Guns N' Roses Outta Control

In four days, Guns n' Roses shove off for Wisconsin to kick off their tour. Today, however, the band's notoriously mercurial lead vocalist, Axl Rose, seems remarkably calm. He's phoned with a casual offer to "go get a burger or something'' and arrives at the restaurant -- a Fifties-style joint called the Burger That Ate L.A. -- garbed in shorts, his custom AXL sneakers and a lightweight black blazer. Rose chooses a table outside and orders a burger, a chocolate malt and chili fries. While he waits for his meal, his attention is captured several times by attractive females passing on the street. After his second or third double take, Rose grins embarrassedly, then explains that girl watching is something he has come to enjoy. For a long time, he says, women just tended to make him mad.

"I know what the problem was,'' Rose says. "I had an extremely volatile relationship with Erin [Everly, Rose's former wife]. And I was projecting strong negative feelings about myself onto other people. I was attracted to people with similar dysfunctional traits, people that I was going to end up not really getting along with. And it wasn't good for me or them; it just made me despise being with anyone or meeting anyone or having good thoughts linked to someone.''

For a man who's so often thought of as unreasonable and unyielding, Rose has spent a lot of time trying to get a handle on his famous temper. For the past several months, he's been involved in some heavy therapy; during one intensive period the singer underwent five-hour sessions five days a week.

"I'm getting a lot more comfortable with things,'' Rose says. "I'm still not very good at handling stress, and I was told that that was because of the way I was raised. I basically had my family screw up any positive, productive form of release. Rebelling in my music kept me from going to jail.'' ("Somewhat,'' he adds with a smile.)

"I have to retrain myself,'' Rose says. "It's not something that's gonna happen overnight. And my sexual attitudes and attitudes toward women . . . I went through some heavy things in childhood. I formed really strong, serious opinions, lodged them in my subconscious and have been acting on them ever since. There were ugly, violent situations, and they affected me negatively.''

Rose doesn't intend to stop with healing himself. "I'd like to be part of an organization working with child abuse,'' he says. "Sexual abuse and child abuse. I figure you gotta start there.''

Rose is just digging into his fries when a middle-aged woman approaches with her daughter, who looks to be about seven. The woman asks apologetically if he would mind autographing a menu.

Rose looks at the little girl. It's clear that she's terribly excited; she keeps tugging at the hem of her dress, and she's having trouble standing still. Finally, blushing profusely, she musters up her courage and gifts Rose with a blinding tin grin.

Rose is delighted. He smiles back at the girl, who now looks as if she's about to faint. "What's your name?'' he asks.

"Erin,'' she says shyly.

For the briefest of instants, an expression of "This could only happen to me'' flashes across Rose's face, but he recovers so quickly that the girl never notices it.

"That's a real pretty name,'' he tells her.

THOUGH AXL ROSE SPENDS THE MAJORITY OF HIS TIME onstage at warp speed, off the stage his manner is so languid that he gives the impression of carefully considering each movement before he makes it. Clearly, he is not a man who likes to be rushed.

It is this trait, perhaps, coupled with his well-known perfectionism, that has made Rose the primary target of criticism concerning the recent setbacks in the recording of the band's new albums, which at press time were said to be ready for a mid-September release.

While the wait has seemed interminable to hungry fans, the fact is that Guns n' Roses didn't begin work on the albums in earnest until last fall. That it took the band two years to begin the recording had a lot to do with what occurs when several musicians who have spent years on the road -- perhaps the finest form of escapism known to man -- are suddenly deposited on their doorsteps and told to get on with their lives. For Guns n' Roses, the panic set in when their 1988 tour supporting Aerosmith ground to a halt.

"All of a sudden we got off the road, and it was like wind and fucking tumbleweed,'' says guitarist Slash. "I mean, people moving into houses and buying cars and shit. It didn't kill us, but it did become a bit of a pressure, because everybody around us wouldn't leave us alone.

"People thought we had attitudes,'' Slash continues, "and that wasn't the case at all. We were really fucking unhappy. It was depressing because the sense of abandon was gone. In a way, we were really streetwise and hip to things, and at the same time we were really naive. That's where it screwed with us, because it totally took our innocence away.''

As a means of dealing with the pressure, most of the band members turned to drugs and alcohol. They began to drift apart, eventually isolating themselves from one another completely.

By early 1990 most of the band members had cleaned themselves up sufficiently to begin recording, and they entered the studio. But their attempts to lay down tracks with Adler failed miserably. In the summer of 1990 they reluctantly dismissed him.

By last fall, with new drummer Matt Sorum and keyboardist Dizzy Reed in place, it appeared that Guns n' Roses were finally ready to kick into high gear. The group had laid down instrumental tracks for the albums, and all that remained was the addition of Rose's vocals and the mixing chores. But after twenty-one tracks had been mixed, the band, unhappy with the way the mixes sounded, replaced engineer Bob Clearmountain with Bill Price and started over from scratch. Then, in early May, Guns n' Roses fired their manager, Alan Niven, after Rose refused to finish the albums until Niven was replaced with the band's co-manager, Doug Goldstein. The rest of the band members went along with the decision to prevent a meltdown.