12. Forming

So I meet this guy called Tracii who has raven hair

and looks as mean as I do.

I kinda respect the fact he has this girly name, like

Alice Cooper or something.

He’s in this band, LA Guns. We become tight.

Tight enough to talk.

This guy, he has ambitions. I do too so we come

up with a plan:

Let’s ditch the deadwood and merge the two.

Strength in numbers.

So LA Guns and Hollywood Rose become Guns N’ Roses.

Like a joke, right?

A joke between friends that got drunk, got out of hand,

and forgot its own punch-line.

I mean, we seriously consider calling ourselves ‘AIDS’

for five minutes.

This in 1984, and we get semi-good playing out with bands

like Stryper and London.

But things, they just aren’t working out. Tracii gets pissy,

something about money or girls.

So I fire his ass and replace his ass with that of this

guy called Slash

and Slash had some wino buddies so they join too

Now it’s 1985 and

I’m just glad to be alive and in June we make

our home-town debut.