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Re: Rare "Steven Adler" Interview *Christmas '96"
I dunno about role model, but I loved GN'R when I was 8 back in 88 and had the posters and the records of them. I remember thinking they were cool as fuck, they never inspired me to take drugs but Slash definently made smoking look cool 
GN'R were monumentaly popular back in the glory days, reaching kids, teens and adults. Not many bands can pull that off.
Nightrain was my favourite song 
Was there ever a video for that? My brother came home and teased me one day saying he had seen the video for Nightrain on MTV at someones house, I've never seen it if it existed.
That twat had a 60 minute cassette with nothing but Paradise City on it, and played it constantly in a little ghetto blaster he carried around with him.
My parents still hate that song.
Re: Rare "Steven Adler" Interview *Christmas '96"
He was a role model?
Yes he was. People from the ages of 5-60 had posters all over their walls and wore their tshirts daily. In 87-88, GNR were a phenomenon not seen since Beatlemania.
My dad even wore GNR shirts for god's sake.
In prior crazes(Elvis, Beatles, Stones, Kiss), kids rebelled against their parents and the parents tried to prevent the kids from being exposed to the music. With GNR, not only were the parents opening up their wallets to buy them GNR products, they were also purchasing those products themselves. The years 1987-89 was an episode of Twlight Zone where life is a GNR commercial. You literally could not escape it. Its actually shocking that AFD never surpassed Thriller in sales.
Its why the nutswingers proclaiming Slash a "sellout" or "media whore" is so fucking hilarious. All five guys sold out about 5 nanoseconds after AFD was released, and no one needs to bother chiming in saying it took over a year for the band to catch on when SCOM hit MTV. I lived it, and the craze was already well underway long before SCOM was a single.
Also, like Olorin said, no one in history will ever make smoking, drinking, and drug use look so fucking cool.
You could easily make a case that the grunge movement started with GNR. It was real, it was from the streets, it was a breath of fresh air, and its what people of all ages wanted. Only reason they aren't credited with changing the musical climate is because they weren't from Seattle.
edit:
Nightrain was my favourite song Was there ever a video for that?
Technically not a video, but MTV broke that Ritz concert down into videos and had them in heavy rotation. I remember "videos" of Jungle, SCOM, Nightrain, and KOHD.
- monkeychow
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Re: Rare "Steven Adler" Interview *Christmas '96"
You could easily make a case that the grunge movement started with GNR. It was real, it was from the streets, it was a breath of fresh air, and its what people of all ages wanted. Only reason they aren't credited with changing the musical climate is because they weren't from Seattle.
I'm not sure I'd call them grunge as their sound is more like a bluesy-rock type thing than what I think of as grunge, but I totally agree about the attitude and the reality.
There was a massive raw and real life edge to the band...while their studio efforts are amazing, part of the appeal for me early on was that they could really deliver the goods live....like you see Axl and Slash live and you know Axl is really screaming his lungs off and slash is playing the shit out of the guitar...so much at that time in music, in other bands, was overly manafacturfed and polished, with session players and tricks....
But then Axl would come out live with enough attitude to fuck your mother, Duff would be drunk, Slash would be high, but mistakes and all, they'd deliver a fucking peformance that blew the mind....the attitude, the rawness and the fucking reality of it.....there just wasn't anything else even close to it at the time...and I'd venture to suggest not too much since....
Re: Rare "Steven Adler" Interview *Christmas '96"
But then Axl would come out live with enough attitude to fuck your mother, Duff would be drunk, Slash would be high, but mistakes and all, they'd deliver a fucking peformance that blew the mind....the attitude, the rawness and the fucking reality of it.....there just wasn't anything else even close to it at the time...and I'd venture to suggest not too much since....
This statement just flat makes me think of the Ritz videos that James mentioned before, which is a huge reason why I'm such a huge fan still today.
...so much at that time in music, in other bands, was overly manafacturfed and polished, with session players and tricks......
You mean kinda like... Ahhh Nevermind...
Re: Rare "Steven Adler" Interview *Christmas '96"
Thanks for that! James do you know if you can still buy that t-shirt your dad had?
I haven't seen it since those days. I always liked that shirt because the logo on it was never seen on any other GNR product(that I know of). It was only used for the shirt.
And is that a cherry orchard the picture was taken in?
I'm pretty sure it was oranges. My uncle owned that ranch and it was mainly orange trees there.
Re: Rare "Steven Adler" Interview *Christmas '96"
Cool shot of your dad.
As for GN'R, I know this will piss alot of people off, but i've always thought GN'R was the real "prime mover" to the grunge era. You've got people that see how that works, and others who refuse to admit it's significance, citing Metallica. Well yes, Metallica did have Puppets, but let's be serious. Metallica did not start seeing the major mainstream success until post-Appetite. Appetite and Justice were topping shit off in 88/89 together. GN'R hit first, warmed the audience up, to let Metallica become a mainstream sensation, something they hadn't gained, remaining a niche band, since 83.
GN'R started it going, as far as mainstream significance, which finally gave Metallica the street cred as well as critical favor for being an 'all audiences' rock artist. GN'R & Metallica were the bands, encouraging all of these acts from the grunge movement, to go for it. When Nirvana started out, they were like the fuckin' Goo Goo Dolls. Sure they had a bit of an edgier sound, but it wasn't honed down to the purity it became yet. Alice In Chains was really the first to deliver that grunge album, and I really think the Seattle atmosphere combined with GN'R & Metallica influences moved that forward. If you go back and listen to AIC's 1988 demos, they have GN'R influences all fuckin' over them. Cantrell's riffs are Slash-ish, and Axl could easily be on vocals over Layne, and they be GN'R songs. They are very close. But by the time Facelift hit the scene, it was "Metallica-ed" up, and they felt safer with that really darker sound to come out of Seattle.
I think in some ways, Axl himself is to blame (not that he'd care), for ruining that cred. Axl wanted GN'R to be like everyone else, instead of focusing on the original band they were. He turned them into fuckin' Queen 1990, which was cool, but killed any chance for them to fit in with those other guys. Even when bands like Soundgarden were opening for Guns, they were catching major shit from their peers.
If GN'R had stayed that grungy/sleazy club band, I think to this day they would be credited with getting the ball rolling. Changing their image in the 90's is what murdered that. They jumped to high, too fast. Metallica is an example of a band, that fine tuned their sound to be radio-ready and for all audiences, without compromising their original vision. GN'R however sold out all of their origins, to become something fleeting that within two years was dead and uninteresting to most (1991-1993).
