DISGRACELAND - Guns N’ Roses Pt. 2: Real life Rocket Queen, Raging Press, Recovered Memories, and the Riverport Riot

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Post Appetite For Destruction, Guns N’ Roses embodied the word “dysfunction." As the band prepared for their follow up release, singer Axl Rose was losing a very public battle with the press while heroin and alcohol threatened to completely derail the band. Axl’s “recovered memories” continued to fuel his erratic behavior and thus he continued to drive his band closer and closer to the edge. It all came to a head in St. Louis at the infamous Riverport Riot. This episode was originally published on March 17, 2020. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunts. I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.

And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The story of Axel Rose and his band Guns and Roses, their immense success and destructiveness is so why. and intense that two episodes were needed to properly tell this story. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to Disgraceland,

episode 49, part one of the Guns and Rose's story, where we discuss Axel Rose's upbringing, the origins of the band, and the influence the city of Los Angeles had on their music, as well as the tragic events at the Donington Monsters of Rock Festival in 1988. In this episode, we dive deeper into the band's interdynamics, Axel's state of mind and highly antagonistic relationship with the press, and of course, more of the band's great music.

That music I played you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Mellow Stuffed Shirts, MK. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Rush Rush by Paula Abdul. And why would I play you that specific slice of former L.A. Laker cheerleader cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on July 2nd, 1991. And that was the day Guns and Roses took the stage at the Riverport Theater in St. Louis, Missouri, and all hell broke loose.

On this, our 50th episode, Cheerleader Cheese, Rocket Queens, recovered memories and guns and roses. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. Neither girl was doing it for Axel. It was hot, sure, for a 17-year-old who couldn't get laid maybe, but for anyone who knew anything about sex, it was kind of lame. These girls sounded like they were faking it, forcing it for the microphones. They were having sex with Axel on the floor, both at different times.

He was doing his best, but he was in his head, distracted, too concerned with getting a good take than giving a good lay. The microphones must have distracted the girls, too, Axel didn't really know. He just wanted them to be natural, to do what they would normally do. But it was a lot to ask of anyone, and a lot to ask for everyone who was in the studio with him while he tried recording a real-life female orgasm administered by him

for the benefit of the Guns and Roses song, Rocket Queen, that his band was recording for their debut album. Too many, oh yeah, babies, and forced breathiness, too many quizzical squeals and ill-placed moans. Axel didn't want this to sound like a cheesy porno flick or worse like something out of a goddamn Zucker Brothers movie. He wanted it to sound real, hard, like his band. But Axel couldn't blame the girls. And they were giving it the old sunset try, but sex is sometimes messy, it's physical,

and given the circumstance demanding. The mics were constantly being bumped into. Carefully placed by the studio engineer to perfectly capture the sound Axel wanted, every time the mics were disturbed, the engineer to come back into the live room in the middle of the sex act to readjust the mics. Nothing to see here. Keep doing what you're doing.

I'm just going to, yep, that's it. Right there, okay, all set. Get back to it, and I'll, yeah, I'm just going to head back in there. The engineer would then head back into the control room where various bandmates with rolling eyes and snickering cocaine tongues would do their best to keep it in their pants. It's not like the girls were oblivious to what was. going on. The candles in the dimly lit studio couldn't hide the awkwardness of the situation.

The interruptions from the engineer happened continuously and as a result, the rhythm was busted up constantly and as anyone who was experienced with sex can tell you, rhythm is the key of good sex. And Axel wasn't just going for good sex. He was going for great sex. It needed to sound authentic and it wasn't. And he was getting pissed. He needed a pro, not a prostitute, but a professional, girl who was dialed in turned up, sex-minded nearly 100% of the time. The type of girl who walked at a room and you just got the vibe immediately. To Axel, these girls were rare. Most groupies acted like they wanted sex and sure, some most definitely did, but what most wanted was to just get up close to the rock star gods, see what they were all about, coaxed their personalities out

through their vulnerabilities and worm their way into some sort of relationship via their own natural maternal instincts and before you knew it if the groupie was lucky and any good she'd be dating her rock god and then who knew what could happen her whole world would open up sex was just the price of admission Axel wasn't looking for this type of girl he was looking for that rare woman the kind with the torturous libido the kind that thought about basically one thing in any social situation Which guy am I going to fuck? The kind that didn't care about your feelings or hers for that matter.

