Adler chronicled the many highs and almost fatal lows in a fascinating autobiography, My Appetite For Destruction: Sex & Drugs & Guns N' Roses. Adler held nothing back, whether detailing orgies orchestrated by Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, the crushing realisation that he had been raped by those he considered his best friends, or the despair and self-loathing of addiction, including smoking a crack pipe as his father drove him to rehab.
"Writing the record was emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually healing," he declares. "I got to put everything in my living on paper. At the commencement of the bible I talked about hanging out in nightclubs as a teen and getting sexually abused by old men. I thought that if I said those words out loud I would look worse and people would consider bad of me. It was the complete opposite. It was like a vast weight was lifted off of me. Now the setbacks are behind me and it's my chance to go forward."
Moving forward included repairing his kinship with his family. Unrelentingly rebellious as a youngster, every time his father kicked him out of the home he was interpreted in by her parents. Those grandparents are the foremost people thanked in the book's dedications - and there is a photograph of them taken at the 13-year-old Steven's barmitzvah.
"Like every new soul you do what your family wants you to do," he explains. "My grandmother was very spiritual, and she thought doing Jewish things was crucial for my life. They weren't important for me, but she was old and wiser. She passed away 15 days ago but now she's my angel. She's with me and she helps me constantly. She believed in things and I believed in her."
Part of Adler's physical and psychological revival is his allegiance to his new band, Adler's Appetite, which is forthcoming to the UK this month. It is a risk for fans to love old favourites from Guns N' Roses' heyday, paired with a few new tracks from the age and newly sober rockers.
"When I'm on level playing with my new band it totally reminds me of binding in the day playing clubs on Sunset Strip. And the new songs go over exactly as large as the GnR songs. Every night we think, 'God help whoever has to clear up for us'. We don't worry if we work for two or 2,000 or 200,000 people, you're going to get the like thing."
There is a refreshing openness about Adler. Having put his life together after two decades of crippling addiction (including a harrowing appearance on American reality show Celebrity Rehab with Doctor Drew), this is a man delighted to have reached middle age and still moved when people tell him how his old band changed their lives.
"Why do you suppose we were so successful?" he stresses. "Because it was the 5 of us. We had something special. We had a bond. No matter how much bulls** there's been all these years, there's one thing that Axl [Rose] and his lawyers can never get away, and that's that we were five brothers who achieved the goals we had since before we were teenagers. And what do brothers do best? They struggle with each other! I don't hate them now. My wounds are healed. It's a pity that Axl and Slash won't talk. Every day they don't talk is a day that magic isn't being created. Even if we only did one tour, one record, one song together, the gods wishing to try it."
Two decades of squabbling, egos and legal battles makes a reclamation of the original Guns N' Roses' line-up unlikely. Still, Adler makes a convincing argument why it should happen.
"There's all the fuck I get around the world. I have heard Appetite For Death is the soundtrack to my spirit' in so many languages. And there's the money we could make. The whole thing could make billions of dollars. All we get to do is get on stage with each other for 90 minutes. And I desire to stop what I started. Thank God for putting these jackasses in my life."
Source: Thejc.com
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