Friday, November 8, 2013

Steven Adler Book Review


I just recently finished reading the autobiography by original drummer Steven Adler of Guns N' Roses called "Appetite For Destruction, Sex & Drugs & Guns N' Roses". This book originally came out in 2010, but I found it in the cheap bin at a local bookstore, therefore I finally picked it up. I have now read books by Duff, Slash, Adler and a book about Axl. Try putting all the pieces together about what happened to this once great band is a puzzle in itself. I think from everything I have read, it boils down to Axl Rose being an ego maniac and having a head on his shoulders, and the rest of them having severe drug and alcohol problems. Still doesn't make it right. Cause my god, at one time they were bad ass rock n' roll for us that were growing up as teens in the mid/late eighties.

As I read this book I couldn't help but feel sorry for Steven Adler as he was one of the founding members of the band and had been a friend of Slash's from the teen years. Only to be pushed aside by not only the rest of the band but from his close friend Slash too. That's gotta be hard on anyone. Steven comes across as very low confident kind of guy as he himself even admits and got taken advantage of. I mean getting kicked out of the band GnR for drug use is kinda retarded considering all of them were fucked up for the most part except for Axl, although he wasn't all that clean himself either. Just very eccentric.

Adler also likes to go on about all the women he has been with, ok, we get it, you got lots of pussy. But once he got heavily into the hard drugs, that went to the wayside as all he was worried about was his next fix. It's quite sad that he got to live his dream of being a rock star, but it only happened for a few years before his life started to crumble.

Steven doesn't leave anything out in this tell all book, I found it to be quite interesting, and loved his thoughts on Axl Rose, both good and bad. He desperately would like to see the original Guns N' Roses get back together for a tour, as well all would. But don't see that ever happening. This is a book well worth reading.

2 comments:

  1. I just read both Adler's and Duff's books in a row and really liked seeing the same stories from different points of view. I'll have to reread Slash's again.

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  2. I agree with you John, it's always interesting to read different books from guys in the same band, and how they see things different and getting their takes on what happened. All the books about GnR seem to have a theme about how Axl is a head case.

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