I just read Steven Adler's book My Appetite for Destruction

[Tobin S.]

Guns N Roses hit the big time with their first album Appetite for Destruction back in 1988 when I was 15 years old. I loved that album and carried their cassette with me with my walkman everywhere I went. I wanted to be just like those guys. I grew my hair long, started drinking and smoking weed every chance I got, and when I got my license later that year and started driving I was hell on wheels.

When I look back on that time I find it amazing that I got through it without developing a rap sheet. :D

But despite all the unwise stuff I did back then, I got through growing up okay. I was an outsider at school. I didn't really fit in anywhere, the girls eluded me, and I didn't have any interest in furthering my education. I think that album, among others, helped me make it to graduation. The hard-edged music gave me a release from an interior world filled with angst, anger, and sexual frustration. I would go to sleep listening to that music and the first thing I'd do in the morning was turn it on.

So when I saw Adler's book at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the gift shop I had to pick it up. Steven Adler was one of the founding members of Guns N Roses and their original drummer. I remember when he got kicked out of the band during the making of Use Your Illusion, the band's second full length album. I was pretty bummed about that. I loved all of the guys in the original line-up and it just didn't seem to me like they could be the real Guns N Roses without Adler.

Adler basically started living the rock and roll lifestyle when he was 12 years old. After reading the book I'm surprised that the guy is still alive. Despite his faults I think that at the core of him is a good person, and his description of how he got kicked out of the band sounded like he'd been treated unfairly. The excuse at the time from other band members was that he'd gone too far with the drugs to be a productive member of the band. But he wasn't doing anything the other guys in the band weren't doing. He also later sued the band and won a settlement which gives weight to his side of the story.

But, yeah, the guy was a mess as were the others. But getting kicked out of the band really sent Adler into a downward spiral of hardcore addiction. I wanted to be like them when I was a kid, but I'm glad I turned out to be like me even if it means driving a truck for a living. Those guys are always going to have that fire in their belly, their appetite for destruction, no matter if they stay clean for the rest of their lives. I wish Adler the best.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. I was the same way with Zappa...

...I was the proverbial outsider looking in and once I discovered Zappa's music, it was a game-changer. The same was true for Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" album.

Except for Adler, the other G&R members seemed to land on their feet in one way or another...from Axl's "Chinese Democracy" (even though it was a flop, he enjoyed a decade's worth of buzz over it) to Izzy Stradlin's Stones knockoff "The JuJu Hounds" to the whole Velvet Revolver thing, which was really nothing more than "bad boys" playing extremely calculated corporate rock. And as you said, he won the lawsuit, and he's got the book, so it's not as if he needs to stand outside of clubs with a tin cup or cardboard sign anytime soon (unless he's a fool with his money).

I guess the difference between going down that road or not...of being Robert Johnson and making a deal with the devil at the crossroads...is that the people who took a walk down that road can tell you what lies there, while people like me can only imagine what might have waited for me there. One of the worst questions we can ask, I believe, is "What if?"

Like Kerouac wrote,

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

:toast:

[Tobin S.]

2. Nice post, AV

:thumbsup:

:dem:

[Kat45]

3. Thank you for writing that.

It was quite interesting and well-written. I love your line: "Those guys are always going to have that fire in their belly, their appetite for destruction, no matter if they stay clean for the rest of their lives."

I'm also a huge fan of G'N'R, but I was in my thirties when the first album came out so or course my reaction to them was different than yours. I'm also curious to read the book when I have a chance to. It sounds like it's a good read.

[Skittles]

4. he came from a background of neglect

and you are correct - he's a good person - I too wish him well