Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum has revealed that Axl Rose canceled Guns N’ Roses concerts based on advice from a psychic who toured with the band. He shared this story during an interview on Birthday Cake For Breakfast.
Bottum described witnessing the psychic’s pre-show ritual and how her negative assessment of a venue’s energy led to show cancellations.
“I mean, it’s sort of admirable looking back on it. But Axl Rose had this psychic who would tour with them. And we saw her a couple of times. She’d go on stage, and she looked like a soothsayer sort of woman — in my head, that’s how she looked anyway, with a turban and, like… This might be one of those instances in which I’m making something up, but I don’t mean to. In my memory, this is the way that it exists. In my memory, she’s this woman,” Bottum said.
He continued describing the psychic’s stage inspection process and its dramatic consequences.
“We’re off, sidestage. We’ve done our soundcheck, but then someone comes onto the stage, this woman in wraps and a turban, and like maybe a wooden cane and big jeweled like rings, and she’s kind of just sniffing around, and checking out the stage [as] the sort of prerequisite to the show,” he explained.
“And then, it turns out she had a bad feeling about the juju of that particular stage in that particular night, and she shares it with Axl and the GN’R camp, and says, ‘No, this is not a good place for a show tonight. You need to cancel,'” Bottum recalled.
The Faith No More keyboardist emphasized the scale of these cancellations and their impact on fans.
“And they would cancel the show. I don’t know how many thousands of kids… Metallica is on the bill too. It’s like the biggest rock and roll circus you’ve ever seen in your life. That many people, and they’re probably already in line. They have their tickets. They’re getting ready for the show. And because of this sort of like forbearance that she had, the soothsayer had, it was like, nope, canceled,” he said.
Bottum’s account adds credibility to long-standing rumors about Rose’s reliance on supernatural guidance during the band’s most turbulent period.
The psychic’s influence on Guns N’ Roses became particularly notorious during the 1992 tour with Metallica. The Los Angeles Times reported that Rose’s psychic allegedly warned him against performing in cities that begin with the letter “M,” including Minneapolis. This bizarre restriction added another layer of unpredictability to an already chaotic tour that was plagued with technical difficulties and Rose’s erratic behavior.
“There was a rumor that Axl [Rose] brought his psychic on tour with him,” Faith No More bassist Bill Gould once told Classic Rock Magazine, as documented by Ultimate Guitar. The presence of the psychic became part of the tour’s folklore. It contributed to its reputation as one of the most combative and unpredictable tours in rock history.
Rose’s pattern of last-minute cancellations continued well beyond the 1990s. Ultimate Classic Rock noted that one of the most infamous incidents occurred on December 6, 2002, at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center, when Rose failed to show up for a scheduled performance. The no-show sparked a riot among disappointed fans and led to the cancellation of the entire tour by promoter Clear Channel.
Years later, Rose offered an explanation for the Philadelphia incident. He claimed he had canceled the show early that morning through his manager due to illness, but the message never reached the venue or fans. Loudwire revealed that Rose eventually apologized for the incident in 2012. He acknowledged the frustration it caused to thousands of fans who had waited hours for a show that would never happen.
