Original subtitles

♪ MTV ♪

[crew member] Kip interview, take three.

Common mark.

[interviewer] What's it feel like to be a goddamn rockstar?

Being a rockstar is fucking amazing.

It's fucking amazing. - [crowd cheers]

What you live for is the moment you walk out on stage,

[crowd cheering]

and you hear the crowd roaring.

[Kip] Thank you very much!

[Kip] The energy of all the people

and the noise they're making.

They're there to see you.

There's nothing like it, man. Nothing like it.

♪ Easy come, easy go ♪

[Kip] It's the highest high of all highs.

[Kip] See you next time, all right!

I have a deep sadness in me

because, you know, I did not get enough of that.

[crowd cheering]

[guitar music]

[light switch flicks]

[electric guitar music]

[bass rumbling]

[cymbals clicking]

[Vicky] The music business can be very hope-shattering

and faith-shattering.

But for that moment in time

where the band that you're managing is on the rise

and they're it...

[rock music]

there's nothing that quite matches that feeling.

[whistling]

I pick the bands that really, like, craft a good song.

[tape player clicks]

[tape whirring]

It was September, 1984.

My friend said, "There's like this great new band.

They're fresh in town from Pennsylvania.

Do you wanna come to the showcase and check 'em out?"

I'm like, "Well, what's their name?"

[rock music]

I loved Poison.

It was so fun.

So I started courting them

and ended up becoming their manager.

Poison was the hardest working band in Hollywood.

They all lived in a two bedroom apartment.

They showed me videos when they were called Paris,

and they did all these Moötley Cruüe covers.

But I was like, never show this to anyone.

[laughs]

[rock music]

[Vicky] They never had a plan B,

and so they knew they had to succeed at this.

And I worked out a deal with the Troubadour

for Poison to play there every month, once a month,

and that the Troubadour would pay Poison's rent

and phone bill.

We had a meeting with Wes Hein who ran Enigma Records.

He offered them like $25,000 to make a record,

and they decided they wanted to do that.

[rock guitar music]

They just didn't wanna do that cheap of a record.

Little did I know, you know, a few months later...

♪ You gotta cry tough ♪

♪ Out on the streets ♪

♪ To make your dreams happen ♪

[Vicky] I kinda knew that Poison would do pretty well.

Did I think they would be as big as they were?

No.

♪ Down the basement ♪

♪ Lock the cellar door, and baby ♪

♪ Talk dirty to me ♪

[cheering]

[Katherine] Poison got mostly women in the early days.

And that's kind of a difference, the appeal.

You know, it has to do with the music,

but also clearly the image.

Their debut album, Look What the Cat Dragged In

has just racked up its first million styles.

Yeah, it's great. - [both laugh]

The rise of metal really began in the huge commercial,

you know, magazine's way

withLook What the Cat Dragged In

andSlippery When Wet.

♪ Shot through the heart, and you're to blame ♪

♪ You give love ♪

[Katherine] Bon Jovi and Poison,

rock band with good hair,

rock band with great image and big hair.

I would not kick Jon Bon Jovi out of my bed.

Never.

[fans cheering]

[Katherine] And that was really

the breaking open of the gate

of metal becoming commercial.

[interviewer] Give me a list of the biggest bands of the era.

No, I'm not gonna do it. I won't go on record.

So...

[Craig] Quiet Riot, Great White.

[Vicky] Twisted Sister.

[Craig] WASP.

[all] Moötley Cruüe.

[Craig] Bon Jovi, Poison.

[Vicky] Warrant.

I can do better, hold on.

RATT. LA Guns. Guns N' Roses.

Autograph.

[Vicky] Stryper.

Def Leppard. Def Leppard were the best.

Cinderella and White Lion.

Faster Pussycat. Europe.

["Final Countdown" by Europe plays] - [Craig hums to tune]

Get that outta your head for the rest of the day.

[Wayne] MTV brought energy into the whole market

of metal going from pop music

to then suddenly grabbing onto metal 'cause they

could see the energy that you could see the enthusiasm.

They were able to market that and show people the clothing

the styles, the energy, the direction, the lifestyle.

♪ Everybody's crazy ♪

[interviewer] You went from directing Michael Bolton...

[Wayne chuckles] - to Moötley Cruüe.

