Guns N' Roses: True Story The Last Straw For Izzy Stradlin! Axl's Behavior in Germany

Hey everyone, what's going on and welcome to Guns N Roses Central and today I want to do an episode about Izzy Stradlin. I haven't really done many

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stories about Izzy Stradlin. This may be the first one and I want to talk about The

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that broke the camel's back was, you know, one particular event in slash writes about it in his book and the concert is available on YouTube, so if you remember, July 2, 1991, Guns and Roses were playing in St. Louis and that's where The Riverport Riot really happened and you know, I'm sure that probably wasn't the first incident that made Izzy consider leaving Guns and Roses, but at least I'm sure which is a pretty important consideration for me to think about leaving the band several months later.

So after the incident in St Louis, Guns and Roses played several more shows in the US until they headed to Europe in August 1991. So slash talks about a concert they played in Mannheim, Germany on the 21st of August 1991, which is pretty funny. birthday Guns and Roses sold 38,000 tickets in Mannheim Germany in just two days, which was faster than Madonna and the Rolling Stones who had played in Mannheim the previous year, so Guns and Roses were playing in Mannheim Germany and Nine Inch Nails opened for them as opening act. as well as Skid Row, so Trent Rezner did an interview with Q magazine several years later and talked about opening for Guns and Roses and said that it was just a couple of shows and that they were the worst performances that Nine Inch Nails had ever done. in front of the most hostile stupid audiences I've ever experienced, they called them in, they were there to rock, what they didn't want were some gay looking guys playing loudly ever since and they made it very clear to us that our first show was in Mannheim, Germany, there was thousands of people standing there raising their middle fingers and there were pieces of sausage on the stage.

I've tried to block it so that Guns and Roses come on stage late and even according to Slash they want to come on stage even for Guns and Roses and Eran pretty early in the set, it was like the third or fourth song, so right after Live and Let Die, Axel just walks off stage and if you watch the concert on YouTube, which I have linked to below, you will see that everything stops and Someone comes on the intercom and says: "We are experiencing technical difficulties, we will be back in a moment" and you would think That's okay, they just have some technical problems and that's it, but according to Slash's book, something happened.

He and Axel basically left for a reason I have no idea about. I cut it off, said they weren't interrupting him, as far as I could tell, no one hit him with a bottle or anything, but he wasn't having the scene at the time. The location was literally a mile away from the production office and the dressing room, so there was a van to transport us back and forth when Axel left the set, went to the van and headed to the dressing room, the rest of we walked off stage and standing there waiting to find out if Axel was coming back or if his van had gone to the hotel in terms of how he felt and how he treated Axel Matsorum was like he just didn't understand why Axel couldn't just do his part.

Memory. standing there at Duffin while Matt was furious that he had been in the band long enough that his new guy had earned the booking and he fired that guy you said I'm going to straighten him out Matt felt that Duff, Izzy and I had played too much touchy with Axel for too long like Steven, he just wanted to confront him and beat him up because that would have worked on most people. I appreciated the sentiment, but it seemed like the wrong response to a volatile situation. All I wanted was to finish the program. At that moment we discovered that Axel's truck had not left for the dressing room, he was sitting in it, but he refused to get out and return to the stage.

Both Duff and I had gone down there to try to convince him and he was in vain. Matt then went down to Axel's truck to meet him, but when he got there he ran into Axel, who emerged to return to the stage. Matt was so excited, though he got Axel's face no matter the degree to which he almost got physical. If you were doing it, Matt yelled, get back on stage. I ran and got between them because it was not a good situation. Axel can go completely crazy when he decides to fight and Matt weighs twice as much as me and plays the drums, so it wasn't exactly a good fit for me.

Axel returned to his truck and didn't look like he was going to get out again. The clock was ticking. The promoters saw the drama that was happening and closed the doors around the venue. that we couldn't leave, they had found out what had happened in San Luis and it's good that they did if they hadn't. I'm sure 38,000 fans would have rioted, we would have been held responsible and arrested and people could have died the local police were already rioting are you ready to deal with a whole situation it was a tense and scary scene and a very close lady we brought to Axel returned to the stage once he realized he had no choice and the rest of the show went as planned.

All I remember thinking as I walked off stage after the Encore was F, which was very close, too close, as it turned out the next morning. Izzy sent a message through Allen informing us that he was leaving the band if he could. He finished the

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few dates of the current leg of the tour, but after that he realized that the potential for disaster was too much for Izzy and the truth is that we should all have done the same with so many fans who were there to see him perform. to the band. I couldn't see any reason why we shouldn't let this shit derail us, much less put people in danger.

