THIRTY YEARS OF DESTRUCTION AND FANS STILL HAVE AN APPETITE FOR GUNS N’ ROSES
Appetite for Destruction changed everything about rock in the ’80s.
Released 30 years ago this summer, Guns N’ Roses’ first majorlabel album came out at a time when Bon Jovi was at the top of the charts, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States and glam metal was going strong, thanks to the heavy makeup and slick riffs of bands such as Twisted Sister, Whitesnake and Motley Crue.
No one realized it at first, but the studio debut by Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff and Steve would surpass them all, becoming one of the best-selling albums in history. What’s more, it was a game-changer that marked the end of synth-pop and the peak of hair metal, and foreshadowed the rise of grunge.
Back then, at the house parties and backyard bashes I went to, Appetite was one of the cassettes you could count on to rev up any crowd. Played loud on the car stereo, the opening line, “Welcome to the jungle,” was the siren call for good times.
Three decades later, it still is. Although five more albums followed, Appetite for Destruction stands as the band’s most cohesive work, a document of the brief period when GNR was known for their music, not the infighting, the fragile egos, the drug- and alcohol-fuelled debauchery, or their unfortunate habit of making fans wait for hours until they felt like appearing on stage.
At first, the goal of recording was simply to capture the live energy of five guys who had been playing together less than a year. As the story goes, Guns N’ Roses was formed in the mid-’80s when members of L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose joined forces. After some shifting around, the original lineup settled with singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin and drummer Steven Adler.
They did a West Coast tour, and were making a name on the L.A. club circuit when they were scooped up by Geffen Records in 1986. A four-song EP, Live Like a Suicide, was intended to buy time while they worked on a full-length studio project.
In an interview with the Ultimate Classic Rock website, Tom Zutaut, the record exec who signed the band, described the mission of those first studio sessions: “We wanted to capture lightning in a bottle, a raw animal magnetism, like a Doors record,” he said.
To do so, they brought in a young engineer named Mike Clink instead of a superstar hitmaker with a proven track record. He was able to balance Slash’s gritty guitar tone with Axl’s unholy shriek of a voice while bolstering the groove-driven bottom end with a sound that fell between punk and grunge. The raw edge was not only a far cry from the glossy polish of the metal of the era, but also the antithesis of the synth-pop that had been so popular a few years earlier.
Adding to the band’s mystique were lyrics that spoke of sex, drugs and life in the fast lane, plus the gruesome original album cover by artist Robert Williams that depicted a robot rapist looming over his victim as he’s about to be attacked by a dagger-toothed predator. At least 30,000 copies of the album were sold with the original artwork before it was banned by several major retailers. The nowiconic skull-emblazoned cross was the alternative cover.
To the frustration of the label, the album failed to connect immediately. MTV wasn’t interested in the video for Welcome to the Jungle, and radio stations weren’t jumping on the tune. So the band went to the U.K., where the song It’s So Easy was promptly banned by the BBC for its suggestive lyrics. The British press dubbed them “the world’s most dangerous band,” and fans lapped it up.
Back in the U.S., the band tore a page from the Kiss blueprint to rock ’n’ roll stardom and released a power ballad. Like Beth had done for Kiss a decade earlier, Sweet Child O’ Mine propelled the band into the mainstream, turning the band on to legions of teenage girls who suddenly found Axl’s bad-boy persona endlessly sexy.
By the summer of ’88, Appetite hit the top of the Billboard album charts, and Sweet Child was a No. 1 single. Around the same time, things were unravelling. The 1988 followup album, Lies, was rushed out, and sounded like it. Then came the overly ambitious double shot of Use Your Illusion I and II, both massive hits, although subsequent touring was more notable for the late starts, drug abuse, Axl’s temper tantrums and, on a few occasions, rioting. Following 1993’s The Spaghetti Incident album, it would take 15 years for the next one, Chinese Democracy, to surface.
One of the most infamous riots happened when the GNR-Metallica tour arrived in Montreal in 1992. Metallica guitarist James Hetfield was injured by pyro, and then GNR took two hours to get to the stage, only to see fickle Axl stomp off after nine songs, apparently derailed by sound problems or maybe a sore throat. Disgruntled fans caused some $400,000 damage to the stadium before taking to the streets to burn cars and loot businesses.
This year’s edition of GNR is a vastly more professional band. After decades of bitterness and animosity, Axl and guitarist Slash are tolerating each other again, and last year kicked off the aptly titled Not in This Lifetime tour. With a lineup that also includes original bassist McKagan, longtime keyboardist Dizzy Reed, rhythm guitarist Richard Fortus, drummer Frank Ferrer and newest member, Melissa Reese, on keyboards, they’ve been showing up on time and ready to rock, armed with a set list that’s packed with tracks from Appetite. For many fans, it’s about time.