\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\tBefore the crowd of extras arrived later in the afternoon, we were going to shoot close-ups of the band, which we would later intercut with the crowd shots. First in front of the camera was Axl. I\u2019d heard him telling someone earlier that he was going to tease his hair into an enormous fright wig \u2014 something he\u2019d obviously done before \u2014 and that after the video was shot he\u2019d never do it again. Sure enough, he came out with the massive \u2019do that would later define a musical genre: hair metal. After one take \u2014 which is usually not worth the celluloid it\u2019s printed on, as the crew and the artists find their feet \u2014 Axl mumbled something about being freaked out and disappeared back into the depths of the building. He was not seen again for another two hours. As plans go, my plan for the evening was now burning in flames. While I prayed for Axl\u2019s return, we pressed on with close-ups of Slash, Izzy, et al.<\/p>\n \n\tI went home when the night was done, exhausted and confident that my time with the band would not be repeated, as we clearly had nothing in common. Climbing into my VW Golf, I saw the band disappearing into the night, followed by a horde of willing and nubile young things.<\/p>\n \n\tThe edit was subsequently completed to everyone\u2019s satisfaction and sent off to MTV, who promptly rejected it. Unnoticed by me (and everyone else), we\u2019d included a piece of stock footage which very briefly, like a frame or two, panned past a Coca-Cola machine whose logo was just about recognizable. MTV didn\u2019t condone advertising unless it was connected with large amounts of cash paid directly into their coffers. Video effects back then were in their infancy and costly, but Geffen authorized an overrun and the errant Coke machine was transformed into an anonymous red blob. The video was resubmitted and rejected again. And fixed again. And then the really bad news arrived \u2014 MTV simply didn\u2019t want to play the video at all. Too edgy, too heavy, too real, too violent, too loud, too sexy? Who knew? They simply didn\u2019t want anything to do with it.<\/p>\n \n\tWith the important Christmas sales season coming up, the label pulled out the heavy guns. David Geffen: \u201cI called my friend Tom Freston [at MTV] and said to him, \u2018Just play it in the middle of the night. Don\u2019t report it, just play it and let\u2019s see if there\u2019s a reaction to it.\u2019\u201d *<\/p>\n \n\tTom Zutaut, the A&R man who signed G n\u2019 R: \u201cSometimes there\u2019s that one thing that pushes someone\u2019s exposure \u2026 and in this case, that one thing that David did made all the difference in the world \u2026 from a band that was dead at 200,000 to a band that sold almost a hundred million.\u201d *<\/p>\n \n\tAnd so it was agreed the video would be played once a day but only after 9:00 p.m. The hair metal craze was off to a very jumpy and problematic start.<\/p>\n \n\tI forgot about <\/strong>Guns n\u2019 Roses and concentrated on that Was (Not Was) video I was planning. Then Alan Niven called again. Christmas had passed, \u201cWelcome to the Jungle\u201d was still being played and it seemed something might be happening out there in MTV land. There was going to be a second video called \u201cSweet Child o\u2019 Mine.\u201d Axl was dating Phil Everly\u2019s daughter Erin and was rumoured to have written the song about her. This was the second G n\u2019 R track I\u2019d heard, and I didn\u2019t like this one much either, though I thought the guitar solo rocked. Instead of presenting me with an idea for the video, Alan suggested I meet him for lunch at a swanky L.A. watering hole. He would bring Axl.<\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019ve occasionally been asked what this musician or that celebrity is like because I\u2019ve worked with them. My usual answer is I haven\u2019t a clue. The beauty of the business I\u2019ve been in all these years is all the wonderful people I\u2019ve met and become friends with all over the world, but those people have mostly been camera folk, casting directors, producers and editors, grips and gaffers, art directors and location scouts. Going to lunch with the lead singer of a band was quite unusual.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Axl I saw at lunch that day was a happy, funny young man. He had some ideas for \u201cSweet Child o\u2019 Mine\u201d which were quite dark. I also feared the ideas were expensive, but I nonetheless promised to write them up into a treatment. The video would open on a newspaper headline which said TOUR CANCELLED and pan down to a frame of Axl from the \u201cWelcome to the Jungle\u201d video \u2014 this picture would be captioned BRAIN DEAD? We\u2019d see an ambulance racing past and then depositing Axl in a mental home wearing another white straitjacket similar to the one in \u201cJungle.\u201d In a room full of male mental patients Axl would look through a window at an adjacent room full of female mental patients. Eventually, he would be transfixed by the image of Erin Everly, who would be equally transfixed on the other side of the glass.<\/p>\n \n\tAs the lunch progressed, we mostly talked about Queen and the Electric Light Orchestra. In the end, that lunch with Axl produced an agreement between us that \u201cMr. Blue Sky\u201d was a perfect pop moment and an open verdict on whether Out of the Blue<\/em> would have been better as a single album.