Pissing On Planes and Punching On with Tommy Hilfiger: Guns N' Roses' Most Ridiculous Moments

This article is presented in partnership with Dainty Group, who are touring Guns N’ Roses to Australia and NZ in February 2017

Illustration by Ashley Goodall

Three months after releasing 1987’s Appetite for Destruction, Guns N’ Roses made their first appearance on MTV's Headbanger's Ball show. It was a relatively straightforward interview: nonchalant “denim and leather" clad rockers fielding questions about their attitudes, tours, and scandalous after parties. Things went askew when the interviewer invited them to destroy the set, given their rep for trashing hotels. Guns N’ Roses obliged, proceeding to tear the room apart in less than thirty seconds.

Axl, Slash and Duff McKagan are set to tour Australia and New Zealand early next year, playing together on our shores for the first time since 1993. Today on Noisey we look back on some of the band’s crazier stories of the last thirty years—from the benders and arrests, to the time Slash smuggled a mountain lion into a Four Seasons.

1989: GUNS N’ ROSES ALMOST BREAK UP ON STAGE
At the time, Guns N’ Roses were one of the biggest acts in the world. They were touring with their heroes, The Rolling Stones, and comparisons between the groups were commonplace. There was a problem, though; nightly drinking and drug use was wearing them down. While opening for The Stones in Los Angeles, Axl Rose made an ultimatum between songs: unless the band stopped using heroin, or as he put it "dancing with Mr. Brownstone", Guns N’ Roses was over. The band stayed together and headlines were made—but things were about to take a turn for the worse.

1989: IZZY STRADLIN PISSES ON A PLANE, GETS ARRESTED
By August, Axl Rose had put Guns N’ Roses on a temporary hiatus. If they wanted the band to last, they needed to deal with their drug and alcohol problems. Unfortunately, Izzy Stradlin wasn't quite ready to make that leap. During a flight back to Los Angeles from Indiana, where he had been visiting family, Izzy was drunk and belligerent (after having apparently being bit by a dog earlier that day, and being downgraded from first class to coach). He sparked up a cigarette, yelled at a flight attendant, and pissed in front of the rest of the passengers. He was arrested when the plane made a routine stopover in Phoenix. Izzy quit Guns N’ Roses during the Use Your Illusion era, got sober, and rejoined the band on-stage in the 2000s.

1989: NAKED, BLEEDING, AND HALLUCINATING, SLASH LEGS IT THROUGH A GOLF RESORT
While Izzy Stradlin was busy getting arrested, Slash was taking his drug use to hallucinatory levels, as detailed in his 2008 autobiography, Slash. Holed up in a golf resort in Arizona, after a heroin and coke bender he became convinced he was being pursued by dreadlocked predators armed with machine guns and harpoons. Slash punched a glass door and jumped through it. Naked, bleeding and terrified, he proceeded to feverishly run through the resort. Along the way, he attempted to use a maid as a human shield, before hiding behind a lawnmower.

1991: AXL ROSE TURNS UP LATE TO A GIG BECAUSE HE WAS WATCHING TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2
Sure, Axl and the rest of the Gunners had a certified rep for hedonism and causing riots at concerts, but it turns out he also loved those pizza scoffing mutant ninja teens. Before a show in Florida, Axl started watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze and just got really captivated by it. 100% attention captivated.

1992: NUDITY ON THE BUENOS AIRES STREETS
In his tell-all 2014 book Welcome To My Jungle, Axl Rose's former assistant Craig Duswalt details a story from when the Use Your Illusion tour passed through Argentina. In Buenos Aires, Axl offered a cash reward to any crew member who would run naked through the streets outside their hotel and shake hands with the meanest looking police officer on the street. Tour photographer Gene Kirkland accepted the challenge and went for it. After he had shaken hands with the officer, the police began to arrest him before cracking up laughing. It was a set-up, and Axl's crew had paid them to play along.

1992: AXL ROSE CHARGED IN BRAZIL CHAIR TOSS
Axl Rose threw a swivel chair off a mezzanine at a group of local journalists, fans, and hotel guests in Sao Paulo, Brazil. No one was hurt in the incident, which occurred less than 24 hours after Guns N’ Roses arrived in the city for two performances.

1993: GUNS N’ ROSES TOUR AUSTRALIA AND ATTEND A PRESS CONFERENCE WITH NORMAN GUNSTON
Australia had its Altamont moment. On a scorching hot summer's day 75,000 rock fans descended on Melbourne's Calder Park. They were there to catch the final show on the Australian leg of the Use Your Illusion tour. With a water shortage, 38-degree temperatures, huge queues, bad facilities, traffic jams, and a downpour of rain late in the day all stacked up against them, the Gunners were still at the height of their powers. Twenty-three years later, the show still lives on in rock and roll infamy. During that tour, they took part in a side-splittingly hilarious press conference, where Australian comedian Norman Gunston (aka Gary McDonald) hit them with some of the funniest questions ever.

