Listen here:
http://bravewords.com/news/former-guns-n-roses-manager-doug-goldstein-clearly-there-were-difficulties-between-the-manager-and-axl-rose-they-were-having-problems-with-slash-one-on-one-with-mitch-lafon-interview-streamingTopics like:
- Axl
- Lawsuits
- Montreal incident
- Look At Your Game Girl
- Early 2000s
- Alan Niven
- The ownership of the band name
- Reunion
Listening now, some points:
Doug joins Guns as a Tour manager in 1987. He loved the music when he first heard it.
There were difficulties between Niven and Axl. Doug was brought in to bridge the gap between them. Also, he was needed to handle Slash trashing hotel rooms.
Niven quits after Axl no-shows at a concert. Doug is then promoted to band manager.
Alan Niven hated Axl. Doug calls Alan "the tyrant" and Axl "the genius manic depressive".
Doug could relate to Axl because he had similar people to Axl in his own family.
He had conversations with Slash about not wanting to play for very big audiences. Doug was willing to do whatever the band wanted, even scale back to club gigs, but made the point of the money being made and Slash would agree to continue.
Izzy was close with Alan. They both loved Jimmy Page. Doug thinks Alan has changed since the GNR days, he likes who he is today, but not back then.
Doug's main mission was to keep the band together. He admits to being an enabler, but felt he did the right thing in order to keep them together. Alan was the opposite, he would've had no problem throwing people out of the band. Doug felt that it wasn't
his band, so it wouldn't be for him to do.
They talk about Yoda (Sharon Maynard) for a bit. She was brought in by Axl's therapist. She was involved in Axl's life right up until her death to his knowledge.
Merck came to Doug about taking in Big FD with Sanctuary. Merck wanted Doug's relationship with Axl. Doug felt that Merck sort of played him by making him look bad to Axl. While touring in Europe in 2002, Axl came to Doug to ask if he was excited about the VMAs in New York. Doug had no idea what he was talking about. Axl then said that Merck had been telling them that for 2 months. Doug contacted MTV, and found out GNR was not on the bill. He had to beg them to fit them in there, last minute. That was the last thing he did for GNR. Merck fired him.
Doug talks about the current state of Guns. Mitch asks if Axl have fired all of the members after the last tour ended. Doug says he's heard rumors like that, but nothing substantial (note: the feeling I got when he says this, is that he doesn't know anything more about this than we do on the boards). He had heard that Fernando had given the go ahead for the Appetite For Democracy DVD without telling Axl, and then Axl let everybody go. He do know that Dj remains positive in regards to GNR. Mitch brings up that a lot of side-projects popped up since last year, Doug mentions the recent Frank/Chris collaboration. They don't discuss this any more than that.
Niven had said that Adler wasted about 1 million dollars in studio time, and they needed to let him go. Doug says the final call to do this was made by the whole band. Axl was the last to sign off on it, trying until the very end to come up with another solution. Doug defends Slash, Duff and Mike Clink for setting things in motion because they were the ones spending the most time in the studio with Steven, and they couldn't work like that anymore.
He talks about the lawsuit between Adler and the band. Basically Doug and the band wasn't experts on law, so Steven rightfully won 2 million dollars in court because he was a part of the GNR "brand" and after a evaluation on his impact on it, they calculated what he was worth to that. He then talks a bit more about the proceedings themselves.
When Niven was terminated in 1991, he hadn't spoken to Axl in 9 months. Alan was busy with Great White, and Doug handled GNR while Alan cashed in on it. Doug talks about a particular harsh phone conversation between Niven and Axl. Basically Axl called Doug to tell him that his annulment with Erin came through, and he was happy. Doug saw this as an opportunity for Alan to talk to Axl and keep the relationship between them going. Niven got on the phone with Axl, and basically told him what a failure he was. Doug was really upset about that. Later Alan would go on a tirade about what a loser, cunt etc. Axl was and that's when Doug decided to continue on with Axl instead of continue his partnership with Alan. He said that he had never heard Axl talk about any of the other guys in that manner.