♪ Sweet Little Girl, She's the high school queen ♪

Yeah, to go from Michael Bolton and "Everybody's Crazy",

even though I'm really proud of the video and the graphics

and everything we did. I just imagine

what he thinks of now when he sees that

and that look and that genre that he was attacking.

♪ She's got the looks that kill ♪

[Wayne] Moötley did "She Got the Looks That Kill".

♪ She's got looks to kill ♪

I look at "Looks That Kill and I just start laughing

at the overdramatic it's almost like they're making a silent film.

It'sNosferatu, you know, it's like, the girls are...

are leaning back and screaming.

There's an absurdity to the whole concept.

It was funny but in a positive sense.

It's not funny to laugh at, going, you guys are idiots.

Funny going, "Yeah, that's what it's about."

Guys doing their guitar poses

or their guitar player fuck faces.

The music, the concept,

the groove is all fun energy.

♪ Smokin' in the boys' room ♪

♪ We're smokin' in the boys' room ♪

[Wayne] "Smokin' The Boys' Room",

I said look, you guys can run over here.

You bust through this wall and run over here.

And Nikki looks at me and goes,

"Rock stars don't run,

we're not gonna run somewhere,

we're not afraid of anything." Just, no.

["Home Sweet Home" by Moötley Cruüe plays]

[Wayne] Coming backstage with Moötley when we're doing

"Home Sweet Home", Tommy in fishnet stockings

and other weird shit and makeup.

♪ Home sweet home ♪

[Wayne] The absurdity of their outfits,

the absurdity of their hair,

the absurdity of what they're doing.

You know, they're not walking

down the street wearing that shit.

MTV would seed your visibility with a heavy track.

♪ My gypsy road can't take me home ♪

♪ I drive all night just to see the light ♪

But they blow you up...

♪ Don't know what you've got till it's gone ♪

[Lonn] With gigantic...

♪ Heaven isn't too far away ♪

[Lonn]...ridiculous...

♪ Carry ♪

[Lonn]...wind machine driven ballads...

♪ Every rose has its thorn ♪

[Lonn]...silly outfits...

♪ Love bites ♪

♪ Love bleeds ♪

♪ Lonely...

[Lonn]...bombastic stupid videos.

The thing to do is to do the power ballad.

And I was like, we don't have one.

I'm not a, I don't write power ballads, you know?

I never wrote songs for a label telling me you have to

write this or write that.

I just wrote a song until I liked it.

♪ Now there's no one home ♪

♪ In my house of pain ♪

[Taime] "House of Pain". You know, I thought it turned out pretty good,

especially when you got Aerosmith

saying that's their favorite song.

And I was like, you rock.

[tape clicks]

[tape whirs]

[Janet] Really quickly after I first joined the band,

we went in and started recording, was in the basement

of the Capitol Building.

The famous Capitol Records building

and that was a real eye opener there.

I'm gonna go in there and sing a couple songs,

it's a big deal.

[chuckles] It was a very big deal.

We thought we were finished recording the album.

Our label wanted to make sure that we had radio

friendly songs, we needed singles.

We had met Richard Marx.

He was like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, maybe we should work together."

♪ Wherever you go ♪

♪ Whatever you do ♪

[Janet] The record company had told him we need a first single

for Vixen.

He's super talented

and he knows people.

He totally knew how to get the best out of all of us.

That's when he came up with "Edge of a Broken Heart".

[driving rock music]

[Janet] When I went out there to sing

I had no lyrics yet.

He walked in the studio

as I'm standing there.

"Here are the lyrics." No pressure there.

♪ I can't believe I could have been so blind ♪

♪ But love is strange ♪

[Janet] We were on MTV when it first came out.

[all] Hi, we're Vixen.

You know it, you love it,

"Edge of a Broken Heart". - All right.

♪ I've been living on the edge of a broken heart ♪

♪ I don't wanna fall ♪

♪ I don't wanna crawl ♪

♪ I've been living on the edge of a broken heart ♪

♪ Don't you wonder why ♪

♪ I gotta say goodbye ♪

[Janet] They sold 150,000 copies of our album in the first week.

I got Janet and Roxy. - Hi, Ricky.

Hi, Roxy. Hi, Janet. - Hi, Ricky.

