My Appetite For Destruction (16 page)

Geffen assigned a personal manager for us, Alan Niven. He was a big, shit-talking tough guy with a British accent. He was also currently managing the established L.A. band Great White. I know the guys were hoping for Doug Taylor or Doc McGee to manage us, because they managed huge acts like Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe. But Alan was raw and hungry, and he would be there for us. We all liked him. He was uncompromising and brutally driven, not unlike Zep’s legendary über-manager Peter Grant, and he was gonna bust ass, get us busy, and get us to the top.

A
ll of a sudden, out of the blue, Vicki was no longer around. It just happened. At first I thought that she had cut some severance deal with Geffen and that was why she just dropped out of sight. I had heard no talk about tossing her aside when we got signed. I believed that she still had some tricks up her sleeve and would still have plenty to contribute to our success. I certainly got along best with Vicki; in fact, out of the entire band, I probably got along with all outsiders the best.

Slash really liked Vicki and Izzy liked her too. But I guess the band as a whole felt that she was not established enough, and in fact, a general feeling surfaced that a man would have more power. This was particularly true of Axl, who believed a woman would not get the same kind of respect as a man. Alan was a cool guy and never uttered a negative word about Vicki. This only confirmed our belief that he was going to be a consummate pro and kick major ass for us. I kind of made a mental note to find out the details of Vicki’s departure, but in the swirl of getting the live record out, I never really followed up on it.

At this point, everything was happening so quickly. In the past, I’d felt that some of the gofers that we had around us were a bunch of desperate users who were out to leech off us and grab everything that they could. I believed Alan had successfully reamed out that grimy hole, and I felt much safer, less exposed to the greedy cling-ons.

We moved out of Vicki’s place and set up in a roomy two-bedroom apartment right on the corner of La Brea and Fountain. It was, however, very rare that the five of us would ever be there at the same time. We were all over the place now, granting interviews, buying new clothes, checking out new equipment. Of the five of us, I probably hung out there the most.

P
aul Stanley of Kiss saw one of our shows and became very interested in producing us. He contacted Zutaut, and Tom arranged for us to meet with him. I was so stoked, I couldn’t sleep. I never slept anyway, was last to bed and first up, but at least now I had a solid reason. Of all the surreally wild stuff that had been happening in the last month, this topped them all. I mean, we were about to be courted by rock royalty; this was Kiss, man!

Paul came to the apartment and sadly, almost immediately, the guys hated him. Paul probably knew as soon as he walked in the place that it wasn’t going to work out. It just wasn’t in the cards, and so he would not be producing us. The guys talked to him for about ten minutes.

Each guy would ask him something like, “Well, what do you think about such and such?” and Paul would answer with something that was probably the polar opposite of what we wanted to hear. One by one each member of the band just kind of drifted away. To be fair, I’m sure Paul felt he had to strut in with an authoritative manner to show us he could be in charge, but nothing, and I mean
nothing,
he said resonated with us. In fact it was more the opposite. I remember Izzy in particular didn’t like Paul’s response to one of his questions, and he gave a very shaky, “Ohhh . . . ,” and then peeled off, saying softly, “See ya . . .” Within fifteen minutes the group was doing other things around the apartment, like jumping on the phone, digging in the fridge, watching TV, and not paying attention to Paul at all.

Eventually just my friend Ronnie Schneider and I were left. I was the last in the band to talk with him, and I was initially like, “Whoa. Paul Stanley.” He was a hero to me.

But he wanted to change me, and that’s where he lost me. First fucking words out of his mouth: “You need to get a huge drum set.” He told me this without explaining why. I just looked at him. “Well, fuck that,” I thought.

I think we all felt that he wanted us to become the Paul Stanley Project. So I realized that I didn’t want him to produce us, but I still wanted to talk to him. I was a big Kiss fan. I told Paul about my Kisstory experience and said, “When I was a kid, I would put my speakers on either side of my head, crank it up, and listen to you for hours.” But by this point, he just wanted to leave.

I remained polite and walked him out. I think he wanted to get away from me because I was asking him all these goofy obsessive fan-type questions about Kiss. Then finally, at the elevator, I impulsively lifted up my shirt and said, “Who do you think has a hairier chest, me or you?” and he was like, “Well,
I
do, of course.” He said it in such a snobby-ass way, I thought, “Oh well, you can have it.”

We welcomed Paul, and I swear we all had open minds when he walked in, but I’ve never seen anything go south so quickly. It’s because Paul came in with an attitude like, “You guys are the youngsters. I’m the rock star, and for this to work you gotta listen to me and do what I want.” In the end, we weren’t mean to him, we were just, “Whatever, dude.”

W
hen the time came for us to record our LP, we moved in with Alan Niven at a much bigger house in Los Feliz. We began doing preproduction rehearsals at
SIR
Studios in Burbank. That’s when the issue of crediting the songs, who got what, who owned what, and who got royalties for what, came up. It was Mike or Tom who told us, “You guys got to work this out. And you’ve got to have it all finalized before you start releasing your music.”

So we gathered in the new place to sort everything out, just the five of us. Now, I thought it was kind of a formality because we had talked about all this before and from day one it was always supposed to be an equal share for everybody. But Axl had changed his tune. Axl wanted a bigger slice of the pie.

Parental Units. Mel, Mom, and me.

Keeping the Faith. “Stormin’ Norman” and “Big Lilly” are very proud grandparents at my bar mitzvah in 1978.
(Deanna Adler)

Adlers All. A rare Adler family reunion on the occasion of Jamie’s high school graduation, 1993.
Clockwise from left:
Kenny, Deanna, Mel, me, and Jamie.
(David Sears)

Big Lilly’s Boys. Kenny and me with our grandma.

Young Gun. Me at five years old.

Leather and Lace. I’ve cleaned up for a formal photo session with Jack Lue, October 1985.
(Jack Lue)

Ass Backward. Slash and I try to get Axl pointed in the right direction to take the stage for our first sold-out gig at the

Troubadour, 1985.
(Marc Canter)