Kerrang! article ? Soundtrack For Destruction

[Spirit]

From latest Kerrang!

"GUNS N' ROSES ? 20 Greatest Songs Dissected!"

SOUNDTRACK FOR DESTRUCTION

With the Guns N' Roses reunion edging ever closer, Kerrang! counts down the most dangerous band in the world's greatest moments ? and reveal the secrets behind some of rock's biggest songs.






If anyone has the issue, it would be very welcome if you could scan the pages

[reayj2003]

Kerrang tends to come out Wednesdays.

I was fucked off with the terrible article in Classic Rock with one of their writers expressing his opinion that the "reunion" was going to be shite.

I think I may have to cancel my subscription.

[GeorgeSteele]

To the extent anyone here paid attention with other big reunions in recent years (Van Halen, Police, etc.), did the media use only decades old pictures of those bands like they are now with Guns?  Seems a bit over the top, every single picture is from late 80s, early 90s.  I understand that there are no current pictures of them together, but that's a simple fix (for example, the official website video).   

[raindog]

If Guns want current pics in the press it's up to them to provide a press release and do a photoshoot, not for the mags to spend money for someone to take hours fiddle-fucking around in photoshop.

Seems the plan is for us to bathe in nostalgia until the guys step on stage together, so that's what's happening.

[Spirit]

I will type up the list (maybe not all at once). Starting off with #20.


20. There Was A Time
Eighteen years in the making, with a personnel sheet longer than entire discographies by most bands, Chinese Democracy divided fans down the middle come its eventual 2008 release. Yet for all the arguments over its overindulgence, its absurdly long gestation, or its ?authenticity? as a Guns N? Roses release, the quality of the music speaks for itself. Case in point: There Was A Time, notably one of a few tracks to feature guitar work from Axl Rose himself. While most of his ex-bandmates appeared to be more actively busy than Axl while he meticulously crafted his masterpiece, songs like this present a strong argument for being the best work anyone from Guns N? Roses has put their name to since Use Your Illusion II.

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: A Perfect Circle founder Billy Howerdel was the studio hand charged with the engineering and recording of There Was A Time, later praising Axl?s ?ferocious approach? to perfection.


19. Coma
The longest song in the Guns arsenal is almost perhaps the darkest, delving deep into Axl?s psyche and past suicide attempt. ?I started writing [Coma] when I OD?d four years ago because of stress. I couldn?t take it?, Axl told MTV in 1990, prior to the song?s release. ?I just grabbed this bottle of pills, in an argument, and gulped them down. I ended up in hospital? Some people could take [the song] wrong and think this means, ?Go put yourself into a coma?. It?s still tricky, I?m still playing with the words to show there?s some hope in there?. The sprawling epic ? which doesn?t even have a chorus ? ends with a rant believed to reference the band?s former self-destructive ways.

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: The effects heard on Coma were contributed by Bruce Foster, a sound editor who worked on late ?80s/early ?90s movies such as Sister Act, Arachnophobia, Ghostbusters and Hot Shots! Part Deux.

[Spirit]

18. Breakdown
In his autobiography, Slash would describe Breakdown ? one of the second Use Your Illusion album?s highlights ? as being one of the most problematic songs to work on during the albums? entire recording process. Sandwiched in-between two up-tempo screamers and marking the record?s halfway point, it?s a track that explores Axl?s love for the music of the Deep South more obviously than the Lynyrd Skynyrd influence he indulged on Sweet Child O? Mine. And just to seal the indulgent deal even further, the song closes with Axl reciting a seemingly nonsensical monologue from 1971 Southwestern Americana flick Vanishing Point ? the one moment on the entire album that Axl says ?didn?t come out the way we wanted?.


17. Right Next Door To Hell
The opening minute of the first Use Your Illusion disc lacks no urgency at all, with bassist Duff McKagan?s earth-rumbling bass bleeding out of your speakers was guitarists Izzy Stradlin and Slash scrape their strings and start riffing in unison. Right Next Door To Hell was co-written by Hanoi Rocks collaborator Timo Kaltio, who was visiting Izzy in 1988 and added his chorus part onto a demo while the pair messed around over some beers. Years later, Izzy contacted him for permission to use it, which inevitably led to the exchange of grand sums of money that, by his own admission, was initially blown on cars. It remains one of the heaviest songs Guns N? Roses have ever come up with, and likely ever will.