[Janet] It was all firing on all cylinders.

It was a very, very exciting time.

We went from playing clubs for a few hundred people...

♪ Don't you wonder why I gotta say goodbye ♪

♪ I've been living on the edge... ♪

[Janet]...to arenas.

[crowd cheering]

It's hard to put it into words how good it felt

to get out in front of all those people.

Does anybody out there wanna raise some hell?

[crowd cheering]

Let's do it!

Ooh, I know something.

There is some essential stuff that is so rock

and roll down here that you definitely want to get.

This is us jamming "Little Wing". Ha.

Yes.

So this is one of the first posters we ever did

from 1988 in front of

The Cat Club in New York City.

That moment right before we got the record deal.

I'm thinking to myself,

"We get to play music for a living."

Like what a, an amazing gift to be able to, to experience.

So that's that poster story. - [laughs]

[tape clicks]

You are the "Youth Gone Wild"!

[Snake] We had released "Youth Gone Wild" as the first song.

♪ We are the youth gone wild ♪

[Snake] No one really knew who we were.

Wayne Isham and Curt Marvis did our video,

♪ We are the youth gone wild ♪

[Wayne] With "Youth Gone Wild",

I'd met the guys,

Snake and Scotty, Baz is crazy.

They're all great guys, really good performers.

They're ready to rock

but never really been in front of the camera.

You know, it's overwhelming to have the machine

of film surround you with all this shit.

We were all tense and nervous while we were doing it.

So I went out and bought a couple bottles of Jack

and came back and made everybody

have a couple hits, and let's do it.

We might as well play the "Youth Gone Wild" video. - Yeah.

That was a new experience for the band. How was that?

It was great. It was like, 'cause like doing a album is like doing a,

a show in a urinal, you know, 'cause it's all sterile

and it smells and stuff and it's just not...

You gotta be, gotta get in good with the janitor.

You'll be all right. - [all laugh]

♪ We are the youth gone wild ♪

[Snake] It was time to release the next single,

we were all on board with the song "18 And Life".

♪ Ricky was a young boy ♪

[Snake] We enlisted Wayne Isham and Curt Marvis...

[driving rock]

[Snake]...to come up with a storyboard

and shoot a video for "18 And Life".

♪...from the edge of town ♪

What they came up with was absolutely magical.

♪ 18 and life, you got it ♪

♪ 18 and life, you know ♪

♪ Your crime is time and it's ♪

♪ 18 and life to go ♪

[Snake] I don't think I could have imagined a better

representation visually for a song that I was a part in

in writing with Rachel.

Without them coming up

with that and creating that visual,

I don't think we would've been

as successful as we were.

And the winner is... Skid Row.

Hey, this is Skid Row.

Stay tuned for the week in rock.

Right here on MTV.

[Snake] And that was the turning point for our record.

That's when people in the audiences really knew us.

You do anything special on stage in Russia?

Sing on key.

[Snake] You're signing autographs like crazy.

And it's something that I practiced when I was a kid.

All these things that you had

in your mind about how it might be, it really is.

[playing "18 And Life"]

Got a record deal, freaking out, put the record out.

Nothing, nothing happened.

Bo called me and said, well, we've sold 15,000 albums!

And I was like, "Oh, my God,

we sold 15,000 albums?"

And he's like, "Yeah, well, the record companies,

you know, they're gonna drop us."

So then we were like, "Well, we gotta make a video

'cause the video is where it's at."

Four or so people came from the

label to see if we were worthy of making it.

[rock guitar music]

[Kip] These are seasoned guys.

So I have my ballet tights and our rock regalia.

I just came out of Alice Cooper.

Rev was a rockstar when he came

out of the womb, and we blew them away, man.

They're like, "Absolutely, when are we gonna start?" You know?

That's awesome!

They gave us the money to do "Madalaine".

MTV put the video in the top 10 countdown.

Everybody we know, call, call, call, call, call.

You know? So we're all home calling MTV and...

[MTV Announcer] And number one is Winger.

It started catching on.

♪ Madalaine... ♪

♪ This is love too tough to tame ♪

[Kip] Radio followed and the song really took off.

As for our second video, 17...

[Riki Rachtman] What does "she's a magic mountain" mean?