The kind of girl who exuded sex and not just because of her looks. With this type of girl, the attraction was different, less physical, more chemical, scientific. Wherever she went, she exploded into the room in her presence, her pheromone set off tiny little explosions in the minds of whichever men were lucky enough to be around her. What in the hell they imagined would sex with this woman be loved? like. This type of girl's vibe, her essence, was that combustible, explosive, like a rocket, drawing everyone in like a queen, like a rocket queen. Axel knew just the girl. Only problem was, she was dating one of his best friends and the drummer in his band, Stephen Adler. She was a 19-year-old stripper who went by the name Adriana. Who knew if that was a real name? Did it matter? No.

All that mattered was that she was pissed that her wannabe rock star boyfriend, Stephen Adler, was dipping his little Vic Firth in whatever horror he could get his hands on around the strip. So when Axel laid it on her, what he wanted to do, have sex with her in the studio, and record the act to overdub onto a song that Stephen was actually playing drums on, Adriana jumped at the chance. Revenge is a dish best served hot and in front of a live studio audience with the tape rolling. Axel's inclination was correct, and the results speak for the moment. themselves, the song Rocket Queen is one of their best recorded tracks, and the recorded

sex act in the middle does indeed sound authentic, almost as important. The rumors about the recording sessions spread like wildfire and the infamous reputation of the band spread even further. People in the industry in the Sunset Strip metal scene took note. This wasn't a band of posers. These guys were the real deal, and their singer was fucking crazy. And there were other rumors too, mainly involving heroin. The band were savage junkies, and they were going to be lucky to live to see the release of their debut album or so on to thinking. And if heroin didn't kill them, then AIDS would. Words started spreading that Slash, the band's guitarist, was openly worrying to anyone who would

listen about a coming L.A. metal scene AIDS epidemic, and if he or David Lee Roth or Gene Simmons caught the deadly at the time HIV virus, that it would be an instant death. sentence for him, his band, and the entire Los Angeles heavy metal community. With or without dangerous sex, the band was doing their best to make truth of the death rumors. Bassist Stuff McHagan was drowning himself in vodka, stuffing himself with pills, and there simply weren't enough of either to satiate his appetite. Same goes for heroin in Stephen Adler. He was consumed by the drug and rendered incompetent as a drummer on numerous occasions. The fact that he had other assets like his electric,

nice guy Eddie personality likely kept him in the band despite his terrible addiction. Heroin was just as gripping on other members of the band as well. Axel did his time with the drug but got hip quick and quit. Slash was another story. While recording their first album, he was so blitzed on smack that during a photo shoot, the photographer needed to dispatch an intern to crouch behind Slash in order to hold him up like a life-size rock and roll Muppet, just so he could stand long enough to have his picture. picture taken. Slash was also found one morning, literally passed out in the gutter on Hollywood Boulevard,

sleeping off a dope binge. He'd overdosed once already and was quickly brought back to life, but still, rumors spread that the guitarist of the most promising band on the strip had died of a heroin overdose. It was a surprise to pretty much nobody. Heroin and Guns and Roses went hand in hand, and it was in large part because of the band's other guitarist, Izzy Stradlin. It's hard to see it now, just how cool Izzy Stradlin was. Sure, you see him in the videos and in the pictures, and he looks cool enough, but next to Slash and Axel, he definitely reads Supporting Role,

but that's just image-talking. To those who knew the band back then, and who knew when came in contact with Izzy Stradlin, there was no doubt about it. He was the coolest dude they'd ever met. Nowadays, we throw around the word influencer, like it actually means anything real aside from ad-dolling. Today, all an influencer is is someone who can best represent a highly curated, stylized, and staged version of themselves online.