NO GOOD IN THE ?HOOD ? THE TRUE TROUBLE BEHIND RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO HELL: The reason why Right Next Door To Hell sounds particularly scathing, even by Axl?s notorious standards, is because he?s tearing into one-time West Hollywood neighbour Gabriella Kantor, who claimed the singer had assaulted her with an expensive bottle of chardonnay and a piece of chicken, had him arrested and initiated litigation against him. ?Frankly, if I was going to hit her with a wine bottle, she wouldn?t have gotten up?, Axl somewhat unsensibly told People Magazine of his ?obsessed fan? who couldn?t ?take the rejection?. In the end, the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence. The same condo would later be given away as part of a bizarre MTV Evict Axl competition.

[Spirit]

16. Out Ta Get Me
Before moving to the City Of Angels with then-girlfriend Gina Siler at the end of 1982, Axl Rose was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana. After discovering he was adopted while going through insurance papers in his family home, a 17-year-old Axl became well known to local authorities and was arrested over 20 times. Facing threats of being charged further for becoming a habitual criminal, the singer decided it was time for a new start. Out Ta Get Me is his middle finger to the system that failed him in his greatest time of need, immortalized by the lyrics: ?I lose my head, I close my eyes, they won?t touch me, ?cause I got somethin? I been buildin? up inside, I?m already gone?.


15. You Could Be Mine
If You Could Be Mine feels more akin to the Appetite For Destruction-era than the Illusion discs that it found its home on, it?s because that?s precisely when it was written. And though the song may have been shelved from the debut, as a single it served perfectly as the first taste of their next chapter. Inspired by Izzy Stradlin?s break-up with actress/model Angela Nicoletti, its inclusion as the theme for the biggest movie of its year, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, said everything about GN?R ? the biggest band in the world ? at this moment in history.

[Spirit]

14. Civil War
The only song on either of the Illusion albums to feature original sticksman Steven Adler on drums ? recorded just before his dismissal for a spiraling heroin addiction ? Civil War first appeared on the Nobody?s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal charity album in 1990. Penned by Slash, Axl and Duff over various soundcheck and inspired by the assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. along with the Vietnam war, the song begins with a sample from 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke before Axl whistles a melody borrowed from 1863 civil war anthem When Johnny Comes Marching Home and later recites a speech made by a general of [Peruvian guerrilla insurgents] Shining Path. Axl liked the Cool Hand Luke sample so much, he would use it again 17 years later on Chinese Democracy?s Civil War-esque Madagascar.

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: The line ?D?you wear a black armband, when they shot the man who said, ?Peace could last forever??? refers to a Martin Luther King Jr. peace march Duff McKagan was taken to by his mum as a child.


13. Mr. Brownstone
Of all the songs that appeared on debut record Appetite For Destruction, Mr. Brownstone is arguably the most prophetic of Guns N? Roses? dark days to come. Their first UK single, for starters, took us through the mind-set of a heroin addict. Written one night in the apartment of Izzy?s stripper girlfriend Desi Craft, it was autobiographical in the sense that Slash and Izzy were bemoaning their very own downward spirals, its lyrics written on the back of a grocery bag. Come October 18, 1989, when GN?R were opening for The Rolling Stones at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the song?s title would come to embody the band?s problems. ?I hate to do this onstage, but I tried every other fucking way?, Axl told the crowd, ?Unless certain people in this band get their shit together, these will be the last Guns N? Roses shows you?ll ever see, ?cause I?m tired of too many people in this organization dancing with Mr. Goddamn Brownstone?. Years later, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the vocalist admitted, ?I was watching my band mentally and physically fall apart? It was a harsh move [talking about it] onstage, but we had tried everything else, and nobody would stop?.

[Spirit]

12. Patience
The only single taken from Guns' post-Appetite stop-gap mini-album, GN'R Lies, Patience was the sound of a band pressing pause on all the rock'n'roll whirlwind in favour of a more vulnerable and understated manner, with Duff putting down the bass to join Izzy and Slash on acoustic guitar. The song was recorded in one take straight and was ironically the last music video to feature ex-drummer Steve Adler, despite him not playing on the track itself. Though the song was penned by Izzy Stradlin, its inspiration remains a mystery, with no official confirmation of whether the lyrics document Axl's relationship with ex-wife Erin Everly or Izzy's then-girlfriend Angela Nicoletti.

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: Axl has often stated that, while being proud of Patience and the other three acoustic tracks on GN'R Lies, he hated the sound of his voice on the recordings and wishes he could re-record them.