I'm obsessed with being compulsive and dedicated when it comes to my profession, so I couldn't let it go. Izzy completed the tour and I tried to talk him out of leaving a couple of times, but at the same time I couldn't blame him. Hey, man, I know it's been hard, but I think we can change things. I remember telling him that the show is a great man. the audience is really cool we're playing stadiums I know he said but man I can't I just can't do it anymore the way he looked at me at that moment he said it's all he sent a statement to everyone and the Up to Date Next, Alan ran away to meet him, took his side and came to us and told us that Izzy wasn't going to reconsider her decision.

I don't think Izzy even discussed it with Axel once he made up his mind, once it was set in stone. the second of the five founding members of Guns and Roses left the band we finished the European tour Izzy's

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show was in front of 72,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London, the tickets sold out faster than any artist in hi

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, but it is worth mentioning as As far as I can remember, after he informed us that he was leaving, none of the remaining European shows started late and Duff recalled the incident in his book in chapter 29, he said that when Axel left the stage in Manheim , Germany, another trip seemed inevitable.

Very late, the venue was huge and the outdoor arena was packed with twice as many people as even the largest basketball arenas we had played in in the U.S. At the time, Matt Storm tried a novel approach when AXA left, maybe to a new guy, it was obvious. What they did was look for Axel and confront him. Axel's security team turned him away. The promoters, not the band members, not the managers, not the response. I saved the day. His threat that the artists would be arrested if a riot occurred might not have worked. alone but they also locked us in the venue Axel came back and finished the show Izzy disappeared as soon as the house lights came on we still had one last show left on this leg of the tour at Wembley Stadium on the last day of August 1991 . and Duff even mentioned before the Mannheim show that I could see right then and there that Izzy wasn't going to last.

The cadence of his walk was different now I saw it as clearly as the lurch of a bicycle with a deformed wheel in his face. was drawn his eyes rolled back his body language exhausted he did it with us sober on tour but couldn't stand pissing off the fans and torturing the crew he had to face reality sober and at the same time he had to deal with Slash Matt and me trying to bury our own frustrations taking us down with drink and drugs, so before Guns and Rose played in Mannheim, Germany, they began their European tour and Helsinki, Finland, so they played two shows in Helsinki on the first night of the actual leg of the tour.

Axel disappears during Welcome to Jungle then the band starts playing Welcome to Jungle Axel goes off stage for 25 minutes, no one really knows what happens and then he basically comes back on stage and finishes the rest of the show without a problem and then the two Helsinki shows follow , Guns and Roses play two shows in Sweden, so on the second night in Sweden, Axel arrives three hours late to the actual show. The reason why he was late is because as soon as he left his hotel to go to the venue, he saw a fireworks festival or Street Festival that was going on and he went and saw the fireworks before arriving at the venue three hours late and then a few nights later, Guns and Roses were supposed to play in Oslo, Norway, and Axel's assistant ended up calling the band and letting them know. that Axel was not going to attend the concert because he was in Paris and Matt Sorum later recalled in an interview that he was really disappointed at not being able to play in Norway, which was his industrial ancestor Homeland, although Guns and Roses would.

I came back to Norway in 1993 during the Skin and Bones tour and if you've ever seen the Robert John video, where you know the home videos he makes with Guns and Roses, there's the one of Slash Duff and Matt in the back of a van. They are a little drunk and make reference to Axel being in Paris, apparently the rumor was that Axel had some throat problems and was in Paris to see a doctor when Izzy left Guns and Roses, according to Alan Niven. he wasn't into any slash stuff at Matt's Party Boy camp or at Axel's camp, which he described as a game when I say it at camp and you know, at the end of the day, it seems like Izzy was sick of all the nonsense and how complicated the Guns are. and Roses had become, you know, she thought rock and roll was supposed to be a simple life lived to the fullest, but she also enjoyed it to the fullest and that enjoyment, as far as Izzy could see, wasn't based on private jets or big crowds or living in a haze of alcohol and drugs and Alan Niven always referred to Izzy as the heart and soul of Guns and Roses and the guitarist who effortlessly lost beats and gave them his unique swing disappeared so slash, as I mentioned, he spent several days trying to change his mind and the seeds had really been sewn when Izzy quit drugs the year before and then left Los Angeles to get his life back in Lafayette, Indiana, he said I needed to get out of Los Angeles for my own sanity.