<\/p>\n \n\tOver the five videos I did for Guns n\u2019 Roses, this was the only social interaction I had with anyone in the band. I\u2019m not resentful or upset by this \u2014 this is the way my business has been. I\u2019m part of a service industry, and my service is to provide great film. When I ask the plumber to come over to my house to fix a leaking tap I don\u2019t expect to hang out and share my life story with him \u2014 I want him to fix my tap and then leave.<\/p>\n \n\tThe treatment I\u2019d written up <\/strong>was rejected. Alan rang me back \u2014 they simply wanted a performance video, and he had a location in mind: an old ballroom above a bank in Huntington Park. We could have the band rock out and shoot ourselves shooting the band, invite Erin and friends down and cut the whole thing together. The only problem we\u2019d have to solve was clearing out the prodigious piles of pigeon crap we found in the building when we went to check it out.<\/p>\n \n\tThe first attempt to shoot the video was cancelled at the last moment. When the plug is pulled just hours before work commences, the crew gets paid. I got half my fee and smiled all the way to the bank. A few weeks later, the shoot was postponed a second time: drummer Steven Adler was \u201cill,\u201d and you can translate that any way you like. Once again, the crew got their cancellation fees, though I think, as I\u2019d already pocketed a couple of thousand bucks from the first cancellation, I nobly (but foolishly) volunteered to put this delay down to experience and not submit another invoice.<\/p>\n \n\tConsequently, when, at the third attempt, we actually got our gear in the building I was not really optimistic that we\u2019d roll any film \u2014 especially as Alan warned me that the band would appear on time but that Axl would arrive late and have to check out the building and see if the \u201cvibe was right\u201d before he\u2019d agree to join in and take part. This was not good news. A rock band without a lead singer is no fucking use to anyone.<\/p>\n \n\tBut I had noticed that a promising change was in the air. Firstly, someone from MTV was going to be on set with us. The young lady had specially flown in from New York and Alan had concocted a piece of simple blackmail. He wanted to put her on the dolly and have our \u201cbehind-the-scenes\u201d film crew shoot her operating one of the cameras. If we used that footage in the video, then surely MTV would play the video, if only to show one of their own hard at work. Director of Photography Vance Burberry and his crew rolled their eyeballs, but we all understood that, though we saw ourselves as \u201ccreatives,\u201d we were in the business of selling small round silver things, and if that\u2019s what we had to do, we\u2019d do it. When we\u2019d shot \u201cWelcome to the Jungle\u201d I couldn\u2019t recall seeing anyone from the label on the set, but there were lots of people from Geffen here, many of them wearing high heels and short skirts.<\/p>\n \n\tSuddenly a whisper went round the set. Axl had been spotted outside and was said to be climbing the stairs into the building. Everyone pretended not to notice but watched nervously as he prowled around, checking that everything was to his liking. An emissary was sent my way. Axl approved, and we were ready to shoot. Sighs of relief were audible around the building. The Assistant Directors scurried to and fro, getting everyone ready for camera.<\/p>\n \n\tAxl had suggested that it would be a cool idea if, just before the solo, he ripped off his leather jacket so he could really rock out in his T-shirt in the second half of the song. I concurred but asked if he could please remember to do it in every take at exactly the same point in the song. Axl said that would be no problem.<\/p>\n \n\tSo, why now, halfway through the first take of the shoot, was Axl flailing his arm like a windmill with his jacket hurling around through space like a lasso? I yelled \u201cCut\u201d at the top of my voice and everything stopped.<\/p>\n \n\tAxl \u2014 just like any self-respecting rock star would \u2014 had festooned his wrists with myriad bracelets, and the bracelets had got caught in the lining of the sleeve of the jacket. We figured out a solution and started over.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the middle of take two it happened again. And take three and take four and take five. We were an hour into filming, and I hadn\u2019t gotten a single run-through in the can. Alan wandered over and shooed away the women in their high heels. He leaned over me and whispered, \u201cFor god\u2019s sake, get a full take now whatever happens. Axl is going to walk any minute.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn take six we got lucky; from that moment onwards things proceeded according to plan. We\u2019d started shooting at 4:00 p.m. and wrapped somewhere around 2:00 in the morning.<\/p>\n \n\tBut we weren\u2019t wrapped at all. Axl had other ideas. He was having so much fun he wanted to keep going. And so we went back to work. By 4:00 a.m. we\u2019d completely run out of film. I pulled the plug and we all went home.<\/p>\n \n\tI had started <\/strong>regularly working with a wonderful editor named Michael Heldman, who was to become a lifelong friend. The two of us set about cutting the hours of footage into the \u201cSweet Child o\u2019 Mine\u201d video you know today. There was one problem \u2014 like most music video sets, no one was recording any audio, so when we cut in the shot of the panting dog before the music starts, we had no panting dog sound. We found a microphone, we rolled tape \u2026 and Michael started panting like a dog. We also didn\u2019t have the sound of Slash plugging in his guitar, so I went home, cranked up my tiny practice amp and recorded the plugging-in guitar sound on my cassette four-track. Not exactly high fidelity, but no one has ever complained.