My Appetite for Destruction by Steven Adler

Guns saw themselves as reviving rock’s vanished rebel spirit. It could be seen as the last great rock record made totally by hand.” But Appetite was also among the last classic rock records to be mastered with vinyl in mind, to be edited with a razor blade applied to two-inch tape, to be mixed by five people frantically pushing faders at a non-automated mixing board “We used classic instruments and classic amps,” says the album’s producer and engineer, Mike Clink, “Our approach was reminiscent of stuff that was done in the Sixties and early Seventies.” Adds assistant mixing engineer Deyglio, who earned a credit as “Victor ‘the fuckin’ engineer'” on the album: “It could almost be seen as the last of one of those types of records, from Layla to Abbey Road on down. The album looked both forward and backward: The punky rawness of its sound and the pained artistry of its lyrics made it a bridge between commercial Eighties hard rock and the alternative music of the next decade. Released on July 21st, 1987, Appetite for Destruction went on to sell well over 15 million copies in this country alone, becoming one of the best-selling debuts ever. She was haunted by her recording session for years: “I ended up drinking and using drugs over this for a really long time, because I had this extreme shame and guilt and stuff.” But when Adler found out what had been captured on his band’s album, the drummer “fucking freaked out,” Smith says. “He’s fuckin’ magical.” Though she was drunk and giggly that day, Smith eventually gave Rose what he wanted: Her orgasmic moans - which ended up high in the mix on Appetite for Destruction‘s final track, “Rocket Queen” - are for real. “I would do anything Axl asked me to do,” says Smith, now a forty-year-old mom. Smith wanted to get back at Guns n’ Roses drummer Steven Adler for cheating on her - and had always liked the singer better anyway. “It was like a Ron Jeremy set in there,” Deyglio recalls. On that warm weekend evening in the spring of 1987, engineer Vic Deyglio had set up a top-of-the-line vocal microphone to capture the sounds of Rose and Smith having sex - and at one point, he had to dash into the booth to adjust the mike as they went at it. “Come on, Adriana, make it real,” Rose barked, pausing mid-coitus.

Beneath him was a cute nineteen-year-old stripper named Adriana Smith, who happened to be his drummer’s girlfriend. Tape was rolling, and he knew something wasn’t right. Axl Rose was lying nude inside a Manhattan recording studio’s darkened vocal booth, working out some unorthodox last-minute overdubs.

My Appetite for Destruction by Steven Adler