Live from the Jungle is an EP by Guns N' Roses that was only released in Japan. Tracks one, four and five were recorded live at London's Marquee Club on June 28, 1987.
This EP is referred to as Live from the Jungle even though the similarly titled song "Welcome to the Jungle" does not appear on the EP. It is named so because part of the large red text on the album's obi strip reads "raibu furomu za janguru", meaning "live from the jungle".
The cover art uses the banned Robert Williams artwork originally (but very briefly) used for Appetite for Destruction.
The GN'R Syndicate: Were the authorities interested in where the songs came from, or just that you posted them online? What did they want to know? Did their actions (i.e. providing you with the tracks) result in any adverse consequences? How did they get the songs?
Skwerl: The authorities wanted to know who the source was, but I didn’t know. I had a story, but I didn’t necessarily believe it. We (and whenever I say “we”, I mean my legal team) had to conduct our own investigation to get to the bottom of all of it. This meant that we could question my leads & contacts privately, rather than having the FBI do it and cause a big crazy shit storm. I can’t get into details of who led us where, but we were able to protect my friends’ identities.
The GN'R Syndicate: I guess the biggie is: How did you come across these leaks? Was it somebody close to the band? Skwerl: Ah, the big one. The one I won’t answer just yet. The decision not to talk about this is not an easy one for me to make, but I can say that it is my decision entirely. There’s no secret gag order, and I’m not involved in any sort of ongoing investigation. What I can also say is that we completed our investigation, and figured out exactly where the songs came from, and how they wound up in my hands. I could go public with this information, but for now, I’m saving it for a rainy day.
The GN'R Syndicate: Who initiated the prosecution? The band? The label? The government?
Skwerl: RIAA did the initial investigation, and packaged the case up for the government.
The GN'R Syndicate: The prosecutor wanted jail time, do you feel that this would have been appropriate in a case such as yours?
Skwerl: Well no, of course not. Do you?
Nah, but seriously, even the prosecutor conceded that it wasn’t necessarily appropriate for me on an individual level, but that doing so might deter others from committing more harmful cases of the crime. I knew ahead of time that was the situation I would probably be in. We had put up a great fight, but it would come down to whether or not the judge felt it was time to make an example out of someone. That’s a scary side of justice; sometimes what you deserve isn’t the only factor the court considers when deciding your fate. Luckily, the honorable judge Abrams is a fair dude.
The GN'R Syndicate: Do you feel that your actions sabotaged Guns N’ Roses or harmed them in anyway? The record label? The RIAA?
Skwerl: I don’t feel that my actions harmed the band or label in any way whatsoever. The finished version of Chinese Democracy went up for streaming in its entirety on Myspace before the album was released. The label paid money for this. They called it promotion.
The GN'R Syndicate: In many ways the RIAA appears to be both the dinosaur as well as comet hurling towards earth. Is dragging people into criminal court for this type of offense going to solve their problem? If not, then what would solve it in your opinion?
Skwerl: I’m going to reserve judgment on RIAA... for now.
The GN'R Syndicate: Do you regret what you have done? If so, were you able to convey your apologies to the band through legal counsel or other means?
Skwerl: I don’t regret what I did, but I won’t ever do it again. I’ll let someone else take the next one, and I’ll find another boat to rock. One that isn’t so illegal maybe. As I said the other day, my actions disrespected Axl’s right to control how his work is presented to the world. For that I humbly apologize. But that’s as far as it goes.
The GN'R Syndicate: Did anybody from the band ever contact you?
Skwerl: Nope. No one truly authorized to represent the band, besides Axl’s lawyer, who sent a cease & desist.
I’m sure you guys know about Beta’s kid Fernando. He was actually the first to call me, identifying himself as a member of the “Guns N’ Roses camp. ” Like I said, the songs were long gone, but he wanted to know if I was going to put them back up. I told him I would not. He asked where I got them, and I told them that I didn’t know the identity of my source. The cease and desist came via email shortly after.
Apparently the FBI questioned Fernando (before me), and he had given them a very different story. He told them that I said I got the tracks from a source at the record label, and he told them that the songs were still online when he called, suggesting that he had something to do with my taking them down. Initially we thought that he had something to do with the leaks (why else would he make so much shit up to the freaking FBI), but when we investigated, he was a dead end. He’s been responsible for past leaks, but not mine. So I don’t know. He may have been trying to play hero to redeem himself, or he may have mistakenly thought he was somehow responsible. I don’t know.
The GN'R Syndicate: There has always seemed to be a conflicting view in regards to these leaks. Few, if any, of the people I knew were strong enough to refrain from downloading them. On the other hand many of the fansites were vehemently against even discussing them (All while downloading for themselves or actively seeking them out). What kind of feedback were you getting in your mail box? Thanks? Fuck you?
