In the beginning they are all brothers in arms. Nothing can keep them apart. And the money begins to flow into their pockets, and the brotherhood vanishes away as long as some receive more money than others. Guns N’ Roses had a more equal way to share the publishing rights. Former manager explained to GN’R Center how they did. Take a look:
“Publishing splits were 20/20/20 [for] Duff, Slash, Izzy, and then 25 [percent for] Axl, and 15 Steven.
“That was a gift to Steven – I mean, Axl used to say that all the time. I wasn’t around for the writing, but he was like, ‘Look, they were trying to force me into even splits.’
“Steven never wrote anything, so he considered that a big gift to Steven.”
Doug also talked about Adler suing the group, and how that hurt the possibility of him coming back to the fold after he was fired in 1990. The manager said:
“I think that had he not sued everybody, it would have been a possibility. But once that was thrown out there – it’s amazing, once you have to reach into your own pocket to spend money for legal defense, those are big numbers.
“I personally spent $500,000. We settled on the courtroom steps, which means we didn’t wait for the jury to come back. When you do that, they do what’s called a jury debriefing.
“So my attorney, god rest his soul, Howard King, got to go first and the jury foreman stood up and said, ‘The only question we have is: Is your client married?’ My lawyer said, ‘I don’t understand the relevance.’
“He said, ‘This guy didn’t do anything wrong, we want him to marry our daughters. All he did was try to save the guy’s life.’ Then [Alan] Niven’s attorney came up, and they were going to crucify Niven because he was at the helm of it.
“The band didn’t know, the band was following the lead of the manager and the attorney. Literally, all I was doing was taking Steven to different rehabs and trying to get him clean.”
