Steven and Keri interview at rockconfidential.com

[jarmo]

Full interview @ http://www.rockconfidential.com/AdlersAppetite.html


Thanks to Marijke, anythinggoes



/jarmo

[Scabbie]

Hi Jarmo, can you post this? I can't get access to it!

[jarmo]

Confidentially Speaking With
Keri Kelli and Steven Adler

AdlersAppetite.com



By: Jesse Capps


Keri, it's cool to finally catch up with you. I've seen you all over the place this past year and it's about time you ended up on Rock Confidential! Tell me what's going on...You just played a few gigs, right?
Yeah, we we went out a did a couple of warm-up shows. We did Salt Lake City, Denver, Grand Junction, and also Aspen, believe it or not. Those shows were all great and it was good to really get out there and get everything moving again to get ready for the European shows. That's our main focus right now.

I know the relation that some of the guys in the band have, but tell me how you all got together for this project.
It was pretty simple. I've known Adler for about ten years. I played with Slash a few years ago, too. Adler had moved out to Vegas. He knew a buddy of mine and was talking about wanting to start playing. He hadn't really played seriously for like, 13 years. My buddy told him he should call me up and get something going. Steven called me up about two years ago and said he wanted to do something. I could tell he seemed to be in good health. He's obviously had some problems over the past few years but he assured me he was doing good. I went right ahead and called up Robbie Crane. We put it together from there. Then we got Jizzy involved. We decided to get together and jam and see how it worked out. We got together in a rehearsal space, jammed out a bunch of tunes for a couple of hours and it was great. We took it one step at a time instead of rushing in and going crazy. We didn't know exactly how Steven was going to react to doing all this stuff because he hadn't really played in 13 years. He's been doing fine. We're looking forward to another European run.

When you first got together was it more just to jam and play a few gigs or did you have plans to write new material?
We had always thought about doing an original project but yeah, when we first started it was more like just a jam band kinda thing. We were doing about six or eight Guns 'n Roses tunes and a half dozen covers, like Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, and stuff like that. A little while after we got the band together everybody was in the midst of their other bands. Now it's the right time. This next year is the perfect time for us to try to do something for real and take it to the next level. It's not just a fun jam band.

Who wrote the songs on the new EP?
We all worked on the ideas. I had a bunch of music that I thought were cool musical pieces. Myself, Steven, and Robbie got together here at my house and revisited the ideas I had and worked on the arrangements. They were still instrumentals at that time but we put them into a really good song form. We gave 'em to Jizzy at that point for the lyrics and we demoed them again because sometimes he'd say we'd need to extend a verse or double a chorus to fit his lyrical needs. We all worked on the songs together but I generally put the music together and Jizzy put the words together.

You kick off your European tour in a couple of days. What's your set list like for this tour?
We're gonna be playing every original song on our new record. On the EP there's two covers: "Hollywood" by Thin Lizzy and "Draw The Line" by Aerosmith. We'll be doing those six songs as well as a half dozen Guns 'n Roses tunes and a couple of others. We've gotta give the people what they want. There's no denying that Guns 'n Roses is a legendary band. People love to hear those songs. We were pleasantly surprised when we went over there last year. We played Italy and Spain. The places we played were packed. They were sold out before we even got there. We start off with "Welcome To The Jungle" and you've got like 6-700 hundred kids going crazy! It's almost the opposite of America, unfortunately. We're gonna give 'em those songs plus our songs. We did Holland, Italy, and Spain, and it worked out great. This time the tour's gonna be about six weeks. We've got Spain, the Canary Islands, four more shows in Italy, seven shows in the UK, we've got a show over in Ireland. That's gonna be great. I've never been there. We've got three Scandinavian shows that just came in, Budapest, Istanbul, Greece, we're all over the place!

How long is the prep-time in putting together a tour like that?
I've been working on getting this run together...myself and Robbie oversee all the business aspects of this project. Getting all the details together all the way down to the transportation, the backline gear, the hotels and everything, it's been about three months. Almost every day has been emails and phone calls about something to get this up and running. I'm actually gonna be thankful when it's over, ya know? Hopefully everythings is going to be successful like it was last time. We're all looking forward to it and I think we're going to have a great time.

This may be jumping the gun a little, but any plans for more US dates?
We're getting back the last weekend in February and we have a week off. Then we're going over to Japan. Most likely we'll be off in April and May. We've already been talking with our agent regarding this summer. We'd like to do something in America but as you know the market over here is very hit-and-miss. We'll even open up for somebody if we can get on a good package. One person we've been talking with is Sebastian Bach. We'd like to do a couple of months with him. It would be us opening up for Sebastian...I think that would be good. Having us go at it alone out here in the States, I just don't think it'd be that successful. We definitely want to do something for the Summer.

