Last of the Giants Read online

  ‘The windows to his apartment were covered in aluminum foil,’ recalls Alan Niven. Not just to keep out the daylight, he adds, but because ‘It bounced back the government radio spy waves. The door was triple-locked. He never answered the door unless the knock was prearranged and he screened all his calls with a Geiger counter. He was alone with his cocaine and the home porno tapes he had “borrowed” from an unwary and unknowing band member. Messengers and delivery boys brought statements from the accountants, blow from dealers and pizzas from Domino’s. The floor was strewn with the wreckage of rock’n’roll paranoia: half-read financials, half-eaten pies and half-gram lines, offered with half-hearted generosity. Izzy had been sucked into a vacuum of paranoia by cocaine. He’d become cold and distant, a chill in his voice …’

  Just a few weeks before, Izzy had called Alan on the phone late one night and told him in that icy voice: ‘I found a million bucks that everyone’s forgotten about.’ It took Niven a while to realise what Izzy was talking about – and then it hit him. Earlier in the year the deal with the New York-based firm Brockum for them to manufacture and sell official Guns N’ Roses merchandise had lapsed.

  ‘Peter Paterno, the band’s attorney, called and warned me that Peter Lubin was on his way to my office with the intention of delivering Brockum’s new terms,’ says Niven. ‘You’ll be pleased,’ said Paterno. ‘It’s a very good offer.’ Yet Niven walked away from the meeting, he says, feeling ‘underwhelmed and disappointed. Not for the first, nor the last, time did I have the feeling that the well-being of the band I represented was not necessarily the prime agenda of all those involved. As best I recall, Peter’s offer was to advance $500,000 against a royalty rate of eighteen to nineteen per cent.

  ‘My personal opinion was that this was not that good of an offer to make to a band that had now sold in excess of eight million albums in the US alone. Given, however, that the offer was supported and recommended by the band’s attorney, I decided I should keep my opinion to myself. Myself and Izzy, that is.’

  Niven had phoned Izzy and asked if he’d be interested in taking ‘a quiet trip up to see Winterland’, Brockum’s San Francisco-based rivals, ‘and see what they might put up’.

  ‘Sure, Niv,’ came the reply. Flights were booked and a rental Corvette was reserved. ‘We drove to the old warehouse section of San Francisco, which was home to the massive Winterland facility. Del Furano showed us the print presses and the art departments. Having shown a civil interest we left. Del pressed an envelope into my hand as we parted. As I drove the ’vette south towards the airport I handed the envelope to Izzy. “Better see what he’s offered.” Iz opened the envelope … He was quiet for a while, absorbing the offer. He carefully reread the piece of paper. “It’s pretty good, Niv,” he said at last. “Two and a half mill up front and a better royalty rate than Brockum.” Once again, independent action had seemed to serve us well …’

  When, however, Niven informed Brockum of the better offer from Winterland, Peter Lubin offered to match it – and the band went with Brockum again. As Niven says, ‘We had, after all, made money together, so the lowball offer Lubin originally made was forgiven. Brockum had been there at the beginning when others weren’t.’

  There was just one ‘wrinkle’ to the deal. ‘The advance was to be $2.5 million, but only $1.5 would be paid on the signing of the agreement. The remaining million would be placed into an escrow account and released when certain touring criteria were met.’ (An escrow account is one controlled by a neutral third party, who if an arrangement is realised will pass the money one way, and if the arrangement is not fulfilled pass it back the other.) ‘In this case, a certain number of shows had to be booked, or a certain amount of earnings would be made at retail outlets, before the escrow funds would be released. Either way, there were a million dollars sitting in an escrow account, which could not be disbursed to the band until a tour of some size was booked. Not an unreasonable accommodation. Until, of course, this sum and its disposition became the “missing million” of Izzy’s coke-fuelled paranoia later in the year.’

  Nevertheless, when Izzy called Niven on ‘the missing million’ the manager admits he felt ‘hurt. I was also scared. I had never seen Izzy so dissolute and uncentered. So unhealthy.’ Niven tried explaining, talking Izzy out of his paranoia. But it was not working.

