Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
Be Serious Podcasts. Shirley fans, we have a wonderful episode
for you today. We are comparing two massive, iconic hard
rock heavy metal bands, Metallica and Guns n' Roses. We
just finished up with Metallica's Black album, so if you
have not yet heard that, go back and listen to
that episode. And today we're starting our journey into Use
Your Illusion one by Guns n' Roses. This is gonna
be awesome.
Speaker 2: I remember when these two albums, these two usual illusion albums,
came out. The anticipation for these two albums was huge.
Speaker 1: Before we get going, I just want to point something out.
We have been talking to each other now for couple
of years, face to face, and one of the reasons
that I can do that is because you don't have
nose hair. Have you been talking to people and like
you can't even concentrate on what they're saying because of
their nose hair. Absolutely, they like tuck to you. It dangles, yes,
it wiggles. It's a total distraction. Absolutely, And so let
me let me say, if you are one of those guys,
we have a product that is supporting The podcast that
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Speaker 2: It is an amazing product. It trims your nose hair.
It's not embarrassing. You just stick it up there. It
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Speaker 1: You're not gonna look at people and bother them, right,
And I'm one of those guys who's self conscious about
my nose hair. So somebody that you're gonna see me
and I'm gonna be like yanking them out and wincing
in pain, don't do that. There is a special thing
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to the weed Whacker, they have just released something called
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point out that a giraffe is easier to see in
the planes than it is in the forest. Oh that's wonderful, Yes,
yes it is.
Speaker 2: So it's very good around sensitive areas, if you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They have also an entire shavekit called the Ultra
Smooth package package. You get the idea. So who doesn't
want their package ultra smooth? Right, right? So don't forget
to go to landscapes dot com and use the promo
code fan sided twenty to get twenty percent off your
order and free shipping. Whack it perfect. So midnight, like
you know, the record companies or the record stores are
not allowed to release the album before the set date
for the album, so record stores across the country opened
at midnight in order to be able to accommodate all
of the people who are lining up for this album. Now,
at the point that the album comes out, Slash is
completely burned out from having recorded the album. I mean
they finished it up in August, they and they released
it in September. And by the way, let's point that
out right now. Okay, it's thirty years old this week.
It is these these albums are thirty years old this week.
So thirty years ago, Slash is about to go to
Africa to vacation and you get a little rest from
the massive amount of work that he's just done. But
he thinks, okay, before I go, I'm gonna go see
what the album sales are doing, right, you know, So
he shows up at midnight at Tower Records on Sunset
Strip where they used to play yeah, where they got
their start and he watches through a two way mirror
as all of the sales are going on. And just
ten years before that store detectives had been watching him
through the two way mirror because he was stealing stuff
from the same record store that his record was about
to blow out of the water.
Speaker 2: It's incredible, it's incredible. So, like you said, these two
albums were both released at midnight September seventeenth, ninety one,
the date that we were releasing. This is September fourteenth
of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so almost thirty years on the dot.
Speaker 2: And then of course next week we'll talk through User
Illusion two, right, and then compare all three.
Speaker 1: Yes, compare all three albums. Use Your Illusion one and
two both released at the exact same time. This was
not a sequel. This was we were releasing two albums
at the same time. Had never been done before. No
one had ever done this. People would release double albums,
but you had to buy you had to buy it
all in one package. Right, Yeah, But people could go
and choose. They could say I want Use Your Illusion one,
or I want Use Your Illusion to or I want both.
Speaker 2: Right, And that was a nice little concession by the
band right there.
Speaker 1: Well, kind of a concession. As it ended up, it
was a huge sales bump. Well that's true, to a
huge sales bump.
Speaker 2: Now use your Illusion two was a betterseller out of
the gate. Yeah, due to a song that we've already
talked about. You could be Mine from the Terminator two sounds.
Speaker 1: Throw back to earlier this summer when we were covering
Terminator one versus Terminator two and Arnold Schwarzenegger pulled a
gun out of the roses because the gun was in
the roses.
Speaker 2: There's a great story that goes along with Arnold Swarzenegger
and the guys and how he got them to participate
in Terminator. We'll talk about that next week. All right,
Let's say, before we get into too much of this
d I want to go through a basic timeline of
what has happened since the release of Appetite for Destruction, okay,
which was released.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then you got four years until usual Illusion
one and two come out, right, okay, And I just
want to talk through this is by no means exhausted, right,
they were into all kinds of craziness, but let's just
talk about it.
Speaker 1: Let's just hit some of the highlight Okay. So, and
just for before that, if you have not yet heard
our episode on Appetite for Destruction, go back and listen
to that one. We've got the history of the band.
We've got track by track on that fantastic album. But yeah,
we're kind of picking up where we left off. You
Appetite for Destruction comes out, they start touring for that album.
