From an interview with Steven Adler:
Steven Adler's new appetiteAUGUST 24, 2011
Steven Adler wants to know, ?What is hip??
After a decade or more of study, he has his own answer.
?What is hip today is only hip today. I want to play music that will last and endure.?
Hip, then, is something timeless. Past, present, future.
Adler has a past. He was the drummer for Guns N? Roses before a crippling heroin habit got him thrown out of the equally dissolute band.
He has persevered to the present with Adler?s Appetite, which has been a swinging door of musicians from Ratt, Quiet Riot, Warrant, Faster Pussycat, Enuff Z?Nuff and others coming and going.
And he foresees a future that he is loathe to talk about. It will be a new band with a new name with a producer he also won?t name.
?I don?t want to say anything because I might jinx it,? Adler exclaims. ?I?m knocking on wood.
?What the world needs right now is a good hard rock ?n? roll band and I?m a rock ?n? roller,? he continues. ?I can?t do what?s not in my heart and soul.?
So, whatever Adler?s Appetite becomes it will be the total of things he learned the hard way and wrote about in his book, My Appetite for Destruction: Sex and Drugs and Guns N? Roses. When Guns N? Roses broke up and moved on to various solo and other projects, Adler wasn?t with them. Initially, he was more addled than ever plus it wasn?t in his nature to compete. He recalls reading about Cream, in which Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker constantly were fighting, culminating in the fiery Baker pulling a knife on Bruce.
?They couldn?t even be in the same room together,? stresses Adler, who claims the break up of GN?R wasn?t nearly so fraught with bickering. ?I couldn?t imagine!
?I?m not a fighter. That?s why people who were in the band aren?t in the band any more; I couldn?t live with them.
?Life goes on. The guys I?ve got right now make me feel good, make me feel strong, make me feel comfortable.?
Adler?s Appetite refers to GN?R?s first and most significant album, Appetite for Destruction. Take songs from that, throw in a cover by such as Thin Lizzy and the baldly autobiographical ?Alive? and there is the kind of hard rock that has kept Adler together and steered him through what he acknowledges were hard times post Guns N? Roses.
?I brought it all on myself,? he admits. ?I?m still angry.
?I have everything to prove. I was in the major leagues and I threw myself out of the major leagues. I went past the minors. I know I have to pay my dues again if I want to get back on top.
?You would think it would be easy to kill yourself but the body can take a lot of s?t. I guess I wasn?t ready yet.?
As he cleaned up, his book detailing those wasted years made him confront himself. It required a decade of introspection and had a sudden conclusion.
?Once I took full responsibility, it was easy,? Adler says. ?I don?t blame anybody. I lit a huge fire in my fireplace and threw the book into it. That was the past.?
http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Steven+Adler+appetite/5295334/story.html
Author