Kosta Linardos of Australia's Beat magazine recently conducted an interview with original GUNS N' ROSES drummer Steven Adler. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
On what's new in his life:
Adler: "It's just been so wonderful to have my best friend Slash back in my life, and me being a part of his life and he being a part of mine. He says he has one song, 'cause he's working on a solo record, and he has the one song that he says is specifically for me. All I ask is that one opportunity to get in there because I wanna be his drummer! I mean that's how we started out. You know, we're both more levelheaded and still alive and better players than we were, we're in a better place than we ever were. I WANNA BE HIS MAIN DRUMMER!! My main goal, I got my best friend back, now I just wanna finish what we started. I mean, it's a shame I missed out on all the other records and all the people he's played with. Because of my drug addiction, I missed out on so many things, I'm grateful to be alive and to have the opportunity to be able to get back together with him."
Beat: "Appetite For Destruction" has a sound that no other GN'R album after it had, what do you bring that down to?
Adler: "I grew up learning how to play drums not with a bass player, but with a guitar player; with Slash. Usually it was just me and him practicing. So in the songs I would play what he was playing instead of just keeping a simple 4/4 pattern; like all rock is 4/4 but instead of the boom-cha, you know bass-snare-bass-snare, he would be doing like k-ka-k-ka-k-ka's on his guitar and I would do that on the drums. When we got together with Duff [McKagan]… See, Duff is a natural guitar player, he didn't start off playing bass — he started playing bass guitar two weeks before he got hooked up with me and Slash. Which obviously worked out, and worked for me, because his style of bass playing is more of the style of a guitar player, so it worked perfect. So, we just worked so well together. It was the biggest drag of my life (getting kicked out of GN'R). I did write and record the demo tapes for 'Use Your Illusion'. I'll never forget telling everybody I knew, 'This was going to be even bigger than 'Appetite',' and it would have been… if it had been recorded the way 'Appetite' was; the way it was supposed to be — with five guys. It would be even bigger! It was supposed to happen. Axl took the name and I'm the only one out of the five of us still doing the songs from 'Appetite'."
Beat: Did you enjoy "Chinese Democracy"?
Adler: "Not one bit. I didn't recognize Axl's voice on it. There's occasional parts where he does his loud scream but I didn't even know it was him. "
Beat: I hear you have a book coming out?
Adler: "It's almost completed, it should be out by late January of next year. Basically it takes Slash's book, Nikki Sixx's book and puts everything together as one. Because we were all together — we've known Nikki forever — so if you read his book and you read Slash's book and when you read mine, everything, all the pieces of the puzzle will be put together. That's how it works, and yeah, it's very exciting."
Beat: If the original five members ever toured it would be one of the biggest tours to ever happen in music. Could you guys ever do it?
Adler: "Do you know how much that drives me crazy? It's driving me crazy; it's driving me nuts! I hear it consistently throughout every day of my life, and more than anything I wanna say 'Yeah, we're starting it tomorrow or tonight.' It's so ridiculous not to do it."
Read the entire interview from Beat.
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