Their authenticity is heralded as an attribute, which is ironic because digital life is so often disconnected from one's authentic life. Social media influencers are highly selective in determining what parts of their lives they let the public in on, and if they can calibrate their content correctly, the result for them is a massive following in voila. Because of the nature of how an influencer becomes an influencer, it is therefore impossible for an influencer to not care, which is also ironic given that the very essence of cool is to not care. And back in the pre-internet days of rock and roll, cool meant influence, and in the sunset strip scene at the time,

nobody was cooler and thus more influential than Izzy Strattlin. His attitude cut whatever vibe was in the room. You knew he was there and that he was there, was somebody, even when he was a nobody, you were only slightly intimidated by him, but it was more his vibe than his physicality. You wanted to know what kind of trip he was on, where he got his junkie lean, those stone coal secondhand threads in that minimalist jewelry. His scraggly snarl and dyed jet black hair set against his relative youth gave him a weird pirate intern look. He looked like Keith Richards' mini-meat, like his cool was cut from the same cloth as Keith's with his disaffected gaze and

casual grasp of whatever the hell happened to be going on around him. He was there, wherever, but far away at the same time, and still demanding everyone's attention. Izzy Stradlin wasn't waiting for his man. He was the man. And he truly did not care about anything, but his guitar and by extension his band. Sort of, but not really. He didn't really care about his bandmates or his girlfriends or his own well-being. And as a result, he shot a lot of heroin. He didn't care who knew and he didn't care about getting arrested for dealing it. He was too cool to care.

So along with being cool, heroin became part of Izzy Stradlin's identity. And because of his influence, lots of other musicians, scenesters, and kids in the metal scene at the time started doing heroin. Axel later, when discussing with a reporter G&R's early days during the time of heroin's resurgence in Los Angeles said, well, it was Izzy that brought it back. This is entirely screwed up and strikes me as something so shallow and simple that it could only happen in L.A. Los Angeles, sex, drugs, hard rock and roll, unquestionable cool, influence, and a no-fuck's-given attitude. Each element combined to form one of the most

successful debut albums of all time. Guns and Roses aptly titled, Appetite for Destruction. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them, changed forever.

Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your husband is not who you think. is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it is It ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know,

but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guns and Roses, with the release of appetite for destruction, were firmly on their way to becoming the biggest band on the planet. With constant touring and the eventual support of radio and MTV behind their early videos and singles, stories in Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine, not to mention fawning praise from the heavy metal press, the band, by the time the fall of 89 rolled around, were by all accounts massive.

But despite Axel Rose's band's growing fame, things were not right. The deaths at Donington by themselves were hard enough to swallow. These were kids, fans, and they were dead and the press had blamed the band. Two dead at Donington screamed the headlines. That was one more than Altamont. Axel couldn't let it go. His rage intensified. It seemed that whatever he did, the press was out to get him, and the notoriety caused his band's popularity to grow even more. And the more his own fame and celebrity grew, the more shit he seemed to have to take from the press. He tried retreating into himself,

but MTV had begun playing the band's videos in heavy rotation. Their popularity skyrocketed, and with it, a need for the record label to satisfy the demand of the growing Guns and Rose's fan base. A new album was needed quickly to capitalize on their success, but a proper full-length was impossible to put together with the band's touring schedule, not to mention the near-debilitating heroin habits of Izzy's.

Slash and Stephen and the general growing dysfunction of the band as a unit. So it was decided that an EP called G&R Lies would be released as a stopgap. The concept was tabloid trash, a world that the band was becoming all too familiar with. The artwork was a national inquirer-like cover that poked fun at the press and its growing fascination with the band. The music was a mix of covers and unreleased tunes that the band had been working up live. To Axel, G&R lies scanned the world of celebrity decadence and tawdry gossip against the tough-talking, hard-living, unseen street reality. As a record, it was bipolar, just like Axle's Los Angeles, just like him.

Axel saw himself as a voice for this reality, just as he believed EZE saw himself as a voice for his reality down in South Central. So Axel was going to spare none of the details and none of the reality he'd come to learn and to live a reality. round in Los Angeles. On the song, one in a million, he sang out shockingly offensive slurs. When you first hear the N-word in the lyrics, there is a split second where your brain stops listening, and you involuntarily ask yourself, do he really just say that? And then, as if to answer your internal monologue, Axel immediately follows up the N-word with. That's right. As in, yeah, motherfucker, I just said that. So what?