They leave the country and nobody's really heard of them
eighty seven not really in the big interest in that album,
they become big in the rest of the world, and
then as they're gone touring the rest of the world,
that's when they hit big in the US and they
come back to the US and suddenly everybody knows who
they are, Like, they can't go shopping at the grocery
store because their pictures are on the cover of Rolling
Stone magazine and people are like, hey, that's you, and
they know who they are in the US. Yeah, it's
pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: We did talk a little bit about this during the
apatitp for Destruction that David Geffen had to call MTV
personally and say, please play this video right, Welcome to
the Jungle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my MTV's concession was, Okay, we'll play it at
four o'clock in the morning. Morning, just it'll be over,
it'll be done. And then everybody started calling in because
they wanted to see the video again, and literally the
phone lines caught on fire because of all the times.
That's right.
Speaker 2: So, Appetite for Destruction is released in nineteen eighty seven,
but Welcome to the Jungle didn't really catch fire until
early nineteen eighty eight. Yep, that's when I sort of
became aware of what was going on with them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Then the summer of eighty eight, Sweet Child of Mine
blows the roof off, they re release Welcome to the Jungle.
Then after that, Paradise City takes off, and Appetit for
Destruction is one of the biggest selling albums of all time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so let's pick up right there, greatest greatest
selling debut album if I remember right, I think that's right, Yeah, okay,
go ahead, Okay.
Speaker 2: So November of nineteen eighty seven, Axel assaults several security
guards in Atlanta, Right, okay, we're just hitting the highlights,
just the highlights, right, Okay. In nineteen eighty eight, Guns
and Roses was in a movie.
Speaker 1: You know this? Yeah, yeah, the the badly lip sync
version of Welcome to the Jungle by the one and
only mister Jim Terry before he had become big.
Speaker 2: If you have never seen Clint Eastwood's The Deadpool, it's
a dirty Harry movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Jim Carrey is a rock star who dies of a
heroin overdose.
Speaker 1: Supposedly, I mean he's murdered, yeah, by Liam Neeson and
a ponytail.
Speaker 2: Right, Liam Neeson. You got Qui gon Jin killing Lloyd Christmas.
It's pretty amazing. And Guns n' Roses they are in
the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're the band at the funeral.
Speaker 2: They are Slash actually shoots a harpoon in the movie.
Speaker 1: It's very weird. Okay.
Speaker 2: So that happens in nineteen eighty eight. In August of
nineteen eighty eight, a riot breaks out during a Duns
and Roses show. Really shocker, right, yeah, okay. In November
of nineteen eighty eight, GNR Lies is released.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We talked about how before Aptipe for Destruction, they had
this EP called Live Like an f and Suicide.
Speaker 1: Right. Okay, So you took.
Speaker 2: That ep matched up with four songs that they did
in one day acoustically, Yeah, acoustic set one day in
the studio one day. That album peaked at number two.
That one, by the way, just so we can cover that.
That was literally them all sitting together and playing the
music together. You know, so much of recorded music you
hear is one artist. You know, the guitarist comes in
and puts down his bit, the drummer comes down and
puts it down his bit, and then they put it
all together through the production with lies. It was them
in a room one day.
Speaker 1: It is them in a room. That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so from that album you might be familiar with
the song Patients.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so big hit for them. We covered that one,
yes and uh, and we would go right into m
I Used to Love Kill said you was in a
church and it's completely inappropriate. Also from that album we
have Used to Love Her Yep.
Speaker 2: It's a sarcastic song about a guy who kills his
girlfriend because she's driving in crazy Yep.
Speaker 1: I can still hear her complain. It's a great one.
Speaker 2: It's you have the acoustic remake of You're Crazy from
Appetit for Destruction, and then you have the most controversial
song in their entire career a song called one in
a Million, You Want a Million?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what you want? You want a million?
Speaker 3: Babes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, star.
Speaker 2: Man yeah, okay, now that will come into play here
in just a second. We talk about their opening for
the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: But there's some.
Speaker 2: Anti immigrant type of things in there. There's some racist remarks.
There's some homophobic type of things in that song. Yes, okay,
Splash is black. Yeah, he's half black, half black. Interesting, Okay,
we'll talk about that here in a second. So Lies
is released in November of eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Also in August of nineteen eighty eight, two fans are
crushed to death during the Monsters of Rock show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we touched on that a little bit on our
Appetite episode that Gnar was initially kind of blamed for it,
for inciting the crowd, but actually what had happened was
that Actual was yelling at people to stop pushing forward.
He was trying to help, and they didn't even know
that those guys had died until after they were told,
after the show was over, and they're, you know, going
to the restaurant.
Speaker 2: Together, right right, Okay. In September of eighty nine, we
moved forward a year at the emptyv Music Awards back
when they were a big deal, right, the band that
they used to open for, Motley Crue presented them with
an award, and then Vince Neil promptly punches out is
he stradling backstage?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: And Izzy apparently had made some derogatory remarks about Vince's
wife and Vince didn't like it, and Izzy basically said
so what and so indicting. Axel gets involved, and then
Vince makes this thing like, let's go Axilly anytime you're
ready me and you get in the ring.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Also that same night, Don Henley played drums on their
live version of.
Speaker 1: Patients because Steven Athler was in rehab. Because Steven Adler
was in rehab.
