Episode #8: The Appetite for Destruction Lineup is Born

SPEAKERS

Jason Porath, Duff McKagan, Marc Canter, Slash

 

Jason Porath 00:02

So let's talk about the night of that Troubadour show.

 

Marc Canter 00:05

All five of them held their own, as far as stage presence. Whatever I looked at with the camera, I pulled the trigger.

 

Jason Porath 00:20

Welcome back to The First 50 Gigs: Guns N' Roses and the making of Appetite for Destruction. I'm Jason Porath, I'm your host today. So Mark, welcome back. 

 

Marc Canter 00:31

Hey guys.

 

Jason Porath 00:32

As you know, we're here to talk about the final stop of the incestuous revolving doors that spun for the last couple of years since you started following Slash in and out of different bands. We covered Rose, Hollywood Rose, The New Hollywood Rose. We covered Road Crew, we covered Tidus Sloan, we covered L.A. Guns, and we covered the original Guns N' Roses. And we talked a little bit about London, so there's a lot of bands that these guys were in and out of but that revolving door now stops at the Appetite lineup of Guns N' Roses. And we got here because Tracii and Rob dropped out, Duff had scheduled this shakeout tour to Seattle, and Tracii decided he didn't want to go. Because Tracii and Rob were a team, I think Rob felt compelled to follow Tracii out of the band, despite the other band members like Axl and Izzy and Duff trying to keep him in. But he leaves and then they need to quickly find a guitarist and a drummer, because they've got a show at The Troubadour and they're gonna go do this Northwest tour. So what happens, who thought of Slash and Steven? How did this unfold?

 

Marc Canter 01:49

Well, I know that Slash was working at Tower Video where Axl once worked before that, but was no longer working there. But they knew where to find Slash and I think that's pretty much what happened. Axl and Izzy probably went to his work at Tower Video and mentioned the fact that they got a gig booked at The Troubadour and they got this little Northwest Tour booked. And, you know, "Tracii is out, do you want in?" And Slash had just joined Black Sheep, not that he wasn't happy in Black Sheep but he had just joined literally two weeks before that and that was their first gig. They were just about getting ready to do their first gig like, probably that day. It was a decision Slash had to make, believe it or not, as much as I loved that lineup to be together, I didn't think it would hold. Because I'd seen it, and they worked great together musically, but there was always things that made it fall apart between them and I just didn't think it was steady. But the only differences this time is you had Izzy, where last time Izzy really wasn't involved so that can help things a little bit. But obviously Slash made the right decision, quit Black Sheep, joined up with them. And, you know, four or five days later, they had their first gig.

 

Jason Porath 03:13

Slash had a history already with Axl, not necessarily with Izzy, and that didn't work out very well. So he had this gig with Black Sheep and you thought that was more of a sure thing that he could hang on to, but that going to Guns N' Roses with Axl would just result in them breaking up once again, which was predictable, given the history that we just came through.

 

Marc Canter 03:37

It was very predictable except for one thing, Slash knew that Izzy was a player, someone that could really help out in many ways. And last time Izzy was gone. Just as Slash joined in, Izzy was out. So this time was a little different. And obviously they knew each other's talents, and they knew they were the right fit, the right pieces for them to make that puzzle good. So it sounded really good on paper. I just didn't know if it would last more than three months, that was my only issue. And Black Sheep was a band that might have been signed and might of had a record deal and so I didn't think Slash would last in Black Sheep either actually, but I thought it was a better stepping stone, that he'd get recognized. And somebody would pull him out to go to the next level.

 

Jason Porath 04:29

Are you telling us that slash actually came to you for advice after he got invited into Guns N' Roses?

 

Marc Canter 04:36

He didn't come for advice, but I think I gave the advice. I think maybe there was a conversation. I don't remember exactly, but he was on the fence, it's not like he made the decision, he didn't make the decision in one second, "Okay, I'm in, forget Black Sheep, I'm back with these guys." He had briefly worked with Duff in Road Crew for about a week and so Duff was cool. You know, we know Axl is good, and he wanted to work with Izzy, so his heart was in there.