Understandably, the press lost its collective mind. Axel was quickly labeled a racist as well as a homophore. The backlash was immediate. Radio refused to play the song. Billboard magazine excoriated the band. Certain promoters refused to market the record. Comedians, celebrities, politicians, fellow musicians, all called out Axel publicly.

Axel claimed that the song was about a real-life experience he had at a bus station in Hollywood. It was reality and therefore in his mind worthy of documenting. However, the actual reality was that Axel was leveling a haymaker at the press, who he must have known would react intensely in response to his highly offensive lyrics. It was the 16-year-old in Lafayette, Indiana lashing out, but this time had a bigger straw man and under a much bigger spotlight. But somehow, none of it mattered. The album was an immense seller.

And despite the public outcry and notoriety of the band, or perhaps because of it, Mick Jagger wanted Guns and Roses to open for the Rolling Stones at LA's Coliseum. It was a big deal to open for the stones, even for a band as massive as Guns and Roses at the time. Their payday was immense, and the band was stoked, most of them anyways. After G&R's sound check and having to entertain Mick and Eric Clapton with his David Bowie dust-up story, Axel bailed, split for his girlfriend Aaron Everly's apartment in Beverly Hills. And there was nothing there for him backstage after sound checking. His band wasn't talking to each other.

All of them, with the exception of himself and Duff, were completely consumed by heroin, and Duff was drunk all the time. Axel told Izzy the night before that he was quitting the band. It was too much, too dark, too destructive. By all accounts, this day, this night, was shaping up to be more of the same. So Axel bounced.

The Coliseum filled up. G&R sat backstage, doing drugs, drinking Jack, listening to Prince. With each tick of the clock, their management grew more worried. Where was Axel? Their set was at nine, it was now six. Axel had previously demonstrated his ability to pull a no-show, and being late to the stage had already become a regular occurrence, but this was different.

This was the Stones. This was an opening slot. And they were lucky to have the gig. Showing up late, going on later, worse, no-show. would not only be the ultimate sign of disrespect, it would very likely break up the band. But that didn't matter to Axel, who ensconced in his girlfriend's apartment, had already broken up the band in his mind. He wasn't going to head down to South Central to the Coliseum to do the gig.

Fuck slash. Fuck Izzy, fuck Stephen, Duff, his management, and fucking fuck Mick, fucking Jagger and his fucking David Bowie stories. Axel was done. Six o'clock became 6.30. By this time, G&R management started talking about a plan. How were they going to not only find their lead singer, but how are they going to get him to the gig? Izzy spoke up out of his heroin haze.

He wanted to do this gig. Keith and Ronnie were his heroes, and he didn't want to look like an asshole. He's at errands, he blurted out to anyone and to no one in particular. Management quit dialing Axel's Pat and quickly dialed errands. The phone rang and rang, and rang, nothing. And they tried again, more ringing, more of the same nothing, no answer. 6.30 became 7. They tried errands again and again, and 7 became 7.30 and again.

8 o'clock, one hour to showtime. One more call. And finally, they heard a voice, errands. He's not fucking coming. He's quitting. You hear that? He's done. In the background, they heard yelling and music, Axel, on a tear.

They tried reason. It was going to be all right. Tell him that. Tell him Slash is going to clean himself up after the gig. So is he. It's all going to be fine. We're going to send a car to pick them. And she hung up on them.

Management wasted no time. They, along with the production chief, who had a buddy on the force, quickly dialed LAPD, and told them who they were, who they were looking for, and what they needed. Two uniform cops

who know how to not ask questions to quickly head over to this address in Beverly Hills and to grab both occupants, to cuff them if necessary, and deliver them to the backstage Coliseum within the next 60 minutes. The banging on Aaron's door startled both her and Axel.

The cops meant business, it was clear. Axel knew he'd been beat. He grabbed his leather and hopped in the back of the cruiser. Sirens, blazing, it blasted through L.A. traffic. Down sunset, over to La Sienega. On to the 10, down the off ramp, through the throngs of fans crowding the streets surrounding the Coliseum, into the gated production lot,

to the backstage with minutes to spare before Axel would jump on stage in front of 80,000 people and drop one hell of a bomb. The hometown crowd was with them from the moment they took the stage. And the roar from the audience was massive. And the energy was so intense that Axel and the band were in and out of the first song in what felt like seconds. In the break before the next song, Axel took a beat. He held the microphone in his left hand, grabbed the mic stand with his right and strutted to the tip of center stage.

