Stick To Your Guns by Mick Wall ║ Kerrang ║ April 1990

• Silence reigns for a brief moment, Axl’s attention turned suddenly to the low distant hum of his hi-fi which has been spinning taped music throughout the conversation, his gaze frozen between the ashtrays and magazines littered on the table before us, a pinched little smile creasing his lips. I ask who it is we’re listening to.
• Axl: Cheap Trick, ‘In Color’, featuring Rick ‘The Dick’ Neilsen. What a fuckin’ asshole! I love Cheap Trick, too. It’s kinda funny now, cos I listen to it and just laugh at him.
• Mick Wall: Why? What happened?
• A : There was a thing in Rolling Stone where he said he fuckin’ decked Slash! He didn’t deck Slash! Do you think anyone is gonna fuckin’ deck Slash when Doug Goldstein is standing right there between them? It’s not gonna happen.
• MW : Why does everybody want to tell the world they beat up one of Guns N’ Roses?
• A : Because Guns N’ Roses has this reputation for being bad, you know, the new bad boys in town, and so, like, hey, man, it perpetuates down to fuckin’ Rick Neilsen wanting to get back in good with the youth market by claiming he’s badder than GNR, you know? If he had any real balls, he’d apologize to Slash in the press. Not in person, he can come up to me and say he’s sorry all he wants, it doesn’t mean shit ‘til he says it in the press. Now Bowie’s a different situation, because Bowie hasn’t talked to the press. It’s not like he went and talked to the press about our bust-up. So Bowie can apologize to me, and then when they see photos of me and him together they’ll go, "Fuck, we tried to start a war and look at these guys, they’re hanging out!" (laughs) That’s cool, you know? Like Jagger was supposed to have told me off and the next thing you know I’m onstage singing with him....That sure fucked with a lot of them. I mean, it’s either somebody kicked our ass or it’s how some chick is scared I’m gonna come kill her cat. I mean, I could make a joke about it, but....