11. It's So Easy
To say the first official single from Appetite... was a flop might be a bit excessive, but it certainly failed in launching them to the dizzying heights A&R executive Tom Zutaut ? who signed the fledgling band ? had promised his Geffen bosses. It didn't matter to us ? in K!51, writer Howard Johnson awarded their debut 5Ks, noting "the band's current single pays no heed to the 'necessary' niceties of being airplay-orientated. Axl yelling 'So fuckin' easy!' enough to guarantee no radio exposure whatsoever". In that sense, It's So Easy was the first of many middle fingers to come. Penned by Duff with his close friend West Arkeen, it's a song that will forever carry an air of sadness due to the moment when two fans were crushed to death in the pit at the beginning of their Donington Monsters Of Rock 1988 set.

[Spirit]

10. Locomotive
Being one of the more experimental Use Your Illusion II tracks, Locomotive has only been performed a handful of times, yet it showcases another side to a beast with many faces. Slash took the unusual step of recording many of his parts with a way-wah pedal left 'on', while Axl layered his voice with a deep baritone underneath his tenor snarl to give the song a sense of multiple voices trapped in one person's head ('I know it looks like I'm insane...').


9. My Michelle
Be careful what you wish for in the company of W. Axl Rose ? Michelle Young, a friend of the band, found out the hard way. One night, she was sat in the car with Axl when Elton John's Your Song came on the radio, to which she made a passing comment about having always wanted a song written about her. The result was a song full of brutal truths concerning her struggles with addiction and dysfunctional family background.

[Spirit]

8. Sweet Child O' Mine
As far as jokes go, with the benefit of hindsight, Sweet Child O' Mine is by far the best one Slash has ever made. During one of legendary jam sessions in the band's Sunset Boulevard 'Hell House' that would inform Appetite For Destruction, the guitarist was goofing around, pulling faces while playing a circusy string skipping exercise. His bandmates started embellishing underneath his lead and, within an hour, the bare bones of their biggest anthem were in place. Axl, listening from his room upstairs and feeling inspired by the heartfelt honesty of Southern rock heroes Lynyrd Skynyrd, wrote about his feelings towards then-girlfriend Erin Everly. As fate would have it, the band got stuck on the ending and Axl would ask himself, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" which demo producer Spencer Proffer realized could indeed be the part they were looking for. Though immediately considered a potential single, the band buried the track on the second side of Appetite... in an attempt to hide it from their record label for fear that the band's most tender moment would not accurately back up their then-fierce reputation.

SWEET CHILD: THE HIT THAT NEARLY WASN'T: Tom Zutaut, who signed GN'R to Geffen Records, recalls how an argument with Axl Rose nearly meant the band's most famous song didn't make it onto Appetite For Destruction...

"It always felt like Guns were short of the song they needed [in the early days]. They had a lot of great punk, hard rock songs, and they needed that one song that could separate them from the rest of all the bands. Now, in those days, I would go to maybe every other show the band played, but Marc Canter [Slash's childhood friend and the band's early unofficial photographer] called me one day and said, 'You should definitely come to the next show [at Whisky A Go Go, on August 23, 1986], they just wrote this new song that's amazing...' And that new song was Sweet Child O' Mine. I went to the show and heard that song, and knew there and then they were ready to record what would become the biggest rock debut album ever.

"[Going into the studio to record Appetite...] we had a lot of songs. Then, in one of the most memorable days in the studio, Axl told me he had a song he wanted me to hear. He sat down and played me November Rain. That same day, Izzy played me Patience. We had Don't Cry as well... So, I was like, 'What the hell do we do [with all these songs]?' One of the classic arguments I had with Axl was about whether to put Don't Cry or Sweet Child on Appetite... In the end, I felt that Sweet Child was the lightning in the bottle that captured what I'd seen in their early shows, it was the song that made us go into the studio, and that it was stronger than Don't Cry, so we decided to hold Don't Cry back in favour of including Sweet Child. And I think we did it right in the end!"

[Slashrose]

Very Cool this article.

[Spirit]

7. Don't Cry
The only song to appear on both Use Your Illusions, the second version of which features alternate lyrics, Don't Cry's haunting brilliance makes it one of the moodiest rock ballads of its time. One of GN'R's earliest compositions, Axl Rose penned this song having fallen in love with Izzy's girlfriend Monique Lewis, who broke his heart outside the Sunset Strip's Roxy venue. "She was telling me goodbye", he would later reveal, "and I sat down and just started crying, and she was telling me, 'Don't cry'. Next night, [me and Izzy] got together and wrote the song in five minutes". Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon, who grew up close to Axl in Lafayette, guests on the track and also appears in the famous video that marked the beginning of an Andy Morahan-directed trilogy ? completed by November Rain and Estranged ? that continues to baffle to this day.