So I thought maybe she was an amusement park.

She a magic, magic mountain. - She's at Disneyland?

Just like a big ice cream mountain with M&MS on it.

[Kip] And by the time 17 came out,

we were selling 30,000 albums a week.

♪ I'm only 17 ♪

You're in the right place... Winger!

Bam, it's happening.

♪ She's only 17 ♪

♪ 17 ♪

♪ Daddy says she's too young ♪

♪ But she's old enough for me ♪

And I didn't write the line,

"Daddy say's she's too young

but she's old enough for me."

That's the one line that I did not write.

That's the line that really buried me, man.

♪ I'm only 17 ♪

♪ Yeah 17 ♪

♪ I'll show you love ♪

♪ No, you ain't seen nothing like me ♪

[Kip] The lyrics are very pop

and totally not politically correct anymore, but,

but McCartney's still singing,

"She's only 17," so you know,

call him up and you know, he's the, he's the leader.

Oh, God, Kip, I'm really sorry.

Do you wanna take your pants off? I could put 'em in the oven.

[chuckles] No, it's okay.

It'll evaporate from my body heat.

He just talked about his body heat.

Kip, were you born with that sexy smile?

Give mean this one?

There's nothing we don't like about Winger.

[Kip] The fact that I ended up being a pinup, it's great,

but none of the musicians take you seriously they think that

since you're a pinup, you couldn't possibly be a musician.

I got into this as a musician to begin with.

The writing I do with Winger, all of us have our own niche

when it comes to that.

Like Rod and Rev seem to be

more of a fusion type thing,

and Kips really into classical.

[Kip] This song that you'll hear now,

it's kind of a big orchestration.

So I got into it from that point

'cause I got to do my string arrangement,

my horn arrangement, and all of that.

We are going to rock the house

as The Bullet Boys would say. [laughs]

Our agent called the Scorpions and said,

"Take this band on tour."

And they said "Yes."

And then we had a shot.

["Time To Surrender" by Winger plays]

[Kip] The first gig we had was Minneapolis with the Scorpions.

Reb blows his amp on the first song.

I don't have my front man chops together.

I didn't even know what to say to the audience.

And the Scorpions are like,

"Who are these guys? They suck. Fire of them immediately."

Our gig was in danger.

So I watched Klaus Meine front The Scorpions long enough

to steal some of his chops and get the audience going.

[audience cheers]

♪ I need to loosen up ♪

♪ I need a little juicin' up ♪

[Kip] And then, you know, we had a very successful tour with them.

We immediately were livin' the rock star life.

Tour buses, music,

everything that goes along with it, all the trappings

that go, it was amazing.

[crowd cheers]

[light switch flips]

[tape clicks]

[tape whirs]

[John] I left the band Angora,

we met this guy named John Greenberg.

And I said to him, I think you're really good man.

I got my buddies, this band called Racer X

and they're singer as left and they need a new singer

and their other guitar player has left to

join this other band.

So they're kind of reforming

but I think you'd be great with them.

And that was the beginning of the The Scream.

♪ Waved goodbye to a friend of mine ♪

♪ Guess it's time as the sun shines through the door ♪

♪ Another night is gone ♪

Which quickly led to a bunch of demo recordings.

♪ The man in the moon ♪

[John] Our manager decided to do showcases.

That version of the band hadn't even done a show.

♪...all in all it ain't a bad change ♪

♪ I like it alone... ♪

[John] We did three showcases

a day for like five days

for every record label.

We only had like three or four songs.

So we played 'em what we had.

And at the end of the thing we had like

three or four record deals on the table.

The one thing that we learned

from our past bands was to just be ourselves.

You know, not worry

about radio songs or singles

or anything like that.

Just pretty much come up

with an album kind of a thing.

My dad was very structured,

very nuts and bolts, Roman Catholic.

His thing was, you work hard,

you put your money in the bank

you take care of your family, you save for a rainy day.

He's never gonna approve of what I do.

Even when he came to see me

with The Scream, I said,

"Hey, Dad, what did you think?"

And he goes, "You really used the F word a lot."

♪ Man in the moon ♪

[crowd cheering]

[intense synth music]

[crowd chants] Vixen! Vixen!

Vixen! Vixen!

Vixen!

Vixen! Vixen!

It was everything that you would ever dream it would be

and more.

We definitely got a lot of press.

We got a lot of magazines,

a lot of features, a lot of covers.

[all] We're live, so call us!

Power 95 FM. It's Hollywood here along with Vixen.

[Janet] Lots of interviews. Every day on the road,

we were doing some sort of interview.

And a lot of 'em had pretty much the same questions.

[caller] How do you guys feel

being an all-female rock band

in a male dominated rock music industry?

Power 95.

[caller] Yeah, what do you guys think about

the stereotypes that women, you know,

can't be rock and rollers?

It's not true!

Yeah, obviously,

we're not a big fan of that.

[laughing]

What's it like to be a girl?

What's it like to be a girl with a guitar?

Well, they're great instrumental players.

They got great voices and everything,

but they're also hot. - [interviewer] Sex sells.

Yeah. - That's what it is.

That's the way it goes.

[Janet] For us, we tried to,

as much as we could,

ignore the fact that we were female.

♪ I want you to rock me, roll me ♪

♪ You gotta control me ♪

♪ Rock me ♪ - [reporter] Girl band.

That's what the music industry chooses to call

an all-woman rock and roll group.

Belittling, yes, but surprising, no.

Remember, this is the industry that uses women

as sex objects in music videos.

♪ She's my cherry pie ♪

♪ Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise ♪

[Janet] In looking at some of the videos from back then,

there was a lot of objectifying of women and blatant.

It was commonplace and as girls that sucked.

["Girls, Girls, Girls" by Moötley Cruüe plays]

[Wayne] Girls, Girls, Girls. Who else would go,

"Now it's like, I'm gonna go from every strip club

in Hollywood on the back of our motorcycles."

You know, that shit doesn't go down now.

♪ Girls, girls, girls ♪

♪ Dancing down on the Sunset Strip ♪

Excuse me, I'm not a groupie or anything

and I've never asked for this before,

but... - Mm-hmm.

[woman whispering]

So what do you want?

Ooh, let me tell you what I want.

[rock music playing]

[Vicky] The way that men treated women

in the eighties was really terrible.

They viewed women as nurses and secretaries

and whores, basically.

Bands survived off of strippers and prostitutes.

[acoustic music playing]

[Janet] For us, it was just really important

to get the message across.

You don't have to be one of those.

You don't have to be in a cage.

You don't have to swing around the stripper pole.

You don't have to take your clothes off.

You can be part of it. You can be part of the music.

♪ Yeah yeah ♪

♪ Oh whoa ♪

[acoustic song ending]

[audience cheering]

Thank you.

[clicking]

[cassette tape whirring]

[cassette tape stops]

[cassette tape plays]

[interviewer] Okay, let's get real basic and direct here.

What do you think of sex in music videos today?

[softly chuckles] Well, I think...

♪ classical music plays ♪

[Tipper] Auditory pornography, visual pornography,

the extreme violence, I don't think it's very healthy.

[Craig] When you get into the 1980s

any sense of subtlety goes out the window.

This is what our kids are looking at for entertainment?

Yes.

These bands do look like they were waiting for,

[Craig] you know, Reagan's version of Armageddon.

The reaction to it is totally predictable.

Viewing violence desensitizes people

or increases an appetite for--

[Craig] I guess the difference

is that they actually took it to Congress.

[Dee] The conservatives decided to rate rock records.

This was a crack in the First Amendment.

The call came in to testify for the Senate hearing.

I thought I was being asked to carry the flag into battle.

"Dee, we want you to lead the armies,

the rock roll armies into battle."

Hell fucking yeah.

They really thought they were gonna make a fool out of me.

You really should have vetted me a lot better.

[rock music playing]

Whoa. I don't know how I walked with balls that big.

I was in my twenties.

Like, "Yeah, I'm gonna school you motherfuckers."

[rock music continues]

My speech...

It always came out

of the back pocket

like a bad kid's homework.

[rock music continues]

The beauty of literature, poetry and music

is that they leave room for the audience

to put its own imagination, experiences,

and dreams into the words.

I'm tired of running into kids on the street

who tell me that they can't play our records anymore

because of the misinformation their parents are being fed

on TV and in the newspapers.

We cannot allow this to continue.

[senate speaker] Thank you very much--

As it turned out,

I was the only one standing out in the battlefield

and it wasn't my flag I had my hand,

it was my dick.

They had agreed to a rating system

before we entered the room.

What version did you buy?

I bought the one with the explicit lyrics on it.

[crowd cheering]

[Dee] Not a day goes by that somebody does not walk up

to me on the street and shake my hand and say,

"Thank you for your testimony."

It's taught about in colleges now,

anytime censorship is discussed.

[senate speaker] Mr. Snider, what is the name of your fan club?

It's called the SMF friends of Twisted Sister.

And what does SMF stand for? - It stands for the--

I got to say "sick motherfucker" in a senate hearing.

[laughing jovially]

Hello, welcome to the Rip offices, dude.

Right here, in my hometown.

So, what's new?

There's a lot of stuff happening to rock bands.

Members are falling out, members are coming in.

I've been telling you what's happening with Moötley Cruüe.

Moötley Cruüe announced last week that it had parted company

with its lead singer of Vince Neal,

after eleven years and six albums together.

[Lonn] As far as Moötley Cruüe goes, the great bands go on.

They are auditioning new singers and the Cruüe will live,

trust me.

[John] Our band The Scream

were getting a lot of great reviews,

a lot of great press.

We were finishing up this leg of a tour

and this fan gave me a magazine.

Nikki Sixx, he was on the cover.

Nikki went on this rant

about how great our band was.

I called their management company and thanked Nikki

for speaking so highly of the band.

I hang the phone up,

I literally walk towards my door

to grab my guitar and I start walking out the door

and the phone rings. - [phone ringing]

So I grab the thing and I go, "Hello?"

And I hear, "Dude!

It's Tommy Lee."

And then in the background, I can hear Nikki,

"Hey, dude, Nikki Sixx.

We love your band. Love your voice. Vince is out."

They were talking to some singers.

"We'd love for you to come down and jam with us."

Check this out, dude, I'm sure they're in here.

[John] I walked into this massive room.

It was just like mind boggling.

The band's there, all their wives are sitting at the table.

I was just happy to meet Heather Locklear.

And all these guys in suits are against the wall.

When John came into audition, he, you know

we were looking for a singer.

He came in and like strapped

on a guitar, you know

and we were like,

"Whoa, what's going on?"

You know?

[John] I didn't know if I was bombing

or if I was kicking ass because we never finished a song.

All the girls got up, shook my hand.

All the guys came over and shook my hand.

And Tommy said, "Hey, dude,

doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

Welcome to the Cruüe."

[guitar playing]

And they were like, "Okay, dude."

Every day, all day. 24/7 Moötley.

[crowd cheering]

We got a brand new lead singer, Mr. John Corabi here.

[audience cheering]

[John] When you're in a band,

you're making 250 bucks a week, 300 bucks a week.

You've got a family and one of the biggest bands

in the world says we want you.

What would you do?

My son had just got diagnosed with diabetes

and my mom was diagnosed with cancer

and I was offered the Moötley gig.

My dad called, he goes, "How's that new band

coming along, the Moötley Cruües?"

And I'm like, "I think it's really cool, Dad.

This could be the band that breaks for me."

And my dad he was smoking a cigarette

on the other end of the phone, I could hear him

smoking a cigarette. He goes,

"Ship's finally coming in, huh?"

I go, "Yep. I really believe it."

He goes... [inhales deeply] "Okay, well,

if your ship's coming in,

don't be at the fucking airport."

[airplane engine whirs]

[crowd screaming]

[Snake] We had played two nights with Guns N' Roses

in Wembley Stadium.

[crowd cheering]

It was everything that you could

possibly wish for and more.

[acoustic guitars playing]

I love when I come out here--

[Snake] On stage, Sebastian goes,

"You know what? This is like the best-- "

Best summer of our whole fucking lives, man.

[guitars strumming] - [crowd cheering]

I almost could agree with him.

Almost.

[screaming loudly]

♪ Through the sleepless nights ♪

♪ To every endless day ♪

[Snake] Through the number one records

and these sold out tours,

at the end of the day, I'm back staring at a ceiling

in the bunk of our bus,

going, "I don't know if I wanna wake up tomorrow."

