Doug Goldstein, the former manager of Guns N’ Roses, told GN’R Central (via Alternative Nation) about Axl Rose‘s reaction to Kurt Cobain‘s suicide back in ’94, expressing that despite all the turmoil between Nirvana and GN’R, Axl was genuinely upset.
“It (the bad blood between the two bands) didn’t matter, he knew that Kurt was a fellow tortured artist. He was very upset, despondent…” Goldstein began.
“I don’t know if it’s in Duff’s book or not, but Duff rode on an airplane back from Los Angeles the day before he (Kurt) killed himself. Duff has PTSD around the fact that he didn’t just hug him and say, ‘Come with me, don’t go to your house.’ It wasn’t that strong of an effort, it was an afterthought. But you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
Acknowledging Rose’s depression, the manager said:
“I had lived it with my own brother, who is a genius manic depressive, who attempted suicide a number of times, so it wasn’t that foreign to me, I was just reliving my childhood basically.
“He was my best friend, Axl was born 6 years later but born the day after my brother, so the Aquarian tortured genius manic depressive, I shared a room with that guy for 14 years, that was my brother.
“It made me more emphatic, I certainly understood, I was the one who could the call at 2, 3, or 4 in the morning that Axl wasn’t doing well, I happened to be the guy to go sit with him, sometimes for days at a time.”
Goldstein recalled how Axl was “disgusted” by Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth mocking tragic deaths of two people during GN’R’s performance at 1988’s Monsters of Rock festival in 1988 in Donnington, saying:
“I knew during the show (about the deaths), I knew when it was happening, but I didn’t tell the guys, because it crippled Axl. When we got back to the hotel, David Lee Roth was staying there – he was at the bar and Axl said, ‘Can you introduce me to him? I want to talk to him.
“I said, ‘Yeah, sure. Dave, this is Axl.’ ‘Hey man, how you doing? Diamond Dave! Sit down!’ So Axl said, ‘How do you deal with stuff like that when it happens?’ He goes, ‘Aw f*ck man, you’re in the UK. 10 people die every time they hold a soccer match. F*ck it! It’s rock and roll!’
“Axl just said, ‘Really? I’m sorry, I don’t really want to sit here anymore.’ He went back to his room. He was disgusted at Dave, and I was kind of embarrassed that I introduced them. To each his own I guess. Everybody has their own way of getting through things.
“When I was working with (David Lee Roth), he used to get f*c*ed up and want to throw kicks at me. So I went to knock his head off one time in the elevator. Andy, his bodyguard jumped in and said, ‘Doug, you can’t hit him!’
“I said, ‘F*ck you.’ I said, ‘Where I come from, if somebody continues to throw kicks at you, you knock them on their a*s and then they don’t throw kicks anymore.’ ‘Well he pays the bills!’ ‘I don’t care, I’ll quit, I’ll go home. I don’t give a shit.'”