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: As well as the two versions on the Illusion albums, there's also a third version of Don't Cry that appears on the single. It was the demo version that didn't make the cut for Appetite.


6. November Rain
The final single from the first Use Your Illusion has remained very much the quintessential power ballad since its release, and that's highly unlikely to ever change. Originally over 20 minutes long, it was a work-in-progress that took Axl much of the '80s to condense down into nine minutes of ethereal majesty. Considered by many to be the final nail in the coffin for the GN'R members that favoured the original hard rock edge over their newfound orchestral pomp, the video was equally overblown ? costing over $1.5 million to make and in the process becoming one of the most expensive in music history. Slash admitted to Q in 2004 that, "We got into doing these huge-production videos and by November Rain it was too much, just too involved. At the end of the day, it was a great video, but that's when I started realizing it was getting out of hand".

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: In the November Rain video, Axl's then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour, whom he would later propose to, played the character inspired by his ex-wife Erin Everly. Not awkward at all.

[D-GenerationX]

Thanks for doing this, Spirit.  Really appreciate it.

We will dissect at the end.  I have some hot takes.

[Spirit]

5. Nightrain
There are many tracks on Appetite For Destruction that typify the sheer anarchy of living as a band on the mid-'80s Sunset Strip, with hookers and drug dealers coming and going as they pleased. The rampaging Nightrain, however, was GN'R's homage to one of their greatest influences ? the E & J Winery-manufactured fortified wine of the same name ? which was high in percentage but, more importantly, low in cost ('I'm on the Nightrain / Love that stuff! / I'm on the Nightrain / An' I can never get enough!'). Reckless living meant it was all they could afford, while the lyrics to the band's ode to the tipple were improvised over several valiantly intoxicated walks home after nights spent rehearsing. Axl would often advise crowds at shows: "In these liquor stores that the winos hit up, right beside Thunderbird, you'll find the Nightrain. That'll fuck you up twice as bad as Thunderbird and it's a lot cheaper!"

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: Though Izzy Stradlin's role in the band was mainly as a rhythm guitarist, Nightrain offers a rare look at his lead playing. He performs the first half of the solo that comes in around the two-minute mark.


4. Estranged
Credited only to Axl, who thanks Slash for "the killer guitar melodies" in the liner notes, Estranged was written as the singer dealt with the end of his marriage to Erin Everly (I'll never find anyone to replace you / Guess I'll have to make it through this time / Oh, this time, without you). And while it may not seem like one of the obvious choices, the final single from the Use Your Illusion albums has long remained a firm fan-favourite for its progressive darkness, unraveling deep within Axl's broken heart. Perhaps most of all, it's the song that makes us wonder just what else we might have heard if the colliding forces of Axl's piano and Slash's leads were able to continue side-by-side. The $4 million video ? which was partly filmed outside Axl's Malibu house and included the unforgettable sight of Slash rising out of the ocean and wailing away stood on the top the waves ? would be the final (and craziest) installment in the Andy Morahan-directed trilogy. The series was loosely based on Without You ? a short story written by Axl's friend and journalist Del James.

DIRECTING THE TRILOGY: Andy Morahan was the man charged with helming three of the most expensive video shoots of all time. He recalls the chaotic fun of working on Don't Cry, November Rain and Estranged...

"The idea for the trilogy of videos came from a story Axl's friend [Del James] had [the short story Without You]. Axl was going through personal regressive therapy, whatever that was ? things that had happened in his past, and all that kind of stuff. It wasn't a particularly fleshed-out idea. I guess it was about Axl falling in love with a girl. I couldn't really begin to explain now, especially in retrospect, what it all meant ? but that's kind of fun, really. I think the best music videos tend to be surreal and off-the-wall.

"The band was in a state of flux at the time. Izzy [Stradlin] had just left, which Axl was upset about, and he was getting kinda cranky about the dynamic of the band. There were a lot of personal issues going on, and I think the videos, if they're a reflection of anything, it's the fractured nature of the band at the time. It was kind of falling apart at the seams, so it really became less of a cohesive story and more a reflection of the band. They were like vampires; if we wanted to shoot something in the daytime, we'd have to keep them up all night and do it in the morning."

"It eventually became an abstract canvas of a few original ideas, mainly about Axl's kind of inner-most thoughts, and angst and whatever he was going through at the time, and... quite strange things. By Estranged [the trilogy's final part], there were loads of dolphins in it, because he'd split up with [his girlfriend], and said to me, 'I don't wanna get any more beautiful girls in my videos ? I'd rather have a dolphin.' We knew by including that people would go, 'What's that all about?!'"