He saddled the mic into its stand and began addressing the crowd. I just want to say, I hate to do this on stage, but I tried every. other fucking way. And unless certain people in this band get their shit together, these will be the last Guns and Roses show as you will fucking ever see. Slash and Izzy could not believe what they were hearing. Getting called out on stage in front of nearly 100,000 people, five of whom were rolling stones. And to their horror, Axel wasn't done. Because I'm tired of too many people in this organization dancing with Mr. Goddance. Brownstone.

The band kicked into the song or staggered into it. It sucked. Everyone but Axel was too shell-shock to focus on playing, not to mention stoned out of their gourds, and the rest of the set sucked too. The Stones, on the other hand, killed it. Mick Jagger, cute bastard that he is, dedicated their latest single mixed emotions to Axel.

Button your lip, baby, button your lip. The gig sucked, but in a way for Axel, it was a triumph. He made his point, and he had to, something had to give. He couldn't take the pressure of leading around a band of junkies on top of everything else. His relationship with Aaron, the demands of the record label, and increasingly the press, who as of late had become an insanely prickish thorn in his side. Axel split after their set, half joking to David Lee Roth on the way out of the backstage area that if you wanted the gig, he could fucking have it.

We'll be right back after this word, word, word. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them,

changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you sing. he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of family secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how

it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him.

Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In regards to giving up on dancing with Mr. Brownstone, unlike Slash, Izzy got the message. It was a combination of Axel's threat and seeing his hero, Stone's guitarist, Keith Richards, up close and personal,

cheating death throughout middle age. What were the odds that a second Chuck Berry obsessed guitarist in one of the world's greatest rock and roll bands would also escape heroin's mortal grip and lived to see his 40s? Izzy didn't know the answer, but he knew his odds weren't good. So he gave up dancing with every kind of

But as a result, he now barely interacted with his bandmates and elected to travel via his own tour bus with a smoke show of a girlfriend rather than fly with the traveling party, including groupies on the band's chartered plane. Stephen Adler either refused or was simply unable to give up heroin, and he was unceremoniously kicked out of the band. Duff, depressed from splitting with his wife, had retreated into his own bummed-out alcoholic nightmare, while his new bandmates drummer Matt Sorum and newly added keyboard player Dizzy Reed did their best to fit into the highly dysfunctional band, a band that was under immense pressure

to deliver a follow-up album that would outperform their massively successful debut. The recording of said follow-up was wrought with tension. Axel's band-maid seldom appeared in the studio at the same time as he did for fear of running up against his violent mood swings and thus sandbagging whatever slogging progress they'd made up to that point.

The album was recorded piece, piecemeal and at times by remote committee, the exact opposite of appetite for destruction, which was a short, frenetic shotgun blast of a musical statement, made by five guys living the same life, dealing with the same problems, and trying to get to the same place at the same time. That simplicity of intent was gone now. Axel was trying to make a grand creative statement, while various members of his band were at times trying to work around dysfunctions, addiction, newfound fame, and an increasingly volatile and uncompromising lead singer.

Guns and Roses's new album, or albums, plural, Use Your Illusion 1 and Use Your Illusion 2, marked a new era. But the majority of the band checked out in one way or another, it became the Axel Rose show, and it was a glorious shit show to watch unfold. The combination of insane rock star behavior and creative excess involving video dolphins, public spatting with Warren Beatty,

mountain lion pets, and stage attire that ran the gamut from protected baseball gear to kilts and two tight bicycle shorts. The pure rock and roll days of the Ritz show were long gone. These days, Guns and Roses were a worldwide phenom, the greatest rock and roll band on the planet. Guns and roses were the real deal and very nearly coming apart at the seams because of it. Life at the moment for Axel and the rest of the band was tense,

but backstage at the Riverport Amphitheater on July 2, 1991, things were calm. while Izzy fingered his guitar, a slash oblivious, fucked with the FM dial on a transistor radio and nursed a bottle of Jack Daniels. Duff mixed up his hundredth vodka cranberry, his head somewhere else entirely. Matt warmed up with a drum pad, an endless triple-stroke drum roll, eighth-note triplets, then-steenth-note triplets, that were both only slightly out of time with Izzy's riff. Matt dropped the beat indiscriminately to sip cold domestic from a can, and this being St. Louis, The domestic was Clisdale pissed from the brewery of Messier's Anheuser and Bush. Dizzy was nowhere in sight off somewhere chasing skirt, taking advantage of his new fame. And Axel was quiet, sipping champagne.