Izzy remembered that he was tired of the whole scene. I didn't move there like an addict. I became one in Los Angeles. It came with a lawn once I quit drugs. I couldn't help but look around and wonder: is this all there is? I was just tired of it. He needed to get out and as he said, he regarded the excesses of the Illusion user's album and tour with the same cold eye. I think you make more decisions when you're sober and when you're fucked up you're more likely to stick it out. normally you wouldn't tolerate it I didn't like complications I became a part of everyday life and Guns and Roses sometimes for the simplest things to happen it takes days you're sitting in the locker room of a hockey rink and for like two hours the walls They vibrate while the audience goes, that time passes slowly when you're sober and they have to send a helicopter to the hotel to look for Axel, he just prepared and sometimes he prepared for a long time. maybe I don't know what's up with him for me it's simple for me I'm setting my alarm clock you know there's a modern invention that seems to work for people you said it and you wake up when you're supposed to as Alan Evans says now Izzy Stradlin left Guns and Roses.

I didn't expect it but it didn't surprise me for the record. I had nothing to do with Niven being in Switzerland with the great white shark, as he said on the news. I got a phone call, he told me he's leaving it, I can't take it anymore and Niven said let's meet in London and talk about this. He had one gig left in his leg, which was Wembley, and he wasn't going to go there. There was a concert in Germany where Axel arrived late and the security wasn't good, they were Germans walking around with machine

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and Izzy totally nervous, like this was going south.

I had to convince him to play Wembley, so Adams found out there was a hotel. There is a Hilton hotel right near the stadium, so he arranged to rent a suite there for Izzy. He still hasn't paid me for this. The effort. Series. I told him to go and sit at the Hilton and have someone on the team tell him. when Axel shows up and when he shows up you can be there in five minutes, so that's what Izzy did playing the final show with the bandbefore 70,000 fans who had no idea they were witnessing hi

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a few days later, Guns and Roses were back.

Los Angeles took a break while they waited to release their User Illusion albums and were looking for someone to fill Izzy's shoes, so Izzy's official departure was not announced until November 7, 1991. The second of the five members originals were found to be gone. too addicted the other for being too sober Izzy now rehired Alan Niven as his manager and set about making a solo album with distribution. Duff was on The Daze and really just had one more reason to feel angry and betrayed in an interview. with Rolling Stone a few months later, Axel laid the blame for Izzy's abruptness squarely at the feet of his childhood friend.

My personal belief is that Izzy never really wanted something big. Axel told Kim Neely that there were responsibilities that Izzy didn't want to deal with, he didn't want to work with the lowering standards that I had set for ourselves, I asked for examples. Axel claimed that Izzy didn't want to make videos and that he even got Izzy to work on his behalf. The songs on the Illusions albums were like pulling teeth. Izzy's songs were on the album because I wanted them on the album, not because Izzy gave in anyway. If people think I don't respect him, respect Izzy or recognize talent, they are sadly mistaken.

She was my friend, I wasn't always right, sometimes I was hugely wrong and Izzy was the one who helped me get back to things that were right, but I know I wanted to grow as much as possible from day one and that wasn't Izzy's intention at all. Absolutely, he also called Izzy and because of the way he left the band we received a letter saying that this changes, maybe he will tour in January and there were ridiculous demands that were not going to be. I met Izzy I talked to Izzy for four and a half hours on the phone at some points I was crying and pleading I was doing everything I could to keep him in the band When I got the chance to talk to Izzy about why he left however a few years later I just couldn't take it anymore, the shows were completely erratic.

I never knew when we could finish the show day by day because Axel was leaving. I said things and let's cut, we have to learn a cover or something, when I was actually on stage, they said: ah, let's have another beer, they didn't care, the last

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, he said, came after Reversed after that he reversed his initial decision to leave and, in fact, in a repeat of Stephen and Adler's situation 18 months earlier gave Izzy a contract to sign this is just before I left, demoting me to a lower position, they were going to reduce my royalty percentage.

I was like Fu. I've been there since day one, why would I do that? Then Gilby Clark would come in to replace Izzy for the rest of the tour, with the exception of the five days Guns played in the Middle East and Europe in 1993, and even after Izzy left after playing those five shows, it seems that Things within the band were good. quite tense, he had realized that nothing had really changed, the band was no longer having fun, no one was laughing and you know it was only later you know, uh he confirmed his decision to leave the band, so that's for this episode of Guns and Roses.

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story I hope you enjoyed this one, let me know your thoughts below and what you think is the reason why Izzy hasn't been involved in the reunion so far, comment below and let me know, hit the like button if you liked it. the content of this video and be sure to hit the Subscribe button if you want to see more videos like this and if you love Guns and Roses and be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter, links to my social media channels are below. careful