  The next he heard Izzy had flown to New York to work with Axl on new material. Perhaps this was a good sign? ‘Perhaps he merely substituted one paranoia for another. Perhaps he decided that it was more important to prevent himself from being substituted by Arkeen. Perhaps he was sick of me knocking on his door. Either way, he was on a flight for Kennedy airport.’

  But then there was another wrinkle, another damn thing to freak out about – a phone call to Alan Niven from Rich Feldstein, the band’s accountant. ‘Do you know that Izzy has gone to New York?’ Of course, said Niven. ‘He’s promised to start writing with Ax.’ Perhaps a change of environment would help bring about a change of attitude, he said. Then Feldstein dropped the bomb. ‘Did you know he took all his money out of the bank?’ What the fuck? Feldstein sounded nervous. Told Alan all he knew was that Izzy kept going on about a million dollars being lost. Then he took all his money out of his City National Bank account.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Niven. ‘In cash? How much did he have available?’

  ‘It’s well over three-quarters of a million,’ said Feldstein, ‘and it’s in a cashier’s cheque.’ (A banker’s draft.)

  ‘Oh shit! You mean, if he loses that cheque he loses three-quarters of a million dollars?’

  ‘That’s pretty much the case. We could try to get the bank to cancel it and replace it but there’s absolutely no guarantee they will do that. These things are like cash. If he were to lose it, if someone were to take it from him… .’ Rich’s voice trailed off into a despairing silence.

  Says Niven now: ‘My heart sank. Was he leaving us? Was he putting himself at risk in New York? Was he about to disappear to a Caribbean island? What the hell was he doing?’

  A couple of days later Izzy called. Alan took a deep breath before taking the call. ‘I did my best to sound unconcerned, uninformed. ‘Iz, how’s it going? Are you getting any writing done?’ “Nah, Niv. I can’t deal with writing right now. I can’t get into it.”’

  ‘Okay,’ Niven told him, ‘so what are you going to do? Stay in New York for a day or two?’ Izzy: ‘I dunno. Wanna come and hang out?’

  Thinking quickly, Niven suggested ‘an alternative plan’, that the two of them both take time out and journey instead to New Orleans. Great White were due to headline a show there later that week. ‘It was equidistant between New York and Los Angeles, a genuine meeting point for us both. I suggested Izzy join me in the Crescent City. Maybe I could get him to join the White Ones on stage. Maybe a dose of rock’n’roll would make his heart feel good.’

  Izzy agreed to meet Niven there the next day at the Omni Royal Hotel. ‘As relieved as I was that we could meet and talk, I was very concerned about him travelling with such a huge sum of money. I felt, however, that if I asked him about the cheque he might feel claustrophobic, feel that I was being intrusive and that might be enough to cause him to avoid a meeting.

  ‘I was always pleased to see Iz and no more so than when we sat down to dinner in the hotel restaurant, a huge grill on the ground floor, from where one could see the parade of people partying up and down Royal Street in the French Quarter. The conversation over dinner was stilted. Izzy was still of a suspicious state of mind. I, myself, felt hurt and insulted that he would even think to question my integrity. I tried to explain the function of an escrow account and that all we had to do was book some shows and the money would materialise in a band account. I reminded Izzy I had not taken any commission during the first year that I worked with Guns N’ Roses, that I had left every penny I could in the band accounts to enable the development of the band.

  ‘I did, however, feel I could now ask about the $750,000, or more
, that Izzy had with him. “I hope you put it in a bank in New York, Iz.” “Nah, Niv. I’ve got it with me.” My heart turned to lead. The idea of having over three-quarters of a million, basically in cash, in a New Orleans hotel room, quite frankly freaked the living daylights out of me. I wasn’t so sure we could even trust the hotel to put it in their safe. Now I was tinged with paranoia and suspicion.’

  Niven said he hoped Izzy had at least hidden the cheque well in his room. Izzy just looked at him. ‘Actually, Niv, I’ve got it here.’ His head disappeared under the table. He’d hidden it in his sock. He yanked it out and dropped it on the table. ‘Wanna take care of it for me and put it back in the bank?’ Izzy asked him.

  ‘Part of me was relieved,’ he explains now. ‘I had his trust again and his money could be put safely back in the bank in Los Angeles – when I got there. Another part of me was frozen with the fearful idea of having the responsibility for so much of his money. God forbid I lose it. When I travel I check my passport, or my wallet, every few minutes. I don’t have the insouciance to be casual about such things.’

