't insulted him. I felt sorry for him. I didn't want to hurt him. We gave him a year to get his shit together. He couldn't play any of the new shit anyway. It got to a point where the material was way beyond him. I can't believe this little f?!ker. I read the shit he said about us in Circus. By the way, f?!k that magazine. If any rag has ever gotten off on sensationalism, it's that magazine. And I don't regret what Axl said on 'Get in the Ring,' because that's got to be one of the most exploitative publications out there. Anyway, back to Steven. He said in that article he's sober now, but every time I've seen him, he's been wasted. I don't know what he's wasted on; I don't even care. I lost all concern and feeling for the guy. And I know a drug lie when I see one. We couldn't get any work done at Rumbo [the original studio where the band started work on Use Your Illusion three years ago]. He cost us a fortune. We had to edit the drum track to 'Civil War' just so we could play to it."

Slash stops for a moment to collect his thoughts. The subject of Adler is a sensitive one for him, not only because of the lawsuit, but because the two go way back to the very beginning together. There was a bond, and that bond has been shattered. The bitterness runs deep.

"At Rumbo, Steven would nod out to the point where he would be on a stool, but his head would be touching the floor. He'd say, 'I'm tired. I'm sleepy,' and he couldn't play. That was basically it. We gave him so many chances to turn around. We took him to Indiana, to play Farm Aid, and he jumps on the drum riser and almost breaks his f?!king neck. Look, Steven was a part of what made Guns N' Roses happen. He had a great energy. He wasn't an insanely great drummer, but he had tons of attitude. When the sex and drugs and the whole bit started to get out of hand, he went right along with it. But there's a certain time when you really have to control your life. I'm not preaching - I'm in no position to preach - but you must be aware of your own existence and take care of your own business. You just can't be loaded all the time and expect everything to be okay. Trust me, I know. As far as the rest of us, we bounced back, we straightened up. Steven never did. We always told each other when it was getting real bad. Everybody was there for the individual who needed help. That's how we're survived as a band. But Steven would never cop to anything, as far as telling us how bad it was. And now he's suing us. Thank you very much."

"But now the damage's done/And we're back out on the run/Funny how ev'rything was roses/When we held on to the guns/Just because you're winnin'/Don't mean you're the lucky ones."

That's the way it came across, because the contract gave you the right of final approval over everything that was written by anyone who signed it.

I'm not that way. I want the real story. I never wanted "Steven Adler's on vacation." I wanted "Steven Adler's in a fucking rehab." (Adler, G n' R's former drummer, was fired from the group for excessive drug use.) I wanted the reality. Maybe I'd like it a bit optimistic, but I've always been more into the reality of the situations, because that's what I wanted to read about the band. I can see where it would look like we just wanted everything to be right about us. But it was also trying to find a way to work with certain metal magazines. There are a lot of kids who collect those, and we'd rather they have real stories than bullshit stories. I haven't done an interview with Hit Parader or Circus in three or four years.

DEL: Want to talk about another former member of Guns, drummer Steven Adler?

AXL: The misconception is that we kicked him out for the hell of it, and that I was the dictator behind it. The truth is, I probably fought a little harder to keep him in the band, because I wasn't working with him on a daily basis like the other guys were. They grew tired of not being able to get their work done because Steven wasn't capable of it. I've read interviews where he's saying that he's straight. Most of the time he isn't. He's the type of person who wants everything handed to him, and he did get it handed to him. He got it handed to him from me. At one point, in order to keep this band together, it was necessary for me to give him a portion of my publishing rights. That was one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life, but he threw such a fit, saying he wasn't going to stay in the band. We were worried about not being able to record our first album, so I did what I felt I had to do. In the long run I paid very extensively for keeping Steven in Guns N' Roses. I paid $1.5 million by giving him 15% of my publishing off of Appetite For Destruction. He didn't write one goddamn note, but he calls me a selfish dick! He's been able to live off of that money, buy a shitload of drugs and hire lawyers to sue me. If and when he loses the lawsuit he has against us, and he has to pay those lawyers, if he has any money left, it'll be the money that came from Guns N' Roses and myself. At this point I really don't care what happens to Steven Adler, because he's taken himself out of my life, out of my care and concern. I feel bad for him in ways, because he's a real damaged person, but he's making choices to keep himself in that damage. There's nothing we can do at this point. We took him to rehabs, we threatened his drug dealers, we helped him when he slashed his wrists. I even forgave him after he nearly killed my wife. I had to spend a night with her in an intensive-care unit because her heart had stopped thanks to Steven. She was hysterical, and he shot her up with a speedball. She had never done jack shit as far as drugs go, and he shoots her up with a mixture of heroin and cocaine? I kept myself from doing anything to him. I kept the man from being killed by members of her family. I saved him from having to go to court, because her mother wanted him held responsible for his actions. And the sonofabitch turns on me? I mean, yeah, I'm a difficult person to deal with, and I'm a pain in the ass to understand, and I've had my share of problems, but Steven benefited greatly from his involvement with me - more than I did from knowing him. Steven had a lot of fans, but he was a real pain in the ass. I need to keep him in my life for you? F?!k you!

[Neemo]

^those are from the articles section on the main htgth page 

[IzzyDutch]

Musician 1992

Replacing him with Matt Sorum for the recording of _Use_Your_Illusion_ _I_ and _II_ changed Guns N' Roses from a rock 'n' roll band into a heavy metal band. Adler's drumming made the band swing. Sorum hits hard but he plods.

Izzy: "Yeah, a big musical difference. The first time I realized what Steve did for the band was when he broke his hand in Michigan. Tried to punch through a wall and busted his hand. So we had Fred Coury come in from Cinderella for the Houston show. Fred played technically good and steady, but the songs sounded just awful. They were written with Steve playing the drums and his sense of swing was the push and pull that give the songs their feel. When that was gone, it was just...unbelievable, weird. Nothing worked. I would have preferred to continue with Steve, but we'd had two years off and we couldn't wait any longer. It just didn't work for Slash to be telling Steve to straighten out. He wasn't ready to clean up."

[Adler_Sorum_Brain]

thank you all !!!