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We always traveled together on the road, and while we waited for Axl and the next flight I kept drinking Jack. By the time we got to New York City, it was time to go right to the show; and the combination of booze and pills had really kicked in. I’d slept maybe an hour on the plane, so basically I was the walking dead. We go up there unannounced, and all things considered, it was a pretty good night. The only problem was the dreaded moment when we had to play “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” It took me ten minutes to get those first eight notes together. I’d start and stop and start and stop until finally I figured it out. It was embarrassing but funny at the same time. I think that was the same night that I stage-dove and the crowd parted like the Red Sea and let me hit the floor. I lay there for a moment taking stock of whether I’d broken any bones or not. Then I got back on stage and tried to maintain some semblance of cool.

The Ritz show in New York we played that trip was hugely popular on MTV. It wasn’t one of our greatest shows by any means: Axl was having vocal problems, and though we didn’t play badly, we’d played so much better in the recent past. In any case, it was loose and out of tune and punk rock, and for those reasons alone, it is something to be recognized. That footage is important because it is the essence of the band. The crowd was great, and like so many memorable moments, it was over and done before I even knew it.

We did a slew of gigs on the East Coast afterward, and that was Guns in our prime. I remember one particular night at L’Amour in Brooklyn, which was one of the most classic metal/hard-rock venues that anyone could ever play in New York City. Izzy got totally drunk downing beers backstage while we were waiting around to go on. But he remained cool in his own way—Izzy was always funny like that. That night he let on like nothing was wrong, spending the entire show sitting on the tiny ledge between the top and bottom cabinet of his rig. It was hilarious to watch.

Those were great gigs—all of the fans that were there know it as much as I do. During that period, when we headlined, we had a certain majestic presence. Something happened in those months when we made the move from opening band to headliner; by then we knew how to make our forty-five minutes a no-holds-barred experience. We were a great opening band, and when we were billed to play more, we were even more bang for the buck. Headlining had a personal vibe to the set; those nights when we had free rein of the room, we were everybody’s band.

WE LANDED BACK IN L.A. AND WE SHOT the “Sweet Child o’ Mine” video, which kept us busy until Alan could get us back on the road. That video was fine; it was just another long two-day sit-around shoot. As long as there was a live-performance element to it, I was okay with the whole thing. That particular video featured every band girlfriend of the moment, which, looking back on it now, is amusing.

At the time, Alan had assigned Ronnie, the security guy, to look after me. He was fiercely loyal and committed and I turned that aspect of his personality into great fun. Alan had the best intentions in mind, but I got into more trouble once Ronnie was around than I otherwise would have because I began to focus on fucking with him as my new pastime. He’d have to lock me into my room and hide in the hallway in case I tried to escape—because I would. Ronnie was great; he played along, he never really lost his temper even in those moments when I devoted all of my energy to sneaking past him. All things considered, he was a great asset until it all went south. We’ll get to all of that in just a little bit.

OUR NEXT JOB MADE EVERYONE APPREHENSIVE before we even said yes: it was opening for Iron Maiden, starting out in Canada in May 1988, on their tour in support of the album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son . We weren’t overly excited about it, as we didn’t feel like we were the perfect match. I had nothing against them, I had gotten into them via Ron Schneider from Tidus Sloan, who loved Maiden, Rush, Armageddon, and Sabbath—so I was very familiar with Iron Maiden’s entire catalog. I’d spent many an afternoon when we’d ditched junior high watching Ron play his Rickenbacker bass along to the Maiden records. I liked The Killers record most of all. After that one, I lost touch.

Iron Maiden’s theme on that tour and on that concept album was some kind of polar holocaust: the set looked like a huge glacier from which their mascot, Eddie, emerged, unfrozen from his ice tomb or whatever. Apparently the album was a big hit for them in the U.K. and is considered one of their best. To us, the whole thing was ridiculous; we hated their stage show on sight and had a hard time playing with that ice-scene backdrop behind us every night. We showed up for the first gig and couldn’t do a sound check because their crew hadn’t gotten the whole glacier together yet. Not to mention the Yeti.

Back then, we didn’t have day rooms paid for in the hotels, so we either hung out at the gig or on the bus until showtime. Those were interesting shows; we were so out of place that it was a challenge. We did our best to play well and we were well received for the most part; we weren’t hated and we weren’t loved—for every show where we really connected, there were plenty where we didn’t.

Duff and I, for our part, tried to connect with the Maiden guys. That band is a British institution, and we realized that; they’ve been around forever, they have their crew, and what they do is what they’ve done for years. We were an American upstart band, all frayed at the edges, fucking with their very established system. Duff and I respected that and we hung out one night with them, and played darts and forged a momentary kinship and that was great. It wasn’t hard: they were amazing at darts and we weren’t, and we were totally cool with losing to them.

For a short moment there, it seemed like we had found common ground between Maiden and us. But that didn’t last. A few dates later, Axl walked into the commissary, which was loaded with crew guys from both camps, and made a statement. The commissary is a kind of sacred place to bands on tour: it’s a neutral zone, it’s a shared area; if anything, it’s like the chow line in prison or the army. It is the one place on tour where everyone puts up with everyone. So we were halfway through this tour, and Axl walked up in there and fucking lost it: he flipped a table over and stormed out. He seemed so frustrated and at the end of his rope about the tour.

There was already an uneasy tension between Maiden and Guns. This obviously sent the tension level to Yellow—Red being nuclear. The buzz went around the crew network, and from that point on, there was no socializing at all between the two bands. It was awkward but we were determined to hang in there and see it through.

The Maiden tour wound its way through Canada and headed south into Seattle and Northern California. I’m not sure, but I think that it was a Bay Area date when Axl refused to leave the hotel to do the gig. If I remember correctly, he was still in his room when the rest of us left for the venue, and Alan was with him. Not long after, we got the call that Axl wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t perform. The crowd awaiting Maiden was pretty large, so Alan insisted that Duff and I go out there and let them know that Axl was sick. When we first walked on stage, there was a ripple of excitement and cheering, until they heard what we had to say. It was a huge deal—it sucked; I wish that it didn’t have to happen. For better or for worse, when Duff and I delivered the news, it wasn’t well received—and that was the first time that we’d ever gotten such a reaction in our career. The crowd was upset to the point that it was obvious that they really did care—and we weren’t even the headliner. We hadn’t expected much from Maiden’s fans. We had no idea that we’d crossed over the way that we had. It was a nice surprise.