 

Jason Porath 05:07

But the important thing is that Axl, Izzy and Duff probably unanimously wanted to go with Slash as the guitarist. It sounded like they hadn't made a decision around the drummer, maybe they were holding auditions quickly. But Steven came along for the ride, probably because Slash brought him in. And initially from what we've read, he was there to fill in. But at some point, he really wanted to stay and he convinced the others that he was the guy.

 

Marc Canter 05:38

Well, I don't remember him just hanging around until they find somebody else. I just knew that when Slash was in, so was Steven. They seem to me like they both came at the same time. But I kind of recall Steven telling the story that Steven was in before Slash, so it's hard, I don't know.

 

Jason Porath 05:57

We're left to speculate here but the important thing is that Tracii and Rob dropped out, Slash and Steven came in, and now you have the Appetite lineup of Guns N' Roses, but not solidified at all. This was just the latest incarnation of the switching up of band players, but it wasn't necessarily like, because these five guys now got together in this incarnation of Guns N' Roses, which used to be L.A. Guns, which used to be Hollywood Rose, didn't mean that they were going to stay together.

 

Marc Canter 06:32

Well, there's a couple things, obviously, that made this solidified. But I think the very first piece of this, the very first piece to make it work was Izzy and Duff have to get the credit for hiding one of Steven's bass drums because that changed the dynamic completely. I know Duff said the first few notes, it was like lightning hit the place, or whatever, but I believe it because when I saw that band, on June 6th at the Troubadour for the first time, I didn't go to the rehearsals, or there might have only been one rehearsal. To me, it was the same thing, yeah, that's what happened, lightning hit the place. Everybody was doing everything right. Everybody was playing their part right, and it seemed like they were together for months. If Steven was still playing double bass drums, it wouldn't have been as good, it would have been completely different.

 

Jason Porath 07:22

After Steven and Slash came into the fold, they had one rehearsal before the Troubadour show. Now this Troubadour show was already scheduled, the flyers were already printed and those flyers had Rob and Tracii in them as the band members, not Slash and Steven. But they did rehearse right before that at a studio in Silverlake and both Slash and Duff, who we interviewed, had some great things to say about that rehearsal. So let's hear from them.

 

Slash 07:56

Eventually, Guns N' Roses was formed out of the combination of the people from Hollywood Rose, which was Izzy and Axl's band and L.A. Guns, which was Tracii's group. And that sort of came together and they called it Guns N' Roses. Then Axl had a falling out with Tracii and came to me and said if I wanted to do it, and at that point, Steven wasn't in the picture, they had this guy named Rob Gardner playing drums. So it was Duff, Izzy, Axl, myself, and we set out to do this Northwest tour, you know, Seattle and Oregon and all that. And when that became a reality, I mean, we're talking about like a conversation that took up a couple day, and all sudden we were going, you know, and Rob couldn't cut it. He was scared to go. So I called Steven and Steven came down and we had one day of rehearsal and it really, it was like a synergy that happened that was just basically, it was like we've been playing together for years. And we had maybe two or three rehearsals I think and packed up an Oldsmobile and a Uhaul and set off for Seattle.

 

Duff McKagan 08:59

And Izzy, and Axl and I were like, "yeah, let's do it, let's go on the road, let's do this thing." And this is nothing against Tracii or Rob but they were more concerned with where we were gonna stay, how we were going to get there and Izzy and Axl and myself just didn't care, it didn't matter. Let's get to the gig, you know, let's do the gigs. So Tracii and Rob said, "No, we don't want to do that." They got scared at the 11th hour and as I remember, that's when we called Slash and Steven and they came into that rehearsal place, not Nicky Beats, but another one in Silverlake. Steven came in with all his drums. Izzy and I hid a bunch of them in like the next room, told the owner guy of the studio, "Don't let Steven in." And we rehearsed. The first few chords with the five of us, it was like lightning hit the place, everybody could feel it, that this was it. We've all been in a bunch of bands, a bunch of different lineups of those bands. It wasn't until these five guys. That day was probably the most important day of the five of our lives, you know as players, as musicians. Definitely it ranks up there because that's when we all knew it was solidified. This was the best band that any of us had come close to being in and it was because it was the five different guys.