"The videos were so much fun to work on. They were strange and surreal and over-the-top, but it was that kind of time".

[Spirit]

3. Rocket Queen
Rocket Queen may have gained notoriety for the sex noises that come in during Slash's slide guitar solo, but Appetite...'s closing track boasts more than its fair share of the album's finest moments. From Duff's opening bass groove to its genius, curtain-closing final sequence, Rocket Queen is the kind of song that only Guns N' Roses could write. And though the song's lyrics were about a brothel madame known as Barbie Von Grief, with whom Axl was infatuated, those infamous moans are courtesy of Steven Adler's on-off girlfriend and band dancer Adriana Smith, who was recorded having sex with Axl in the studio. "It was a sexual song and it was a wild night in the studio", Axl told Hit Parader in 1988. Studio man Michael Barbiero was uncomfortable with recording the sex session, and left the task to his assistant, Vic Deyglio, who was credited as 'the fucking engineer'.


2. Paradise City
Some songs were simply built to shake the ground of the world's biggest stadiums. In three simple chords, Guns N' Roses had hatched the chorus to one of the greatest rock anthems of all time. According to Slash, it was written over some beers in the back of a van heading back from a show in San Francisco. Singing along with Axl, the guitarist came up with, 'Where the girls are fat and they've got big titties', for the second cycle of the chorus, but was outvoted by the rest of the band, who preferred reusing the somewhat more radio-friendly original line. Like Welcome To The Jungle, it's written specifically from Axl's perspective as a Lafayette native heading to new pastures in seek of opportunity and a better life. And pretty girls, of course.

[Spirit]

1. Welcome To The Jungle
Slash has often called Welcome To The Jungle the perfect introduction to Guns N' Roses. And in many ways he's right: the opening track from debut Appetite For Destruction bites your head off while ushering in five outlaws that would soon be known as The Most Dangerous Band In The World.

"I consider this song to be the most representative of what we're like", Axl Rose told Hit Parader in 1988. "I wrote the words in Seattle [during the band's infamous June 1985 'Hell Tour'] ? it's a big city, but at the same time it's still a small city compared to Los Angeles and the things that you're gonna learn. It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how it looked to me. If someone comes to [LA] and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want".

While the introductory riff is one of Slash's most famous ever; the guitarist has bassist Duff to thank for the song's main riff, which dated back to the first song that a then-15-year-old Duff ever wrote while in his first band, The Vains. Slash claims that the sum of the song's parts came together in just three hours, and by the mid-summer of 1985, it was a mainstay of early Guns live shows.

Welcome To The Jungle would prove to not just be the song to open Appetite ? it launched GN'R's career too. Seven months after Appetite's July 1987 release, stalling sales led to many in Geffen Records to give up on the band. A&R man Tom Zutaut made one final, desperate appeal to his boss, record label owner David Geffen, for help in getting the follow-up single and its accompanying video aired on MTV, a channel that had previously blacklisted the band due to their fearsome reputation. In the end, a deal was struck for one single play of Welcome To The Jungle at around 5am on a Sunday morning.

Improbably, that single screening was enough to launch a career. "They played it one time, and the switchboards blew up with people calling in saying, 'Play that again!'" Marc Canter, Slash's childhood friend told K!. "Within the next two days it was in heavy rotation and, all of the sudden, the band started selling 200,000 copies a week."

Welcome To The Jungle quickly became MTV's most requested video. GN'R claimed the Sunset Strip for their own, but with the vast, unprecedented levels of exposure from TV's newest and biggest music network, the world was now theirs for the taking.

In 2001, the song would refuel the tensions between Axl and Slash, after the singer refused a request to sign off on the track's inclusion for Ridley Scott's war epic Black Hawk Down. To add further insult to injury, Axl maintained he would only oblige on the condition that the music was re-recorded by the new Guns N' Roses line-up.

SECRET BEHIND THE SONG: According to Axl, the song was inspired by a random encounter in New York. Someone approached him uttering the immortal 'You know where you are...' line and the singer clearly felt it was too good to ignore.

[GeorgeSteele]

Thanks a lot for transcribing all that Spirit.

Additional trivia revealed by Axl at a concert (O2, I think) was that Izzy wrote one word to Welcome to the Jungle: 'Jungle'. 

[Spirit]

No problem 

[HBK]

Thanks SPIRIT !!!