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Not only did we not go on early enough to fill the void left by Metallica, we went on three hours later than our own scheduled stage time. In the end there was something like four hours between the time Metallica were forced to stop the show and the moment we took the stage. And once we did, Axl ended it early, after we’d done just ninety minutes out of a scheduled two hours. I’m sure he had his reasons, but neither I nor the crowd, as far as I know, knew quite what they were.

I can’t say that I was surprised when the audience started rioting. Being old pros at this, we sat in our dressing room, which was underneath the hockey rink, basically in the locker rooms. We could hear the stampede overhead, and knew that there was no going back on. The crowd destroyed everything in the outer arena, from the skyboxes to the vending booths. At one point we went upstairs in an elevator and looked out into the hallway and saw kids throwing rocks at the display cases, when one broke, they’d scrambled to snatch the merchandise.

As we made our escape, we saw overturned cars in the parking lot, we watched kids pulling down the giant light poles, lighting bonfires, breaking everything in sight—the whole deal. It was a fiasco.

Axl did have an excuse for quitting the show early; he did in fact have a reason, and he did go public with it. He had canceled our Boston show and two others because of his throat, and he said that his vocal cords were damaged and that was why he couldn’t perform. To us, it was crying wolf, because in Montreal he didn’t mention that he was in pain or anything that night before the show. It was a very tense time—a major straw on the camel’s back for me and for everybody in our camp. It was actually a huge issue for me because I’d lost face with everyone in Metallica. We didn’t keep our promise to them, the fans, or to ourselves to put on the best show possible, come what may. When it had mattered the most it felt like we’d given even less. I felt like an ass. I couldn’t look James, Lars, or anyone from their band in the eye for the rest of the tour.

We postponed the remaining dates for nearly a month until James recovered enough to continue. Apparently that was enough time for Axl’s vocal cords to recover as well. When we set off again on August 25 in Phoenix, James had one of their techs play guitar for him while he sang; he was right out front with a big cast on his arm. That’s how cool they were. It was frustrating to me, because we prided ourselves on being a kick-ass, hardcore rock-and-roll band, but we had a weak spot in the group that was making us vulnerable. We had become larger than life and legendary, so this petty bullshit was very trying.

I was pissed off at myself for having died.

WE RESUMED OUR TOUR WITH METALLICA and made up the dates we’d been forced to cancel. In September, we had an incident with opening act Faith No More and they opted to leave the tour earlier than they were supposed to. They broke up shortly afterward. We replaced them with Ice-T’s Body Count, who were about as infamous as you could be following the release of the single “Cop Killer.” We had our good friends Motörhead out with us as well. I got up and played “Back in My Car” with them at the Rose Bowl.

When we got to the Bay Area to play the Oakland Stadium on September 24, 1992, I got into a bit of trouble. We were staying in a hotel in San Francisco, and before I went to the venue that afternoon to sound-check, I got into a huge argument with Renee over the issue of our prenuptial agreement. It descended into a screaming match and a fight so abrasive that I was beside myself pissed. I went to the gig so angry that I was determined to do what I do when I want to act out: get some smack. I hadn’t done any in so long because, as unhappy as I was with the band, I was not about to cripple my professionalism. But this gave me a worthwhile excuse as far as I was concerned.

I got to the show and I ran into an old friend, a porn star we’ll call “Lucky,” who I’d known some years before. She was a friend of an ex-girlfriend of mine, the porn star Savannah, whom I’d dated for a few months when I had downtime in L.A. during my time off from Renee. Savannah was intense. I had no idea that she was a junkie. The clue I should have picked up on was that she only liked to fuck after she’d fixed; I didn’t know it at the time. We got into a huge fight one night when she spontaneously decided to give me a blow job in the middle of some bar in New York City.

I first met Lucky when she came over to hang out with us at the Mondrian. She and Savannah got stripped down, and when we ordered some champagne they invited the room service guy into the room to watch them go at it, and before long the only thing holding this guy’s eyes in their sockets were a few little tiny veins.

Anyway, I ran into Lucky at the show and we got to talking. I gave Lucky passes and about seven hundred bucks in cash to get me as much heroin as she could find. We did the show—it was great—then I went straight back to my hotel room and waited. I kept drinking the whole time, maybe did some blow, but when she showed up at five a.m., I was pretty much ready to pass out.

Lucky and her boyfriend came rolling in with all of this crack and smack and I’m sitting on the floor watching them spread out all of the drugs across the coffee table. They’ve got rigs, points, shooters, tools, hardware, whatever you choose to call them—they’ve got brand-new needles. We get it all going, the three of us, and we are all fiending hard. It was intended to be a fun illicit thing—momentary, as far as I was concerned—but this is getting intense. We all do a hit, but the shit isn’t strong, so I do a few more. They are sending the crack pipe around.

The hours go by and we are really loaded. Matt calls me sometime in the early morning he invites me to his room to do some blow.

“Okay… yeah… I’ll be right there.”

I get up, weak-kneed, reeling from my last crack hit, and I look over at Lucky and her boyfriend; they are having the time of their lives—they have never had a motherload of drugs like this for free. I make my way across the carpet to the door, dragging my feet, realizing that I’m dizzy and I can’t speak. I open the door; I don’t have my wits about me at all. I see a maid in the hallway pushing her housekeeping cart and I ask her which way to the elevator. That is what I try to say. I remember it all in slow motion; I remember hearing my voice speak far away.

I collapsed like a rag doll in the hallway… I blacked out, and my heart stopped for eight minutes, or so I was told. I don’t know who called 911. My security guard, Ronnie, was there and so was Earl, Axl’s guy, and they took care of me and got the paramedics. I woke up when the defibrillators sent an electric shock through my chest and stunned my heart into beating again. It was like being slapped in the face hard enough to wake you from a deep sleep. I remember the bright lights in my eyes and a circle of people leaning in over me: Ronnie, Earl, and the paramedics. I had no idea what was going on; it wasn’t an easy wake-up call.

I was put in an ambulance and taken to a hospital, where I was given the once-over. I was told to remain overnight for observation, but I wasn’t having that. After a couple of hours I signed myself out and went back to the hotel, Ronnie in tow. I had no remorse whatsoever about my over-dose—but I was pissed off at myself for having died. The whole hospital excursion really ate into my day off. I was hoping to make it through without a hitch and was kicking myself for not being able to maintain my balance and just stay awake through the whole thing as planned.

Back at the hotel, the vibe was pretty somber. Apparently, my halfway swan dive didn’t look so good. Everyone thought that I was a goner and was acting appropriately serious, which is something that I could never understand. My attitude at the time was, “Hey, everybody, I made it! Let’s go!” When I got back, my highest priority was finding Lucky and her boyfriend. From what I was told, Earl had scared them off. I completely understood that because Earl was terrifying: He was a big black guy, over six feet tall, with a football player’s build and an oddly sweet face. That feature actually made him more disturbing because when he was pissed, you really knew about it.