You're right, man. I don't know what's happened but people just aren't going to shows like they used to. I think there's probably too many other things to keep people occupied. They're happy sitting on their ass at home!
That's exactly it. It's pretty sad when you have bands that tour and they get 100 people in a 500 seater. It's definitely rough these days. You just roll with the punches and do the best you can.

You're headlining this European tour...Are you sharing the stage with any cool bands?
We're opening one show and it's gonna be awesome! It's in Nottingham. We playing with Hanoi Rocks. It's gonna be awesome. It's at a place called Rock City, which is an incredible venue. It's 2500 people and the show is already sold out.

Is Adler's Appetite top priority for all the members? You all have ties to other bands and I'm just wondering what will happen if another band has something come up.
Vince just got married and I flew in for that. He's got this Motley thing going which is on for at least a year. They're saying it's gonna be one to two years. He was talking about doing things after the Motley tour is done just this past Sunday. You never know what's going to happen. As far as my status, I'm here with Adler. As far as Ratt goes, I know that they're trying to do some kind of summer tour. I don't know if they've come to any kind of agreements with Jizzy and Robbie. From what I've been told it didn't look good on Robbie's and Jizzy's end. I think that we'll be OK to continue Adler's Appetite in the summer. That's what I know right now. I heard that Ratt's been talking to Pearcy the last two or three weeks trying to get that thing sorted out.

If I was in that position I would jump all over Adler's Appetite. You're doing new, original material and your staying busy on the road. That's a goal-oriented band as opposed to a band touring and just playing catalog material.
We're trying. You've got to put records out. Nobody's going to necessarily sell two or four million like they used to. That's pretty unrealistic these days. It's a good feeling to write new music and record it and have people enjoy it. If you sell 10,000 copies or a million, we wanted to do it. It's not that hard. Rock 'n roll is not rocket science! You go in, get some riffs that you like, and you do it! We're gonna keep rolling with the punches and do it one step at a time!

[jarmo]

Hey Steven! It's great to talk to you man. How's it goin?
Jesse, it's pretty dang good! We're off to Spain. It's another world in Europe. Hip hop and rap is really big in American and it's not that way in Europe and Asia and South America. Hard rock is alive and well! Remember a band called Uriah Heep? We were just in Europe this past June and July and the bus driver walked off the bus with a Uriah Heep tour shirt. They were just touring there. That's how it is there. We played festivals with Saxon, Queensryche, Cheap Trick, Deep Purple in Holland, Anthrax, Rose Tattoo. It was cool to play with Cheap Trick. The only CD I brought with me on that tour was Essentials by Cheap Trick. I always wanted to meet Tom Peterson, too. Guns 'n Roses played with Cheap Trick once in Long Beach but Tom Peterson wasn't with 'em.

What do you think has happened to the rock 'n roll crowds in America? What's brought on a change?
I couldn't tell you. Did you see Fahrenheit 911? It was so frightening. I wanted to turn it off because it was so scary. I had to keep watching it to see what was next. It's all true stuff. All I see is America turning into fucking Nazi Germany. When you're in Europe you can't turn anywhere without seeing a little flyer on a billboard with George Bush's face with a Hitler moustache and a swastika above his head. He's hated. It makes me not want to even live here anymore. But, that's that. I'm going to Europe!

How did you know it was time to get back into playing and get these guys together in a band?
I never expected to make it...I'm going to be 40 January 22. Last year I spent my birthday in Spain. 1500 kids sang "Happy Birthday" to me in Spanish! The 13 years after the G 'n R stuff, I didn't think I was going to survive. I had to highlight my hair this afternoon because I have gray hair! I'm so stoked! Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Curt Cobain, all died at 27. I made it. It's all uphill from here and I have my own hair! 39 and it's all mine!

If you're sticking around long enough to see gray hair you've done more than they did!
Thank God. That's what I say.