<\/p>\n \n\tThe next big issue for me was that Axl shimmied from side to side with an unusual snakelike move that struck me as effeminate and lame. It wasn\u2019t rock and roll or tough. When Michael showed me the first cut, I instructed him to take that move out, every single shot of it. And then a woman in our office wandered into the edit bay and saw 30 seconds of the cut.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI love those shots of Axl doing that sexy side-to-side dance of his. He\u2019s gorgeous!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI realized she fancied him. But, more importantly, I realized that what I hated was something that others seemed to really, really like. When she left, I turned to Michael. \u201cAll those shots of Axl shimmying from side to side \u2014 you know the ones I told you to take out? Put them back in \u2014 all of them. And see if you can find some more!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhether it was the shimmying, the gratuitous shot of the MTV employee pretending to operate the camera or the fact that people, a lot of people, were now buying copies of Appetite for Destruction,<\/em> MTV was very enthusiastic about the video and there was no 9:00 p.m. restriction on this clip. It went into heavy rotation and was suddenly the hottest thing on the channel.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Trouser Press Books<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe next G n\u2019 R video was \u201cParadise City.\u201d <\/strong>Alan\u2019s plan this time was a clever one. The Gunners were touring the States opening for Aerosmith, who were also on Geffen. They had a date at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, so why don\u2019t we go and shoot them there and \u201cborrow\u201d the huge Aerosmith crowd to create the impression that G n\u2019 R were already massive enough to draw tens of thousands? Within a few months, the band would be able to draw a crowd of that size on their own, but for now it was a bit of a white lie. If we pulled it off, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The icing on the cake was that, immediately after the Giants Stadium show, the band were going to fly by Concorde to England to appear at the Donington Park heavy metal festival. I would get to go back to England with the band, on the Concorde no less, and shoot more footage there in front of another massive crowd.<\/p>\n \n\tGiants Stadium<\/strong> was sunny and bright. We were rolling film during soundcheck, and Slash was perched on the edge of the stage with his guitar wailing, wearing only shorts and boots.<\/p>\n \n\tAlan Niven sauntered over and told me that Axl would not be available to talk before they went onstage, so was there anything I needed to know before showtime?<\/p>\n \n\tMe: When will the band be playing \u201cParadise City\u201d?<\/p>\n \n\tAlan: When do you want them to play it?<\/p>\n \n\tMe: Third song in would be perfect.<\/p>\n \n\tAlan: Why third?<\/p>\n \n\tMe: We only have four cameras. The magazines on the cameras should last through the first two songs, so if we change mags before the start of the third song, we can make sure that all cameras are fully loaded when they do \u201cParadise City.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAlan: I\u2019ll go and check with Axl.<\/p>\n \n\tAlan returned five minutes later, chuckling.<\/p>\n \n\tAlan: Axl said he doesn\u2019t know where \u201cParadise City\u201d will be in the set. All he knows at this point is that it definitely won\u2019t be third!<\/p>\n \n\tMe: Seriously?<\/p>\n \n\tAlan: Seriously.<\/p>\n \n\tI rolled my eyes and went to the office at the back of the stadium, where my four monitors had been set up, and tested the talk-back system. At a live show you give each camera operator a headset and a transmitter\/receiver so you can give them instructions on what you want them to shoot. Everything was working perfectly, and I paced nervously, waiting for showtime.<\/p>\n \n\tThe cameras started rolling the minute the band appeared behind the massive stage, ready to go on. On my monitors, I saw Axl for the first time that day. He\u2019d gone full Hollywood rock and roll in a white leather jacket and pants. Slash was wearing a Hard Rock T-shirt with a difference \u2014 instead of L.A. or New York or London, the location printed on the shirt read \u201cHell.\u201d I chuckled to myself and wished the crew good luck as the band raced onstage. Down in the guts of the arena I could hear the crowd roar and the first dull thuds as Steven Adler tested his kick drum. I heard the count-off for the first tune, the band launched into their set \u2026<\/p>\n \n\t\u2026 and all the monitors in front of me promptly turned to snow and static! We\u2019d tested the video transmitters after soundcheck and everything had worked perfectly but, when that massive PA system started belting G n\u2019 R out to a packed stadium, the soundwaves were so powerful that the transmitters couldn\u2019t cope. Occasional images drifted in and out of the static as if the band members were in a hurricane on Mars. I tried my best to direct the cameras to shoot useful angles. I didn\u2019t dare look around, but I sensed Alan over my shoulder boring holes in my back. I still had no idea when \u201cParadise City\u201d would appear in the set. This $200,000 job was turning into a white-knuckle ride in a snowstorm; I now knew what must have been going through the Big Bopper\u2019s mind as he and Buddy Holly took off on their final fateful flight.