|
Using the word faggot in 'one in a million'
I've had some very bad experiences with homosexuals. When I was first coming to Los Angeles,
I was about eighteen or nineteen. On my first hitch-hiking ride, this guy told me I could crash at his hotel.
I went to sleep and woke up while this guy was trying to rape me. I threw him down on the floor. He came at me
again. I went running for the door. He came at me. I pinned him between the door and the wall. I had
a straight razor, and I pulled the razor and said, "Don't ever touch me! Don't ever think about touching me! Don't touch
yourself and think about me! Nothing!" Then I grabbed my stuff and split with no place to go, no sleep, in the middle
of nowhere outside of St. Louis. That's why I have the attitude I have. Anti-homosexual?
I'm not against themdoing what they want to do as long as it's not hurting anybody else and they're not forcing it upon me.
I don't need them in my face or, pardon the pun, up my ass about it.
Coming down on immigrants in 'one in a million'
When I use the word immigrants, what I'm talking about is going to a 7-11 or Village pantries - a
lot of people from countries like Iran, Pakistan, China, Japan et cetera, get jobs in these convenience stores and gas stations.
Then they treat you as if you don't belong here. I've been chased out of a store with Slash by a six-foot-tall Iranian
with a butcher knife because he didn't like the way we were dressed. Scared me to death. All I could see in my mind
was a picture of my arm on the ground, blood going everywhere. When I get scared, I get mad. I grabbed the top
of one of these big orange garbage cans and went back at him with this shield, going, "Come on!" I didn't want to back down
from this guy. Anyway that's why I wrote about immigrants. Maybe I should have been more specific and said, "Joe Schmoladoo
at the 7-11 and faggots make no sense to me." That's ridiculous! I summed it up simply and said, "Immigrants."
I
don't have anything against someone coming here from another country and trying to better themselves. What I don't dig is
some 7-11 worker acting as though you don't belong here, or acting like they don't understand you while they're trying to
rip you off. [Axl mimics an Iranian] "Wot? I no understand you". I'm saying "I gave you a 20, and I want my $15 change!
Using the word nigger in 'one in a million'
I used words like police and niggers because you're not allowed to use the word
nigger. Why can black people go up to each other and say, "Nigger," but when a white guy
does it all of a sudden it's a big put-down. I don't like boundaries of any kind. I
don't like being told what I can and what I can't say. I used the word nigger because it's
a word to describe somebody that is basically a pain in your life, a problem. The word nigger
doesn't necessarily mean black. Doesn't John Lennon have a song "Woman Is the Nigger of the World"? There's a rap group, N.W.A., Niggers with Attitude. mean, they're proud of that
word. More power to them. Guns n' Roses ain't bad. . . . N.W.A. is baad! Mr.
Bob Goldthwait said the only reason
we put these lyrics on the record was because it would cause controversy
nd we'd sell a million albums. Fuck him! Why'd he put us in his skit? We don't just do something to get the controversy,
the press.
Why he isn't totally responsible for the riot at St. Louis
I think that the way the media covered it made me look completely responsible for it. I don't think
I was the last straw. I think that the people who decided to start throwing stuff were the last straw. We have a big problem
with the people that were at that concert. We gave them a ninety minute show. We gave them what we were contracted to do,
and we gave it good. They wanted more, and they felt that they could just have it, regardless of what happened to us or how
we felt about it. When we say, "Fuck St. Louis," we're talking about the people that tore up the place. They know who they
are -- we're not talking about anybody else. Whether I jumped off the stage for a camera or not, that's not a good enough
reason to
tear the place down. It was announced that we would come back onstage, and they were more into the riot than
even the band playing.
Axl-St.Louis
Late for shows
I pretty much follow my own internal clock and I perform better later at night. Nothing seems to
work out for me until later at night. And it is our show. I don't want to make people sit around and wait - it drives me nuts
that hour-and-a-half or two-hour time period that I'm late going onstage is living hell, because I'm wishing there was any
way on earth I could get out of where l am and knowing I'm not going to be able to make it. I'm late to everything. I've always
wanted to have it written in my will that when I die, the coffin shows up a half-hour late and says on the side, like in gold,
"SORRY I'M LATE."
The chiropractor we work with on the road tapes my ankles
professionally. I kept twisting my
ankles during shows, and it still happens now and then. I have weak ankles, always have. I used to run cross-country, and
that was one of the things that got in the way of that. So I work with a
chiropractor. I work with a massage therapist,
because I put a lot of stress in my lower back, and with what I do onstage, there's a lot of rebuilding that has to be done.
There's operatic voice exercises. And I started therapy
in February (1991) and, Jesus, I'm right in the middle of stuff.
I mean, if a heavy emotional issue surfaces and you've got a show in four hours, you have to figure out how to get that sorted
out really quick before you get
onstage so that you're not in the middle of "Jungle" and have a breakdown. The pressure
of having to do the show when whatever else is going on in my life is hard to get past. We did a show in Finland where I just
couldn't
understand why l was doing what l was doing. I sat down while I was singing "Civil War," and l was kind of looking
at my lips while l was singing and looking at the microphone and looking at the roadies, and everything just
shut off.
Well, that doesn't make for a very good show. We're out there to win at what we do. And if that means going on two hours late
and doing a good show, I'm gonna do it. I take what I do very seriously.
|