 

Jason Porath 09:56

To watch the video podcast of The First 50 Gigs that includes exclusive photos and videos from this episode and the entire season, join our growing community on Patreon and subscribe. Both Slash and Steven literally said the same thing. They said it was like lightning hit the room. So there was something that clicked that they all recognized was there. And then they go and they play this Troubadour show, which you shot. You knew about this ahead of time, I guess Slash let you know that you should come and shoot the first show of this new incarnation of Guns N' Roses. So you showed up with your camera, I remember you telling me that you brought four rolls of film, but you also recorded this. Can you tell us about the experience leading up to this first show? Did you think it was going to be anything different than anything else? Was there anything special about it or you were just showing up like every other show that Slash had played? 

 

Marc Canter 11:54

Well both, I mean, I knew everyone in the band, and to me it was just a new incarnation of Hollywood Rose. It was Hollywood Rose with Duff and now Izzy, which Izzy is supposed to be in Hollywood Rose anyways, but when Slash was in Hollywood Rose, Izzy was out. So it's basically Hollywood Rose with a cherry on top because you got Duff and you got Izzy and you're missing one of Steven's bass drums, so everything is just a little different. They got "Don't Cry" as the new song that was put together for that gig plus a handful of other songs that they had that I knew about from the past but to hear "Don't Cry" that night, the way the guitar solo just fit in, it sounded just like it did on the record actually later on. Whatever Slash ripped out worked and he kept it. You know, you got to hear four or five registers of Axl's voice in that song. And so everyone knew that knew Axl that he could sing, of course, but that was just like hitting the nail right on the head. I mean, that one was a home run. And so you just knew that this was a great band, only good is going to come from this. Whatever songs they end up putting together from that point on are going to be great.

 

Jason Porath 13:12

Yeah, so how did Slash and Steven learn the songs in one rehearsal and then show up to the Troubadour and play? Is that because they had played these songs throughout these various bands prior to that?

 

Marc Canter 13:24

Yes, all the songs played at that first gig, other than "Don't Cry" were all songs that Slash and Steven had played in Hollywood Rose.

 

Jason Porath 13:32

Yeah, I've actually got the setlist right here it looks like it's, "Reckless", "Shadow of Your Love", "Think About You", "Move to the City", "Don't Cry", "Nice Boys Don't Play Rock and Roll", "Back Off Bitch" and "Anything Goes".

 

Marc Canter 13:47

"Think About You" is a song that Slash and Steven were not familiar with and "Move to the City" was another song that they were not familiar with. So actually there's three songs that they had to learn in that week. The rest of them they'd known from Hollywood Rose past. So yeah, in one week they learned those three songs plus you know got tight on the rest of the set. They also had "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Nice Boys" in there. "Jumping Jack Flash" was not a song that Hollywood Rose had played before, so that was also a new one. Although they had learn it, "Jumping Jack Flash" was a song you've heard all your life so it's not like that hard to do, but they certainly pull it off and in those four or five days that Slash and Steven had joined the band, and as far as I know, they only had one rehearsal.

 

Jason Porath 14:40

Yeah, they didn't have much time, they only had a few days before the Troubadour show. So they didn't really have a lot of time. So let's talk about the night of that Troubadour show. What sticks out for you? Arriving there you've got your camera, your gear. Had you recorded shows before you came prepared with a cassette tape recorder and the night kicks off. Why don't you tell us just about the beginning of that?

 

Marc Canter 15:04

Well, I used to put by a recorder in my jacket side pocket and I had a little microphone, I bring it through the arm and stick it on my watch. So I can catch, you know, a better recording.

 

Jason Porath 15:16

Was that to hide it from the from the bouncers? Did you have to hide the fact that you were recording it?

 

Marc Canter 15:22

No, I mean, I don't know if they let you record it or not, but probably they don't. But it was not a matter to hide it as a matter of I'm shooting the show, I can't hold it, I gotta put it somewhere. If I stick it in my pocket without a little microphone in it it's gonna get muffled you know, you're gonna hear the pocket muffle or whatever, so the microphone gives you audience sound. And it just so happens that night, there was a problem with the mic and I think it came out a little bit, it didn't go in all the way in the recorder and so most of it was muffled until I figured it out. Maybe at some point I went to see if I needed to turn the tape over you know and that's probably when I saw that the microphone wasn't in properly. So I have the whole show but a lot of it didn't sound really great.

