NZ Rock'n'Roll History

The Waikata Times 15-Dec-1988

America’s bad boys are here

Rebellious hits shot raunchy rockers to top

By STEVE SCOTT

Guns ‘N’ Roses, America’s  bad boys of  hard rock who will perform in Auckland  on Monday night, are a  bunch of rowdy, raunchy, gut-level  rockers who live  on the streets  of Hollywood and put their experience to music.

Members of the band Duff  “Rose”  McKagan,  Slash, W  Axl Rose, Steven  Adler and  Izzy  Stradlin admit  that tension is part of  their daily lifestyle.

From the confinement of dressing  rooms to the luxury of hotel rooms  “mood swings”  can happen  at any  time resulting in bottle of vodka being thrwon  from  wall to wall as tempers  explode.

Somehow, their  tension, which forces lead singer Axl to travel  separately to and from concerts to avoid  friction, spills over into their music. And  It’ s the  Gunners’  rebel lious  music that in  October,  shot them to the  top of the Billboards album and single chart.

The album Appetite For De struction was originally released in  July last year, along with their single Welcome To  The  Jungle,  but both  were  rejected  by  American radio stations and MTV becouse they felt  the Gunners’  music was too hard.  Young people, however, began to buy the album and Guns ‘N’ Roses began to support  bands in- cluding  Alice Cooper,  The Cult, Motley Crue  and  Aerosmith.

Within  a  few months  MTV started  to change its mind and Welcome To The Jungle dominated music television.  It is also fea  tured  in Clint  Eastwood’s  latest  Dirty Harry movie, The Dead pool.

After  more than IO months on the Billboard chart,  Appetite For  Destruction finally broke into the top 100. Soon after  the  album  shot  to the top  where  it remained  for  three  straight weeks.

It has now sold over  five-and-a-  half million-copies  and  Guns ‘N’ Roses  has become  only  the fourth hard-metal  band  to  also  top  Billboards’ single  chart with  Sweet  Child O’Mine.

Slash, Izzy, Duff and Axl have, been  in  and out of bands since age 14 (about 10 years ago).

Guns ‘N ‘ Roses new  album  will consist of four  tracks from Live?!  Like  A  Suicide – their 1986 EP and four new  acoustic songs  including  I  Used  To  Love Her, But I Had  To  Kill Her – the title of which is bound to stir up controversy.

Izzy says “we don’t really care if people think we have a bad attitude.  We’re  the only  band to have come  out  of  LA  recently  that’s  real.  And the kid knows it.

“We’d rather be unknown and live in Idaho than  to have someone tell us what  to play  and how to make it.  We’re  working  on everything  we want our way….all the money,  all the power,  and all the control  over  everything.”

‘All-age rage’ to help street kids

Hamilton band Johnny and The Phantoms will headline a concert at Skateworld on Friday night.  The “all-age rage”, which in cludes performs Graham Brazier and Sonny Day, is to raise funds for street  kids.

The Phantoms,  who hope to  record  their debut  single  early next  year,  have  been  together – albeit 51  line-up  changes- for  three  years. The current  line – up is frontman  Ray Stroud  who  says  “there are two  types of music,  blues and rubbish”.

On rhythm  guitar and keyboards  is John Stroud,  who also  writes the band’s original material. Drummer  is  Les  Beale  and  bass  player Ray Chaber. The Phantoms  have  been  resident  at  Highlights  Lounge  (Ziggy’s R & B Club)  which they formed, for  the  past  12  months.   The band performs  original  material  early  60s  British  R & B.

~ by viradoang on 24-June-2010.

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