It usually worked, too, and, as I was to discover, in some respects at least, Axl was no different to any other rock star.įast-forward to January 1990, and a phone call just as I’m getting ready to hit the sack. Just let them know I was around and leave the 2+2 to them. Part of my act back then was never to hassle anybody. “You’re doing a pretty good job getting it all from Slash.” “You don’t need to talk to me yet anyway,” he had once remarked. We both sort of knew we’d get around to doing something together one day. I’ve seen Axl around a fair bit, too, whenever I stayed in LA, which was most of the time by the late 80s, but we had never really got up close and talked. Again, name one celebrity that hasn’t made that claim.

The accusation that certain members of the press had made things up is a more serious one, perhaps, but hardly new. So what? Name one band anybody’s ever heard of that didn’t. So Guns N’ Roses got some bad write-ups in the press. So what was it all about? Well, on one level, Get In The Ring is just a lot of LA puff about nothing a big, teary, hair-pulling tantrum from an over-indulged child-star shouting and swearing because he can’t get his own way.

Despite Axl’s assertions, I have never ripped off anybody’s children or deliberately told lies in anything I have written about Guns N’ Roses.

I had already decided to leave some months before the Use Your Illusion II album was released, as friends and colleagues will confirm.

Getting my name in a Guns N’ Roses song did not result in me losing my job on Kerrang!, the magazine that had printed many of my GN’R stories.

The song was recorded long before the book was published.

Axl threatening to kick my “bitchy little ass” was not because of his reaction to the book I wrote about the band, Guns N’ Roses: The Most Dangerous Band In the World.

So first off, let me begin by straightening out some of the most popular misconceptions.

Like a d rose song