Steven Adler

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Steven Adler (born January 22, 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio) is most famous as the drummer of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses from 1985 - 1990. He was fired from the band in 1990 during the recording of the Use Your Illusion I & Use Your Illusion II albums and replaced with Matt Sorum. The band blamed his firing on his substance abuse issues.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Guns and Roses era
- 1.2 Post-Guns and Roses era
2 References
- 2.1 Books
- 2.2 Footnotes
3 Links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Guns and Roses era

He met future GN'R guitarist Slash as a teenager at their school in California<ref name="MS">"20 Questions w/ X-Guns n' Roses drummer Steven Adler.", Metal Sludge, Jan 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.</ref> 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, whom were the only original members remaining form their band Guns N'Roses, 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. Steven drummed on two of GNR's albums, Appetite for Destruction and G N' R Lies. He also appears on one song on Use Your Illusion II, the opening track "Civil War". Axl has said in an interview that "Civil War was recorded a good 60 times" due to problems with Adler.^{[citation needed]} During the recording of Civil War Alder was trying to stop using drugs.<ref name="MS" />

[edit] Post-Guns and Roses era

GN'R fans are often divided into two camps: one favouring the brighter-sounding early GN'R with Adler, the other preferring the heavier sound GN'R acquired with replacement drummer Matt Sorum.^{[citation needed]} Izzy Stradlin, who quit the band (citing Axl's dominance) a short while after Steven was fired, insisted later that Steven's drumming was crucial to the band's sound, and agreed to an interviewer's comment that replacing him with Sorum turned GN'R from a hard rock band to a heavy metal one. He also famously stated in the same interview: "After Steven left, nothing worked."<ref>""After Steven left, nothing worked."", Metal Edge, March 1993.</ref>

In 1997, he settled with Guns and Roses and earned a back-payment check of $ 2,250,000.00 and was granted 15% of the royalities for everything prior to his departure.<ref name="MS2">"Part II Steven Adler X-Guns N' Roses Drummer", Metal Sludge, Jan 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.</ref> He has admitted to using $600 of drugs in one night.<ref name="MS2" />

After being fired, Steven continued to use drugs.<ref name="MS3" /> In 1998, Adler suffered a stroke after taking a particularly potent speedball which is slang for a cocktail of heroin and cocaine used intravenously. He survived, but now lives with a speech impediment as a result.

When Slash and Duff began creating Velvet Revolver, Steven 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.

In 2003, he started Adler's Appetite and released the self-titled Adler's Appetite and performs live with many GN'R covers.

In 2005, Alder played a one off show with Izzy and Slash at the Key Club in Los Angeles.<ref name="MS3">"The Finale of Steven Adler X-Gn'R drummer's 20?s", Metal Sludge, Jan 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.</ref>