15 Things You Never Knew About Guns N’ Roses

Duff McKagan, bassist of Guns N’ Roses, has released an autobiography called It’s So Easy (And Other Lies). Here are some fascinating facts you probably didn’t know.

1. The members in the band would cure their STDs by visiting the local pet store. ″You could get dirt-cheap antibiotics – intended for use in aquariums – at pet stores. Turned out tetracycline wasn’t just good for tail rot and gill disease. It also did great with syphilis″

2. The first proper gig for the band supporting the Fastbacks would see all five members hitchhike over 1,000 miles to get to The Gorilla Garden Venue in Portland.
″With no money left, our only hope now was to straight-up hitch hike on the side of the freeway. From a less determined perspective, it would have seemed a hopeless long shot that anyone would pick up five fucked-up-looking guys with their guitars – if anyone even had enough room space. But we didn’t see it that way at all then. We just had no alternative.″

3. To this day Slash still considers ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ the worst Guns N’ Roses song. Ironically it’s been their biggest selling hit all over the world.

Slipknot releases 10-minute Paul Gray tribute video

Slipknot has posted a 10-minute tribute video to the band’s late bassist Paul Gray, featuring previously unseen footage. Check it out below.

Private funeral services for Gray were held on Friday (May 28) in Des Moines, Iowa.

Paul was found dead in a hotel room in a Des Moines suburb on Monday (May 24). The cause of Gray‘s death has not been determined, although according to a 911 call, a hypodermic needle and pills were found near the 38-year-old musician’s body.

The eight surviving members of Slipknot held a news conference on May 25 at Wells Fargo Arena in the band’s native stomping grounds of Des Moines, Iowa to address Gray‘s death. Also present at the event was Gray‘s brother Tony and widow Brenna, who spoke briefly at the end of the conference.

“He was everything that was wonderful about this band and about this group of people,” frontman Corey Taylor said. “The only way I can sum up Paul Gray is ‘love.’ Everything he did, he did for everyone around him whether he knew you or not … and that’s what he’s left behind for us: absolute love. I will miss him with every fiber of my heart, as will everybody at this table and everyone who knew him. He was the best of us.”

“It’s very important that everybody on the outside of us understands that Paul Gray was the essence of the band Slipknot. … Paul was there from the very, very beginning, and none of us would be on the path that we’re on now in life or have the sorts of life that we have without him,” percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan added. “Paul loved the fans. He was kind of the person in the band that really wanted everybody in the band to always get along and just concentrate on the band. He was a really great friend and a really great person. He’s going to be sadly missed, and the world is going to be a different place without him.”

“It’s very hard for me right now,” added drummer Joey Jordison. “I just want to say that I love you, Paul, very much. You’ll be sorely missed by the world over.”

Sid Wilson, the band’s Dj, credited Gray with introducing him to the band, which he described as a family.

“To me, that’s the most important thing,” Wilson said. “That in everyone he met there was a change in their life. He was so good at giving everyone a different perspective, and I love him for that.”

Percussionist Chris Fehn said when Gray called “you just felt good,” and he remembered the bass player as giving “the best hugs out of everyone I ever hugged. When he grabbed on to you, you could feel the love he had for you.”

Brenna Gray spoke last, mentioning the couple’s unborn child while discussing her husband.

“Paul was my husband, an amazing person, and I want people to remember him for that,” Brenna said. “And his daughter will remember him for the way he was.”

Paul and his wife were reportedly expecting their first child in September.

AC/DC Holds Off Stones On Euro Chart

AC/DC‘s “Iron Man 2” soundtrack (Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment) withstands the challenge of the Rolling Stones to start a fifth week atop Billboard’s European Albums chart. Stromae moves into a ninth non-consecutive week at No. 1 on European Hot 100 Singles with “Alors On Danse” (Mosaert/Vertigo).

The AC/DC album posts another week at the top of the Swedish and Austrian charts, and races 15-3 in Norway. But it slips 1-3 in the Belgian region of Flanders and is in a slow descent in most other European markets.

Behind it as a “new” entry at No. 2 on European Albums is the Stones’ reissued “Exile on Main St” (Polydor/Universal). The 1972 classic, now augmented with an optional second CD of unreleased and newly-completed material, arrives at No. 1 in the United Kingdom and Norway, No. 2 in Spain and Holland, No. 3 in Germany, No. 5 in Denmark, No. 7 in Austria, No. 8 in Switzerland and Flanders and No. 9 in neighboring Wallony.

