Update: Former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven has responded to this story.
Slash discussed Steven Adler lying about his drug use around the time he left Guns N’ Roses in a recent WTF with Marc Maron interview. Ultimate-Guitar transcribed his comments.
In terms of looking back like a sober cat, how much did drugs shred Guns N’ Roses ultimately?
“We were touring, and for the most part I didn’t use, I drank, which was always acceptable. But when we were off the road for an extended period of time, I’d go down the black hole and I had to pull myself out of it and all that.
“Obviously, any kind of chemical influence is going to have some bearing on your logic and how you handle certain situations, so I can’t say, ‘No, it wasn’t that.'”
But you were losing members?
“What, like to death? No. The ‘clean up and get better’ came later, we had a situation with Steven [Adler] that happened, it was pretty irretrievable in a way. We were trying to get him together, but he just, you know, he’s still around…
“There was the lying and all that, and it just wasn’t going anywhere, and Steven wasn’t that kind of a person that under the influence he could just show up and play.
“I’d say it was more of business management that really was the catalyst for splitting up, at least for my leaving, the underlying theme was definitely that.
“It wasn’t necessarily about money, it was about money for those guys. For us, it wasn’t about money, but it was also, you know, playing guys against each other, and I didn’t want to get into all that.
“It’s a complex, and ultimately very personal thing, so we just like, after a while, you know it’s not even worth trying to explain.”
So your real name is Saul. Are you a jew?
“No, but I’m in the book of Jewish famous people, which is funny. If you were to ask my dad about it, he was talking about King Saul, and so it’s a different thing.”
What did your dad do?
“He’s a graphic designer and photographer artist, he’s still around. During this time, he was doing all the album covers for Asylum records. We moved to LA in ’71.”
Crazy. Did you know David Crosby?
“Yeah, and Joni Mitchell – my mom did her clothes, my dad did the buffers, Zappa’s down the street… I used to love the swans, he had this big lake, his house is on the corner of Laurel and Woodrow Wilson Lookout Mountain.
“There was a big, huge tall shrubbery that surrounded the whole thing, but if you peeked inside, there was a lake in there, and he had swans. Because they have swans in England. That made me feel like home.”