♪ I remember you ♪

[Snake] It was this underlying feeling

that had been with me since I was six, seven years old

of despair...

and worthlessness

and no self-esteem.

That separation of the guy who's in Skid Row,

the guitar player, the songwriter, Snake.

And then there's this other kid

who is awash in this depression.

Why is this happening to me?

[eerie sounds]

[cassette tape playing]

[Vicky] In the beginning,

Poison was very charming

and fun to be around.

As time went on, Bret and I fought.

They wanted money.

I got some rich guys to put some money into the band

but it was never like enough.

There was a concert at the country club.

At the end of the night we went to like get paid

at the box office and they were like,

"No, Bobby came and got the money."

We walked back behind the country club

and Brett was back there

with his fan club and they were chanting,

"Fuck management. Fuck management."

And I ended up selling his contract.

I could have probably made some money if I hung in there

with him, but...

you know, life's too short.

I ended up taking a job at Silver Lining Entertainment

and I was an agent for a moment and...

[phone ringing]

I got a call one day. - [phone ringing]

The kid said, "You come highly recommended."

"Okay, well send me a tape,"

"Can't I just, like, bring you a tape?"

A couple hours later,

Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin walk in.

Nothing very rock starish about them.

["Shadow of Your Love" playing]

They fired up with "Shadow of Your Love".

♪ And I'm standing ♪

♪ No, I'm not standing in the shadow of your love ♪

♪ Shadow of your love ♪

[Vicky] There was something different about Guns N' Roses

than the Poisons and the Warrants

and the glammy bands that were hitting the scene.

It felt dangerous.

So I booked them sight unseen at Music Machine

with Black Sheep.

And at that point in time Slash was in Black Sheep.

We ran an ad for a heavy metal punk glam guitarist,

blues influenced... [chuckles lightly]

and Slash showed up and we said, "Nah."

But he kept popping up everywhere we were at.

[Vicky] Like this slow mo moment of like introducing Axl

to Slash and they shook hands.

[both chuckling]

[Vicky] Guns N' Roses didn't really draw

very well initially, you know?

Like the first few shows, 20, 30 people.

They didn't have two nickels to rub together.

One day, Slash calls up and says,

"Can we come stay at your place?

I had just moved into this apartment,

I didn't even have a refrigerator yet.

"Well, if I let you guys come and stay,

I wanna be the manager of the band.

And he said, "Okay."

So, [chuckling] that was the way I cut the deal.

[rock song playing]

It was complete insanity.

[rock music playing]

Purple black hair dye all over the walls

from D and Slash dyeing their hair black.

Mound of cigarette butts

like burning at the table.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tried to get it for me.

[laughing] I still have it.

Well, I put up with it for a couple of reasons.

A, I was the manager of the band.

B, I wanted to keep an eye on them.

Though I was drinking

and partying as much as the bands.

The night of the Troubadour show,

I had invited like 20 A & R people.

I turned around at one point

and I saw all these A & R people walking out the door.

They said, "It's so loud in there,

I can't stand in there anymore."

So I was like, "Oh man."

I've got tapes in my purse, so I'm handing out tapes.

And Tom Zutaut was standing there, he goes,

"Can that guy sing?"

And I was like, "Absolutely.

He's a really good singer."

And he goes, "If that guy can sing,

I'll sign him."

I really thought, "This is it." You know?

I'm gonna really get mine.

A paycheck sounded good to me

because I somehow always managed to not get that.

Every label in town was calling me.

We had, I think there was seven labels looking at us, right?

[Vicky] There was a bidding war for the band.

Asked to like, meet them.

Everybody was trying to get this band

but somehow I came home one day

and he was in my living room with Axl.

And then the next thing I knew, he was signing the band.

[Slash] So, what we did was we signed our deal

on our own, you know, we said this is what we want to do.

We don't care if we--

[Vicky] We went down to Geffen Records

and signed the contract.

I took the advance check

and put it on the copy machine at Geffen

and made that copy that said Stash instead of Slash.

That was it, you know?

I did not see any of that advance.

Axl took me to the Rainbow and we had dinner one night

and he's like, "I don't know if I can see you

being the manager for this band."

A few members of the band thought they

needed a male manager,

but they didn't really take women seriously as managers

and there weren't a lot of women managers in the eighties.