Doug and Alan had a different approach to managing bands. Alan wanted to be "one of the guys", while Doug needed to keep the distance.
Use Your Illusions was done the way it was because Axl wanted to make history. Having the #1 and #2 spot on Billboard at the same time had never been done before.
The Spaghetti Incident's intent was to put out something to show what the band's roots were. This to avoid always getting questions about that.
Doug had nothing to do with the creative process of Guns. When asked about Get In The Ring, he said he had no conversations with the band about that. Tom Zutat was more in that position. Doug was never really close with Tom.
He said he never wanted there to be fractions within the band. He felt his job was to be the peace keeper.
Doug says Slash and Duff's recollection of the signing over of the band name is not correct. Doug was not on tour with them at the time they proclaim this had happened. He says that if it had occurred the way they said (Axl held an audience hostage), it would have been under duress (like Axl himself has said). They talk about it might have been John Freese handling that signing.
He says that Slash and himself pretty ran all the band's business (interview appointments and such).
The documentary from the UYI tour exists, at least all the footage. The band owns the footage and it's in the vault. They filmed for 2 1/2 years both off stage and on stage.
They talk about the UYI tour. Doug thinks they changed up the stage show (with more people on stage) because of Axl's fear of not pulling it off live. When they did the Skin N' Bones tour, that was the most successful tour run financially. Doug doesn't want to say the stage show with extra people was a mistake, it was something Axl needed.
The Tokyo concert videos pulled in about 40 million dollars. That enabled them to finance their expensive music videos. The band owns the rights to 85% of each video since they financed it themselves. The remaining 15% are there as a distribution fee. He has spoken with the creative people at MTV and they said that GNR got their Video award just because of the "over-the-top" videos. He then goes on to speak about music videos today, and he's not happy that the era of the music videos are over, just because he likes them.
They talk about the Montreal riot show. Doug talks about the stage setup and how Lars wanted to change it up because the first 50 rows in the audience couldn't see the drummer. When they did change it, some pyrotechnical points had to be moved. Doug doesn't know if they forgot to tell James about it or if they did tell him and he forgot. Either way, that's why he eventually stood at the wrong place at the wrong time and went up in flames when the pyro went off. Montreal was the first show after the change in pyro points.
Axl was seeing Dr. Hans von Leden at the time because of his voice at the time. This because this doctor was known to find solutions that didn't involve surgery.
Axl was
very sick at the time of the Montreal show. He was constantly having issues with his throat because he pushed his voice so much. That combined with his fear of failing live led to the band being so late at the shows. Doug wants to make a distinction between fear of failing and stage fright, he doesn't think Axl has stage fright. Mitch applauds Guns for not half-assing their shows despite of them being late and Doug agrees.
On the night of the Montreal show Mitch remembers it being 4 hours waiting before Guns appeared. Doug says 2-2 1/2. Doug says Axl had vocal warmups that normally took 1 hour plus other warm up stuff because of weak ankles and such. On the night of the Montreal show Axl shortened his preparation in order to go on as soon as he felt he could. After 6-7 songs Axl said that the promoter would refund everyones tickets and ended the show. That caused problems for the promoter as they denied the audience a refund afterwards. Doug says that after a couple of songs Axl came up to him and said (Doug imitating a very hoarse Axl) "That's it, I'm fucked, I can't sing". They attempted a couple more songs, but couldn't continue. Axl couldn't even talk. Doug dismisses Metallica's account of what happened.
The band always wanted to go back to do a make up show, but when they made a inquiry about it the promoters would simply go "no thanks".
Axl loves Slash, Duff and Izzy, he just doesn't know how to communicate it. When shit went down, it was frustrating for Doug that Axl never would defend himself.
One In A Million was Axl poking fun at the mentality he had when he first arrived in LA. Axl was never interested in defending himself publicly, again frustrating Doug. From Axl's point of view it was simple: "if they really think that's who I am, then fuck 'em".
Look At Your Game, Girl was the same deal. Axl wouldn't explain himself. Doug says Axl thought people's perception of him was "everybody thinks I'm crazy like this guy is crazy".
LAST PART FURTHER DOWN IN THIS THREAD
Author