Welcome to My Jungle (4 page)

Axl’s first assistant, Blake Stanton, and me after the last show of the tour
.

CASH

When you’re on the road with a touring band—actually, let me clarify—when you’re on the road with a band as huge as Guns N’ Roses, you make a pretty good salary. And get this—almost everything you’d need is either supplied for you, or paid for by someone in the band or in management, or even by one of the promoters. In the morning there was always food around somewhere, there was lunch at the gig, and for me dinner was either with Axl, or once again at the gig.

Axl was extremely generous. Whenever I ate with him, which was almost all the time, he paid for everything.

On top of all this I received $50 per diem. That’s another $350 a week for expenses of which I had almost none. Unfortunately, I was a young kid at the time, and I wish now that I had put at least half of that money away.

I also had “float” money. This was the band’s money, or in my case, Axl’s money, that I used to pay for things that Axl or the band wanted. I submitted the receipts and got reimbursed. This was so the band members didn’t have to carry cash around. It just looked more rock star–like when they walked into a store, said to the salesperson, “I’ll take that,” and left. I would then pay for the item and take it with me. Hopefully, I would then catch up to Axl at the next store before he purchased his next item.

And then there was the “extra” cash to “take care of situations,” so that people (witnesses) kept quiet about certain “things.”

I carried a lot of “extra” cash—a lot of it. Sometimes I needed it, and sometimes it would just sit for weeks, burning a hole in my pocket. But I always had it with me just in case.

TRAVEL

2

HOW WE TRAVELED

When I toured with Air Supply from 1983 to 1988 most of our traveling was on those cool rock star buses. These “diesel pushers” had a front suite with couches, television, a VCR player, dining table, kitchenette, microwave, refrigerator, and a bay that stored ice and plenty of beer. We slept in the nine bunks in the middle section of the bus. You pretty much had to be drunk, though, to actually fall asleep in these coffin-like bunks. The back suite of the bus had more couches, one that pulled out into a large bed, and another television. I personally loved traveling this way. It was very easy because we could usually leave whenever we wanted, and we didn’t have to deal with airports. Plus, the bonus of having the bus in the parking lot, available for an inexpensive late-night snack, or even better, raging late-night party, was perfect.

Totally different with Guns N’ Roses. The crew, which I’m guessing had more than one hundred employees, traveled in
really
cool rock star buses. I traveled with the band and the band’s entourage, which was about thirty of us. Because everything was so fast-paced, we only traveled on airplanes and in limos.

About two hours before we were scheduled to leave, we had to pack our suitcases and leave them outside our hotel rooms. Members of our security team (the really big guys) would then come by and pick up our luggage and load it into a cargo van. They would then take the van to the airport and load our plane.

Ninety percent of the time we traveled on a private plane—the
MGM Grand
. This was luxury at its finest. The plane had about thirty-five first-class seats, some individual, and some in staterooms at the back of the plane. In the middle section was a long bar filled with drinks and tons of incredible appetizers and desserts. We drank and ate like kings.

Airports were generally a pain in the ass, but our entourage was treated like gold. We would get into the limo at the hotel, drive to the airport, and drive directly onto the tarmac at the foot of the stairs to board the plane. We very rarely had to go through the airport because it was usually a complete melee if we did.

I loved to fly and traveling with Guns N’ Roses took flying to a whole new level. I had never had a fear of flying until I experienced hell on a GNR flight from Kansas City to Denver. We flew in a massive thunderstorm, and the plane was tossed around like a cheese omelet. We all thought for sure we were going to die that night. I actually wrote a note to Natasha, telling her how much I loved her, and that this was good-bye, and I held it tightly in my clenched fist until we landed safely. Axl sat very quietly next to his sister Amy the entire flight. It was eerily quiet the whole time. When we landed we heard that our pilots were even freaking out. To this day I hate flying, all because of that flight.

Typical seating chart on our private jet
.

Since our luggage was already gone, most of us had to carry just personal items. I carried my briefcase, Earl carried nothing (he needed his hands free), Axl carried a cigarette, and Robert, Axl’s other assistant, carried everything else. Robert and I joke about it to this day—we all carried hardly anything, and even though most of Axl’s luggage was on the plane, he always had a few other “items” he wanted to take on the plane. So since I handled most of the money, and had to be able to get “something” at a moment’s notice, and Earl had to have his hands free, Robert looked like a pack mule going through the hotel lobby and getting onto the plane. Usually it was two briefcases, a Halliburton with a camera, Axl’s custom Halliburton cell phone case, and perhaps a large stuffed animal, or a large bag of new tchotchkes for Axl’s house.

Axl rode in his own limousine, apart from the other band members, usually because the band would have to get to the venue a little earlier for sound check. Axl had a lot of preparing to do at the hotel and didn’t want to sit through the band tuning their instruments. If Axl went to sound check, it would usually be at the tail end. He would sing a few bars of a song, and sometimes an entire song, depending on the sound and/or if he was in the mood. But many times, we would arrive at the venue and Axl would go straight from the limo right onto the stage. That’s when it got nuts.

Everyone on tour had about three to four suitcases. Axl had about ten because he took a lot of cool stuff with him. For example, Axl had a road case built for his Bose stereo system. Coolest sound system I’ve ever heard.

Another one of Axl’s extravagant items was a huge road case, about eight feet tall and about ten feet long, designed to hold his workout machine called the ROM exercise machine. I think you work out on this thing for three seconds a day and you have a six pack in about a week—something crazy like that. It’s an amazing piece of equipment.