 

Jason Porath 16:11

The jack separated from the attachment of the microphone so that it defaulted to the device's microphone which was buried in your jacket which then resulted in this muffled sound. 

 

Marc Canter 16:26

(Impersonates really muffled sound)

 

Jason Porath 16:27

Right, and I've heard this show, you know, this is a show that I'm sure every fan wants to hear. And it is, it's tough, it's muffled. But there's some stuff that's salvageable from it.

 

Marc Canter 16:58

Not only that, what I did was I made the tape from one tape to another later trying to fix it. And you can put the recording levels up, I put them up all the way because it was so quiet that you couldn't hear it at all. So what I did by doing that, you can hear it better but it's even more noisier because you've amplified the muffle. So it's just more muffled but at least you hear the music. But forget about what the tape recorder heard, I know what I heard and what I heard was hitting the hammer right on the nail. Axl was clean and perfect and you can hear the band members, the mix, the sound man. Everybody did their job. The guitar solos were just insane. Like I said, all of a sudden they're playing "Don't Cry", a song I never heard and then Slash just rips into this guitar solo, it's the same one we all know now, and so it's clean, you know? It was just you know, perfect...perfect.

 

Jason Porath 17:56

So you had a lightning kind of strike moment yourself when watching these five guys.

 

Marc Canter 18:02

Yeah, and not only that, but all five of them held their own as far as stage presence. Whatever I looked at with the camera, I pulled the trigger. The thing when you're shooting the show, you'll look sometimes and you don't pull the trigger, because it just doesn't grab you. So you look for something else to do. Then you try to frame two people in one photo, maybe that will do it because it's not working any other way. Well, that night, I went back and I shot individual photos of everybody. So I got just Izzy, just Duff, just Axl, just Slash. Of course. I'm always gonna get Slash, you know, cause I grew up with Slash so I'm more partial to getting more Slash than anyone else just because that's just my nature. But you know, it good energy was coming off of all of them from all angles. So whatever you did, wherever you looked, you are getting something good.

 

Jason Porath 18:55

Yeah, it's great, you know, if I look through these we have 42....you said you shot four rolls of film. I don't know how many pictures were on each roll but we've scanned a total of 42 of them and the majority of them are individual shots. You went around, and you profiled each of these guys. And then there's a couple of great ones with Slash, Izzy and Axl together. So Axl and Izzy are singing and Slash has his solo. There's a couple great group shots, but the majority of your shots are these incredible kind of solo hero shots, which I think is pretty interesting given that it was the first time they played together and you decided to kind of do a hero shot for each one of these guys.

 

Marc Canter 19:39

That's because they earned it. That was the energy coming off of them. You're producing energy and I'm shooting the show, I'm gonna capture it. I'm like a news reporter, I'm reporting the news and the news is there, was there was news to report on everyone.

 

Jason Porath 19:57

Looking through some of your shots here the for first thing I noticed is that Slash is playing I think it's a B.C. Rich, it's his red guitar.

 

Marc Canter 20:05

It's a B.C. Rich Warlock and it was actually kind of an expensive guitar. He saved up to get. It doesn't really fit who we know Slash is now, but it worked. It fit him in Black Sheep better than it did and Guns N' Roses, but with Slash, you know, Slash holding any guitar, he's gonna make it look good.

 

Jason Porath 20:24

I also noticed in some of these shots that he's wearing a hat. Now it's not the top hat, but it does have the medallions around it. And it sort of looks like what would evolve into the top hat. I hadn't seen him wear anything like this before. Where did this come from?

 

Marc Canter 20:38

Probably his girlfriend.

 

Jason Porath 20:39

I just think it's interesting. The first time they played together, he's got a hat on. That's not necessarily the case, as we will see in the rest of these shows leading up until he actually gets the top hat.

 

Marc Canter 20:52

It's true, the first Guns N' Roses show Slash had a hat on. I don't think he had it for the whole show, though I kind of remember a couple things without that hat.

 

Jason Porath 21:01

And then the only other thing I can see is Axl's got his chaps. Maybe he starts the show in a kilt. I don't know if this was the first time he used a kilt. But eventually the kilt comes off, as do t-shirts and other things as they go on. Is there anything there to talk about?