What was it like working on your first original material in 13 years?
I was scared to death. I didnt' know what to expect. I haven't written a song in over a decade. Working with Robbie Crane and Keri Kelli is such a dream. Those 13 years didn't hurt...it was like I just picked right back up where I left off. It was so easy..."It's so fuckin' easy! I was a little worried about Jizzy. He brought the lyrics in for the record and I'm glad he was never hugely successful in the past. He's fuckin' hungry! You can hear it in his words. We played those songs for the first time in Colorado and Utah. We would play G 'n R songs and everybody knew 'em. We'd play "Hollywood" from Thin Lizzy and they'd be jumping up and down, screaming. We'd play a song they didn't know and they'd just stand there. It's so nice to see people consistently get into it even with the new songs. We played this bar in Aspen. Two girls in the front row took their tops off! This was a bar! At a stadium you expect things like that. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. People were getting into it. When we played "Welcome To The Jungle" people started moshing around. I couldn't think of better people to be playing with. It was very easy writing the new songs.

I wanna wish you much success on your upcoming tour. You're gonna get to play with Hanoi Rocks, man!
I played with Deep Purple, Cheap Trick, and Rose Tattoo. Now we're blessed to play with Hanoi Rocks. I have a little history with Andy McCoy. Wanna hear that?

Dude, let's hear it!
His wife - if she's still his wife - used to be Izzy's girlfriend back in the day. She's the biggest cunt, slut, whore, loser, piece of shit I've ever met in my life! After they let me go from G 'n R, Andy was living up the street from me. We started writing together. He would come down and I would say, "Do not bring that goofy wife of yours!" I'd be in the front yard and I'd see him up the hill and I'd flip him off because he was bringing her. One afternoon we were playing and I had a locked gate. The wife and Erin Everly come over. Axl and Erin had got in a fight. That's what really did it. This girl gave her valium and some other stuff and kept telling me to give her heroin. There is now way in hell I would ever do anything to Erin, even sexually. The closest we ever got was eating sushi in Studio City once. Three guys came in with shotguns and robbed the place while we were there. They took everybody's shit but ours! I've always been a big fan on Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy. Micheal got to play on the Use Your Illusion stuff. Me, Slash, and Duff wrote the music. I only got to play on Civil War. We're doing that one live, too.

What G 'n R tunes are you putting in the set?
My name is on those songs and I have every right to play 'em. Fuck, Axl isn't doing it. The other guys play one or two G 'n R songs in their set. Our new setlist has us starting out with "Nighttrain" and finishing up with "Paradise City." Have you seen that commercial for that video game with "Welcome To The Jungle"? The song was always huge but now the younger generation can get into it. We used to open up with "Jungle."

You're the lone saviour for G 'n R fans because you're actually out there playing it.
We're keeping it alive. I'm thankful that I'm capable of doing it. I'm almost 40. Nowadays that's kinda old, ya know? I'm a happy, happy, man. I'm scared of fucking death because things are going too good. The biggest thing I wanted to do with Slash and Duff and that jackass was revenge. The finest and greatest revenge is success. That's all I wanted. Slash is gonna hear this record we did and he's gonna flip. It fucking blows that Velvet Revolver crap away. I love Slash and Duff. I wanna like it but it's crap. I've gone from song to song and I can't like it. I tried to get Slash to play on a couple of things. He was too busy. I wanted to get a hold of John Sykes for "Hollywood," but Keri pulled it off. You know him, buddy.

Thanks a million for taking the time out for this. What would you like to say to your fans and the Guns 'n Roses fans everywhere?
I love them and appreciate them and am so thankful that I have friends and fans that I play for. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be alive. I'm alive and doing this because of them. I love 'em and will do my best to keep a smile on their face. As long as I'm smilin', they're smilin'!

--

http://www.rockconfidential.com/AdlersAppetite.html



/jarmo

[Pingouirose]

I love Slash and Duff. I wanna like it but it's crap. I've gone from song to song and I can't like it.

I don't know if these two also love Steven 

[DeadHorse]

I really wonder if Stevie really said this. If so, that's a pretty bold statement to make when his band consists of a bunch of never-was. 

Pehaps he wouldn't be saying this if he was asked to play in Vevet Revolver

Nevertheless he's entitled to his opinion, even if it's bashing 2 guys of the 4 guys who are souly responsible for his a career.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.


 




 

[thejungle]

i think to be honest he probably did say it but was just exagerrating to make the record sound good y'know? bless 'im, i want him to do well but i can't imagine ripping on everyone who was in GNR makes him look good. hopefully if adlers appetite are still around this time next year he'll have more to talk about than GNR and getting kicked out of the band.

[IzzyDutch]

If Steven doesn't like Contraband so what... Atleast he's honest about.

And he's not bashing Slash or Duff...

[Doc Emmett Brown]

That was a very upbeat interview - "I made it. It's all uphill from here and I have my own hair! 39 and it's all mine!"    

He sounds stoked about the album, and I'm happy for him.

[norway]

steven's so cool, nice music, thanks 4 the inteview