Pre-show Jitter's time was the only time the band could stand each other's presence. They waited, bonded by the incredibly rare reality they were about to go through together. Something very few people on the planet ever experience. The adoration of 20,000 screaming fans, who all want to either be you or fuck you. The exact type of rare experience that can bond you together and overcome even the deepest divisions. Axel had one in a million on his mind.

It had been a while since they performed it, and who needed the headache? Axel took this as a defeat of sorts. Despite the controversy surrounding the song's lyrics, it was still a good song. Axel toyed with the idea sneaking it into the set that night, but the thought of it was short-lived. It was nearly showtime, the only time of day that mattered.

G&R took the stage to a packed and rabbit house, and by now the band had their stage show wired tight. Axel insisted they fly by the seat of their spandex and Levi's without a set list to keep it fresh, but the band did rely on a handful of sequential songs guaranteed to drive audiences wild. Welcome to the jungle, and then a downshift into the anthemic ballad Civil War. After that, a drum solo from Matt so Axel could suck on an oxygen mask backstage, and then a guitar solo from Slash and into the theme from the Godfather,

and finally into the barn-burning rocket queen to close the show. The crowd recognized the song the instant the drums picked up. They knew this was the closer, their last moments of the show to dig in and enjoy, to stay transported, taken away to that special place from the realities of the real world,

from their shitty job, their parents, their schools. They pumped their fists, dance, sang along, and did their best to rage with their rock gods on stage in front of them. From the blinding stage lights, Axel could only see them swaying on mass. Flashback to Donington. He ripped into the first verse. He wondered about security.

Up front it was lax. To Axel, the security staff seemed more interested in the band than in protecting the crowd. Pigs. His anger shot up through his chest and into his throat. breath quickened, and the words to the second half of the verse came out rushed and erratic. Axel honed in on a civilian in the first couple rows. Was that a fan or a member of the press snapping photos? The press were only allowed a certain amount of sanctioned pictures per show, and the band was to be photographed during set times at the beginning of their set, and from the confines of the camera

well up in front of the stage only, not from within the audience. Fucking press, give them an inch and they'd take a goddamn mile. The press did whatever the hell they liked, wrote whatever the hell they wanted, spread whatever fucking rumors they felt like spreading, and they had carte blanche to fuck with you, just like Mick Jagger and David Bowie and Warren fucking Beatty, just like the West Hollywood Sheriff's deputies, most definitely, just like the hit cops back in Lafayette. And they were all allowed to get them, to take advantage of them, just like his father had done. During the manic rise of his band over the past couple of years, Axel Rose doubled down on therapy.

And through analysis, uncovered what is believed by some in the psychotherapy community to be called quote-unquote, recovered memories. Recovered memories are exactly what they sound like they are. Memories recovered from deep in your past. Oftentimes, they're of events so traumatic you've blocked them out. Other times, there are memories from your infancy or even from the womb. In Axel's case, it was a combination of the former two. Axel claimed that through therapy, he had discovered that his father, his real father, the father whose name he was never to mention in his house, had raped him as a two-year-old.

Axel bravely went public with the information as he tried to sort out his emotions in real time. And the public watched him burn fast and loud with his band across the world stage. And the press took note, of course, and continued to pile on. With psychotherapy, Axel felt himself making progress, but toward what he didn't exactly know. A torrent of pain, shame, and high-pitched anger raged inside of him stronger and more intensely than ever before. And on stage in St. Louis that night, just as he was every night, he was about to blow. As he sang out the chorus to Rocket Queen, Axel focused on the dude in the audience taking pictures. Shit, it was worse than he thought.

