Classic Rock
Ex-Guns N’ Roses manager blames Axl Rose for the band’s breakup
Alan Niven was the manager of Guns N’ Roses from 1986 until 1991, the era during which the band released their most successful albums. According to Rolling Stone magazine at the time, it was Axl Rose who wanted to fire him and told his bandmates he would not complete the albums unless Niven was gone. As a result, the band eventually fired him, although some members were opposed to the decision.
After that the group only put out the covers record “The Spaghetti Incident?” (1993) and the long awaited “Chinese Democracy” (2008), the only one without Slash and Duff McKagan. In an interview with “Appetite for Distortion” podcast (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), the musician blamed Axl Rose for the breakup of the classic line-up, because the singer wanted to be in control of everything.
Ex-Guns N’ Roses manager blames Axl Rose for the band’s breakup
The fact the matter is, once he (Doug Goldstein – who replaced Niven as the manager) and Michele Anthony pulled their coup, what do we get out of Guns N’ Roses? We get ‘The Spaghetti Incident’, an Axl solo record (‘Chinese Democracy’) masquerading under a GN’R logo.”
“And you know, to me… The biggest sin of the record was that it was boring; that ‘Chinese Democracy’ was a boring record. But calling it Guns N’ Roses was not honest. It was totally a solo record, and that’s all it has been since 1991.”
“So, you have to look at it, and go, ‘Well, Doug, Well, Michelle, that worked out really well, didn’t it?’ All those years were lost. Who knows what that band could have done had it stayed together; had it kept its chemical dynamic… Who knows what they would have written in those 10, 20, 30 years?”
He continued:
“There is only one reason why (the classic line-up eventually split) — Axl got control of everything. My joy in making rock and roll pretty much came to an end in September of ’86, when I signed the contract with GN’R, because from then on, it was pressure, anxiety, and stress, all the time. We’re in Toronto, second or third day on their very first tour with The Cult.”
“I could only get to the third show, and I just dropped my bags on my bed, and there’s a bang on the door. I go to the door, and there’s Izzy, and he looks frazzled. He pushes past me, goes into the room, and flops onto the sofa. I go, ‘Izzy, what’s up? What’s wrong?’ ‘That fu**er makes us fu**ing miserable every fu**ing day.’ It’s a quote I will never forget,” Alan Niven said.
