It was a major flex. 17 September 1991 saw the release of not one but two albums from Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion I and II.
The band had been empowered by the phenomenal success of of their debut album Appetite For Destruction, which had hit No 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1988 on its way to becoming one of the biggest selling albums of all time, with worldwide sales in excess of 30 million.
But there were other blockbuster rock albums released in ’91, including Metallica’s self-titled record, aka The Black Album, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik and the three albums from the rising stars of Seattle’s grunge scene – Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.
The new wave of alternative rock music – with Kurt Cobain its reluctant poster boy – would damage the credibility and sales of many big name bands that had hit big in the ’80s. To those bands, grunge was a curse.
But that’s not how Guns N’ Roses saw it, as the band’s lead guitarist Slash revealed in an interview with MOJO magazine in 2004.
This interview happened during Slash’s exile from Guns N’ Roses, when he and two former bandmates from GN’R – bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum – were in the supergroup Velvet Revolver, fronted by ex-Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland.
Looking back on the making of Use Your Illusion I and II, Slash told MOJO that he, McKagan and singer Axl Rose all shared an appreciation for alternative rock pioneers Faith No More.
“I remember when we were writing the Illusion records, we all got turned on to this band Faith No More and that record The Real Thing. Axl had a copy, Duff had a copy and I had a copy.
“That record had a profound effect on Axl’s perception of what the next Guns N’ Roses album would be. Duff and me just liked it because it was a good record.”
Faith No More’s hit song Epic featured vocalist Mike Patton rapping in the verses. This may have had an influence on My World, the final track on Use Your Illusion II, on which Axl Rose also raps over an industrial rock rhythm.
Referring to the Seattle grunge explosion, Slash said: “We started touring during the making of the Illusions records, and Nirvana came out, and Pearl Jam. And way before that we dug Alice In Chains.
“We just thought Nirvana were sort of cool. One of the few times Axl and I ever went out in public was to go and see Nirvana at the Palace in Hollywood. But I really didn’t think much of it at the time.”
One of the better songs on Use Your Illusion II, written by rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, was Pretty Tied Up (subtitled: The Perils of Rock N’ Roll Decadence).
The songs lyrics include the lines: “One there was this rock ‘n’ roll band rollin’ on the streets/Time went by and it became a joke.”
Asked if he felt that this was a self-fulfilling prophecy for Guns N’ Roses, Slash countered: “Definitely not, because Izzy wrote the lyrics to Pretty Tied Up, and Izzy was as oblivious to what was going on in the music scene as I was. The only person that the encroaching ’90s music had an effect on was Axl.
“Looking at it now, because of all the fucking theatrics that Axl put into this thing, it was against the band’s best judgement. We didn’t want to do it but we did it just to get Axl out there. We just wanted to go play.
“I could see it being a huge disappointment [to some Guns N’ Roses fans]. But it didn’t have an effect on the actual band itself.
“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, grunge killed Guns N’ Roses.’ But we went on doing our thing, we were playing stadiums all the way up until ’93. The band broke up on its own. It had nothing to do with the grunge movement.”
It could be argued that Guns N’ Roses opened the door for Nirvana and others to follow – such was the raw sound and edgy lyrical content in Appetite For Destruction.
Slash had his own take on that.
“I hate to try to look at that accurately or honestly,” he said. “I don’t really know. But one thing about Appetite was it opened the doors for rock ‘n’ roll at the time.”
He said of the success of Appetite For Destruction: “Something had happened that got so big that the industry would take a chance on something a little less predictable than what they normally would. So we might have helped open the door for grunge.
“The Nirvana thing was a huge fucking singer-songwriter talent that happened. That was a great thing. I was never a big Pearl Jam fan, but Soundgarden we thought was great.
“That whole thing was very cool. It was just sort of a drag that it just lasted for a second.”
