Paul Stanley’s Failed Team Up With Guns N’ Roses

Throughout rock history, only a select few albums are considered “perfect,” meaning they have no weak songs, their production remains timeless, and the artist was at the height of their creativity. Many would agree that Guns N’ Roses’ 1987 debut album, “Appetite for Destruction,” qualifies as one of these perfect albums.

While the material on the album is exceptional, producer Mike Clink made a wise choice by avoiding the production trends of the time, particularly the dated sounding drums. Instead, he opted for a more live and raw sound reminiscent of early to mid-’70s Aerosmith albums. Although tracks like “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” and “Paradise City” are the most famous songs from the album, even lesser-known tracks like “It’s So Easy,” “Nightrain,” and “Mr. Brownstone” showcase the same level of quality.

However, a little-known fact is that before G n’ R settled on Clink to produce “Appetite,” they were considering others, including Kiss’ Paul Stanley, which ultimately did not work out.

During an interview with Booked on Rock, Martin Popoff, the author of the book Guns N’ Roses at 40, revealed whether Stanely producing the album would have been a good thing…or a bad thing.

“Who knows,” Popoff admitted.

“Number one, Paul is no producer. I mean, Paul would be in there…he’s not an engineer-producer. He hasn’t produced much. New England [an obscure rock band from the late ’70s that he produced], and I don’t think the Kiss albums sound particularly good. I don’t think any of those sound particularly good. But judging how great [‘Appetite’] sounds and how great it sold, you could only go down from there.”

“They’re very mid-rangy: ‘Crazy Nights’ is definitely not a good-sounding album, it’s probably the worst of all those. And Ron Nevison [who produced ‘Crazy Nights’], I don’t think particularly ever got that great productions out of bands. I mean, we can go through all of them, and I’m sure there’s some good ones in there.”

That said, Popoff does admit what Stanley could have brought to the table other than production, which may have impacted “Appetite” in a positive manner.

“Paul definitely has great songwriting instincts, so I think he could be the kind of producer that would do a good job of picking the songs, changing things around the parts a little bit. Maybe working on the arrangements a little bit, bringing all that vast Kiss knowledge to the situation.”

“But again, the silly thing is that you can only go one direction from ‘Appetite for Destruction’s’ success and quality, and that’s down. So logically speaking, if we did the math on it, it would turn out a lot worse than it did because you can’t get better than this.”

At last count, “Appetite for Destruction” has sold 18 million copies in the United States alone.