 

Marc Canter 21:18

No, it was just different, I mean, he might have used a kilt before that, there was a handful of shows that they did with Tracii that I didn't attend so I don't really know what he looked like. Although come to think of it, there was a girl that shot some photos and I might have seen that kilt before that. But it was interesting, I had never seen the kilt before and I thought it was interesting that that's just doing something different.

 

Jason Porath 21:46

To preview the full experience of The First 50 Gigs video podcast that includes exclusive photos and videos from Marc's archive, check out the First 50 Gigs' YouTube channel. You'll find the link right here in our episode show notes. Just going back to the show, I wanted to point out a few more things. One, obviously, we see Steven with a single bass, did they remove the double bass to kind of reduce the bass or to or to slow him down?

 

Marc Canter 22:17

They removed it to slow him down so there's a back and forth-ness, it was just too loud. And Steven was a massive double bass drummer, you know, it was overpowering. And for what they were doing, there were no songs that needed double bass in them. What they did was a perfect fit to Steven. I mean, there's no other drummer that could have filled in that spot better than Steven, for what they were doing.

 

Jason Porath 22:44

Looking at these photos, Marc, is there anything else that you want to remark on before we continue on?

 

Marc Canter 22:49

Well, Slash was 19 years old so he's already just got that stage presence. And actually, they all had stage presence. But Izzy and Axl were three years older, they're not 19 anymore, they're 21/22, something like that. So to me, Slash was still a kid at 19. And he carried himself well, they all did, actually. But that's the only thing that really stands out, other than the Charles Manson behind Slash. There's one picture that's actually in the Reckless Rad book that's one of my favorite shots of Slash and in the background you could see that Charles Manson photo on the wall. But as far as Slash's equipment, he was going back and forth with Marshall cabinets then he had Risson then he went back to Marshall. The thing with Slash is, he would get something in his brain and focus on it and work his ass off to get it and then like two or three weeks later, realize he made a mistake and then go back and buy...you know, he had that Marshall amp, and he'd sell it in the recycler and buy this other amp and then a couple weeks later he'd say, "Oh I made a mistake, " and then would go back and buy the Marshall again. So you know, Slash experimented with different things.

 

Jason Porath 24:11

So yeah, it sounds like Slash was somewhat of a perfectionist or he was really just tweaking things to find the right sound for him.

 

Marc Canter 24:20

I remember, going back to even the Tidus Sloan days back to 1981/1982 he would go to Guitar Center and get this little device, he'd use it, he'd write a song for it and then all sudden, like, two, three months later, he got rid of it, he sold it, he didn't want that effect on anymore. He just thought he wanted it. So he experimented a lot with that stuff. He was good with the Cry Baby with the wah-wah pedal. He certainly knew how to use that well. He wasn't using it, he used it in Tidus Sloan and he didn't use it in the beginning of Guns but later on I got him one for his birthday and, we're jumping in the future, but it ended up on "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Brownstone." His birthday was in July and those songs came out a month later. So what did he do with it, he put it right to work and made the best he could from it. So I knew that he definitely knew how to work a wah-wah pedal and that was something missing. You know, Guns N' Roses with that Appetite for Destruction lineup, that was a year, over a year without a wah-wah pedal and he managed fine but once we give him that wah-wah pedal, it certainly sent things up a few levels.

 

Jason Porath 25:38

So there you go, your genetic fingerprint is now in Appetite as well. 

 

Marc Canter 25:43

Yeah, everytime I hear "Brownstone" or "Sweet Child of Mine" and I hear him playing that wah wah pedal, it's like, I take just a little credit for, not for making that sound, but for giving him the tools that he needs to make that sound.

 

Jason Porath 26:00

It's just another example, Marc, of you giving them everything they needed to find their sound and to do what they did. So just a couple more things about this show. Before we move on, I want to go back to the image you talked about of Slash playing again, it's that hero shot of Slash and behind him is the Charles Manson image. Is that something that was just at the Troubadour or is that something that GNR put up behind them?

 

Marc Canter 26:25

No, that was something that was hanging at The Troubadour at that time. I don't know why. I don't know the history behind it. Did Charles Manson used to play the Troubadour back in the 60s? I don't know, but for whatever reason, it was there.

 

Jason Porath 26:39

Well, it gives that particular shot a little bit of sinister quality, I guess. 

