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One particular evening, after they were done for the day, I went back to Ronnie’s hotel room and hung out for a while. He asked me if I knew Keith. I said I didn’t, and had never met him one-on-one, so he took me over to his room, introduced us, and left me there. It was dark, with some old blues playing on the stereo. The one lamp that was lit dimly illuminated Keith’s face with this sort of creepy glow as he sat on the couch. I sat in a chair by the coffee table while he sized me up. He talked for a few minutes, then suddenly pulled out a butterfly knife and flipped it around a few times to show me who’s boss. He slammed it down on the table between us.

“Um… Okay,” I said.

Later that night we went to dinner at Chasen’s. Keith and I stood at the bar, talking about dope and jail, and I could tell that he was just putting up with me by that point. I’d been at the studio rehearsing all day, so when the conversation swung around to my band, I let it all out.

Keith took it all in, and then looked me deep in the eye. “ Listen, ” he said. “There’s only one thing you never do—you never leave .”

I knew where he was coming from; if you never leave, no matter what they say, you were there . If you are always the one to show up at rehearsal and stay until the end, even when times are tough and not everyone is getting along, the one thing that your bandmates will never be able to hold over your head is the fact that you walked out. It’s true: if you show up early to rehearsal or recording and you’re the last one there, you are the guy who can’t be fucked with. A perfect example was the great Rolling Stones song “Happy,” from their Exile on Main St. album. As legend has it, while Keith was waiting for the rest of the band to show up, he wrote the whole song by himself. When they arrived, he presented it to them as if to say “What took you so long?” I definitely wanted to be that guy who could overcome all these obstacles and produce music. When you’re always there, you’re the one that holds all the cards.

Keith inspired me; I felt like I had to try harder. The next day I tried to refocus my outlook and I showed up at the Complex ready to make it work at all costs. And that’s when I got slapped in the face once again: Axl never showed up to rehearse, and the attorneys’ negotiation of our “employment contracts” had taken a really insulting turn. God bless Keith for trying, but there was nothing I could do—I had to go.

Our “rehearsals” always went really late; even later by the time Axl showed up. Whenever he did, it was usually around one or two; we’d play for an hour or more and then finally get bored and go home, leaving him in the studio. I didn’t hear him sing the whole time we were at the Complex; I’m not sure I’d heard him sing since the last show in 1993, and at this point it was 1996. So I didn’t even know what we were working on. We were supposed to jam and jam until he said, “I like this,” or, “I like that.” Nobody was having a good time, so nobody was inspired. Generally I’d get home about three a.m. And it was one of those nights that prompted me to get out.

I got in bed and went to sleep. Two hours later, about five a.m., I woke up with cold sweats and in the blackest of moods and felt really suicidal. I wanted to end it; I was so miserable that I wanted it all to disappear. I’d never felt that way before, I’d never wanted to snuff myself—I’d gotten really close a few times but never intentionally. For a half hour, I looked around my bedroom; I had nothing to do it with; I wanted to kill myself quickly; I didn’t want to go on. If there had been any dope lying around, I would’ve done it all in one hit and that would have been that.

For the next hour I stared at the ceiling and thought about my life from start to finish. I was weighing whether or not it was worth living, sorting out how I’d gotten where I was and deciding what I could do about it all. By six a.m. I was exhausted and fell back asleep. Two hours later I woke up with one crystal-clear thought in my head: That’s it. Other than that, my mind was silent.

Up until that moment, one part of me wanted to push on; the other part saw no future. In the early-morning light, I went over all of the angles once again and every single one of them pointed to the same conclusion. The band wasn’t what it had once been and I didn’t want to be there anymore. Once I said that to myself, there was nothing else to think about.

I got out of bed and called our management office, BFD, and told Doug that I wouldn’t be coming back.

“That’s it,” I told Doug. “I’m done. I quit.”

I hung up before he could say anything.

IN RETROSPECT I WAS NAIVE ABOUT THE whole thing: I didn’t protect myself legally because I didn’t think I had to. In my mind, what was the name without the players? I didn’t think I had given Axl anything, because to me, what could he do with the name and nothing else to show for it?

I didn’t have my attorneys get on that situation as well as I should have; I was so over it and so worn down that I just couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to do a press release, I didn’t want to raise a brouhaha or stir up a lot of fanfare. I wanted to go quietly. I didn’t want it to be one of those situations where you have two guys bickering at each other through the press. I didn’t see any reason why something so simple should turn into a big legal battle either. I thought I’d take my share and go.

In the short run, no one in the Guns corporation actually believed that I was done. Axl contacted those closest to me, telling them that I should change my mind. He called my dad, my security guard, my wife, Renee, and told each of them that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. He said that I was pissing away so much money because of my decision. But none of that mattered to me. I was done. The camel’s back had been broken and there was no going back.

To tell you the truth, none of the people in Axl’s camp believed I was really gone for the next couple years. I was kind of taken aback by their deep sense of denial: I never behaved as if I intended to return, but that didn’t matter to them. They just didn’t believe that I would rather not be in Guns N’ Roses than deal with the reality of being in Guns N’ Roses.

I’D DONE EVERYTHING IN MY POWER from the day we got together to make Guns N’ Roses the best band in the world. I’d put my heart and soul into everything we did and I regret none of my contributions in the least. We did things other bands only dream of; in just a few years, we surpassed goals that took bands like the Stones decades to achieve. I don’t like to brag, but if you research it at all, you’ll see that what we did in the time frame we did it is something unsurpassed in the history of rock and roll.

After working to make that band all that it could be for the better part of my life, saying good-bye to the institution I helped build was as alien as being launched into space. But once I’d done it, a weight was lifted from my shoulders and the lead was out of my shoes. It was like decompressing after a deepwater dive. The day I made my decision, I woke up early and called the powers that be to deliver the news, and went back to sleep. I don’t remember anything else of that day aside from the fact that when I woke up again I was refreshed . I felt as if I’d just slept for a week. Later that night I called Duff, Matt, and Adam Day and let them know. Duff accepted my decision without any question, and Matt wasn’t surprised either. I was satisfied but it was bittersweet; I had never really given up before in my life.

I enjoyed a period of peace for a while. I started to go out and just jam whenever I had the chance. My attorneys asked me if I wanted to sue for damages and just go after as much stuff as possible, and I said no, in good faith. I can’t get into it; aside from saying that they were trying to protect my rights and I probably should have listened, the truth is, I was in denial about just how mercurial and untrustworthy the relationship between the Guns institution and me had become. I didn’t see it as such, but when you leave a company you have to protect your interests. At the time I still had a silly amount of trust in what Guns meant to me, so I didn’t dwell on it. And to this day there are still issues that remain to be resolved that cause me grief.