home, it was more of a prop as well. He did have a guy there to take care of it, a guy that wasn’t very knowledgeable about how to care for this poor boa constrictor as we traveled across the frozen Midwest, so I gave him some tips. Regardless, we kicked ass on that tour.
Because of the production, we were right up against the front of the stage, right up against the audience, and that was a catalyst. Those shows were dynamic, with minimal lighting and venues smaller than those on the Motley tour; all in all, it was a huge and swift departure from where we’d just been. That was the one theme that characterized this time for us: we changed gears constantly. Drastic as they were, those changes forced us to learn a lot in a short amount of time. If we didn’t adapt we would fail; it was that simple. For a band stuck in its ways, it was good for us to be forced into all of these different situations with no warning.
WE WERE IN CENTRAL MICHIGAN IN some nowhere town; I was having a drink at the hotel bar when our tour manager told me that the gig was canceled because something had happened with Alice. A few hours later we learned that his father had died; and for the next few days we waited in the hotel bar wondering if the tour would go on. The second night of that vigil, Steven Adler completely lost it. Steven could get very emotional at the drop of a hat, and his way of showing it was complete and utter defiance. In this little town, there was a sports bar, a restaurant or two, the hotel, and no other distraction for miles. Duff was with him that night; they had gone out drinking and for some reason Steven got so worked up that he punched a street lamp. He broke his hand entirely and was sidelined for something like six weeks.
Alan had booked us four headlining dates back in L.A. that were to follow the Alice tour weeks and we realized that Steven wasn’t going to be out of his cast in time, so we put out the word that we needed a drummer to sit in for a few shows. Within a day, we hooked up with Fred Curry, the drummer for Cinderella, and he was great in a pinch. Fred learned all of the songs right away, and we rehearsed with him in the lobby of the hotel in Michigan; Izzy and Duff and I on our guitars while Fred played along on drum pads.
After a few days, we heard that Alice had canceled the tour, so we flew back to L.A. and prepared for the Perkins Palace shows. We were all resenting Steve at the time; we had no sympathy for the fact that he’d woken up the morning after the street-lamp incident with a cast on his arm, knowing he’d gotten too drunk and done something stupid. He’d fucked up—he had to deal with the consequences.
When we got back to L.A., Steven and I moved into the Franklin Apartments, furnished short-term units on Hollywood and Franklin, for the few nights before we did the four Perkins Palace shows in Pasadena and for a while after that. When I checked in, I had Sally in tow. She’d shown up at the Drury Hotel in Missouri—which we called the Dreary Hotel in Misery—with a green card and was all set to stay with me for a while. She is from Sheffield and is a real English girl, so she was out of her element immediately, touring with us, but she survived. She and I moved into a place right next door to Steven.
We had a few weeks before those four Perkins Palace shows went down in Pasadena, and as usual, given a few days freedom in L.A., I dove headlong into lunar activities. One of those nights Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield from Metallica came over and we did some outrageous partying. Sally was there and I remember that there was a girl that James wanted to fuck and I let him take her into my bedroom. They were in there for a while and I had to get in there to get something, so I crept in quietly and saw James head-fucking her. He was standing on the bed, ramming her head against the wall, moaning in that thunderous voice of his, just slamming away, and bellowing, “That’ll be fine! That’ll be fine! Yes! That’ll be fine!”
Steven, Sally, and I caroused extensively every single night. One time we went to the Cathouse, which had relocated to Highland and Melrose, and that night we ran into the infamous Mark Mansfield as well as Nikki Sixx. Our little group all got together: I was on an antiheroin kick for the moment, so I wasn’t interested, but Mark had some junk, and he, Steve, and Nikki wanted to get high. I wasn’t even privy—they left to head back to Steve’s place to go do it.
Later on Sally and I went home; we had a few more drinks in our room and I passed out. Sally stayed up; I think she was aware of the scene going on Steve’s unit. I don’t know the series of events because I wasn’t there, but those guys had done their shit and at some point Nikki wandered into my place. Apparently, he had done one too many shots because he OD’d in my apartment.
Sally tried to wake me up when she found Nikki in a heap in a corner. I was so drunk and tired that she had to pull me into the shower to bring me around. That hardly worked: I got belligerent and thrashed about and broke the glass shower door. Meanwhile, the paramedics were hoisting Nikki out of the bedroom. Steven was there, too, all high, of course. Thank God for Sally; she was the one who called 911. Nikki might not be here otherwise.
A few hours later, Christine, Doc McGee’s assistant, came by to pick up Nikki’s stuff. We found out that he’d gone to Cedars-Sinai, been revived, and then he’d checked himself out a few hours later. I’m not sure what he did after that but legend has it that he did more smack and immortalized the evening in the song “Kickstart My Heart.” In any case, if looks could kill, Christine would have done me in. She treated me as if Nikki’s overdose was my fault; as if it had been my junk, my idea, as if I’d forced it on him. Christine was someone who was usually nice to me, but she was now sending me full-on daggers. I’ve never spoken to her again.
In spite of all of that, the Perkins Palace shows were some of the best shows we’d ever done… and Fred Curry was playing. It was awful for Steve: he was standing there in his Clint Eastwood shawl, with one of those batter’s helmet hats with the two straws leading into cans of beer and his arm in a cast. I sort of felt sorry for him. He played tambourine; he was so pissed off. He was nice to Fred, but barely. I could understand that: he had to sit there and watch us play that well—without him—to a homecoming, friendly crowd the likes of which we’d never seen.
I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH NIKKI’S overdose, but the fact that it happened in my apartment was reason enough for the powers that be to punish me by exiling me, Sally, and Steven from Hollywood to a Holiday Inn down in Hermosa Beach. It was the first of a few times that management devised ways to get me out of town to locations with less activity in an effort to keep me in check. Their intentions were good but their execution never was. Hermosa Beach was certainly eons away from Los Angeles, and one thing was for sure—I was stuck there in that little one-bedroom with its little TV and two chairs because I didn’t have a car. There wasn’t a proper kitchen, there wasn’t a proper anything, and it was too far from a town that could fulfill those needs. There wasn’t even room service.
Steven was next door to Sally and me; and I have to say, this was the beginning of Steven’s downward spiral. The few times I saw him he had all kinds of shit going on in his room; he was doing tons of blow and always had one girl or another keeping him company. I can only say this in retrospect, because at the time, he seemed happy. I was there drinking bottle after bottle of Jack, as my relationship, such as it was, with Sally came to a dramatic head. We fought nonstop once we relocated to Hermosa Beach. She became progressively more belligerent, and once I finally lost my patience, I shipped her off to L.A. For the next few years, I’d run into her, and one time, she even materialized at the foot of my bed… but we’ll get to all of that in just a little bit.
We did
It seemed like my exile lasted an eternity; it was the kind of reality where twenty-four hours took years. I wasn’t real popular down there either: I’d go down to the local watering holes and there was nothing fun to do, and the locals’ vibe wasn’t all that welcoming. That place was a beach-and-surf scene, and when a town adopts that as its cultural identity there’s nothing interesting about it at all—at least to my gutter rat sensibilities at the time.
Once the final leg of the