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd \u201cParadise City\u201d? They played it third!<\/p>\n \n\tThe months passed <\/strong>and Alan Niven called me again to say the band had made an EP, and we were going to make a video for \u201cPatience.\u201d The band had an idea that involved a recording studio setup and a collection of hotel scenes.<\/p>\n \n\tWe shot the studio scenes at the Record Plant in Hollywood. Axl whistled his way through the tune; Slash slumped in a chair and let his hair fall over his face. I kept asking him to look up and reveal himself, but he ignored me and then was upset when he couldn\u2019t see himself in the final edit. The hotel footage was shot at the Ambassador on Wilshire Boulevard. I\u2019d shot the Temptations there when I first moved to L.A. The hotel had still been open then, but now it was a neglected dusty mausoleum, a memory of a bygone glamorous age. In other words, the perfect place for a film crew to go about their business and make as much noise as we wanted.<\/p>\n \n\tAs each bandmember had his own vignette, it became clear that the vibe between them had changed. When we\u2019d shot \u201cWelcome to the Jungle\u201d there was a clear impression of them as a solid social unit \u2014 five lads together against the world. But now, with some success and thousands of road miles under their belt, they were five distinct organs all pulling in different directions, no longer with the same unity of purpose. It happens with all bands eventually, but I felt it was happening particularly quickly with G n\u2019 R.<\/p>\n \n\tThere was a final hurrah with the band when we shot the video for \u201cIt\u2019s So Easy,\u201d which in the end did not show me in the best light. The idea called for Axl and Erin to be seen in various scenes involving bondage. Whips and gags were the order of the day; those moments would be intercut with live footage shot in Hollywood\u2019s Cathouse. When I delivered the treatment to Anne-Marie Mackay, now my rep at Propaganda, she refused to allow us to be associated with it. I\u2019d like to say that I did the right thing but, as always, I wanted to get the gig and pressed onwards despite her objections. Looking back, I believe she was right, but it says a lot about my work ethic (or not, depending on your view) that I put the blinkers on and just pressed onwards to get the job done. The scenes between Erin and Axl were shot with Axl making most of the crucial decisions on set as I was too embarrassed to really get behind the idea. Axl eventually contacted Vance, my DP, directly to shoot the footage of him and two girls making out in the car.<\/p>\n \n\tThe live footage at the Cathouse was shot during a crazy live show in a packed club with the P.A. cranked to the max. There were no monitors for me to watch, and my directing consisted of pushing through the sweaty bodies and pointing frantically to tell the cameramen what to shoot. My abiding memory of that night is sitting on the hood of my car talking to a crew member on the street after the show and watching David Bowie leave the club alone. He gave us a brief, limp smile as he passed and then disappeared into the night.<\/p>\n \n\tAs we were completing the edit, Slash stopped by the edit room to check it out. He arrived carrying a beer bottle as if still in the role we\u2019d first seen him play in \u201cWelcome to the Jungle.\u201d After he approved the cut I walked him to the door of our office. He draped his arm around me. \u201cY\u2019know Nigel, we need to go out and drink sometime.\u201d What could I tell him but the truth? \u201cSlash, I don\u2019t really drink!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs his arm slipped from around my neck and he stumbled for the door, I heard him say, \u201cWeird!\u201d **<\/p>\n \n\tWe sent a cut<\/strong> of the video to the label, where it remained in limbo for many years before being released with the 30th anniversary edition of Appetite for Destruction<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tFor the next few years, a manager or label person would hire me to shoot their hair metal band and say, \u201cDo for my lead singer what you did for Axl Rose.\u201d And I would accept the gig, knowing in my heart that I was involved in a fool\u2019s errand. For all their faults, the original Guns n\u2019 Roses were a magic collection of parts that created a greater whole. And no one was ever going to match Axl, let alone be a better version of him. God knows, I certainly tried to do my best.<\/p>\n \n\tI get calls every few years from journalists wanting to talk about the videos I made for the band. I go on YouTube to watch them again to see if there\u2019s anything I\u2019ve forgotten. The final irony is that, when I watch the videos, I finally get Guns n\u2019 Roses. I didn\u2019t understand at the time what they were about; it seems I had to make the videos so that I and the rest of the world could see what it was that made them tick.<\/p>\n \n\tSlash was certainly right: Weird.<\/p>\n \n\t* These remarks are documented in the PBS American Masters show Inventing David Geffen.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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