Crank It Up To Eleven! 02.24.09: The Curious Case of Flowers, Firearms and a Million Deaths

Posted by Sandeep Murali on 02.24.2009

Quick: What do Axl Rose and Dave mustaine have in common? Blond hair, you say? Well, a lot more than that, actually. Read on to find out.





Hello everyone and welcome back. I hope you enjoyed our two part spotlight on the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul. In case you missed it, hit the archives at the bottom of the page and you're all set.

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Talk dirty to me:

RB Has something to say about the Les Paul: "The Les Paul is definitely not more difficult to play than a Stratocaster. if anything the opposite is true. The Les Paul has that rich sustain that can hide a player's mistakes. And the Les Paul has a shorter scale length that makes string bending easier.


Quite the contrary - the Strat, though a wonderful sounding instrument, is a muscian's guitar that leaves you nowhere to hide. The Les Paul, with its humbuckers and shorter scale, is a great beginner's instrument, as well as being great for pros."


I'll have to respectfully disagree there, RB. It's my opinion that a beginner SHOULD have nowhere to hide and should have his mistakes exposed. Otherwise, he'd just use sustain and distortion as his crutch, as can be seen from most of mainstream music these days. I do agree that the shorter scale makes bends easier, but it's nothing a set of .09s won't fix on the strat. Lastly, the weight of the instrument IS a major factor for beginners and not everyone is too keen on straddling a huge chunk of mahogany as they learn the art.


That being said, I was trying out a Les Paul the other day and am realizing that I'm running out of reasons to own one.




Bouquets, brickbats, whatever you got; throw ‘em this way. It's all good.

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Drawing parallels

Alright, let's get down to business. This column is comparing two men who on the surface; have nothing in common. But as you will see; they are more alike than you imagined them to be. Ladies and gentlemen, m/s Axl Rose and Dave Mustaine on stage.

The origins:

Where do we start? Oh yes, the childhood. William Bruce Rose Jr. was born to a teenaged Sharon Lintner and William Bruce Rose in 1962. His father left the family when Rose was aged two and his mother went own to marry one Stephen Bailey. While he gained a father on paper, it did nothing to aid Rose's upbringing. Bailey an alcoholic and abused his wife and children constantly. To make matters worse, Rose's mother took the abuse without complaint, which lead the boy to believe that this was normal in a family environment. At the age of 17, the boy learned the truth about his biological father, which lead him to act out violently time and again. After being booked several times for drunken behavior and assault and after being shown the boot by his family for not cutting his hair, Rose finally hit the streets; where he met one Izzy Stradlin. As most knows, this friendship would evolve into something greater over the years. Oh, and Rose decided to keep part of his father's name and changed his legal name to "Axl Rose", which is an anagram for "Oral sex". Pretty much explains the thought process that went through the guy's head at the time.


David Scott Mustaine was born in 1961 to Emily and John Mustaine. His parents went through a not-so-pleasant divorce not long after and the family moved all over the place trying to get away from John; who was – guess what? A raging alcoholic who abused his submissive wife constantly. Sufficed to say, young Dave's childhood was just as tumultuous as Axl's. Curiously enough, at the age of 17, Dave too moved out to a place of his own. He would teach himself to play the guitar at his new place and sold drugs to pay the bills; so to speak. Drugs would continue to be a boon and bane for Dave until much later. Boon because it resulted in him getting his first exposure to NWOBHM bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and a bane because they pushed him to more near-death experiences than most men would care to be in.





That video; which Dave would make years later pretty much sums up the way both men grew up. Oh, and Dave was about eleven different kinds of high while filming that one.

First exposures to music:

This is where there are significant differences in the lifelines of both men. Axl went to church regularly (where again, he was abused) and was a regular part of the choirs. He also played the piano at this time. While practicing for the choirs, Rose discovered that he could sing in multiple registers; a skill he continued to develop and would go on to become his trademark. During his "Acting out" phase however, he took on everything that was rebellious and rock music was at the forefront. Meeting Izzy helped fuel this fire within him as both men were fans of rock. A while after Izzy moved to LA to further his musical ambitions, Rose did the same and would be a part of various bands, a list from which most may recognize the name Hollywood Rose. The band would later merge with Tracii Guns' L.A. Guns and would go on to become Guns 'n Roses. Of course, Tracii quit the band soon after and one Saul Hudson stepped into his shoes and went on to create history.


Dave on the other hand, had no religious affiliations in his early years. As mentioned before, his first exposure to heavy metal was aided by his drug dealing habits. One of his customers was a girl who, many a time couldn't afford to pay him. She happened to work at a music store, so she usually paid by giving him NWOBHM records, and this got Dave interested in Metal. Dave got himself a B.C.Rich and joined a band called "Panic", where he would further his newfound passion. Shortly thereafter, he saw an advertisement by an upcoming band who was looking for a lead guitarist and passed the audition before he even finished his warm-up. That band was of course, Metallica and Dave's brief yet significant history with the band is well documented. I'd recommend you to hit "The Mosh pit" archives, should you need to learn more on this.


Both men found music in completely different ways, but were attracted to it for similar reasons. It was different, it was frowned upon by general public and more importantly, it gave them an outlet from where they could vent out.

The revolving door of bandmates:

Oh yes, this is going to be a long one. The first thing that most people would associate both men with is their inability to work with their bandmates for a long duration of time. Axl is well known for the infamous split with his former Gn'R members while Mustaine replaces his entire band every couple of years. But is this entirely their fault? Let's take a closer look:


As much as he was into heavy drinking, Axl Rose always delivered. Sure, there have been multiple instances where he has walked away from a packed audience, but when he performed, he never half-assed it. Which couldn't be said about his bandmates. Steven Adler was the first of the casualties as between his multiple addictions; there were several occurrences of him unable to perform behind the kit. Hell, the man forced the band to go through 30 takes while recording a song for "Use your Illusion!" The band also fired their manager through the recordings as it was either Axl's way (which the current manager was at odds with) or no way.
Speakin' of addictions, Slash and Duff didn't fare much better. Both men were shooting themselves upto the moon with habit forming substances and the tension it caused between them and Axl forced Izzy to quit the band. At one point, Axl actually threatened to shut the band down if Slash and Duff didn't straighten up as they turned up too high to perform at a show. Such frictions, added with the fact that they all had different ideas on creative inputs for the follow-up to "The spaghetti incident? eventually lead to the rest of the band (Except keyboardist Dizzy Reed, who remains with Gn'R to the day) breaking away and forming Velvet Revolver. Again, the tussles which occurred with regard to the ownership of the band was again, well documented. But here's the curious part: The band never did officially break up. The members didn't lead all at once and Axl just kept adding replacement after replacement. And before someone labels his as a selfish bastard out for himself, consider this: Gilby Clarke, during his brief stint with the band injured himself in a motorcycle accident. Axl, instead of resuming recording with a studio artist actually paused the proceedings until Clarke got better.






Contrary to what most people believe, the second iteration of Gn'R has remained by-and-large the same since inception. Richard Fortus stepped into the rhythm guitarist's role after a brief stint from Paul Tobias. Robin Finck has remained with the band for pretty much the whole time since he was hired except for short departures to fulfill his duties with NIN. The only high profile incident has been Buckethead leaving the band. But let's face it. Buckethead is more of a solo artist than a "Band guy". That's where most fans want to see and he wasn't really comfortable in the Gn'R environment. Fortunately, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal has stepped in admirably and is doing a great job at the moment. By all accounts, the "New" Gn'R is one happy family.


Dave's history with bandmates is a bit more complicated. His excessive drinking and the aggressive behavior that arose from it led to his departure from Metallica, but one can't deny that the fact that he simply outclassed the rest of the band on stage (Pre-Burton days) didn't really help the ego clashes much. He initiated Megadeth with Kerry King as his lead guitarist, but King left soon after to focus on Slayer. Dave of course, wasn't impressed and here started a long drawn battle of words. Things have changed a lot these days though with King admitting how much he admired Mustaine's lead playing during the early days of Metallica on (Fellow ex-Megadeth-er) Marty Friedman's Japanese show, "Rock Fujiyama". Incidentally, do try to watch this show if you haven't already. It's pretty much one of the coolest rock/ metal oriented episodic TV shows I have ever seen.





