Tribute To Steven Adler
Steven 'Popcorn' Adler is an American rock drummer. He is most famous for his tenure as a member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he performed and recorded from 1985 to 1990.
Adler was born on January 22, 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to Los Angeles with his family as a young child. He has a brother, Jamie. His mother, Denna, currently has power of attorney over Steven. He has been married and divorced.
Adler met future GN'R guitarist Slash at the age of twelve at their school in California after Steven had a skateboarding accident. The two became fast friends, and as Slash took up guitar, Steven took up drums (he played guitar before meeting Slash) in order to form a band (albeit missing some components), Road Crew. The two placed an ad in a newspaper searching for a bassist, resulting in Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, not only responding to the ad, but introducing the two to Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin, who were the only original members remaining from their band Hollywood Rose, with other original members, lead guitarist, Tracii Guns, bassist Ole Beich
The three joined Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin to create the most famous and "original" line-up of Guns N' Roses. Adler drummed on the first three GNR albums: their 1986 EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide, the multi-platinum Appetite for Destruction and G N' R Lies. Adler's work also appeared on one song on Use Your Illusion II, the opening track "Civil War", Although his drum track is said to be heavily edited.
At the 1989 American Music Awards, where Guns N' Roses performed their latest single, "Patience," Don Henley filled in for Adler on drums. Officially, the absence was attributed to a case of the flu; it was later revealed that Adler had actually been in a drug rehabilitation program at the time.
Problems continued in 1990, as the band recorded "Civil War" for Nobody's Child, an album benefitting the Romanian Angel Appeal. Axl Rose has said in interviews that "Civil War was recorded a good 60 times" due to problems with Adler; Slash, in another article, stated that the band had to edit the drum track to "Civil War" simply to be able to play along with it. By Adler's own admission, he tried to play the song "20, maybe 30 times." During the recording of "Civil War" Adler was still trying to stop using drugs.
Adler was briefly fired from the band, but was reinstated after signing a contract promising to stop using drugs. In April 1990, he performed with Guns N' Roses at Farm Aid IV in Indiana. It would be his last appearance with the band. He was formally fired in August, during the recording of the Use Your Illusion I & Use Your Illusion II albums, and replaced with Matt Sorum. The official reason for his departure, according to various members of the band, was his heavy substance abuse which impeded his ability to work. Geffen A&R rep Tom Zutaut, who worked with Guns N' Roses, corroborated this claim, stating in a 1999 interview, "Steven Adler would show up at the recording studio completely high. Recording sessions would abort for several days when he couldn't put it together."
According to Adler, his departure from the band was based on other reasons. In a 2005 interview he stated, "Doug Goldstein called me into the office about two weeks later. He wanted me to sign some contracts. I was told that every time I did heroin, the band would fine me $2,000. There was a whole stack of papers, with coloured paper clips everywhere for my signatures. What these contracts actually said was that the band were paying me $2,000 to leave. They were taking my royalties, all my writing credits. They didn't like me anymore and just wanted me gone. That's why I filed the lawsuit - to get all those things back.".
In 1991, Adler formed a new version of his old band, Road Crew. However, the project was unsuccessful. When ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash and Duff McKagan began creating Velvet Revolver in the late 1990s, Adler expressed hope that history would repeat itself and that once again he would be in a band with them. Velvet Revolver was created with Adler's replacement, Matt Sorum, instead, due largely to the fact that it was Sorum who had initiated the new band.
Adler's lawsuit against his former Guns N' Roses bandmates was settled in 1997. He earned a back-payment check of $ 2,250,000.00 USD and was granted 15% of the royalities for everything he recorded prior to his departure.In 2003, he started the band Suki Jones, which would later be renamed Adler's Appetite, and released an EP, Adler's Appetite. The band still performs live sporadically, performing sets heavy with Guns N' Roses covers. He was recently featured on an episode of VHI's The Surreal Life: Fame Games as a judge for a hotel crashing challenge.
Adler appears to have repaired his relationships with most of his former Guns N' Roses bandmates. In 2005, he played a one-off show with Izzy and Slash at the Key Club in Los Angeles. In September 2006 Adler attended a Guns N' Roses show in Las Vegas and spoke to Axl Rose for the first time in over a decade. While Adler has claimed that there has been talk and encouragement for a reunion among the other original members, this appears to be unfounded: in a 2007 interview with Guitar Edge magazine, for instance, Slash stated "I’ve obviously moved on and have a lot to do with Velvet Revolver, so that’s where my head is. Obviously it’s not an idea that I’m entertaining in any way, shape, or form at this point. I think the more time that passes, the less likely it will happen—and it was pretty unlikely five years ago."
Adler's substance abuse issues continued after he was fired from Guns N' Roses. In interviews as recent as 2006, he has stated that he has, at times, used $600 worth of drugs in one night. In 1996, Adler suffered a stroke after taking a particularly potent speedball, a cocktail of heroin and cocaine used intravenously. He survived, but now lives with a speech impediment as a result.
In 1997, Adler was convicted on a domestic violence charge for attacking a woman with whom he had been living, and was sentenced to four days in jail, three years of probation and mandatory drug counseling. A year later, he pleaded no contest to attacks on two other women and was sentenced to a 150-day term in prison and a year of domestic violence counseling