Skwerl: Well that’s two-faced bullshit. If you’re running a fansite, you’ve gotta ask yourself who you’re doing it for. Are you doing it to get closer to the band? Or are you doing it to serve the fans? Johnny Firecloud [Antiquiet co-founder] and I ran a big fansite back in the day for A Perfect Circle. We pissed that band off so much, posting shit we weren’t supposed to, refusing to take said shit down until we got a substantial statement in return for the fans to chew on. But once you start censoring yourself, then you start becoming little more than an extension of the band’s cocktease “official ” site, only you’re not getting paid. You know what? No matter how close you may get to the band, you’re still going to be the fanboy (or girl)... unless you sell drugs too, I guess. The relationship you build with the fans is way more valuable in every single way. They’ll be there for you at the end of the day.
Sometimes you’ve gotta make real tough choices between the band’s wishes and the fans’ wishes, and I’m not saying the fans have to win every time. But sometimes you’ve gotta stand up for them, you know? You’ve gotta say, “Look, this shit is out there, I’m a journalist, it is my job to report this. Take me to court if you have to, but I’ve got rights. ” Or else I’ve gotta wonder why you still bother.
One thing that was really interesting to me was how the feedback I was getting would change with the weather; with each turning point in the story. Initially, everyone was like “Fuck yeah! Thanks! ” But when I did a couple interviews and the FBI got involved, haters came out of the woodwork, and then it was split evenly between “thanks” and “fuck you. ” It fluctuated at various points as the whole thing went up and down, but when someone reported the government’s recommendation that I do jail time, the needle swung so hard in my favor, it broke. It was more comments than ever before, and all but a few were “Fuck RIAA! Fuck the man! Free Skwerl! ” and that kinda shit.
I read the comments and emails and shit, but I never let any of it get to me. These people don’t know shit about me, so how can I take any of it personally? Besides, most of the people ranting about how I’m a scumbag piece of shit asshole don’t even have the story straight, and few of them know the first thing about how the record industry really works these days.
The GN'R Syndicate: So did you finally buy Chinese Democracy? What did you think?
Skwerl: Damn right I did. How could I not? I had been waiting for it longer than I’ve had hair on my balls.
For me the bottom line was that it was a great album, but it had just been cooking too long, plain and simple. When we think back to 2008, we might remember it as the year Chinese Democracy finally came out, but you’re not going to hear it playing during the flashback scenes in movies 20 years from now. It’s going to be fucking Katy Perry, or Linkin Park. Say what you want about their shitty albums, but at least they claimed their moment.
I still listen to it. There are some songs that I like even more now than I did when I wrote the review, like “Sorry. ” That’s a great song, it grew on me big time.
At least two people on my legal team purchased the album, which definitely wouldn’t have otherwise. I’m pretty sure they hated it.
This is only an excerpt from a massive interview, you can read the whole thing here.
Duff McKagan's Loaded played Download 2009 over the weekend, and I have just a few videos to share, but first, the news.
Duff told Contact Music that he expects their new singer to "land in their laps."
He said, "either you've got the guy or you've not and we've worked with some really talented guys. The trick is getting the chemistry right. Slash is making his solo record, which he's desperately needed to do for years, so I'll keep working with my other band Loaded, he'll do that and music will happen when it's supposed to happen. The right guy will fall into our laps when he is supposed to and maybe that's why it hasn't happened yet."
In a separate interview with Noisecreep, Duff says, "anybody that spends too much on a record these days, that's fool's money spent. Nobody sells records like we did in the '90s or '80s. It's not the business model anymore. People get their music for free off the Internet."
"We signed with a small, indie label which was really cool. There's not a lot of pressure like you get from a major. Major labels are becoming a thing of the past."
"The great thing about this band is that we just don't give a fuck. We'll play anyplace, and it's refreshing. It is kind of rewarding when you become the buzz of a town when someone sees you and finds you are playing. We sell records at the gigs. Who knows? By July this could be an underground summer record."
On the corner of a big Los Angeles intersection stands an office block you could pass a thousand times and not take in. At ground level, there are a few shops, a couple of places to eat and the ubiquitous Starbucks. Nothing the tiniest bit special.
It's here (armed with a skinny cappuccino) that I meet someone totally out of place in the mundane surroundings - Duff McKagan, American hard-rock institution.
Taking in the fortysomething with short, spiky blond hair and aviator shades, you know he couldn't be anything but a rock'n'roller.
Founder member and bassist of Guns N' Roses, he's now bassist in Velvet Revolver (with his GN'R mates Slash and Matt Sorum) and frontman of his own group Loaded.
I also gather he's a seriously daring mountaineer, martial arts expert, financial guru for Playboy.com (yes, really) and budding radio presenter in his home town of Seattle where he also writes a local blog.