  The night had only just begun, however. Back in his own room, Niven panicked trying to find a spot to hide Izzy’s cheque in. ‘It felt ridiculous to put three-quarters of a million dollars under the nightstand. It seemed entirely predictable that anyone travelling with nearly a million dollars would tuck it into the back of a picture frame. In the bathroom it could get wet and disintegrate even more.’

  He was ‘beginning to see the logic of keeping three-quarters of a million dollars in your sock’ when the phone rang. It was Izzy: ‘Hey, Niv, do you know anywhere we could go at this time of night? Have a drink?’

  Pleased to get the opportunity for a bit of bonding over a drink, Niven pulled on his cowboy boots – stuffing Izzy’s cheque into his own sock. ‘As we strolled into the French Quarter Izzy quietly asked about the well-being of his money. “Don’t worry, Iz. It’s safe,” I replied. “I put it where no one will find it.”’

  Later that night, they would get into a tussle at a bar called The Dungeon. For which Alan Niven would wreak his own ‘GN’R kind of vengeance’ by returning the following evening with a bunch of band heavies, demanding an apology and free drinks – or else. (They got both.) And later that week Izzy got up onstage and played a couple of songs with Great White. ‘The next day he hopped a plane to Indiana and then took off for Europe. Later that summer, as I travelled through Germany and Scandinavia, I would find music magazines on departure lounge newsstands containing ‘off the cuff’ interviews Izzy had done on his travels, predicting hellfire and race wars in America. Obviously he was still feeling paranoid. Yet within a couple of years LA burned in the Rodney King riots – never underestimate the intuition of an artist.’

  Back in LA, Alan Niven gave Doug Goldstein Izzy’s crumpled cashier’s cheque and had him re-deposit it at City National Bank. ‘I walked with a lighter step once I knew it was there.’

  The heaviness returned, though, almost immediately. As by now he knew it always would with GN’R. Alan Niven just didn’t know how quickly – or how bad.

  7

  STUPID JUNKIES

  For Izzy Stradlin, things would get worse before they finally got better. On 27 August he was on a flight from Indianapolis, drunk and tired and obnoxious. He ‘must have’ told a stewardess to ‘fuck herself,’ he later recalled blurrily, before jumping the queue for the toilet by relieving himself in a bin in the kitchen galley. The pilot put the plane down at the nearest airport, which was Phoenix, and Izzy was arrested for public indecency, a problem because he had a prior for drug possession and could have been jailed for six months. Instead he got another six months’ probation and had to keep peeing in cups for urine tests to prove he was clean.

  ‘That was my wake-up call,’ Izzy later told me. ‘That was the point where I said, this has got to fucking stop. I didn’t wanna wind up dead or, worse, in prison.’ Instead, Izzy went into rehab and began receiving professional counselling. What really made him stop, though, he thinks now, ‘was I wanted to. Cos I figured, at some point your heart’s just gonna pop, or your mind’s gonna snap, right? Eventually, that shit will kill ya, and it does. It kills people all the time. Once I got maybe, like, a week of sobriety, like actually going a whole week without a drink, I thought, oh god, if I can just keep this up …’ It wasn’t easy. ‘I’d been straight for a long time before some of the others even noticed. They’d offer me a line. I’d say, “Uh, no thanks, I don’t any more, remember?” But these were, like, the only friends I had. Those first five years we were together, the band was like our little family. Dysfunctional as hell but everybody had each other, you know?’

  Two weeks after Izzy’s arrest, on 11 September 1989, he and Axl appeared at the MTV VMA Awards at the Universal Amphitheatre in LA. They accepted an award for ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ and jammed with Tom Petty, Axl on ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and both on Petty’s timeless ‘Free Fallin’’. As Izzy walked off stage and handed his guitar to his tech, Mötley Crüe’s singer, Vince Neil, jumped out in front of him and punched him in the face, cutting his lip: retribution, Vince would claim, for an unwanted sexual advance from Izzy to the singer’s new wife, Sharise, a former mud wrestler from the Tropicana. Depending on whose version you believed, Izzy went down, Vince ran off, Axl chased Vince, Vince offered to fight Axl, Axl told Vince ‘to leave my band the fuck alone’ – yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah and boys will be boys … Who knew what really went down? Yet the incident, minor though it was, would escalate into a situation that would drag many more people into the mire, me included …

