Episode #50 | 3.17.20
Guns N’ Roses (Part 2): Real life Rocket Queen, Raging Press, Recovered Memories and the Riverport Riot
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In this episode
Post Appetite For Destruction, Guns N’ Roses defined the word “dysfunction”. As the band prepared for their follow up release, singer Axl Rose was losing a very public battle with the press while heroin and alcohol threatened to completely derail the band. Axl’s “recovered memories” continued to fuel his erratic behavior and thus he continued to drive his band closer and closer to the edge. It all came to a head in St. Louis at the infamous “Riverport Riot”.
Sources
Aerosmith Interview: the truth about the chaos, coke, and cleaning up, by Ben Mitchell, Classic Rock
Appetite for Destruction: Inside the Guns ‘N Roses Riot, Riverfront Times July 10-17, 1991
SNL Transcripts: The Rolling Stones 10/07/78, Don Roy King
Saturday Night Live Wiki: Mick Jagger
The Hollowverse, Axl Rose, by Tom Kershaw
Axl Rose on Chinese Democracy, Bipolarity, Running Late & Kanye West, by Brandon Stosuy, Stereogum
Bill Bailey Comes Home, by John Jeremiah Sullivan, The Paris Review
The Secret History of William Axl Rose [Super Deluxe Edition] by David Zahl, Mockingbird
Axl Rose--Famous Bipolar Musician
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak