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guns-n-fucking-roses · 5 years

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Misc endless AUs. I have created an abomination

@colson-sixx @javiersdick @sweet-mother-love

This isn’t even all I just got bored of typing them out.

Weird sleezy 80s AU Nikki/Axl

“Don’t mind Axl, he’s really just here to make sure I make it back to the hell house.”

Nikki does the opposite and spends most of the night trying to flirt with Axl. Nikki decides either Axl is pretending to not notice it, or Axl is really really oblivious.

If slash wasn’t there he’d just be blunt and ask for a blow job. Because there’s no way Axl is straight ( probably bisexual ) because leather pants and a leather vest just scream assertive bottom.

Axl nurses one rum & coke the whole time “watching slash get drunk is hilarious, that’s really why I’m here. He’s woken up in an alley before and still made it to the hell house in one piece” so Nikki drinks a ⅓ of the booze he normally would, because he’d like to remember the pretty ginger.

Nikki agrees, Slash had wrapped his arms around Axl, more than once, and demanded they get a snake like a child demands candy. “No slash, we can’t afford that.” “Izzy would get a snake” “he’d call you crazy and walk away”

Later Slash had come back to the booth drenched, apparently he’d hit on a girl who didn’t take it well. Axl didn’t hold back his smile as slash complained about the chick, Nikki decided at that point that Axl had a great smile.

Slash ends up getting so shit faced to the point where he can’t stand by himself and Axl has to help him home. Axl turns down Nikki’s offer of paying for a cab for them “come on Axl, I’m a rockstar money ain’t a thing.” But accepts Nikki’s help in carrying slash home though.

So they put slashes arms over their shoulders and practically walk him to the hell house. Nikki laughs and remarks that Motley Crue might as well be pros at this. ‘Oh yeah?’ ‘Yeah, once Mick and Vince had to get me back to the hotel like this. But they were both absolutely out of their minds. I’m pretty sure at least one of them had just done four lines of coke. Getting back to the hotel in once piece was a miracle.’

as it turns out is a ten minute walk back to the hell house, and Nikki wishes it had been longer. If it had been longer he totally could’ve gotten with Axl.

They say goodbye at the door and Nikki feels like a stupid kid in middle school saying an awkward goodbye to a crush. Vince probably had a point when Vince talks about his attachment issues.

Nikki ends up going back to the bar and drinking till the bartender cuts him off, and if he brings a pretty ginger lady home that doesn’t mean anything.

The fact that all the people he has sex for months later are pretty gingers doesn’t mean a thing. No matter how much people tell him that yeah it means he’s got a problem.

Vague AU: Axl Rose/DJ Ashba

Ashba had seen his fair share of fucked up people, musicians high on their own egos, women who only found self worth in shallow adventures having been led astray in their youth, men who never have bonds with their kids, those kids hurting themselves with rebellion, and that’s just the standouts. Ashba counted himself among the fucked up people, there’s no doubt he’s stuffed his feelings with drugs. All people with flaws that outweighed their strengths. Most would count the ever elusive Axl Rose, forever followed by drama and anger outburst, as the best example of that. The man who held the rock scene in the palm of his hand had blown it all. But Ashba knows that if they had ever had the chance to properly get to know Axl, they would understand he’s well worth the chaos. Axl makes his life better. Axl would go to the end of the world for those he cares about. Ashba feels blessed to be one of those. Ashba first met Axl through Nikki Sixx, who was ‘friends’ with Slash and Izzy Stradlin. He was the closest to a sober person at the party, and awkwardly agreed to get Crüe safely to their homes. Years later the two of them fondly looked back on the whole bizzare night. But at the time Axl was very uncomfortable over at it the time, the only part Ashba clearly remembers is waking up curled around him. The world outside would never understand, and he quite enjoys that.Life is easier with Axl.

Patience Modern supernatural AU: Axl, the local eccentric kitsune, and his best friend Izzy, a Romani known for dealing exoctic herbs, on their quest to form a kick ass band.

Pairings: Axl Rose/Slash(one sided), Axl Rose/Nikki Sixx “a star is born” type of plot

Chapter one: introduce gnr. All crashing in one apartment together

Izzy = gypsy Vampire that knows how to get what you need, Axl’s longest friend & best friend. Slash= young warlock, spells intermediate spells often backfire. Makes potions with Izzy.

Duff= werewolf shifter, way way too much stamina. Very hands on. Cuddles with all of them.

Steven= only one with a normal name. Can't sit still. Has a heart of GOLD. Also a werewolf, just wants axl to play with him.

Axl= kitsune! Is a purebred so he does have both the human with ears & tail form and the completely fox form. Cunning & sly, emotion issues.

Chapter two:

Intro Motley Crue band meets up at nikki/Tommy/Vince ‘s place. Nikki has connections with slash because they met at a bar.

Nikki Sixx: Vampire. Prefers live blood. Snarky but overall friendly

Tommy Lee: vampire. almost always with nikki, constantly pushing the limits in order to have fun

Vince Neil: Werewolf, sex focused, vain but fiercely defensive of Crüe

Wild Side

Modern Supernatural AU:

As Motley Crue faces drug issues endangering their band, Guns n’ Roses is just now getting off the ground.

However Nikki and Vince are only focused on getting into Axl Rose’s pants.

Buurn’s Vampire Special!

Sex, Drugs, Rock N’ Roll

Exclusive interview with Motley Crue’s Terror Twins Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee. The boys talk the tour lifestyle.

Slash laughs as he tosses the magazine at Izzy, “This could be you one day. All over magazines covers reading ‘Exclusive Interview with Guns n’ Roses’ Secretive Vampire Izzy Stradlin’’. Izzy hums dismissively, but he flips through the magazine anyways.

Dave mustaine/ Axl Rose Trans AU

Axl is trans ( female to male ), Dave finds out and at first holds it over Axl’s head in order for favors but eventually develops feelings for him and apologizes. Axl - unfortunately - has feelings for Dave through the whole thing and is stuck in a horrible situation.

Tommy lee/ Mick Mars College teacher / Student AU

Tommy takes a history class for common core and has a super grouchy teacher that he finds terribly attractive. Cue him doing his best to be super sexy to catch Mick’s attention. He starts wearing cut off tank tops and leather pants and giving mick his best bedroom eyes. It’s not until he sees Mick in a guitar store absolutely killing it that he really gets a chance to get close to Mick.

Axl Rose/Bucket Head

Bucket head accidentally falls head over heels for Axl, and finds himself trying to fill the void left by the constant changes to the band’s line up.

Nikki Sixx/Axl Rose/Vince Neil Modern Semi Band College AU: featuring trans Axl ( female to male )

Axl Transfers to LA from Indiana and meets a wide cast of crazy people. And gets targeted by the intense duo of Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil all while trying to hide that he’s trans. ( prepare for a massive dump)

It’ll open on Axl’s first day at university in California, meets his roommate Slash who spooks him with Slash’s snake.

“So,” Axl pauses, “why do they call you slash.”

Slash scoffs and fires back, “what kind of name is Axl?”

“Fair enough.” Axl audibly gulps, defending his name is always horrible, it makes him wish he picked a different name but he likes it too much to change it. The tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife, until slash laughs and smiles.

“I’m just playing around man, I’ll tell you one day. “

Axl goes about his day constantly being surprised by how different things are in California compared to tiny Indiana. The plot really picks up in his music theory class where he meets Duff they get deemed partners for all future projects - who can’t read sheet music - so Axl desperate for friends offers to teach him.

In his song writing class (or maybe something vocal based, it’s not firm yet) he meets two people, Vince Neil and Tracii Gunn ( yes I’ve decided to use him ). Tracii saves him from an awkward encounter with Vince.

“Oh we got a country boy? Let me show you the wild side, it’s guaranteed to blow your mind.” He’s so attractive it almost melts Axl’s mind, part of him wants to go with the blond but the logical side reminds him that there’s no way him being transgender will go over well.

Tracii sits with Axl and the two really hit it off, and Axl gets invited to his show later that night. Needless to say, Axl is thrilled.

After his last class of the day he meets a short man, with extremely fluffy blond hair, (Steven Adler) who’s handing out flyers for a club. He practically shoves one in Axl’s hands and beams up at him, “Absolutely everyone is welcome!” And scampers off. Axl’s good day is ruined upon seeing it’s a flyer for a lgbt+ group, thinking oh damn am I that easy to clock?. But against his better judgement he still decides to go.

At tracii’s show he meets the really fucking weird duo of Mick mars and Tommy Lee. Tommy appears out of no where and shoves a drink in Axl’s hand, “you look like you need to unwound a little dude. Oh yeah, What hair dye do you use?” Tommy rattles on with little input by Axl, who is quite overwhelmed by him, until a short grumpy looking dude pulls tommy away. “I’m sorry about that, tommy ain’t good with boundaries.” And pulls tommy away.

Tracii’s set blows Axl’s mind and he knows then and there he wants to make music with Tracii. Then another band sets up, containing the short guy and Tommy, and to Axl’s displeasure Vince Neil. He’s upset at how good they are, despite being unpolished and messy it’s just so good.

After the show Tracii walks him back to the dorms, and happily finds out they’re only one floor apart and says Axl’s welcome anytime. Axl collapses on his bed, and falls asleep thankful he came to LA.

the idea for Nikki is for him to be a vague character for a couple of chapters, Axl hears wild stories of Nikki Sixx getting drunk and picking fights, also how good his music is. And all Axl knows is that he’s the bassist for Vince’s band. Then one day he finds a add for models, it pays okay and Axl needs the money. There he finally meets Nikki, who insists Axl is the closest to perfect he’s seen and flirts with him like crazy.

Nikki makes it clear he swings both ways, and Axl feels legitimate hope that he has a chance with Nikki. Nikki scrawls his number on Axl’s arm and with a wink tells him to call anytime.

Axl finds out later that Nikki and Vince are in a relationship and there’s no way he’s getting between that, then as if fate he goes to a gig the next week and all of Crüe whisper and point at him. Duff overhears their whole conversation, it’s hushed whispers of “I can’t believe he turned /both/ of us down. What the fucks his type?” Vince huffs and Tommy responds “it’d be nuts if he’s into guys like Mick.”

Finally Mick gets drunk enough to go confront Axl about it.

“My friends need to know what your type is, because it’s blowing their minds that you aren’t into them.” So Axl goes over to them and explains that he didn’t want to get in the middle of a relationship and he doesn’t put out easily. And assures them they’re very much his type.

“What, want us to wine and dine you? ‘Cause we’ve been watching you for months, and you’re the hottest thing on campus.” Nikki says, wrapping his arms around Axl’s waist. Nikki ducks his head down and licks along Axl’s neck and the grip on his hips is tight enough to be both hot and frightening. Then Vince steps forward, placing one hand on Axl’s face and running the other through his hair, Axl’s turned on but also terrified. If they find out he’s trans, they could kick his ass. Especially with the huge tommy behind them. Vince practically coos “how many dates till we get a taste of you?” Axl doesn’t answer, as Duff and Steven mercifully comes and saves him. The next day, after thinking about the two has kept him up most of the night, he shoves a piece of paper at Vince and puts his head down on his desk in embarrassment. The paper reads “Three dates to get in my pants asshole. I’m not a cheap date either” and his phone number. Vince laughs far too loud for Axl’s comfort. When class ends he’s got three messages from an unknown number. “Wine and dine it is then. We’re free this weekend, we could go see a movie? Unless that’s too cheap for a beauty like you.” Axl feels like his heart might burst from his fast it’s beating. Most of the movie is them trying to feel Axl up and he’s just constantly trying to keep their hands away from his crotch, he wants the attention to last as long as possible, because two extremely hot guys want /him/ it’s fucking nuts. They insist on walking him back to his dorm room, outside of his door they box him in. Vince kisses him first, it’s fierce yet sweet and Axl’s world melts away, it’s just Nikki pressed against his back and Vince’s sweet kiss. He’s legit pissed off when Vince pulls away, he pouts a little and Vince smirks. Before he can even think of an insult, he’s spun around and Nikki’s pulling him up for a kiss. Nikki kisses aggressively, biting Axl’s lip and forcing his tongue in Axl’s mouth. Nikki’s in Control and Axl can do nothing but just let it happen, thankfully it’s hot as hell. When Vince starts feeling him up and kissing his neck, he gasps, trying to figure a way out of this. Nikki starts trying to lift Axl up but Vince protests. “I can’t reach him like that, put him the fuck down.” Axl takes the opportunity to open his room’s door and flee from the two. He locks the door as they bang on the wall. “Come on! We weren’t going all the way, just wanted a little fun.” It takes Slash opening the door and threatening to call security on them for them to finally leave.

#axl rose #slash #Vince Neil #nikki sixx #tommy lee #mine

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goddamnedamericanjedi · 7 years

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Classic Rock Magazine Interview With Sebastian Bach

SEBASTIAN BACH © Dave Ling - December 2002

It wasn’t the greeting that worried me. During the 13 years that I’ve been interviewing Sebastian Bach, there have been a variety of headlocks and bear hugs. Fortunately, today it’s just a super-firm handshake. Although in the past he’s spat huge globules of phlegm across the room to express disgust at certain subjects, and once even called to talk on a mobile phone whilst taking a piss, neither was I overly concerned about the former Skid Row frontman’s behavior during our encounter.

My biggest reservation was how this particular conversation might conclude. Last time we spoke face-to-face, during a press tour for Skid Row’s 1995 album ‘Subhuman Race’, matters concluded prematurely after I stated the journalistic consensus that the album was considerably below par. “We’ll see who’s still doing this in ten years time,” raged Seb with a face like thunder, before booting the back of my chair, storming from the room and cancelling the rest of his interviews for the day.

That decade he referred to isn’t yet up, but thankfully we’re both still here. “What you said back then hurt so much because I considered a writer like you, who’d written a lot of our early press, to represent the British media,” confides Bach while preparing for Classic Rock’s photo session. “It was hard to take, dude.”

The Canadian had joined Skid Row after being spotted jamming at the wedding of photographer Mark Weiss, and a support spot on Bon Jovi’s ‘New Jersey’ tour gave the fledgling quintet their breakthrough.

Unfortunately, Bach’s dark side was soon revealed and he claimed to have “punched the shit out of Jon, decked him on his fat little ass” when a dispute about a contract Skid Row had signed with Bon Jovi’s Underground publishing company was leaked to the press.

Seb’s wild man credentials were further emphasized by a string of antics, some amusing and some irresponsible. He wiped his derriere on a copy of the Daily Star at Docklands Arena (his tackle flying free in the process) and incurred a lifetime ban at Wembley through playing the song ‘Get The Fuck Out’ when warned not to. Even more regrettably, however, he also wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan ‘Aids Kills Faggots’, and in front of MTV’s cameras threw a glass bottle back into a Massachusetts crowd after it had hit him on the head. A female 14-year-old required 125 stitches.

Finally, Skid Row’s patience snapped, and the relative failure of ‘Subhuman Race’ enabled them to dismiss Bach at the end of 1996. The last time he spoke to Classic Rock, in Issue 13, Sebastian claimed to have no idea why he’d been ‘let go’, adding ruefully: “I’ll never understand why we dropped the ball.” Now a solo artist, his 1999 album ‘Bring ‘Em Bach Alive’ has just been reissued, and Bach has a variety of projects on the go.

DL. You’re here for an appearance on the Never Mind The Buzzcocks, the BBC1 game show. Do you know much about British pop music? SB. Ha ha… no. Well, Iron Maiden had a No 1 record, so that’s pop music, right?

DL. So how will you act when they inevitably take the piss, as they did to Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine and Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden? SB. I’ve been on that show twice in America, but the American version flopped - hopefully that wasn’t my fault. I don’t know how a host on British game show could go after me… they’re the retarded ones for paying me $1,800 to come over for 45 minutes work. Dude, everyone says he’s gonna be horrible, but I’ll show him fuckin’ horrible! I can rewrite the fuckin’ level of horrible. I’ll give him a taste of horror.

DL. You recently posted an extremely touching tribute to your father, David Bierk, at your website. Which characteristics good or bad did you inherit from your parents? SB. My dad was a painter who had shows all over the biggest galleries in New York. Elton John, Bon Jovi, Axl Rose and Gene Simmons all bought his paintings. He just let me know that nothing was impossible. My intensity, the way I talk, he made me realize that singing wasn’t a vocational choice, it was a life choice. My only regret is that I’ve been on the road from the age of 13 to now, aged 34, and I missed out on so much family life. I never just got a bowl of popcorn, sat down with my dad and watched the TV. He told me on his deathbed, ‘Everybody in this world is too busy’. I’d say to readers of this magazine, if you’ve got somebody - whether it’s your brother, your mom or sister - just enjoy life with them for just a fuckin’ second, because I look back and God… [trails off].

DL. Since being kicked out of Skid Row in 1996 you’ve spread your wings into TV presenting and appearing in the Broadway versions of Jekyll & Hyde and The Rocky Horror Show. SB. One of my idols, Geoff Tate [of Queensrÿche], keeps calling and asking how I got onto Broadway. The honest truth is that Broadway came to me. I never in a million years thought I’d have the braincells left to memorise the Jekyll & Hyde script. I shit you not, it’s like War And Peace. How it happened was that Jason Flom at Atlantic signed Skid Row in 1987, and Atlantic also has a theatre division. Jason called and said I had the meanest voice and the personality to do it, and believe me when I was Edward Hyde I became Edward Hyde. It was cool music, I swear, some of it’s like ‘Sad Wings Of Destiny’ [the 1976 Judas Priest album].

DL. When a woman in the first row handed you a rose, you bit the head off. Why did you do that? SB. It was my way of saying, ‘I’m on Broadway, but I’m still Sebastian Bach’.

DL. By the time this article is printed, you will be on a year-long US tour playing the lead character in Jesus Christ Superstar. SB. Andrew Lloyd Webber requested a stack of Skid Row CDs, and all my pictures, I swear to God. And he came back and said, ‘Hello, is Jesus Christ there?’, so he made the decision.

DL. Some might say that this is a role you’ve spent your life rehearsing for. SB. [Sounding slightly hurt]: I must be a fucking moron. I never thought you would’ve said that, dude. Sometimes I’m so confused by other people’s perception of me.

DL. Well, they say that you’re an egomaniac. SB. Dude, you have to be on of those to go on stage. What do you want to see, some fucking guy singing [in nerdy, apologetic voice]: ‘We are the youth gone wild’? If I didn’t have my ego I wouldn’t be doing it. I don’t think it’s misplaced though, I hope not. I wake up every day and hope I’m gonna have a great day, be the nicest guy ever. But if someone’s a dick to me, I’m gonna be a fuckin’ dick back to them.

DL. You’re an ass-kicking rock dude from the 80s that’s now playing Jesus. Could you imagine Axl or Vince Neil doing the same thing? SB. Absolutely not, and that’s not a slight against them, Axl has already proved he can’t be on time. I love Axl Rose, but let me get this through everybody’s head: we’re talking eight shows a week for 42 weeks. That’s tough work.

DL. Would you someday like to follow your old rival Jon Bon Jovi into the movies? SB. I don’t differentiate ‘movies’ or ‘Broadway’, what I care about is presenting my fans with something that entertains. And if I’m entertained by it my fans will be, too. So if I got a great film role, yeah, cool.

DL. What do you think of Jon’s acting abilities? And would he work you him in an acting role if the part demanded it? SB. I’ve never seen him really act. There was one movie where he was a pot dealer, and I saw a little bit of that, but he’s a very good actor because he doesn’t smoke pot! I did have acrimony towards Jon for years, but on my Forever Wild TV show I interviewed Tico Torres [Bon Jovi drummer], we played ‘Lay Your Hands On Me’, had a brew at the bar and talked about the old days. All I was ever mad at Jon for was to let me have my own life. That was it. Please, I don’t need someone to hold my fucking hand.

DL. We didn’t get to see your VH1 rock show Forever Wild before it was cancelled back in April. Care to tell us about it? SB. It was kinda obscure, I got to go through the VH1 vaults and pick the videos. We had ‘You Really Got Me’ by Van Halen on the first show, and W.A.S.P.’s ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’… but it was my show!

DL. That explains why it ran for just five months. SB. Yeah, but it was fun. I got to go to Ted Nugent’s 200-acre farm and shoot wild boar, and eat it, of course. I went car racing with Vince Neil and golfing with Tommy Lee. I was in the studio with Rob Halford while he was recording the song ‘Crucible’… waaaaaah! It was 16 episodes, which was twice as long as the [first series of] The Osbournes. Maybe a fifth of the people watched it, but it was a midnight rock show. They offered me another show, at four in the afternoon, but they would be picking the videos and it was cheesy things like Quiet Riot, stuff to laugh at. I will not make fun of heavy metal, or patronize people.

DL. You then resurfaced on - of all things - the Learning Channel’s The New Sideshow, which was described as “a not-for-the-weak-of-heart documentary on today’s more outrageous carnival acts” that included human pincushion The Impaler. Do you do these unusual things to keep you in the public eye, or because you enjoy them? Of course because I enjoy them… doh! Let me offer this piece of advice, I’ve not changed my home phone number since 1989. Never make yourself too inaccessible, it’s good for business when people know where you are. I wake up, press play and it’s, ‘Hey Sebastian, do you want to do this?”… next message, ‘Hey Sebastian, how about this?’ You just have to play the cards that are dealt you, it’s a very different world than it was. I’m in this to sing, so if I can get my voice heard in whatever fashion then that’s what I’ll do. Ozzy is the most famous he’s ever been, not because of his music but because of a fucking TV show. I’m not being flown over to England to sing, I’m being flown over to go on a gameshow. That is fucked. What you also have to consider is that the venues I’ll be playing Jesus Christ in are the same ones that Skid Row headlined for ‘Slave To The Grind’ tour… the Paramount in Seattle, the Fox in Atlanta. But instead of doing one show, I’m now doing eight shows in the same venue. So I’ve finally topped what I did in the past.

DL. C’mon, you must admit you’d rather be coming here to play rock music? SB. I’ve just saw in your magazine that Alex Lifeson says no British promoter wants Rush. Hey, I’ve been asking British promoters since 1996 to come over and they just laugh! I’ve done two full American tours, 104 shows on the first tour, 90 shows on the second, a sold-out tour of Japan. I’m dying to play here, man, but the offers they give me are like… restaurants! Don’t you have to suck first? I’ve never played England and flopped - not fucking once! Thank God for the USA.

DL. You just mentioned The Osbournes. Can you imagine the footage MTV would have got if they’d followed you around in 1992? SB. Ha ha ha, there wouldn’t have been a TV show made out of it. You couldn’t air it. But there seems to be a perception that as soon as we woke up and did drugs and drank, and that’s not true. I never did a show drunk - ever.

DL. Am I right in thinking you’ve cut out most of those antics? SB. I hate that shit, I’ve not done a line [of coke] since 1993. I have no desire to. A part of me still has that personality when I get too sad, when my dad died I was drinking way too much, but just beer. Back in those days everybody was fucking doing it, you were the weirdo if you weren’t.

DL. You were recently involved in what was dramatically reported as “making terroristic threats” to a New Jersey bartender who refused to let you take your drink outside his club, then for having marijuana and rolling papers on you when you were arrested. SB. I’d been shooting an episode of Forever Wild with Vince Neil, who’s always a bad influence on me; they talk about the bad boys of rock, I’m like Queen Elizabeth compared to Vince. But there’s a side of me that can get down and dirty. I was with Vince for a week down on south beach in Miami, waking up each morning and just getting ripped. When I got back to New Jersey, my chick was giving me shit on the phone because she wanted to party with Mötley Crüe. And I was like, ‘Babe, it’s my job, I get paid to party with the Crüe. This is how I feed our kids, so let me party with the Crüe, you stay home and everything’ll be fine’. And she was like, ‘Grrrrrrrrr’. So I go, ‘Fuck you, I’m not coming home’ and tell the limo driver to turn around because we’re going to Broadway. I get a hotel suite and get VH1 to pay for it, order up fucking booze and some other things, and all my friends come over to party. I stayed there for like two days, until she called and was nice to me. It’s a two hour limo drive home and by then I’m so fuckin’ drunk, my chick gives me a little bit of shit. So I take a bunch of Molsons [beers] and walk to this bar, I never drive while drunk. I’ve been going to this bar for 12 years and all these chicks, dudes and businessmen are excited to see me, so then I’m holding court. This guy suggests we go outside and bust a joint, but the bartender says he’s gonna call the police if I take my beer - I told him to go ahead. He fucking rails me, punches me right in the fucking head and I freaked out, so I tackled him around the waist brought him into the one wall, stood on his neck and said, ‘I’ll fucking kill you, mutherfucker’. The whole bar was freaked out, but he threw the first punch. I had a couple of joints in my pocket, so I got busted for marijuana. And the next day’s headline was, ‘Sebastian Bach Busted For Drugs And Terroristic Threats’. Dionne Warwick was arrested for having seven marijuana cigarettes, and I had a joint… someday maybe I can be as wild as Dionne fuckin’ Warwick. What fuckin’ bullshit.

DL. If Skid Row came back to you - and I stress those four words - would you someday agree to rejoin them? SB. It’d all depend on the music, that’s the only reason I joined them in the first place. But Rachel [Bolan, bass] and Snake [guitar] were the best fucking songwriters I ever fuckin’ met, and they just don’t do it anymore. Anyone can go on the internet and find out what happened between me and the guys, just download the Ozone Monday record [make with singer Sawn McCabe]. That was supposed to be the fourth Skid Row record. The reason I’m not singing on it is that it fucking sucks! I mean, Andrew Lloyd Webber or Ozone Monday? Well [chuckles maliciously]…

“Kids think that music is free. My 14-year-old son downloads Arch Enemy and Cradle of Filth songs and I’m the asshole dad who says, ‘Bands worked really hard on those’”

DL. Do you even have any interest in hearing ‘Thick Is The Skin’, the album they’ve made with your replacement, Johnny Sollinger? SB. No. But what fucking year will it come out. Those guys have been saying, ‘We got a whole album done’. Well, let’s fuckin’ hear it. I’m giving you two fucking albums, I’m giving you three fucking musicals, five tours. I’ve got nothing to hide, dude. You may not even like ‘…Bach Alive’, but at least I’m delivering product.

DL. Why do you feel that the band made such a phenomenal early impact, from the Marquee to Hammersmith Odeon in a matter of months? SB. Just the songs and the way we attacked our music. Revolver magazine recently said Skid Row was one of the best metal albums of all time because they played a song like ‘Youth Gone Wild’ like they were playing ‘Angel Of Death’ by Slayer. Would they be so successful now? In the year 2002 kids think that music is free. My 14-year-old son spends all day downloading Arch Enemy and Cradle of Filth and I’m the asshole dad who has to say, ‘You shouldn’t be making those CDs, those bands worked really hard on those’. He looks at me like, ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ I get like emails that say, ‘Sebastian, I went to five shops looking for ‘Bring ‘Em Bach Alive’ and couldn’t find it, but I downloaded it and it fucking rocks, dude’. One the one hand I wanna go, ‘Thanks man’, and on the other hand I wanna hold my head in my hands, but everybody’s in that same situation.

DL. So you were in agreement with Lars Ulrich on the Napster issue? SB. Oh, definitely. I even did this CD called ‘Bach To Basics’ because somebody told me to go onto Napster and when I saw what Sebastian Bach stuff was available I almost fuckin’ committed suicide. The whole The Last Hard Men CD was there, before I even fuckin’ played it for my friends. So I ripped my own CD off Napster and now I sell it on the web.

DL. The last time we were in a room together you lost your temper in a row over ‘Subhuman Race’. Can you now stand back a bit and understand why fans felt it wasn’t as good as the first two? SB. Yeah, but how can a writer say what a record should sound like when they’re not even in the band? What I find humorous is that nobody liked that record, but 12 years later we’re still talking about that fucking record. When I hear ‘Subhuman Race’ now I hear more Bob Rock [producer], because he did the same thing as he did on Metallica’s ‘Load’. He changed things. I remember him saying, ‘Everybody knows you can scream, Sebastian’, and suggesting I sing like Scott Weiland [of Stone Temple Pilots]. Why don’t you just take a thoroughbred racehorse and hit him on the fuckin’ kneecap with a baseball bat? I do like that album, but it’s not a fun record. ‘Youth Gone Wild’ was fun.

DL. Let’s imagine you can go back in time and change three events in your life. If you don’t mind, I’d like to guess that they would be: a) signing away such a large percentage of your royalties to Jon Bon Jovi, b) the bottle-throwing incident and c), not having hit Jon harder. Am I right? SB. Awww, I have more good memories of Bon Jovi than bad ones now. I’ve bashed Jon relentlessly in the past, but I don’t feel that way any more. When I think of those times when I was touring with Bon Jovi and living at his house for two weeks… okay, maybe the deal we signed wasn’t the most equitable of all time, but it’s possible that if we hadn’t, you might never have heard of me. And I respect his tenacity in an industry that devours its young and old alike. So to answer your question… I did wear a really ridiculous T-shirt, and I can’t believe I’m bringing it up again, but it was really rotten, really stupid. And the bottle throwing thing, yeah, I’d change that. Then again, if somebody cracks you in the head with a bottle, what do you do? You ain’t thinking rationally. If somebody hit me with a bottle in the head again I’d probably knock the fuck right out of them.

DL. You even turned down Playgirl? SB. Twice. I already get known for things other than my voice, like my hair or going to jail or whatever, and I want to be known as a singer. That means more to me than anything.

Apart from your Broadway activities, what’s the delay in following up ‘Bring ‘Em Bach Alive’? Atlantic Records signed me in 1987 and they still have first right of refusal [on my work]. ‘Bring ‘Em Bach Alive’ has the Atlantic logo and the Spitfire logo because Atlantic technically owns Sebastian Bach, and they license to certain territories where Atlantic didn’t put it out - including Britain, because Mary Hooton, my great friend, fucking rejected the fucking record.The next record will be done when it’s done. I want to deliver a product that’ll get the proper exposure; I don’t want it coming out three years later in one country than another. I’m doing it, but the fans have to realise how the internet has taken the wind out of the sails of the music industry. There’s always trepidation and anticipation about delivering a CD in this climate.

DL. How do you think you’ll feel aged 65 with 'Youth Gone Wild' tattooed on your arm? SB. I’ll just get “I was the” tattooed on my bicep. Right up here, dude. I got that space reserved.

P.S. Dave says...

Larger than life and twice as unpredictable, Sebastian Bach has now been out of Skid Row since 23rd December, 1996, the day that co-founding guitarist Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo sacked him after receiving a torrent of hate in answerphone form. The parting of ways between singer and the New Jersey band had been a long time coming. Notorious for short-fuse temper as for chiseled cheekbones and multi-octave voice, Bach drove the group’s instrumentalists mental but was accommodated by the rest of Skid Row for as long as their patience would stand. Post-Skids, Bach hasn’t exactly stuck to the traditional route. He acted in the musical versions of Jekyll & Hyde and Jesus Christ Superstar and went on to appear in various TV shows, though age and luvviedom have failed to mellow him. Sebastian recently completed a whirlwind tour of the UK and a new album – his first set of all-new solo material – is due next year. (17th December, 2004)

#Sebastian Bach #Skid Row #The Bazmanian Devil #interview

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caveartfair · 6 years

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The Strange and Stunning Results of Artist-Directed Music Videos

Music videos, of course, have always involved artistry, from Michael Jackson’s epic mini-movie for “Thriller” in 1983 to Björk’s 2004 video for “Triumph of a Heart,” which famously features a love affair with a human-sized cat.

But something undeniably odd and inspiring can happen when visual artists who don’t normally work within the medium try their hands at it. Here, we look at 15 clips that showcase the beauty, inventiveness, and occasional disaster that can result when artists step outside of their comfort zones and collaborate with musicians.

Jon Rafman for Oneohtrix Point Never’s “Sticky Drama” (2015)

This clip for Oneohtrix Point Never opens slow and strange—imagine the gravitas of the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan transposed onto a lo-fi battle between cosplaying adolescents—and it only gets wilder from there. Jon Rafman is an artist known for his mastery of digital animation effects, creating grotesque universes that bend the rules of logic and physics (and traverse the uncanny valley). For one series, he creates creepy CGI renditions of his own dreams—consider him a 21st-century Surrealist with superior software.

“Sticky Drama,” from the 2015 Oneohtrix Point Never album Garden of Delete, is a viciously attention-deficit mix of robotic pop and sheer electronic noise. To accompany it, Rafman chose to go mostly live-action. A vast army of child actors stage their own brutal war, replete with ultra-violent battle scenes and a surplus of green slime (a mood board for this video would likely include both Game of Thrones and Nickelodeon’s Double Dare). A feature film’s worth of epic drama is crammed into less than six frenetic minutes.

David LaChapelle for Blink-182’s “Feeling This” (2003)

How best to conjure the snotty, rebellious energy that made Blink-182 one of the enduring names of pop-punk? David LaChapelle chose to film in a defunct L.A. jail, but don’t expect a treatise on the importance of prison reform here. Instead, the photographer (who has also directed clips for Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, and many others) presents a sort of horny penitentiary stocked with nubile young things who are sick and tired of institutional conformity. As in Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” these oppressed prisoners don’t need no education—but in this case, they will fight for their right to hump each other during visiting hours.

We see a classroom full of fed-up boys and girls overtaking their fascistic teacher, climbing on their desks in what reads like a punk-rock riff on that climactic scene in Dead Poets Society. That turns into a full-blown riot; a jailbreak; what might be an outtake from a Victoria’s Secret commercial; and a rowdy concert on the roof, where Blink-182 gets anthemic within the safety of a barbed-wire enclosure.

Marco Brambilla for Kanye West’s “Power” (2010)

Clocking in at under two minutes, this slim, supremely dramatic video feels more like the trailer for an action movie starring Kanye West. We see the rapper draped in chains, standing still as a painterly scene comes to life (with half-naked women featured prominently). The general mood—epic surrealism with a dash of kitsch—is in keeping with Marco Brambilla’s other video work. Anyone who has ever stayed at The Standard in New York, or visited its bars, has likely seen his Civilisation (Megaplex) (2008), a Boschian dream that screens in the hotel’s elevators.

But if the video for “Power” manages to jam a lot of bombast into a short space, West’s 2010 short film for “Runaway” (with art direction from artist Vanessa Beecroft) would prove as expansive as his ego. Stretching to nearly 35 minutes, it includes a massive explosion, a fireworks display, a marching band, and an extended ballet performance, among other things.

Alex Da Corte for St. Vincent’s “New York” (2017)

This lush video is a decadent indulgence in color and pattern, from baby-blue blinds to leopard-print tights, a cherry-red shoe telephone, and acres of bodega flowers. St. Vincent’s Annie Clark deadpans through an ode to lost romance in New York City, with cameos from some famous city sculptures—Tony Rosenthal’s Alamo cube in Astor Place; Forrest Myers’s The Wall on West Houston at Broadway—as well as studio installations that recall Alex Da Corte’s own irreverent, Instagram-friendly practice. Despite various absurdities—a random swan; a microphone stand surmounted by what appears to be burning kale—the overall effect is both seductive and eerily moving.

Ryan McGinley for Sigur Rós’s “Varúð” (2012)

Atmospheric Icelandic band Sigur Rós—famous for singing in a made-up language—tapped 12 creatives to direct short films to accompany their 2012 album Valtari. Ryan McGinley has earned well-deserved acclaim for a photographic practice that celebrates the nostalgic glow of youth; here, he crafts what he called his “poem to New York City.”

The camera tracks a young woman—wearing nothing more than a gold wig, an oversized T-shirt, and underwear—as she skips barefoot through the metropolis. (Editor’s note: Always wear shoes when skipping in Lower Manhattan.) The footage is shot from a great distance, as if captured by an eye-in-the-sky satellite. At certain points, the woman keeps dreamily moving, even though her surroundings—pedestrians on the High Line, yellow cabs—have frozen in place. The video is something of a woozier, romantic counterpart to James Nares’s short film Street (2011), which likewise skewed the way we see New York’s everyday foot traffic.

Damien Hirst for Blur’s “Country House” (1995)

Damien Hirst won the Turner Prize in 1995, another step on the ladder to international fame for the British artist. But that same year, he also directed this doozy of a music video for the pop quartet Blur, which truly needs to be seen to be believed. It opens with four blokes in a shabby apartment playing a board game called Escape from the Rat Race; the game soon explodes into a surreal reality, one that is decorated with giant skulls and populated by people riding pigs and taking cheeky bubble baths.

The cheeseball factor is off the charts here—Hirst would have made a stellar mid-’90s maestro of beer commercials. Rather than waxing poetic, the artist also shows himself to be a shockingly literal thinker, directly illustrating many of the lyrics: When Damon Albarn sings “He’s reading Balzac and knocking back Prozac,” we get a demonstration of…exactly that. The video’s protagonist is a rich everyman who seems plucked from one of René Magritte’s bowler-hat paintings, and there’s enough cleavage and sophomoric sexual hijinks to satisfy even the most avid fan of the Naked Gun franchise.

Pipilotti Rist’s “I’m a Victim of This Song” (1995)

Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist is known for her immersive video environments celebrating color and nature, offsetting any earnest New Age vibes with a healthy dose of irreverence. (Her work indirectly entered the popular imagination after the motifs in a 1997 piece were liberally borrowed by Beyonce in 2016.) The original video for this Chris Isaak song “Wicked Game” was directed by David Lynch in 1990; Rist completely altered the effect with her version, which is almost painfully vulnerable, with helium-high missed notes that devolve into a sort of desperate shrieking.

Meanwhile, the grainy video itself seems almost entirely arbitrary, with scenes of rolling clouds, vintage photographs, and random strangers sitting in a restaurant. Rist’s brittle rendition of “Wicked Game” poses a thorny question: Is the song itself the thing plucking brutally at our heartstrings? And would any random collage of footage have the same effects, given the proper soundtrack?

Robert Longo for Megadeth’s “Peace Sells” (1986)

Robert Longo, a member of the “Pictures Generation” who is best known for his hyperrealistic graphite drawings, teamed up with Megadeth for this clip in 1986, and what a hot metal mess it is. Full of flickering, strobe-like cuts and found footage of war and riots, it hiccups between the goofy and the graphic. Fist-pumping fans are interspersed with images of bombed buildings; a man falling down the stairs; a burning Constitution; statues of the Buddha; and several extreme close-ups of singer Dave Mustaine’s oral cavity. (Things slow down around the two-minute mark, when Longo himself seems to grow bored of yet another interminable, noodling guitar solo.)

Fast forward three decades, and everyone involved with this has aged quite differently. Longo is still a sought-after artist dedicated to capturing our fraught political moment; Megadeth’s Mustaine has been a guest on Infowars and has fondly trafficked in any number of conspiracy theories.

Tony Oursler for David Bowie’s “Where Are We Now?” (2013)

American artist Tony Oursler brings his video-sculpture techniques to bear on this bittersweet anthem from his friend, the late David Bowie. “There’s a theme of looking back and moving forward to ‘Where Are We Now?’, of abandoning things and carrying things forward,” Oursler said at the time. Watching this clip now, in the wake of Bowie’s 2016 death, is almost pleasantly crushing; if your eyes aren’t watering at the 3:30 mark, there might be something wrong with you.

The video is also a marvel in terms of how it achieved heightened emotional effects with limited means. We see a static tableaux in the artist’s studio: a few props (an empty wine bottle; a giant sculptural ear) along with a large screen, upon which grainy footage from Berlin and elsewhere is projected. The focal point is a lumpy doll with two projected faces of Bowie and the painter Jacqueline Humphries, Oursler’s wife. Bowie sings while Humphries stares placidly ahead—at one point, she licks her lips, poised as if to sing, but that moment never comes. “As long as there’s sun,” Bowie intones, his words floating before him. “As long as there’s me. As long as there’s you.”