1994: SNAKES, LIZARDS, CATS, A MOUNTAIN LION AND SLASH
Slash had decided he wanted to settle down and live a quieter life. His version of quieter life meant buying a home in Los Angeles and filling it with venomous snakes, lizards, eight cats, and a mountain lion named Curtis. As he puts it in his autobiography, "I installed a full-on reptile zoo over there… Just a gazillion snakes and all kinds of stuff.” After the Northridge earthquake of 1994, although his animals survived, Slash's home was seriously damaged. Soon afterward, he moved into the Marina Del Rey Four Seasons Hotel and snuck Curtis into his suite.

2006: AXL ROSE GETS IN A FIGHT WITH TOMMY HILFIGER
If you're Axl Rose, even trying to be polite can lead to an exchange of fists. It was a Thursday night, and Axl and Tommy Hilfiger were partying in a New York nightclub with, amongst others, Lenny Kravitz, Damon Dash, Mickey Rourke, and Kid Rock. Axl moved Tommy's girlfriend, Dee Ocleppo's, drink so it wouldn't spill—and Tommy started laying into him. Axl was in the club to play a surprise set for Rent actress Rosario Dawson's 27th birthday. During his performance, he dedicated the song "You're Crazy" to Tommy.

BONUS B-SIDES

1985: SLASH STARTS WEARING THE TOP HAT
Although it might be hard to believe, Slash has always suffered from stage fright. In 1985, he wandered into a store on Melrose Place and a top hat caught his eye. After decorating it with pieces cut from a conch belt he'd stolen from a store next door, he wore it on stage that night. During the performance, something clicked—and it became like his very own invisibility cloak.

1987: GUNS N’ ROSES TAPE UP FASTER PUSSYCAT'S DRUMMER
Guns N’ Roses played eight shows in Europe and the UK with fellow LA shredders Faster Pussycat. One night in Hamburg, Pussycat drummer Mark Michals overstayed his welcome with the Gunners. Duffy and Izzy found him so infuriating that they bound him up with duct tape, and sent him down to the hotel lobby by elevator.

1991: GUNS N’ ROSES HANG OUT WITH N.W.A
Before they recorded their final album Efil4zaggin, Compton rap icons N.W.A spent some time partying with Guns N’ Roses. N.W.A hung out with the Gunners at a show in Inglewood and discussed the idea of touring together. The shows never happened, but N.W.A ended up recording a song called "Appetite for Destruction" for Efil4zaggin.

1992: THE MONTREAL RIOT
Over the course of the ‘90s and early 2000s, Guns N’ Roses were involved in so many concert riots around the world that reading about Guns N’ Roses riots actually becomes boring after a while. However, one really stands out—the 1992 riot in Montreal. Due to both technical and health issues, Guns N’ Roses had to cut their set short. End result? The crowd went crazy, leading to police in riot gear, tear gas, and half a million dollars in damages.

1993: COMPLETELY NUDE, SHANNON HOON DELIVERS A PIZZA TO GUNS N’ ROSES ON STAGE
The Gunners were on tour in Europe, and it was antics as usual. In the middle of a performance in Switzerland, the late Blind Melon frontman Shannon Moon turned up on stage in the nude with a pizza for the band. Casual as ever, he decided to rock out with his cock out to an audience of 50,000 people and sit in on bongos for a few songs.

2007: BUCKETHEAD'S CHICKEN COUP
Near the end of Chinese Democracy's absurd twenty year recording time, Axl enlisted the help of cult rock guitarist Buckethead. When it was all said and done, the album would end up costing $13 million dollars to produce. So, when Buckethead requested they build a chicken coup decorated with rubber chicken parts for him to record inside, no one blinked an eye. For some sessions, Buckethead kept a TV monitor in his coup that streamed hardcore porn 24/7.

2008: DR. PEPPER’S PUBLIC CHALLENGE
In March 2008, Dr. Pepper stated they would give a free can of soda to everyone in the United States—apart from ex-Gunners members Slash and Buckethead—if Chinese Democracy came out that year. Axl got the record out, in the process crashing Dr. Pepper's website with a flood of requests for the freebie.

Guns N' Roses' 2017 "Not In This Lifetime Tour" includes a string of stadium shows around Australia. You can see all the dates and buy tickets here.