Mustaine was just as guilty as the rest of the band when it came to wasting their label's money on booze and drugs (and thereby producing their debut album in the most shoddy way possible), but Chris Poland went one step further. He pawned off the band's equipment without Dave's knowledge for drug money. Needless to say, he was shown the door when this came to Mustaine's notice. producer Paul Lani was also fired halfway through "So far..." over a disagreement over recording techniques. Much like we saw in Axl's case above, it was either Dave's way or no way. Poland's replacement was fired because Dave was accused him of trying to get into his girl's pants. After a bit of musical chairs here 'n there, Megadeth ended up with what many regard as their all-time greatest lineup : Mustaine on vocals and guitar, Ellefson on bass, Nick Menza on drums and one Marty Friedman on lead guitar. They went on to release the band's best album till date, "Rust in piece". Clearly, the combination worked. More importantly, Dave discovered sobreity.


This lineup was the longest the band ever had and also was responsible for the most commercial success. But there was also another trend emerging. With each successive album, the band proceeded to get softer and softer and by the time "Risk" was released, the band was barely playing hard rock and were a mere shadow of what they were with "killing is my business...". Some blame it on Dave's insistence on trying to one-up Metallica and showing that he can successfully pull-off a "Risk" (Pun very much intended), but there is some clear evidence that show that Marty was just as much, if not more responsible for this. Friedman was in search of a neo-classical inspired "pop" sound and this wasn't quite "Trash". When Dave expressed his desire to go back to the roots after Risk, Marty flat out refused, quit the band and moved to Japan, where he now makes music (and the aforementioned TV show) which is miles away from what he did during his Cacophony and Megadeth days.


The criminally under-rated "The world needs a hero" was released with a new guitarist and drummer (Menza was fired for unclear reasons), but the band was far from happy. Dave, in the light of his new found sobriety could hardly stand the antics of new guitarist Pitrelli and Ellefson's newfound ego. So (as he admitted himself) when he was forced to step away from the stage with what was thought to be a career threatening nerve injury, Dave considered it a blessing in disguise.


Much to the chagrin of haters, Dave rehabbed his way back into full health and re-formed the band with yet another lineup. The Drover brothers and bassist LoMenzo were phenomenal performers and helped the band come up with the amazing "United Abominations". Glen Drover left the band after the album to spend more time with the family (by all records, it was amicable) and Chris Broderick has stepped in as the lead guitarist.


To sum it up; yes, both men are extremely ego-centric. But Axl and Dave have never had any problemsletting their players perform to the best of their talents, unlike say Metallica, which had Hammett on a tight leash until very recently. In other words, they are perfectionists and do the controversial things they did for the benefit of their music. And not all controvery attributed to them were of their own doing.

Rivalries and controversy.:

Again, this could fill a whole chapter. Axl has feuded with everything from contemporaries to fashion labels to soft drinks while Dave is not too far behind. Axl had a long drawn battle of words with Vince Neil over Neil's altercation with Izzy. Dave, in addition to having blood with several ex-bandmates once put Dimebag darrell down for what he termed as cheaply ripping off the music style he and James (Hetfield) developed. (Although, he did express his regret after Dime's assassination and tried to reach out to his close friend Kerry king after it). Both men have been vocally outspoken throughout their career, especially when it came to their political beliefs. The latest album from each camp (Chinese Democracy and United Abominations) are pretty good examples of this. Axl got as politically incorrect as he can be with the "One in a Million" controversy, while Dave sent thinly veiled criticism at his former band ("Victory", clearly aimed at Metallica), at a backstabbing bandmate (Chris Poland, with the song "Liar") and an international organization (The UN, with United abominations). Axl insulted their opening band in public ("The pigeons of shit metal" incident), while Dave verbally put down another band's frontman who challenged him to a fistfight (which would have been pretty one sided, considering Dave's martial arts background).



All in all, neither man is a saint. But this is Rock 'n Roll. Bad boys come to play here.

Conclusion:

Their musical styles are vastly different. But their life journeys aren't. Both men grew up in difficult circumstances, discovered music in two different ways, went on to make some great albums, spotted talented musicians whom they recruited into the fold, fought with half the world and made several less-than-popular moves. Negativity aside, both Axl and Dave demonstrated a quality that every human being should emulate if they could. And that is the ability to bounce back when everything they had was lost. Both Chinese Democracy and United Abominations are miles better than the washed out efforts a lot of bands have produced two decades into their existance and that is a testament to the musical Genius of W. Axl Rose and David Mustaine.

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Never say goodbye:

Phew! That was easily the longest column I have ever written. Do let me know of your thoughts on it at the usual place.



Rock on and see y'all next Tuesday.