During a recent appearance on The Bad Decisions Podcast With Scott Nathan, Tracii Guns opened up about Axl Rose’s mental struggles and how he wanted total control of Guns N’ Roses.
“He was a great roommate,” the guitarist replied when asked what Rose was like as a roommate back in the day. “The interesting thing about Axl is he really knows right from wrong. Let’s just start there. He’s smart, he’s responsible, he is not afraid to ask for help when he needs help, he’s always ready to give help.”
He continued, “A really solid person. We really had a great friendship. We were inseparable for a few years. The thing that changed — and I had known; he had told me — he had… What did we call it back then? Manic depression is what he called? ‘Well, yeah, I have manic depression,’ blah, blah, blah. ‘I’m supposed to be taking these meds, but I’m okay.'”
“And I would have never known — until the one day. And the one day was, he was off with a junior high school friend of mine. And he had taken some ecstasy, and we didn’t see him for, like, a week and he showed up at this gig and he was just like a completely different person,” Tracii recalled. “I was, like, ‘Whoa. Who are you? Who’s this guy?’ And that’s when the other side of that kind of kicked in.”
The rocker went on to say, “And so that’s when that whole thing started, the platform, the Axl Rose platform, and I think people really connected with it, obviously, and I think they still do. The things that he has to say, the things that are interesting to people, and his very — what’s the word? — loud and confident opinions on things like that.”
“People latch to them, and it’s very heartfelt, and he’s very sincere when he says things, even if later he kind of might backtrack a little bit and say, ‘Well, I really meant it then, but humans grow and we move on.’ He’s very in [his head], and that’s what makes him great. But at that point, it just scared the sh*t out of me. I was just, like, ‘This isn’t a fun rock and roll band anymore. This is something else,'” Guns added.
Before leading L.A. Guns, Tracii was part of a pre-fame Guns N’ Roses and even gave the band his name. He left to restart L.A. Guns and was replaced by Slash.