Dude wasn't taking photos. He was videotaping. Axel got three lines deep before it all became too much to take. He stopped singing and screamed into the mic. Hey, take that, take that. Now get that guy and take that. Axel had stopped singing completely and was pointing at the dude with the camera imploring security to stop him. Axel could see now, dude wasn't a member of the press. He was a biker. Nobody did anything. Axel raged at the inaction. Here he was, helpless. Again, the band, fuse continued to the chorus behind it. Fuck this, Axel thought. Press member, bike, or whatever, it didn't matter. When not one member of the venue's security team moved to help him, Axel literally flew into action. He barked into the mic, I'll take it, God damn it, before slamming the mic down and diving headfirst into the audience to solve the problem himself. The band, almost on cue, resolved the chorus and began muddling through an instrumental version of the second verse

while their singer went at it, wildly throwing punches in the first few rows. Axel, unaware of who he was fucking with, began manically flailing and seriously pissing off members of the Saddle Tramps Motorcycle Club. Local security knew where their bread was buttered and wanted Axel instead of the bikers. Axel resisted, kicking, punching at everyone in sight. But when it became clear that security wasn't helping, G&R's roadies entered the fray and pulled Axel back up on stage, but not before he landed a full-fisted punch in the great.

of one of the crowd members who got up into his face. But once he was back on stage, Axel grabbed the mic, pissed and quickening his pace toward the side of the stage, said, well, thanks to the lame-ass security, I'm going home. And with that, he slammed the mic into the stage and stormed off. Slash leaned into a mic and added a casual, we're out of here. And that was it. Show over. The crowd was stunned, confused, no one moved,

no one knew what was going on. G&R's Rodies quickly went about breaking down the band's gear. A clear signal that the show was definitely done. The party was over. Guns and Roses weren't coming back. Beer cans began raining down on the stage from the audience. The booze started. At first, the smattering and then the chorus of an angry mob.

The roadies were pissed and rightly so. They began to taunt the audience inciting them even more. Drunk, angry, and violent, the audience turned on itself. The saddle tramps went alpha, erupting on anyone who got in their way while making their exit. A naked man ran around the floor frantically, blood pouring from a wound in his head. The police descended to restore order and were openly challenged by fans. Beatings commenced, batons, steel-toed kicks to the skull. A chan of fuck-you pigs rose up from the audience.

The crowd started ripping up the chairs from the floor, pulling them apart, and launching them to the stage. The cops reeled out the fire hose and attempted to use it to beat back the crowd. But the water pressure was so weak that the audience began moving toward the water to cool off and thus toward the stage. One of the giant video screens on the side of the stage was pulled down, the massive 60-ton sound and light rig lurched uncomfortably from side to side as idiotic fans swung from its cables. Riverport was about to make Donington look like a walk in the park

until the cops broke out a tear gas-like substance and got a hold of the situation. In the end, it was a bloody riot that Axel Rose's deep well of anger had incited. 65 people badly injured, 25 of them police officers, dozens arrested, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. Axel was eventually charged with four counts of assault and one for property damage. The jury found him guilty and the judge fined him $50,000. It was worth it, Axel thought. They all had it coming.

Axel Rose's past, both as a civilian and a celebrity, is filled with intense drama, violence, riots, beef, arrest, scandal, and so much more. It's impossible to detail all of it in two 30-minute podcasts without sounding like you're piling on or being exploitative. On the other hand, the physical abuse allegations by ex-wives, Aaron Everly, and Supermodel Stephanie Seymour, must be mentioned, even though claims by both were denied by Axel

and eventually settled out of court. There is no clean explanation of Axel Rose or of Guns and Roses. Rock stars are messy. It's part of what makes them great artists. All of the psychosis, the inner turmoil, the anger. It often leads to great music. You know this.

We talk about it all the time. In this case, Axel Rose is no different than James Brown, Sid Vicious, John Lennon, Easy E, and too many others to list. Like them, he made great music. And like them, his behavior is hard to forgive. Like them, from his earliest days, he was scarred by severe trauma. What that does to someone in their formative years is unexplainable. And that's a disgrace.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right. by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of disgrace land ad free.

Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at Disgracelandpod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgraceland Pod. Rockerola.

This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationship.

or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.