Harmony Korine for Sonic Youth’s “Sunday” (1998)

Harmony Korine got his start in 1995 as the screenwriter for Larry Clark’s brutal teen drama Kids, and has since gone on to produce an unpredictable oeuvre, from Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) to Spring Breakers (2012). He’s also a visual artist, showing on occasion with blue-chip powerhouse Gagosian—and despite any urge to accuse him of dilettantism, Korine’s painting practice is both sincere and impressive.

This video for a track off Sonic Youth’s 1998 album A Thousand Leaves puts the viewer in an aggressively uncomfortable place. As it opens, we see a young Macaulay Culkin staring drowsily into a mirror, redolent of an Elizabeth Peyton painting. Wearing Hugh Hefner-worthy pajamas, he begins making out, in slo-mo, with a young woman.

Korine cuts to equally slow, dreamy footage of a young ballerina practicing her moves in a dingy apartment, and then cuts to a scene of the Home Alone child star headbanging over dueling banjos with Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore. Culkin pulls off the rockstar vibe better here than he would in the later phase of his career, when he earned internet disbelief for The Pizza Underground, a cover band that repurposed Velvet Underground songs with lyrics about…pizza.

Ebony Hoorn for Lost Under Heaven’s “Bunny’s Blues” (2018)

This sinister, P.J. Harvey-inflected track comes with a seductive, lurid video directed by the band’s frontwoman, Ebony Hoorn—a recent art-school graduate from Amsterdam. Incorporating both a striptease, a magic ritual, and a murder, the clip nods to director David Lynch, the 1976 film Carrie, and the saturated color palette of Italian horror icon Dario Argento (an admitted influence of the artist-musician).

The germ of “Bunny’s Blues” came from a performance project Hoorn launched in the Netherlands in 2015. “I created this character Bunny Blue while writing my thesis,” she told Artsy. “I started dressing up and going to empty bars and cafés in Amsterdam, exploring the tremendous amount of freedom experienced without the mundane expectations regarding your identity.” That led her to explore virtual reality and online identities as presenting other sides of the self. “Bunny, for me, is like a research tool,” she continued. “It allows me to look with fresh, new eyes. It sets me apart from myself.”

Make sure to keep watching until the bitter end, where a blood-drenched Bunny flaunts the head of a man she’s just decapitated with a scythe—a visual rhyme with any number of paintings of Judith and Holofernes.

Jimmy Joe Roche for Dan Deacon’s “The Crystal Cat” (2007)

Jimmy Joe Roche and Dan Deacon both cut their teeth as part of the Baltimore-based art collective Wham City. They’ve collaborated on longer, more conceptual projects—like Ultimate Reality, a 2007 film that appropriates footage from Arnold Schwarzenegger films—but this bite-sized video is an easier place to start.

Roche’s aesthetic for this clip mirrors motifs that reappear in his own drawings, paintings, and sculptures, with endless Rorschach-like patterns in psychedelic colors. Deacon, clad in an unglamorous grey sweatshirt, presides over a cast of characters seemingly plucked from amateur public-access television. The parade of flickering neon mandalas builds to an almost unbearable climax that might permanently alter your brain chemistry.

Allison Schulnik for Grizzly Bear’s “Ready, Able” (2009)

Allison Schulnik, a Los Angeles-based artist, goes overboard when she paints, applying impossibly thick layers of oil to create her depictions of cats, clowns, flowers, and landscapes. That handmade tactility carries over into her claymation work for the indie band Grizzly Bear.

In this video, creatures with gaping eyes and mouths are constantly evolving, melting, turning inside out, or being sucked into ominous spacecrafts. The aesthetic is purposefully rough and lovingly handmade. “You go into this zone, there’s nothing like it,” Schulnik toldL.A. Weekly, discussing her very labor-intensive process. “You’re in a little black room all by yourself…alone in the dark for hours and hours in this little mini-world that you created and have complete control over. It’s complete escapism. I love it. And when you see the result, it’s magic.”

Wolfgang Tillmans for Powell’s “Freezer” (2017)

Wolfgang Tillmans loves to buck convention—he’s notorious for installing his gorgeous and poetic images of male anatomy, fruit, landscapes, and countless other subjects in inventive, unprecious ways. It makes sense that Powell tapped the photographer to direct one of his videos: “Oscar Powell’s music is often deemed difficult,” Pitchfork once surmised, and Tillmans accompanied this track with an equally difficult, occasionally maddening video.

Scenes of exceedingly mundane things—a pot threatening to boil over; leaves gently blowing in a breeze—are intercut with a slideshow of still photographs of military members and riot cops. The quiet, restrained pace of the clip is at odds with the electronic song’s insistent, thumping beat, and the video itself almost seems like a parody of a stereotypical art film in which nothing of substance occurs. Still, one can’t help but appreciate the brazen disregard for the clichés and conventions of the form. Don’t expect to see it on MTV anytime soon.

Kara Walker and Ari Marcopoulos for Santigold’s “Banshee” (2016)

Ari Marcopoulos, a photographer known for his casually evocative portraits, teamed up with Kara Walker for this hard-to-classify video. While Walker is synonymous with cut-paper silhouette works that spotlight the horrors of America’s racist past, here, she contributed shadow puppets that gyrate and cavort in a comparatively lighthearted way. This freewheeling dance party is preceded by an incongruous black-and-white segment, in which we see Santigold sitting on a city sidewalk holding a sign that reads “Will Work For Blood.”

It might not add up into one cohesive whole, but the energy and enthusiasm that went into the shoot is palpable. “We decided to just all get together in the studio with the puppets, a bunch of lights, and just have a good time and made decisions as we went,” Marcopoulos told the New York Times. “It was a total team effort. My son Ethan was the cameraman and Kara’s daughter [was] the stills photographer.”

from Artsy News

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