 

Marc Canter 26:45

Slash looks good from the floor up. A lot of some guitar players look good from the chest up but Slash puts his whole body into what he does. And so I tried, when I was taking pictures of Slash, to get it all. How he stands all the way what's going on behind him. So I'd always put a lens on that could capture more.

 

Jason Porath 27:10

So he put it he puts his whole body into the performance.

 

Marc Canter 27:13

Right, he's leaning in a certain way and if you crop that out, you're just cropping out the coolness, and you're not getting it all. So you get close ups of Slash, it might be cool, but it's not as cool as seeing the whole Slash.

 

Jason Porath 27:25

The last thing I wanted to touch on was that Rob Gardner had mentioned that the Appetite lineup of Guns N' Roses really took advantage or kind of latched on to the following that was already building from L.A. Guns and the original Guns N' Roses. Do you think anybody in the audience knew that Slash and Steven were going to be there that night? Do you think anybody came to see Tracii and Rob? Was there any confusion around that?

 

Marc Canter 27:57

Well, okay, there was probably like, I'm just gonna take a guess, I'd say there were about 50 people there that night. And now of course, out of those 50 people, probably 30 of them were girlfriends or best friends or people they lived with or whatever. Okay, so yeah, Guns N' Roses had a small following before that. I actually know a couple of people that stopped going to see them when Tracii and Rob weren't there anymore. It works both ways. Guns N' Roses was the opening band, I believe, I don't know if there was a band before them or not, but they certainly weren't headlining.

 

Jason Porath 28:32

So Marc, they wrap the show and now it's time to hit the road. They have this Northwest tour that culminates in Seattle, and they're gonna hit Sacramento, Eugene, Portland, and then Seattle. So they have four or five gigs planned, and everybody was on board and they needed some promotional shots. So it sounds like you were able to give them some shots from this first Troubadour show, is that right?

 

Marc Canter 29:01

That's correct. When I got them developed the next morning, I picked some shots for them. I had a good shot of everyone except Axl. There's a shot where he's on his knees and he's screaming his heart out and Axl wasn't thrilled with the picture that I picked for him but he wasn't necessarily mad at me either. We met right where those photos were getting developed at Vine Street and Sunset. There was a Pro Max lab there right across the street from the McDonald's and there was a little something that went on, Axl got pissed at Slash or somebody, I forget, one of the other members of the band that was there. And they got into a little spat and Axl kind of walked off and then everyone left but Axl. And me and Axl ended up eating at the McDonald's across the street. And he calmed down a little bit and he apologized for you know, whatever. And he said it wasn't my fault, he knew the picture that I picked was the best I could do with what we had to work with. It's just he wasn't really excited about or enthused about that particular photo for how they were going to use it. And that's all I remember from that.

 

Jason Porath 30:11

You've printed these 8x10's for them, they're scheduled to play Seattle on the 9th or the 10th. So they've got to get out of town, they've got to leave. It's a 1000 plus mile drive, you know, 1200 mile drive, they gotta get on the road. So what happens next?

 

Marc Canter 30:28

They jump into a car with their equipment and the car makes it about 100 miles out of Los Angeles and then the transmission breaks.

 

Jason Porath 30:37

I can only imagine the scene with all of their gear and whatever they're dressed in leaving in the wee hours of the morning for Seattle. And yeah, they head out, it's a very hot day, apparently, and the car makes it to Fresno before the transmission gives out. This is the Shakeout Tour that Duff scheduled, let's see what happens and who gets shaken out. So with that, we will wrap. Marc, thanks for these great stories, many of these I hadn't even heard before, so they didn't even make it into Reckless Road. We're very excited to have reached this point in the story when the Appetite lineup first gets together. But it's definitely not a sure thing that they're going to stay together.

 

Marc Canter 31:19

It's a good spark, they knew they all wanted to work together, but there was no guarantees on how long it would last. A few more things needed to happen. To solidify them to keep them together and Hell Tour was another huge part of that.

 

Jason Porath 31:34

That's right, and this is one of the major turning points that we're going to talk about on the next episode. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The First 50 Gigs: Guns N' Roses and the making of Appetite for Destruction. To watch the video podcast, access bonus episodes and galleries, and buy show merchandise, join our growing community on Patreon and subscribe.