Tonight, he brings Loaded and songs from the band's riotous new album Sick to Download 2009 at Donington Park, on the same bill as a much anticipated performance from the reformed Faith No More. But, as we take a table outside Starbucks in the early LA summer sunshine, this pencil-thin, sober, super-fit character tells me he's "just happy to be alive".
He experienced it all - the women, the drugs, the extreme highs, the devastating lows and, most of all, the booze.
"If I wrote about what happened to me in 1994, it would have to be called All The Shit I Don't Remember," he explains.
That was the year he contracted acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis (his pancreas swelled to the size of a football) and he was told to give up booze or die.
"And I wanted to die because it hurt so bad and there was no escape. I was pleading with the doctors to kill me."
1994 was the year he became sober.
"If I drank, I would have died. It was very black and white," he continues. "When I got sober, I really started to get in touch. I took up martial arts. My sensei told me to look at myself in the mirror every day and say, 'Yesterday, I did everything right that I could do'. I'm proud of that."
It was at this point Duff began to realise he wanted out of Guns N' Roses, which, with Axl Rose at its helm, had become the biggest band in the world.
"I met my wife Susan and she got pregnant. And as I was about to have this kid, I started thinking , 'Shit, there's only me and Axl left (of the original members).'
"Why are we rehearsing at three in the morning? I don't want to do it anymore. I got a life.
"I was kind of hoping the band would get back together. I was under a lot of pressure but I was looking like the level-headed guy.
"Our manager was calling me every day for advice. What a scared little prick. I'm going, 'Dude, manage the fucking band. You're the manager!' I started to look around and go, 'What a bunch of morons'."
It's sad to reflect on the disintegration of a band who made some of the finest rock albums since Led Zeppelin - Appetite For Destruction, Use Your Illusion I and II.
Duff remembers the band's humble beginnings in LA. "Five guys who started in this town. We were living in squalor with nothing but a united belief in what rock'n'roll was,
"And we brought enough different shit and we trusted each others' opinions and we liked each others' influences. We toughed it out. We didn't care. Then not just America but the whole world were like, 'Yeah, we relate to this whole thing'."
All these years later, I ask Duff what he thinks of Chinese Democracy, the Guns N' Roses album that took an excruciating 15 years to make with only Axl of the original line-up present.
It's a question he gets asked a lot. "Number one, what does it matter what I think of it?" he replies. "But for the record, Axl sings great on it. There are some songs I really like and some I don't.
"People have read it as, 'Oh, Duff doesn't like it,' but it's not like that at all."
This brings us on to the subject of Velvet Revolver, formed in 2002 as a kind of hard-rock supergroup made up of ex-G N'R members, Dave Kushner from Wasted Youth and, until he left, Stone Temple Pilots' singer Scott Weiland.
For Duff, the lead-up to Scott's departure in April 2008 was a particularly harrowing time.
As someone who's been sober "apart from a couple of stumbles" since 1994, he was watching the singer going "over to the other side".
"Our last month and a half of touring with him was brutal," says Duff. "I guess maybe it's not fully known that Slash, Matt, Dave and I decided that we were going to get rid of him.
"We tried to bring him back but we couldn't do it. His old demons popped back up. Look, I'm a drug addict, I totally get it but he was too far gone. None of us had the energy to go through that.
"So we actually fired him on April Fools Day after the gig in Amsterdam. I wish him the best of luck."
Now VR are on enforced hiatus as they look for a new singer. "We've written all the music for the next album and the songs are huge," says Duff. "Scott was an amazing frontman, one of the best on the planet, but I think we still have our best record to come.
"But until Velvet Revolver find a singer, I'm putting 110% of my energy into Loaded. The new record was really fun and really inspired."
You can see elements of Duff's other bands in Sick but there's a clear nod to his youth and his love of punk rock - "the 13-year-old kid who saw the Clash in Seattle in 1979".
This is Loaded's third album, arriving a full eight years since Dark Days, and finds Duff swapping bass for lead vocals and guitar.
One song kind of sums up Duff's life less ordinary - Slide. It goes, "The Seventies gave us punk rock/The Eighties gave us crap/Nineties junky chic so cool, I don't remember much of that".
Then he turns to me and smiles: "Well fuck, I survived all that shit and I'm here feeling really great about it."
My family comes to Europe tomorrow, and I am more than excited to see them. Tomorrow in London, Squires and I will play live on the radio to something like eight million listeners. No pressure. Later that day, I will present an award to the Manic Street Preachers at the MOJO Awards (a big British awards show). On Friday, Loaded plays the Download Festival, probably the pinnacle of any rock band's career. I have played it with GN'R, and twice with VR. Next week? We start our European tour with Mötley Crüe. Oh, the stories I could tell . . .
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