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Black Sheep wasn’t really doing much by this point; after that one gig, we didn’t have any others booked; we’d just get together to rehearse now and again. My brief experience with them might not have been exactly what I wanted to do, but it did make me more public, so it seemed to me that if playing in a well-liked L.A. club band was winning me attention and putting my career on some kind of track, joining the biggest L.A. club band of the day might not be a bad idea at all.

Poison’s guitar player, Matt Smith, called me when he decided that he was going to leave the band. His wife was pregnant and they had decided to move back to Pennsylvania to start their family. Matt and I had friends in common and he’d invited me to a few of Poison’s parties. Matt was a good guy, he was down to earth—the least poisonous of the bunch. Matt knew that it wasn’t my thing at all, but he said that it was a good gig that paid well and I already knew the band was definitely in demand. I was pretty against it, but Matt talked me into trying out.

Poison rehearsed in a big flat way down in Venice on Washington and La Brea or something like that, which was plastered with posters… of themselves. I showed up to the audition wearing my typical uniform: jeans, T-shirt, and that day a pair of these really cool moccasins that I stole from the farmer’s market—they weren’t beaded, just really plain brown leather with short fringe around the ankle. I had learned four or five songs from a tape they’d given me and I just killed them when we ran through it all. They called me back for a second audition and I remember Bobby Dall, the bass player, looking me over as I played. The vibe was very different; there was a tangible attention to detail.

“So, like, what do you wear?” he asked me. “You don’t wear those shoes on stage, do you?”

“I haven’t given it much thought, to tell you the truth,” I said. He looked concerned and confused.

I was one of three that they were deciding on, and I saw another guy at the callback that day. He had platinum-blond hair, a sparkly white leather jacket, and full makeup, complete with frosted pink lipstick. I got one look at him on the way out and knew that he’d get the gig. He did, of course—it was C.C. Deville. I had played the shit out of Poison’s material, but that was the one and only way that I was a perfect fit for what they were all about.

Nobody ever complained because they were shocked speechless.

IN 1984, AXL HELPED ME GET A JOB AT Tower Video and when he did it was bittersweet to see him again. When Hollywood Rose broke up, it wasn’t exactly acrimonious but in the interim, another source of contention had come between us: Axl had hooked up with my then ex Yvonne.

I had met Yvonne through Marc Canter at a Ratt concert, where they were playing with Yngwie Malmsteen, at the Hollywood Palladium. She’d actually been Ratt front man Stephen Pearcy’s girlfriend at one time. We went out to a late-night dinner afterward at this place the Beverly Hills Café that was one of Marc’s favorite spots and that’s where we got eyes for each other. We started dating after that. Yvonne was really cool—she was the person who turned me on to Hanoi Rocks and front man Mike Monroe, which was a band that I definitely appreciated. They were an influence on Guns N’ Roses and are still an undervalued rock-and-roll institution as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, Yvonne and I dated for a while, but during one of those spells where we took some time off from each other, Axl fucked her. I was not happy about that at all, but I can’t say that I was surprised because it was obvious that he always had a thing for her. When she and I got back together, of course she had to tell me about it, under the guise of “being honest,” when the real motivation was probably revenge for my dumping her.

I called Axl at his job at Tower Video to confront him. I was just pissed .

“You fucked Yvonne,” I said. “What kind of cheap shot is that?”

I have to give Axl credit—he was honest and didn’t try to weasel his way out of it. He told me that of course he did but that at the time I wasn’t fucking her, so what did it matter? I didn’t see it quite the same way, so things escalated from there until he invited me to try and kick his ass. I was going to go up there and duke it out but I let it go. Needless to say, it took some time to defuse the animosity. And one day, after hearing I was looking for a job, he told me about an opening at Tower as a peacemaking gesture. Axl always chose to patch things up with grand gestures.

Tower Video was located directly across the street from the Tower Records where I’d been busted shoplifting a few years earlier. Axl was living with one of the managers, and once I’d joined the ranks it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was now one of a truly loony cast of colorful characters; I imagine that we were the most ludicrous and utterly negligent staff that any Tower location has ever employed. There were also some great, senile alcoholics who worked at the Tower Classical next door.

Every night at about eight o’clock, after the general manager for records and video left for the night, those of us in video would stock up at the liquor store across the street, throw porno movies on the store’s video system, and just drink. We’d put our friends’ bands on the stereo and generally ignore every customer that wandered in.

It wasn’t anything that the security cameras picked up because we didn’t have vodka bottles next to the cash register, so it went on unnoticed for a long time—I imagine, though, that if those tapes were viewed, we’d come off as lazy and unhelpful. We’d mix our cocktails back in the office and walk around with them in plastic Solo cups; we’d be ringing up any purchases with one hand around a screwdriver. I’m sure the customers knew what we were up to the moment we breathed on them, but nobody ever complained because they were shocked speechless. All things considered, we were way too scary for most people; they just got out of there as quickly as they could.

Unfortunately, one of the tighter-assed managers caught on to us and when he did, Axl took the fall: he was fired for the antics that we were all guilty of. Even then, I knew why: Axl has the kind of presence and star power that threatens authority figures; they see someone like Axl as nothing but a “ringleader.”

MY MEMORY IS HAZY ON THE VARIOUS events that led to the forming of Guns N’ Roses, because, to be honest, for most of it I wasn’t there. I’m not here to present the academic history of the band or set straight every misconception; I can only speak of my experience. In any case, sometime in early 1985, Axl and Tracii Guns started putting a band together; they brought in Ole Bench and Rob Gardner, who’d played bass and drums, respectively, in L.A. Guns. Not too long after that, Izzy joined their group and that is when Axl opted to change the name to Guns N’ Roses for obvious reasons. Tracii had finally gotten his dream situation—as I said, he’d been after Axl and Izzy to be in a band with him for a while. They did a few gigs, they wrote a few songs—in that order.

I was still working at Tower and had nothing else going on. I was envious, to say the least, when Izzy came in to give me a flyer for a Guns N’ Roses show in Orange County. Somewhere along the line, Duff replaced Ole; they did a few more gigs and wrote a few more songs. I believe that during those Orange County shows Tracii and Axl had a major falling-out. Tracii quit pretty soon afterward and then one night Axl showed up at Tower to ask if I’d be interested in hooking up with Izzy to write some songs and give the gig a go. I stopped for a moment to think about what that meant.