I had borrowed $20,000

for gear and equipment

and clothes.

When they didn't pay me,

I sued them.

It was a very ballsy move on my behalf

but I wasn't gonna be stuck owing the $20,000

on top of not getting anything

for letting them live with me, booking their shows.

It was heart-wrenching.

I'm still recovering from that, okay?

Geffen Records paid half of it

and Guns N' Roses paid half of it.

I went into therapy.

It came to this point where I just kept saying to myself,

"Why, why, why? Why did this go down like this?"

I was tired of doing all this work

and not getting anything for it.

[cassette player clicking]

[tape rolling]

[clicking]

[Janet] All right. - [Roxy] Okay, ready?

Yeah. - [all] We got a new single coming out.

You don't know it. You're gonna love it.

Roxy has had it.

Out! - I said new video.

[all] We got a new single coming out.

You don't know it.

You're gonna love it.

Crying.

Trust us.

Trust me, trust me.

Trust these faces, come on.

[Janet] We came off a bunch of touring,

so we were super, super tight as a band.

Everybody was just really ready to roll.

[rock music]

When we went in to shoot the second video,

the "Crying" video,

I was supposed to wear this little midriff showing thing.

I was really nervous about that,

so I didn't eat anything for about four days.

♪ One look and I saw what I wanted to see ♪

[Janet] Not only was I wired from not sleeping

because I was starving myself,

we had to perform way up on this big high thing.

I could have easily fallen to my death.

But better to fall to your death

than have a fat stomach show in the music video.

[laughing]

[crowd cheering]

We went on tour in Europe with Deep Purple,

which was amazing.

♪ Got an angel on the left hand ♪

♪ And a devil on the right ♪

We would talk to our manager once in a while

and he started acting a little weird.

We weren't getting our questions answered, you know,

"How's it going back there?

We're kicking ass out here. How's it going?"

And we would get kind of weird answers, "Well you know..."

Vagueness.

Eventually, of course, we went home

and discovered that the record was dead.

The album was dead in the water.

The music scene had completely

turned over onto its head.

♪ My, my my ♪

[Lonn] In the late eighties,

there was such a frenzy

to get a piece of

this enormous pie

that the big bands had, had, had opened up to be sliced.

♪ Unskinny bop ♪

♪ Just blows me away ♪

You get this fallout of all these groups

that are just trying to ride the wave.

'Cause it was a tsunami.

It was...

♪ I'm praying on your soul to keep ♪

[Katherine] Most of these rock bands of the eighties

had front men, guitar heroes.

They were rock stars.

When people started moving to LA after they saw success

of early bands, they came to be rock stars,

not to be musicians.

♪ One in a million ♪

[Katherine] But then it just became oversaturated

with every band moving from every state with no talent.

All they wanted to be was famous and part of the party.

♪ Girl school ♪

♪ 'Cause my baby broke all the rules ♪

[Jonathan] The culture always starts in the underground, right?

But once you become the establishment,

you're the establishment.

♪ Can you take me high enough ♪

By the end of the eighties

it was such a bad Xerox of what had come before it.

People were just done with it.

♪ You've got to fly ♪

[Janet] All of a sudden, all of these bands...

[various rock song playing]

Were pretty much in the garbage can.

Yuck.

♪ More than words ♪

[Janet] The scene was dying.

[rock music]

There was just nothing new coming out.

[singer screaming]

[Vicky] There were so many glam bands.

Every record label had two or three of them.

One after the other, a little glammier than the next.

♪ I'll never look into your blue eyes ♪

There needed to be something different.

Are we ready for that story? - [interviewer] Oh, yes.

[laughing] Okay.

[indistinct crowd chattering]

[Katherine] Something new and a reaction

to the over the topness of hair metal had to come in.

[Vicky] And then there started hearing

that there's a lot going on in Seattle.

[Kurt] The song is called "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

[intro to "Smells Life Teen Spirit" playing]

[Kip] When Nirvana came out, it was over, totally over.

Everything changed.

["Smells Like Teen Spirit" continues]

[Janet] It wasn't like this gradual changing of the tides.

It was kind of like, bam, you're done.

♪ rock music plays ♪

[music stops]

♪ MTV ♪