Metal Addicts is here to solve to you, the viewer, all the mysteries the world of heavy music has ever hidden from you – whether you want it or not, we promise you that. Now it’s the time to know the reasons of the bad blood between Metallica and Guns N’ Roses since 1992. The word is with GN’R former manager Doug Goldstein who talked to Guns N’ Roses Central. Here’s with he’s got:
“We got along great until we started the tour with them. There’s a lot of reasons, but once that tour started it went from we were great friends to ‘We don’t really like each other.’ Just generally.
“I think that they intentionally wanted that spot before us. And I told Axl I wanted to swap headlining but he didn’t wanna do it. And I think they walked into it going, ‘We’re going to try and kick their ass every night.’
“That’s what an opener is supposed to do. As a manager, that’s what you tell your opener: ‘Go leave them with a feeling of, ‘Go and try to follow that.”
“When I first started with the band [on tour], t-shirts were $19. And we earned out our advance in a month. So tickets went to – because they gave us such a large advance – t-shirts went to $20. And we kept earning our advances, as was Metallica.
“Metallica wanted a better deal than GN’R, GN’R wanted a better deal than Metallica. And when t-shirts went to like, $23, $22 maybe, I told the band, ‘You know what? Metallica is going to have a better deal than you. I won’t do it anymore. This is where I jump off.’
“And they supported it because they understood. And again, it was because I was more fan-based. I made sure that all of our shirts were done in heavy-cotton material. I didn’t want some throwaway a t-shirt that was going to rip after six months, two months.”
You see? Dollars. Fair point, isn’t it?
