Ex-Guns N’ Roses Member Forced To Join Band By Manager: ‘Axl Never Showed Up’

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Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist DJ Ashba discussed his time in the band in a recent HANGIN w LAVS interview. Funky.Monkey transcribed this quote on MyGNRForum.

“At the time I played for Guns N’ Roses. I did about 6 years with them, I was the guy that came in and took Slash’s spot. To have somebody like Axl believe in you and give you a really great shot in life is something I’ll never forget.

When I was on my way down there, Katie McNeil great longtime friend, gave me a call. At the time she was working with Irving Azoff who managed Guns and she gave me a call and said hey, would you want to audition. I said yeah of course. So I went down, I never thought anything of it, I didn’t think I was going to get the gig. I didn’t really think much I just wanted to go jam some Guns song who cares and meet the guys it would be great. I had met Axl years before when I was doing the Beautiful Creatures album on Warner Bros. and Sharon Osbourne walked me in and introduced me to him. And we’re both from Indiana so we kinda had a cool little bond that way.

The night before I remember calling Katie my manager saying, you know, I think I’m going to back out, I was just kinda getting cold feet, you know it’s going to be a lot of work, I don’t know. She said you can’t screw me over you’ve just gotta show up. I said OK for you I will. I showed up and I get in my car and she calls me and she basically said you got the gig. And it didn’t set in for a while, it was very surreal. And then I remember going into rehearsals it was still surreal because Axl never showed up I was just jamming with the band it’s cool. And I think the first show Tokyo Dome sold out like 60,000 people I can’t remember, it was a massive show. Still no Axl, I was like this is kinda weird, you get used to rehearsing with the guys without Axl there. Sure enough, the lights go down and here comes Axl. That started a six years journey, we played a ton of show, had a lot of fun. It’s a time in my life I’m never going to forget and I’ll always cherish.”