  Before that escalation began, however, Alan Niven found himself in a car with Bill Elson, Guns N’ Roses’ American booking agent. Elson was driving them from Manhattan to the Meadow-lands, in New Jersey, to watch Metallica play. Although Metallica would soon be on an upward curve almost as steep as GN’R’s, neither man was particularly interested in the show. Instead, Elson’s plan was to ‘socialise’ (in Niven’s description) with Metallica’s managers, Cliff Bernstein and Peter Mensch, who, aside from also looking after Metallica and Def Leppard, had been asked to ‘oversee’ the monolithic stadium tour about to be undertaken by the Rolling Stones, still the world’s biggest-grossing live act almost three decades after they’d first come to stardom.

  The weather was awful, and as Elson drove, he tried to convince Niven that Guns N’ Roses should be the support act for the Rolling Stones tour. The offer was $50,000 per show, including the chance to play at the vast, 77,000-capacity LA Coliseum, for which, Elson guessed, lifelong Stones fans like Izzy, Slash and Axl might be prepared to remove their right nuts. The offer had come directly from Mick Jagger’s office, Elson mentioned casually.

  But if Elson expected Niven to bite his hand off, he was wrong. Niven knew what the band would say (and he was right: ‘We’ve gotta play with the Stones,’ Slash and Izzy chorused), but he had a different view. Firstly, in his eyes, the Stones were now a heritage act. Their last tour, he said colourfully, had been ‘less than compelling, a sloppy stumble through the material from the obligatory but inconsequential album released for the tour, and a tired thrashing of old chestnuts …’, while Guns N’ Roses were now ‘white hot’. Niven was also aware that the Stones had form in buying some relevance by appointing the band du jour as their support, a habit that read like a who’s who of rock, from Janis Joplin and Santana to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Tosh. In recent times it had included Foreigner, Prince, Southside Johnny … happy to offer support spots to anybody with enough current-day cachet to help the Stones sell even more tickets.

  Now it was the turn of the new kings of the road, Guns N’ Roses – something Alan Niven had no objection to, in principle: credibility by association worked both ways. Any move that helped broaden the public perception of Guns N’ Roses, away from the LA metal scene of Mötley Crüe and Poison and more towards the classic rock’n’roll status of the Stones, was most welcome, thank you very much. But at $50,000 a show,
when Elson knew better than anyone that Guns N’ Roses could now make double that by headlining their own shows – what kind of bullshit was that?

  Alan told Bill he’d think about it. Then dug around and discovered that the Stones had already announced two nights at the LA Coliseum and had a further four on hold. Two nights alone represented over 150,000 tickets – with an average seat going at $30, while the best seats were being offered around town by ticket brokers for up to $700 a ticket. Then there was the money that would be rolling in from merchandising sales alone, where as well as the standard $20 T-shirts were such upscale items as a $450 leather jacket and a $190 flight jacket. When a rumour – leaked by persons or parties unknown – that GN’R would support the Stones got out, Niven read the runes, saw what was happening and called Bill to tell him Guns N’ Roses would not be doing the shows. Elson was aghast. Nobody turned down the Stones! But when the LA Times rang Niven about the rumour, he told them the same thing, citing the age difference between the bands, and pointing to the fact that Guns N’ Roses were now the band with all the street credibility.

  By this time Slash and Izzy were almost apoplectic. ‘Niv, it’s the fucking Stones! We’ve got to do it!’ urged Izzy. But Niven stood firm. Finally, Elson called him again.

  Said he’d received another call from Mick Jagger’s office. There was a new offer: four nights at the LA Coliseum for $500,000. Niven countered that the band’s price was now a round million dollars. ‘We’ve already sold him [Jagger] a shitload of tickets,’ he told Elson. Once again, Bill was forced to go back to the Stones with bad news. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. It was a gamble, Niven knew, but one worth taking. If the Stones paid up, then Guns N’ Roses would earn almost as much for four shows as they would have for an entire tour at $50,000 per night – as well as saving themselves all of the usual costs associated with touring.