Axl Rose Might Be Trying To Get Guns N’ Roses Fans Pissed Off By Being Late According To DJ Ashba
Current Sixx:A.M. and former Guns N’ Roses guitarist DJ Ashba recently talked about his experience working with GN’R with Eddie Trunk. He addressed Axl’s Rose’s infamous tardiness before going on stage and stated that he might have had a strategic reason.
DJ Ashba joined Guns N’ Roses in 2009 to replace Robin Finck, who left the band to join Nine Inch Nails. The guitarist was joined on stage with the band’s other two guitarists Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal and Richard Fortus. The guitarist left the band in 2015 to focus on Sixx:A.M. and spend more time with his family.
Axl Rose is known for stressing out his bandmates by being late to his shows, arguing on stage, or storming off stage after an inconvenience. His behavior was widely discussed by their fans throughout the years, and now everyone knows that Axl is always late for his shows, yet, no one knows why or whether it’s intentional.
Eddie Trunk recently asked this question to DJ Ashba, and unfortunately, he got the same answer, ‘I don’t know.’ However, the guitarist continued to state his theory and said perhaps Axl loves making fans angry and building up energy that will ultimately be released during the show. Hence, Guns N’ Roses shows are always energetic and crazy for the fans. He further stated that he believes Axl knows what he is doing.
Here is what he stated about Axl’s habit:
“To this day, I’m not sure. I don’t know if it was his way of getting the crowd so pissed off so that when the lights go down, they hear the guitar, all that built-up energy turns into. Because GN’R fans are f*cking awesome.
They lose their minds. They’re passionate, they’re loyal, I can’t say enough good things about the GN’R fans. I’ve never seen anything like it. So I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s something intentional or not but, he definitely knows what he’s doing.”
Eddie Trunk also asked how this affected the other band members and if they would just wait around for Axl for hours, and DJ Ashba commented on that. He stated that they would already be pretty drunk by the time they went on stage. So, instead of getting angry and waiting around, they would just start drinking and then go on stage drunk. This was perhaps a method to handle the singer’s behavior towards the band.
Here is how he talked about the band’s attitude:
“We’d be hammered before we went on stage. We’d start pre-gaming. Alright, keep drinking, keep drinking. By the time you get on stage, you’re just plastered. I gotta start the show up going up the elevator, which takes me up way above the drum set, and I start the show up there with nothing locking me in so if I fall…”
There were a lot of speculations about his lateness throughout the years. Once Axl was known to be late because he was watching Ninja Turtles, and in another time, he was late because he couldn’t be bothered to run after money, fame, and fortune; he was there to make music. Although it’s not fair for the fans to wait for hours and hours for the singer while standing up, it seems like Axl’s strategy is working as GN’R shows start with the energy of anger exploding to the rhythm of the songs.
