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Cathouse Hollywood
“I sing in five or six different voices that are all part of me. It’s not contrived.”
Axl Rose, singer of Guns N’ Roses.
In It’s So Easy, Duff McKagan recounts those years when, with the support of their girlfriends, everything was too easy. Even if there is a touch of irony in this statement. A dry guitar ritornello, not particularly rock, that Slash transformed into something more furious. As for the video, it was shot in a place that the band knows well, namely the Cathouse, a club where all the elite of the Los Angeles rock scene meet. The boss is a friend and the Gunners have carte blanche. A real bargain!
On the stage of the Cathouse, Axl Rose and his companions do what they do best, in front of an audience that is very much in favor of them. Between the live parts, the clip offers some very gravelly sequences behind the scenes. A glimpse of a typical after show at the Guns. However, the record company is not convinced. The TV stations also refuse to broadcast it and when the time comes for the band, years later, to offer a compilation of all their videos, the one for It’s so Easy is not among them. Finally, fans will have to wait for the advent of the Internet to see it freely.
The performance at the Cathouse captured in this sultry video illustrates the energy of a band on the rise. At the time of the recording, the time of the formation of the combo is however not so far. Born from the meeting of Axl Rose, a native of Indiana, Izzy Stradlin, a friend from the same place, Slash, a gifted guitarist, Steven Adler, a drummer and Duff McKagan, a genuine punk from Seattle, Guns N’ Roses took Los Angeles by the throat before attacking the rest of the world. Together, the mad dogs moved into a sort of tiny squat on the Strip in West Hollywood. The exact address? 7508 Sunset Boulevard. The place had no running water, no bathroom, no kitchen and it was hot as hell on a hot day. This is where the songs on the Appetite for Destruction album were created. In the band’s entourage were fans and friends, including a certain West Arkeen, credited on It’s So Easy, which Duff McKagan composed with a good dose of punk. Drugs and alcohol have been flowing for a long time. The concerts that Guns N’ Roses gave in the area, at the Cathouse or the Troubadour, brought them the favors of some young girls. Admirers to whom the combo owes a lot, because at the time they paid the current expenses. A kind of investment since Axl and the others were certain that they would soon explode.
Appetite for Destruction has sold 30 million copies worldwide.Regularly, the disc makes its return in the charts.
Cathouse Hollywood
Open only on Tuesday nights since its founding in 1986, the Cathouse Hollywood is one of the privileged witnesses of rock history.
It was because he was looking for a place to pick up girls and play the music he liked that future MTV host Riki Rachtman created the Cathouse in 1986. Soon, the most prominent musicians of the rock scene flocked there to party, like Aerosmith, Motörhead and Mötley Crüe. Guns N’ Roses was the first to perform here. This is also where the legendary altercation between Axl Rose and David Bowie took place. In 1988, the director Penelope Spheeris immortalized the place in her documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.
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Cult! music: 100 mythical music places [French Edition]
Embark immediately on an exhilarating world tour with some of music’s most iconic bands and artists!
Head to Melbourne, Australia for a stroll along AC/DC Lane before crossing the iconic Abbey Road pedestrian crossing in the company of The Beatles. Visit Janis Joplin‘s home in San Francisco and find out how Johnny Cash ended up playing his greatest hits to a crowd of prisoners in San Quentin. Travel the winding roads of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and stop in Japan to catch up with Deep Purple, Phil Collins and Daft Punk. Drive down the Tina Turner Highway before entering some of the most legendary studios in music history. Go back to the troubled origins of Billie Holiday and make a pact with Robert Johnson at the famous crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Embark immediately on an exhilarating world tour with some of music’s most iconic bands and artists! Relive the Jimi Hendrix concert on the Isle of Wight before paying tribute to Bob Marley in Jamaica.
Produced by a team of pop-culture specialists and enhanced by numerous anecdotes, Cult! musictells the secrets of the places that made the history of music.
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By Gilles Rolland
Passionné de cinéma, de rock and roll, de séries TV et de littérature. Rédacteur de presse et auteur des livres Le Heavy Metal au cinéma, Paroles de fans Guns N' Roses, Paroles de fans Rammstein et Welcome to my Jungle : 100 albums rock et autres anecdotes dépareillées. Adore également voyager à la recherche des lieux les plus emblématiques de la pop culture.