Guns N’ Roses, an excerpt from the updated biography

“A story of broken dreams, exaggerated ambitions, childhood trauma, self-destruction, redemption and an irresistible desire to burn everything. A street rock odyssey made of decibels, cocaine, sex, violence, betrayals and wounded friendships. But also of art, purity and moments of absolute creative beauty”

With these words the publisher Il Castello presents the release in the Chinaski series of the new edition, updated to 2016, of the biography “Guns N’ Roses. The truth” by Ken Paisli, already translated in 2010. By kind permission, we publish an extract below.

Two days and thirty consecutive hours of rehearsals later, Axl, Izzy, Duff, Slash and Steven pack a van and head out on Guns N’ Roses’ first tour.

After a hundred miles the van stops on Interstate 5. Con to be irreproachable the five go down, take the tools and set off walking down the street wearing tour clothes. The other instruments remain on board along with Danny, a friend who is there accompanies you as a tour manager, who will try to fix the van and reach them as soon as possible. Found a gas station, Duff he calls Kim Warnick of the Fastbacks, the band they are opening for during the first date, to explain the situation to him. Warnick reassures the old friend: the Guns will be able to use the Fastbacks’ tools.

The problem now is finding someone willing to carry five around musicians with criminal faces, long hair and suits gaudy. Taken note of the fact that getting lifts from motorists “normal” is impossible, the kids try with the only professional category crazy and unruly at least as much as rock stars: truck drivers. And they hit the mark, finding a guy willing to take them all the way to Medford, Oregon, in exchange for everything the kids have in their pockets. A sum quite modest, just thirty-seven dollars.

But there’s a problem, and a big one. Izzy, who is perhaps the smartest of the five in drug stories, he notices it as soon as he sets foot on board: the truck driver he’s high on speed, the pupils of his eyes as big as billiard balls and the smooth speech that not even Marshall Mathers does when he freestyles. He has been awake for at least a couple of days and, driving a giant truck, it certainly doesn’t represent an advert for road safety.

Unscrupulous, young and crazy, the Guns decide to take a risk: Seattle goes achieved at any cost. Crammed into the cabin of that eighteen-year-old beast wheels, life in the hands of a truck driver high on amphetamines.

“When the band started, there was the infamous trip to Seattle. We hitchhiked… Everyone should try to find an agreement on the back of a five-by-three-foot semi-trailer, with five kids and no money, well… it was like a test to see if everyone could get along in the long run…” – Izzy will tell Circus Magazine in September 1988.

After three hundred and twenty kilometers without a stop and the third night had passed in a row without sleeping, near Sacramento the truck driver starts to give signs of imbalance. Do you want to rest a bit? Sleep for a few hours? Absolutely not, it just needs to stock up on speed. This is why he dumps the boys in front of the Town Hall building, promising again to pick them up in half an hour, and vanishes in his truck desperate for the pills.

The kids – certain that the madman left them there, without money and with now no hope of reaching Seattle in time – they are about to fall prey to despondency. But the rock fairy never abandons the young musicians, especially when they are determined and predestined to become great things. Not twenty minutes later the guy comes back for them, awake and perky for having found what he needs.

And here the Guns are back on the road.

The effect of the speed is short-lived this time and in the afternoon the dark circles truck driver, the sweaty forehead and the slurred speech return to affect him the face, not boding anything good. Upon suggestion of Duff and the others’ insistence, in the end the man decides to pull over to rest for a couple of hours, while the kids take a walk around stretch your legs. They are hungry and want to have a drink, but none of them have the beak of a farthing. Only Izzy shows no signs of impatience: thanks to the reserve of heroin that he brought with him and that doesn’t make him feel better so much hunger and various hardships.

After a couple of hours, with the truck driver recovered just enough to drive, we proceed for another two hundred and forty kilometers, up to Medford. For man the journey is over and he cannot carry them any further. It’s Sunday evening and the Guns are on foot again.

Without money, their only hope is to hitchhike directly on the highway, hoping to find someone so crazy and with enough room to load five bursts. After several failed attempts, a Mexican farmer on a small Datsun pickup loads them on board. In his broken English the good man tells the boys he will take them to Eugene, Oregon. Unfortunately, he cannot keep his word: after a few kilometers it is it’s clear to everyone that that small, battered pick-up can’t hold the weight, with the mudguards pressing on the wheels, blowing out pieces of rubber.

Back on the street, walking through the night with thumbs up towards the nearest city. Which isn’t that close, given that after almost an hour As I walk the Guns find themselves in the middle of an endless field of onions. And, when you’re hungry, raw onions also help fill you up stomach. Dinner problem solved. But not even a shadow of the city, and in the meantime the five continue walking all night long. They are tired, thirsty, worried and in the throes of despondency. But just at the moment of maximum desperation, a huge pickup pulls over along the road.

Two women in their thirties get out and invite the boys to get in behind. They are two half hippies, who know well the sadness of walking in the dark night without money and looking for a ride. Seeing the boys hungry and broke, the two angels stop at the first one service station and buy them sandwiches and beers, offering themselves then to accompany them to Portland.

Miracles that happen, not always, but they happen.

In Portland they find Donner, a mad and reckless friend of Duff’s, waiting for them. who enjoys growing marijuana in the abandoned offices of Common. He is the one who loads them on board to finally take them to Seattle.

After that journey of hope, Duff’s friends prepare a warm welcome for their friend and his bandmates, with lots of food, alcohol and marijuana. All that’s missing is heroin, and that’s a problem for Izzy. His escort is

to finish and he wants everything except having to play in abstinence. For this reason he rushes full force into the buffet, gulping down an industrial quantity of the famous marijuana biscuits that Donner usually cooks. Axl eats them too, but more out of hunger than a desire to get high. The two are unaware of how strong the local grass is and half an hour later they finish paralyzed on the sofa, in the grip of the blackest paranoia. Duff finds them curled up, wide-eyed and terrified. They want us a few hours and a lot of beers to get Izzy and Axl off the highsome biscuits!

Two days later, in a dilapidated place called Gorilla Garden, i Guns N’ Roses perform in front of about ten spectators, all friends of Duff’s old ride.

On June 8, 1985 they opened for Fastback at the Omni Room in Seattle.

Only thirteen people show up. The manager of the place doesn’t like them waiting and therefore did not communicate the date of their performance. THE two hundred and fifty dollars per show that Duff had agreed upon over the phone there aren’t any, and they barely manage to pocket fifty. They get however, some free beer and a series of McDonald’s vouchers are included.

Duff: “That’s when the band was really born. We were all together. We were outside our city and we sounded terrible. We didn’t have any half way back and we had to ask someone for a ride. It was horrible. After all, we knew it: that was reality.”

“Guns N’ Roses had left Seattle taking parts of two with them or three different groups, to then form a single entity” – Slash will add. In those days a strong and bizarre bond was established between the boys in the group, a bond that will develop further over the following five years.