This monstrosity did not fit in his hotel room so the luggage guys always had to get “special permission” to set up outside of Axl’s room on the floor we were all staying on. We needed numerous extension cords to reach my room and plug it in.

Axl worked out on his machine almost every day and all of us were welcomed to use it whenever we wanted. But for some reason we never did. Well, at least I know that I never did. I remember sitting on it once, but I also remember I was smoking a cigarette. I smoked three packs a day, and dipped Skoal at the same time. Plus, I was too busy, usually handling about 4,000 problems every hour, to even think about getting healthy. Just an excuse, I know.

DECOYS

Axl wanted to wear an Everlast robe and boxing gloves for the bow after every show. My buddy Denis Clancy from Long Island hooked me up with the Everlast robes and tons of boxing gloves.

So, at the end of every show Axl ran to his onstage dressing room and put on a red Everlast robe and a pair of Everlast boxing gloves, previously autographed by him before each show. He then ran back onstage for the bow, threw the boxing gloves into the crowd, and threw out dozens of red roses, as well.

He would then either run directly offstage and straight into a limo and we’d head back to the hotel or to the plane, or he would head back to his dressing room and hang backstage. But he was known for always wearing the red Everlast robe at the end of every show.

Enter the second red Everlast robe.

Fans often lined the streets outside the hotel to get a glimpse of the band. In the United States it was bad, but overseas, it was unbelievably insane. I wasn’t even in the band, but if I was in public, and it got out that I was on tour with Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses, I had a hard time the rest of the day. Just walking to the limo going to or from a show we would get pulled and yanked at if there was a lapse in security. Fans ripped clothes, pulled hair, and tried to grab anything we were carrying. It was relentless. It was frenzied. And it was very dangerous for the star.

So, sometimes we set up decoys to disperse the fans and/or the paparazzi while we went where we needed to go. Sometimes it was someone from the crew or even someone working at the venue. I also had the “pleasure” of being a decoy a few times—one time because of what I will just call the “St. Louis situation” and leave it at that for legal reasons.

I was also used as a decoy to get the fans to think that Axl had left the backstage area immediately after the show so they wouldn’t wait around. When the band left later on, they could leave in peace. So, immediately after the show, I put on the second red Everlast robe and a red Everlast hat. I ran straight into a limo and headed out from the backstage area. I left the window open and flashed a peace sign, and most people thought I was Axl. I think Ronnie also did this for Slash. Ronnie had the same exact haircut, and because the hair was usually covering Slash’s face it was easy for Ronnie to be mistaken for Slash.

I used to love being a decoy, because it usually meant I got to be alone for a little while away from all the craziness.

I remember one specific time we used a limo as a decoy. The band and entourage went out to dinner one night at the River Café, a floating restaurant on the River Seine, in Paris, to celebrate GNR’s manager, Doug Goldstein, and his wife, Jenny’s, second wedding anniversary.

During the day hundreds of fans had gathered outside the Hôtel de Crillon and followed us to the restaurant. From inside the restaurant we arranged for a decoy limousine to go to the front entrance. Most of the fans were at the front door when the band made their escape unnoticed from a side entrance in a regular van. The rest of us “not-so-famous” people walked right out the front door and into the awaiting limo. Most fans realized that we weren’t the band and that they had missed the band’s exit, but believe it or not there were a few crazed fans that pursued our limo on a high-speed chase around the streets of Paris.

BATH SALTS

In one of Axl’s suitcases we always had on hand about fifteen to twenty bags of special bath salts that weren’t available in your typical bath and body store. I forget the purpose for the bath salts, except for the obvious use in a bath, but that doesn’t matter for this story. What does matter is that they were kept in plastic baggies inside medium-sized gold boxes. Yes, they looked like bags of pure cocaine. And we were Guns N’ Roses. Potentially, a very bad combination.

We were in Tel Aviv, Israel, and we had to get on a commercial flight, so that meant we had to go through the airport—the regular airport with the regular police. Robert was carrying one of Axl’s Halliburton suitcases, and inside the suitcase are maybe three to four of these bags filled with the white-powdered substance in the gold boxes. We were in a hurry and he did his best pack mule impression. Axl, Earl, and I led the way, walking briskly through the airport so we didn’t get stopped by a gaggle of fans.

Robert started to lag behind, and I could only assume it was because he was carrying numerous bags. I figured he’d catch up when we got to customs, so we pressed on.

A few moments later I looked behind, and I saw Robert slowing down. I took a closer look, and he seemed to be dragging his right leg, almost Igor-like from the Frankenstein movies.

Again, I thought nothing of it, because my focus was to get Axl on the plane with as little fan interference as possible.

We arrived at the customs line, and I looked back to see Robert, still dragging his feet, but now sweating. He finally arrived at the gate in a panic, stress written all over his face.

He whispered, “One of the bags broke.”

I didn’t follow.

He whispered again, “The bath salts,” as he subtly points to the trail of white dust about fifty yards long. His attempt at covering up the powder was futile at best.

My immediate thought was that we were in a foreign country. I started thinking that customs would have a field day with him. Strip search came to mind.

But in all seriousness, this was bad. As I looked around the airport I saw that it was filled with soldiers carrying machine guns.

We opened the Halliburton suitcase and there was white powder all over the place. One of us was going to have to take one for the team because we could not get Axl involved with trying to explain that the powder was bath salt, so I did the manly thing and told Robert to deal with this while I made sure Axl got on the plane with no incident.