Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus discussed the band’s return to St. Louis following the infamous 1991 riot in a recent KSHE interview. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.
“Axl’s always been great with me, we’ve always had a great relationship, he’s always been a solid dude. I know he has a sordid history with St. Louis (laughs), but he’s always been good to me, so we’ve always gotten along.”
He later said regarding fans who were upset with the Use Your Illusion era show, “I’ve met people that were hurt, I’ve met people that lost their jobs because of that, I get it, but he’s definitely a different person. That was a long time ago.”
He said for the near 16 years he has been in Guns N’ Roses, Axl always wanted to come back to St. Louis.
“He wanted to. There’s always different reasons, St. Louis is tough as far as routing. A lot of people don’t play here. It sort of has become a tertiary market. A lot of times [when bands come to St. Louis], the shows are during the week, while Chicago is going to get the shows during the weekend. That is what happened last year.
When I spoke to you last on the phone, they announced it for one day. It was in the video, man that was so bad. Everyone thought it was an April Fools joke, and it wasn’t, we really wanted to do it. We couldn’t work it out routing wise. They kept adding shows, like Chicago got two shows, which moved our St. Louis show, and we weren’t able to get our venue, we weren’t able to get one of the stadiums. I think it was supposed to be Busch, and we couldn’t get it when we needed it.”
He was also asked if he believes that Axl has trepidation about the St. Louis show.
“I’m sure he does, but I know it’s been very important for him, that’s why it’s first. We were trying to make it the last show of the last tour, and it just didn’t work out. There’s no way, Axl really wanted it to happen, but it doesn’t make sense financially. It’s a huge mistake for us, because we’d have to ship everything from the west coast where we were ending, and get everyone out. It’s just difficult, it wasn’t good routing, as much as he wanted to do it, so that’s why we knew St. Louis was going to be the first show or the last show of the tour.”
