Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / What If Paul Stanley Produced Guns N' Roses' 'Appetite For Destruction'? [Highlight From Episode 297]

Transcript

What If Paul Stanley Produced Guns N' Roses' 'Appetite For Destruction'? [Highlight From Episode 297] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Martin pop Off, the author of the new book Guns
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and Roses at forty which is out now. This chapter
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: on the Appetite for Destruction demo is very interesting. He
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: was produced by Nazareth guitarist Manny Charlton. November Rain was
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: recorded at that time not included on an Appetite. Charlton
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: loved it, but Axel didn't want it on the album.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that was?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Axel has a clear idea of what he wants. He
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: seems to understand the big picture. He seems to understand sequencing,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and yeah, you remind me. You know, there was a
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: flirtation with maybe having Paul Stanley produce it. Manny comes
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: in and does this. They end up with Mike Clink,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: which I think turned out to be brilliant. But who
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: knows what would have happened otherwise. But I think what
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: happened with Mike Clink here and this particular set of
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: songs is they happened to subtly. Subtly, I mean, they
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: catch lightning in a bottle. But if you try to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: articulate what the production value of that record are, they're
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: fairly conservative, but they're also raw, and they've just got
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: this aggression and bite to them. There's just some sort
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: of unnameable magic to the production of this record. But
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: you'd never say it's an eccentric or weird production or
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: unorthodox production. It just sounds vital. It's got kind of
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: like this steely hard edge, but you still have enough
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: bottom end and you still have enough brightness. And I
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: think one of the special things about the record that
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: makes it so magical and you actually get it again.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: So it's nice that you get it again on both
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the use of your illusion albums. But I think the
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: cool thing about it that is a challenging thing. And
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: you don't normally say this about production because you normally
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: talk about how much high end or bottom end or
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: what the drums sound like, is that you get this
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: trademark aggressive, violent, pushing and pulling slash guitar sound. I
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: think that's a big part of the production on this.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: It really cuts through. It's a little bit like a
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: buzz saw guitar sound, but not too crazy. It just
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: has enough bite to it that it elevates the songs
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: into this real outlaw bad boys sort of status. So yeah,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know how much credit you really need to
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: give to Mike Clink for that, but you could possibly
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: give him quite a bit of credit. Does it come
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: from the fingers, Does it come from the amp choices?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Does it come from the engineering? You know? Does it
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: come from the booze and the drugs? Who knows? But
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: fortunately it is there and they use them again next
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: time and it's still there, which is nice. So they
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: recognize that there is this magic to the production tones
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: and the textures on that debut, and I think they
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: recreate that across the Illusion albums.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Again, Clink had never produced a major album before that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Was this a strategic move by gen R and Geffen
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: because they did audition others, including Paul Stanley?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Again, you know, that's even more argument
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: for the idea that did he really know what he
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: was doing or did they just happen to get lucky.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I think there is a luck element to what they
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: get here. As visionary as Axel is, I don't think
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: he could have articulated to wind up with this particular
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: production values. But as we talked about, I mean, one
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of the big travesties of hair metal is over production
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: way too many vocal, multiple takes of rhythm guitars all
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: playing at the same time, playing the same thing, too much, vocals,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: too much snare drum. They just managed to pare it
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: back but still have it be powerful. But it's a
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: conservative production. It's a timeless seventies kind of production. There's
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: not a single thing in this production job that sounds dated.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: There's a really cool connection with Paul Stanley and Mike
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Clink that I didn't realize until I was reading the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: book and then looking this up. Paul Stanley at the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: time was working on the Crazy Nights album and that
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: was produced by ron Nevison. Mike Clink was a trainee
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of ron Nevison. I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, what do you think it would.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Have sounded like if Paul Stanley produced this? It would
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: have sounded more like because he wanted it to sound
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: more like maybe a White Snake album.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Man who knows. Number One, Paul is no producer. I
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: mean Paul would be in there. He's not an engineer,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: producer and he doesn't produce much.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Did he produced New England's album?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I believe yeah, New England, and I don't think the
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Kiss albums sound particularly good. I don't think any of
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: those sound particularly good. They're very mid rangeye thin.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Crazy Knights is very thin.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Crazy Knights is definitely not a good sounding album.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: It's probably the worst of all those. And ron Nevison
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think particularly ever got that great productions out
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: of bands. I mean, we can go through all of them.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I'm sure there's some good ones in there, but judging
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: how great this record sounds and how great it's soul,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: you could only go down from there. But who knows.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, Paul definitely has great songwriting instincts, so I
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: think he could be the kind of producer that would
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: do a good job of picking the songs, changing things
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: around the parts a little bit, maybe working on the
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: arrangements a little bit, bringing all that vast Kiss knowledge
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to the situation. But again, the silly thing is that
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: you can only go one direction from Amatite for destructions,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: success and quality, and that's down. So logically speaking, if
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: we did the math on it, it would turn out
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: a lot worse than it did because you can't get
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: much better than this. Yeah,