AEROSMITH To Open New York State Fair Mohegan Sun Grandstand

According to Syracuse.com, Boston hard rock legends AEROSMITH will open this year’s New York State Fair Mohegan Sun Grandstand lineup at 7:30 PM on August 26.

Tickets, priced at $84, $94 and $104, will go on sale at 10 a.m. May 29 at the fair box office, Ticketmaster outlets, Ticketmaster.com and by phone charge at 800-745-3000.

Backstageaxxess.com’s Gus Griesinger asked guitarist Brad Whitford about the band’s long-awaited new studio album recently.

“Well, we certainly would like to finish it,” he remarked. “We started it about three times now over the past five or six years and just can’t seem to finish it. Or something happens and it gets disrupted and we stop and we don’t return to it. So we are going to, after this touring is over, we are going to try to do it at that point. I guess we will have to see where everyone is at and if everyone is still into it.”

Ozzy’s New Guitarist Featured in Comic Book

Guitarist Gus G of Firewind and also the newly recruited guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne is featured in the third issue of the gothic comic book series Eternal Descent, slated for publication in July, 2010.

The issue features a storyline inspired by guitar hero Gus G who helps Eternal Descent characters Lyra nd Sirian race against time to save Apollo and the rest of the band from the dissonant call of the Damned, The comic book will be available at comic book stores worldwide through Diamond Distribution. Llexi Leon, creator of the multi-media concept ETERNAL DESCENT, recruits ESP artists for cameo appearances in the Eternal Descent comic which is inspired by a host of iconic metal musicians.

Bonham planning Led Zep Story tour

Drummer Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin’s John, is planning a multimedia extravaganza tour which will seek to tell the entire Zep story from beginning to end.

Plans are at an early stage for Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience, but it’s thought he’ll gather a group of musicians to recreate the band’s sound while elaborate video presentations provide historical narrative to the iconic outfit’s history.

His plans come just months after he realised a long-held ambition to perform the Moby Dick drum solo alongside his father, who died in 1980, using modern multimedia techniques.

And the move may clash with plans to release an album recorded with Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath), Joe Bonamassa and Derek Sherinian (Kiss, Alice Cooper, Dream Theater.)

LedZeppelinNews.com reports: “For Led Zeppelin fans, Bonham’s sudden announcement marks a sharp turnaround, as the drummer’s primary focus so far this year has been readying new music created with a supergroup that was to be called Black Country.”

Producer Kevin Shirley, who recently completed work on the album, last week revealed that management arguments were a threat to the possibility of the album’s release. It’s already been heard by Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, both of whom are said to have been “blown away” by the experience. But now it’s suggested that Bonham’s plans could be part of the problem.

LedZeppelinNews continues: “Bonham was asked to rehearse with Led Zeppelin’s surviving members in 2007 as the others were planning a reunion concert. This led, of course, to a single show as a tribute to the late Ahmet Ertegun.

Question-mark: Sherinian, Bonamassa, Bonham and Hughes

“Following this were some expectations that a full-fledged tour would follow. Bonham even said recently that his mother warned him not to get his hopes up. She was right – Robert Plant eventually made known his intention not to revive Led Zeppelin again. By that time, Bonham had quit his touring gig with Foreigner and been replaced. Rehearsals with Page and Jones, and eventually singer Myles Kennedy, ended fruitlessly.

“Apparently, Bonham is seeing to it that his desire to bring Led Zeppelin’s songs to a wide American audience in the concert setting will not to suffer the same fate.”

Roger Ebert Reveals Lost Sex Pistols Screenplay

Prompted by the recent death of Sex Pistols manager and punk honcho Malcolm McLaren, film critic/writer Roger Ebert recently posted an unfinished film script he wrote for the pioneering English punk band in the summer of 1977. Read Who Killed Bambi? here, on Ebert’s Chicago Sun-Times blog.

SLASH Gear Banned From GUNS N’ ROSES Concert

According to TMZ, GUNS N’ ROSES fans were forced to take sides in the legendary war between Axl Rose and Slash – after security at a recent GNR show banned fans from wearing Slash gear inside the show.

It all went down at the GNR show in Canada last Wednesday – concert security informed fans that they were required to turn their Slash t-shirts inside out …. and leave their top hats outside.

TMZ spoke with a member of the concert security team who confirmed the marching orders – and told us the instructions were passed down from a producer for the band.

We’re told a few fans took the high roa