and everyone I ran into were aware of it. Under the circumstances, I did the only thing that made sense: I hung out with David Lee Roth all night. But, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t get what Perla had said to me out of my head.
When I got home we talked about everything. We’d been married over a year, and together for five years. Up until then, nothing had happened and we’d never used protection. It didn’t take us long to decide that we would have the baby. We surmised that my Guinness consumption in Ireland must have had something to do with my sudden potency. The running joke was that we’d name the kid Guinness, but we decided against it since that was Ronnie Wood’s dog’s name.
More than any other incentive I’ve ever had, Perla’s pregnancy straightened me out: I got off the Oxy, still without telling Perla what I was up to. I just kicked as I had in the past—cold turkey, with no one the wiser. I kicked standing up, and told Perla that I had the flu. But it was no use: I’d forgotten about a stash I’d hidden in our guest room, and when she found it she knew exactly what I was up to.
We’d been hopping from rental to rental and finally decided that we needed to buy a house. I’d had the house where I’d recorded Snakepit on the market for a while and it had finally sold, so it was like a new start. I remember starting our house hunt while I was getting clean and just sweating profusely as we looked at these places. I think I was still clinging to the flu excuse at that point.
We looked at this one house that was straight out of “Hansel and Gretel”: it was a medieval cottage that the owner had decorated ridiculously. It turned out to be Spencer Proffer’s house, the guy who produced
So I got clean, and I was inspired by Perla: from the second she knew she was pregnant to the day she had the baby, she didn’t touch a drink and quit smoking on the spot. She underwent such a huge, abrupt switch; the maternal instinct took over immediately and it was amazing.
Perla had some complications with the pregnancy; London was a breech baby, which means that he was sitting in such a way that it was very uncomfortable and painful for her for most of the nine months. She had to remain on bed rest for most of her term.
During those months I started looking to put a new band together. Pete Angelus, who had managed Van Halen, David Lee Roth, and the Black Crowes, had taken an interest in managing me, so he hooked me up with Steve Gorman, the then former drummer for the Black Crowes, who was available because at that point they’d broken up. My old buddy Alan Niven gave me the number of a bass player that he thought I should hear, so we brought him in, and I can’t remember his name but the three of us started rehearsing, just jamming with no real agenda. I was on the straight and narrow, not really even drinking. It was the first time since before the final months of Snakepit that I had gotten myself back into gear: I was in a better head space than ever, I’d started to think about a band again, and I’d started writing material. During that time I came up with the music that evolved into the song “Fall to Pieces.” We jammed for a very short period of time, but I came up with a lot of ideas, the most complete one being that song. Those were the first signs of me taking any kind of a responsible, adult role in my life, because if there is one thing I am, it’s “the eternal teenager.”
IT WAS AROUND THIS TIME THAT I HEARD Randy Castillo had died. I’d known Randy for years; we’d met in the metal touring circuit of the eighties. He was one of the most in-demand session and touring drummers around; he’d played with Ozzy, Lita Ford, and everyone else you can think of. But Randy was as far from the typical L.A. metal musician as could be: he was one of the most genuine, down-to-earth, and easygoing people I met during that entire period. He was always fun to hang out with and just no bullshit: he was totally self-abusive with booze and coke, but was always a great drummer with a heart of gold. I don’t remember exactly how we met, but we had mutual friends, and in my mind it felt like I’d always known Randy. What set him apart from everyone else in L.A. was that he was always happy and never judgmental of anybody. Unlike most of the other characters around back then, he was never preoccupied with talking shit about other people, or spending the night critiquing how other people looked or acted. That kind of conversation is such an L.A. staple; Randy didn’t care—maybe because he was from New Mexico originally.
I played New Mexico with Snakepit, and by then I’d heard that Randy had cancer and that it was very serious. When we came through, he came down to the show and hung out on the bus with us. At the time he was undergoing chemotherapy and he didn’t look good at all. He was very thin and weak but I was just so happy that he’d even come down.
A short while later I heard that his cancer had all but disappeared and that he was doing much better. And not long after that I saw him and he was a different guy altogether—he looked
The funeral was at Forest Lawn Cemetery and everyone Randy had ever known was there, all his old musician friends from all of the bands he’d been in, including Ozzy, Randy’s extended family, and all of his friends who loved him—it was a huge gathering. At the reception I ran into Matt Sorum, who told me that he and some others were setting up a fund-raiser for Randy’s family and organizing a benefit gig to raise money and commemorate him. Matt asked me if I wanted to play at the gig and I thought it was a great idea; any excuse to play guitar onstage is all I need. Besides, I wanted to do it for Randy.
Matt and I decided that we’d do a set together and we agreed to call Duff, who’d moved back to Seattle, to ask him if he was interested. He’d formed a band called Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols and they had put out a record and done a tour. Then they disbanded; Duff had put another band together with some friends from Seattle called Loaded. I’d run into him a few times in the past year: he’d come down for my birthday, and we’d jammed with Izzy in a studio one time, so we were definitely on speaking terms and in contact.
We needed a singer (as usual) and we needed a rhythm guitar player. I had my eye on Josh Todd and Keith Nelson from Buckcherry. I’d heard that their band had broken up, so that was an option. I liked Josh’s voice on some of the stuff of theirs that I’d heard and this seemed like a good opportunity to try him out.
We wanted to make this thing something special, so Matt called B-Real and Sen Dog from Cypress Hill to see if they’d be willing to come down and do a song or something with us. They were in, so we all showed up to rehearse and it was really a landmark afternoon. When we walked in over at Mates there was a tangible vibe: being in a room again with Matt and Duff instantly took me back to the chemistry we’d shared onstage every night with Guns. We got up together while the other guys watched, and the moment we hit the first chord, there was a confidence and a musical cameraderie that spoke for itself. And it said, “
We rehearsed “Paradise City,” “It’s So Easy,” “Mama Kin,” Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” “Rock-’n’-Roll Superstar,” and the Sex Pistols’ “Bodies.” B-Real and Sen Dog came up and rapped the verses of “Paradise City.” It was fucking great. For the first time since the first Snakepit, I felt fulfilled musically. I was surrounded by musicians who really knew how to hold down a mean groove and put forth an even meaner delivery. The core of Matt, Duff, and I was undeniable. When we started jamming, people who were rehearsing or working at Mates that day began wandering in to watch and listen. Soon we had a small audience and we plastered them to the wall.
Randy’s tribute was at the Key Club on April 29, 2002. It was the first time that that many members of Guns had played together in years. We went on last and we just slammed the place. Steven Tyler came up and did “Mama Kin” with us. All in all it was a momentous evening. I was elated.
I was home with Perla the next day when Duff called.
“Hey, man,” he said. “That was great last night. Like
“Yeah, it was,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”
What I’d been thinking was that I’d been wasting time. I’d been tinkering around with other musicians; talented guys, sure, but none of them were right for me. I’d been looking for something when what I was after had been right in front of me the whole time.
“Duff, we should do something with this,” I said. “We would be stupid not to. Fuck all of the obvious Guns N’ Roses connotations.”
