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The funeral was at Forest Lawn Cemetery and everyone Randy had ever known was there, all his old musician friends from all of the bands he’d been in, including Ozzy, Randy’s extended family, and all of his friends who loved him—it was a huge gathering. At the reception I ran into Matt Sorum, who told me that he and some others were setting up a fund-raiser for Randy’s family and organizing a benefit gig to raise money and commemorate him. Matt asked me if I wanted to play at the gig and I thought it was a great idea; any excuse to play guitar onstage is all I need. Besides, I wanted to do it for Randy.

Matt and I decided that we’d do a set together and we agreed to call Duff, who’d moved back to Seattle, to ask him if he was interested. He’d formed a band called Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols and they had put out a record and done a tour. Then they disbanded; Duff had put another band together with some friends from Seattle called Loaded. I’d run into him a few times in the past year: he’d come down for my birthday, and we’d jammed with Izzy in a studio one time, so we were definitely on speaking terms and in contact.

We needed a singer (as usual) and we needed a rhythm guitar player. I had my eye on Josh Todd and Keith Nelson from Buckcherry. I’d heard that their band had broken up, so that was an option. I liked Josh’s voice on some of the stuff of theirs that I’d heard and this seemed like a good opportunity to try him out.

We wanted to make this thing something special, so Matt called B-Real and Sen Dog from Cypress Hill to see if they’d be willing to come down and do a song or something with us. They were in, so we all showed up to rehearse and it was really a landmark afternoon. When we walked in over at Mates there was a tangible vibe: being in a room again with Matt and Duff instantly took me back to the chemistry we’d shared onstage every night with Guns. We got up together while the other guys watched, and the moment we hit the first chord, there was a confidence and a musical cameraderie that spoke for itself. And it said, “ This is how it’s done, boys.”

We rehearsed “Paradise City,” “It’s So Easy,” “Mama Kin,” Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” “Rock-’n’-Roll Superstar,” and the Sex Pistols’ “Bodies.” B-Real and Sen Dog came up and rapped the verses of “Paradise City.” It was fucking great. For the first time since the first Snakepit, I felt fulfilled musically. I was surrounded by musicians who really knew how to hold down a mean groove and put forth an even meaner delivery. The core of Matt, Duff, and I was undeniable. When we started jamming, people who were rehearsing or working at Mates that day began wandering in to watch and listen. Soon we had a small audience and we plastered them to the wall.

Randy’s tribute was at the Key Club on April 29, 2002. It was the first time that that many members of Guns had played together in years. We went on last and we just slammed the place. Steven Tyler came up and did “Mama Kin” with us. All in all it was a momentous evening. I was elated.

I was home with Perla the next day when Duff called.

“Hey, man,” he said. “That was great last night. Like really great.”

“Yeah, it was,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

What I’d been thinking was that I’d been wasting time. I’d been tinkering around with other musicians; talented guys, sure, but none of them were right for me. I’d been looking for something when what I was after had been right in front of me the whole time.

“Duff, we should do something with this,” I said. “We would be stupid not to. Fuck all of the obvious Guns N’ Roses connotations.”

“All right… okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Duff and I had never said it, but the two of us had been consciously avoiding working with each other. We didn’t want to be pigeonholed, we didn’t want to be labeled: we didn’t want to resign ourselves to the compartment we’d be relegated to—an ex-Guns side project. At this point enough time had gone by, and even if it hadn’t, we’d experienced enough energy playing together again to know that we could get beyond any bullshit expectation that might be dumped on us.

Matt was in, too, and since Josh and Keith were interested in going for it, we started getting together a few days a week at their rehearsal space in North Hollywood. I wasn’t sure about them because I didn’t know them, but I was willing to give it a shot.

Keith and Josh brought in a couple of good songs that we worked on and Duff and I started making things up on the spot, just as naturally as we always did. The one thing I didn’t like about the space was that I couldn’t hear Josh singing at all. It started to worry me that after a few weeks, as we got more and more involved, I still had no idea what the whole band sounded like. I started making board tapes, and boy, was I surprised. When I played them back, I was shocked: Josh’s voice was just too linear and grating; it was a distraction from the music, not to mention just a tad off-key.

I am embarrassed to admit that I was willing to quit the band prematurely because of that. I assumed that Duff and Matt had been listening to the same tapes of our sessions that I had; and it’s my fault that I presumed that since no one was objecting to what we were doing, they were all fine with it.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I told Duff and Matt after rehearsal one day. “I’m done.”

“Hey! What are you talking about?” Duff asked.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.

“Have you listened to these sessions we’ve been doing?”

“No,” they both said.

“Well, you should.”

That night they did and the next day we were all on the same page.

Josh’s voice is perfect for Buckcherry, but it wasn’t musical enough for what we had in mind. I am happy to say that Buckcherry has gotten back together and their big single in 2006, “Crazy Bitch,” was one of the tracks we worked on during that period.

We let Josh know that we didn’t want to continue with him and it was all very amicable, but we weren’t quite sure how to handle it when Keith told us that he intended to keep working with us. Those two were writing partners, they were friends, and they were bandmates; we’d always thought of them as a package deal and assumed that Keith would split when Josh did.

“Fuck that,” he said. “I like what we’re doing here. I’m staying.”

There was only one problem: generally Keith just played whatever I played at the same time. There was no interplay and he had no sense of complementing what I played. So the sound we got with Keith was basically two Les Pauls playing identical licks. He hung around for two more weeks, we thought he might get the hint… but he didn’t, so we had to let him go. Again, I was happy to hear it when those guys re-formed Buckcherry.

MATT AND DUFF AND I STARTED REHEARSING and writing like crazy. I had my eyes and ears open for another guitar player and a singer. I had gone with Josh Todd to see Duff play with Loaded one night as part of Metal Shop, this weekly glam metal revue, at the Viper Room. I went in through the back door and it was as if I’d stepped into 1984. I saw people I hadn’t seen since then, and they looked exactly the same. I saw girls and guys from the different spots—the Troubadour, the Whiskey, the Rainbow—looking the way they did twenty years ago. There were a few guys from Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns, and all the same chicks I knew from back then, all there as if they’d been caught in a time warp; everyone with the same clothes on, the same makeup on, seemingly doing the same shit. And of course, Gene Simmons was there having his picture taken with a crowd of girls. To top it all off, Ron Jeremy was there with a few porn chicks.