Speaker 2: Keep that in mind as we move forward.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So in October of eighty nine, the Rolling Stones, Mick
Jagger reaches out and says, I want you guys to
open for the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: They also had Contacted Living Color, you know from Culture Personality, Right, Well,
they're in all black band and they opened first and
from the stage they called out Guns N' Roses for
their racist remarks in the song One in a Million. Axel,
who was not at the show at that time. The
management instructed one of the drivers, go freaking find Axel
and don't take no for an answer. You've got to
punch him out to get him in the car, go
punch him out.
Speaker 1: So he went over.
Speaker 2: They snatch and grab Axel drag him up there. As
he's taken the stage, he realizes that Living Color has
called him out. That makes him really mad. So when
he gets up on stage, he proceeds to say, if
certain members of the band don't quit dancing with mister Brownstone,
this is the last show that you're ever going to
see from Guns N' Roses.
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of the decline, if you will,
Slash knows this was in reference to him that made
him hate Axel. Duff was humiliated and embarrassed. Plus you
had all this controversy going on with Living Color and
one in a Million and all this stuff. So that's
just one night in the Night of Guns and Roses.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Continuing on in February of ninety, Dizzy rejoins the band. Right,
he's the piano player for the usual illusion at.
Speaker 1: Wet Wait a minute, I'm sorry, did you say guns
N' Roses has a piano player. A piano player, what
the heck is up with that? He was about to
be evicted from his apartment.
Speaker 2: Called his friend Axels said, I'm about to be evicted
from my apartment. Next is like, hey, no problem, just
come join the band.
Speaker 1: You can play piano. If you guys don't have a pianist,
we do now.
Speaker 2: In July of ninety Steven Adler is fired.
Speaker 1: Okay, he's their original drummer. So somewhere around this time,
Niven is using the fact that they haven't produced an
album in a long time as a negotiation piece for
Gefferent Records to renegotiate their contract so that they can
make more money. They're already spending tons of money. He
wants them to make more money and basically uses the
fact that they have two albums worth of music to say, hey,
we'll give you this when you renegotiate the contract, but
until you do, we're not going to give it to you.
So Alan Niven is the one who gets them a
renegotiated contract, is going to make them a ton more money,
and sets in place this thing for two albums. Well,
as you mentioned, Steven Adler is completely drug riddled at
this time, like the way that it was going for
Slash and Duff. They're like, Steven, you're too messed up.
And it's me and Slash like we're the guys that
everybody else says it's too much, and we're telling you
you got to pull it back at least for the shows. Man,
you got to do something. And so they had this
contract with him where you've got to go to rehab
and you're you know, one more strike and you're out.
And he was out of the band, back in the band,
and then finally they're like, he's still completely addicted to drugs,
hiding them. We've just got to get rid of them.
And so all that Steven Adler knows is that he
gets another stack of papers in front of him, yet
another contract to sign, like he has already. And by
this time they've hired Doug Goldstein and gotten rid of
Alan Niven, and Doug Goldstein says, this contract says, every
time you get high, you have to pay his two
thousand dollars. Well that's not what the contract said. What
it said was you're out of the band and all
you get is two thousand dollars. Ooh. And so once
Stephen Adler was less under the influence of drugs and
realized what had happened. He filed a lawsuit against Guns
n' Roses. Do you think, Yeah? I think so that
gets resolved a little bit further down the line, and
he ends up getting paid about two and a half
million dollars plus fifteen percent of royalties for all of
the songs that he was a part of. So a
little bit better of an exit deal, a little better
golden umbrella, but still just I think that you would
go all right, original member of the band, you get
two thousand dollars, see you later.
Speaker 2: The royalties for Appetite Destruction alone are worth how much?
Speaker 1: I mean? You're right, best selling debut album of all time.
There's no telling.
Speaker 2: Steven Adler has had over twenty eight overdoses.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: He's had several heart attacks, and he has one stroke
that left him with a permanent speech impediment and he
can't even talk write anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bad kids, just say no, don't do drugs, okay.
Speaker 2: In January of ninety one is when the usual Illusion
tour starts. This is nine months ahead of the release
of the album.
Speaker 1: Right, A lot of these songs people would hear on
the tour before they ever got on the album, and
then once the album come out, they never played it again.
It's crazy. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: On July second of nineteen ninety one, Yeah, there is
an infamous concert that Guns Roses played in Saint Louis
where there was a guy who is taking photos of Axel. Yep,
he didn't want him to, right, that was the agreement.
Security was to prevent photos or film, and he kept
trying to tell the security guys to take the camera
away from this guy. Actual believes that he was friends
with the security guys, and in the middle of the
concert he just says.
Speaker 1: Who thanks to the lamb ass security, I'm going home.
Well before that, he jumps into the crowd and attacks.
Oh that's right, that's right. So like g and are
have their own security obviously, and then you've got the
security for whatever the venue is. And Axel said, our
security guys had told these guys over and over to
not let these people get so drunk. You're supposed to
have a minimum, but people are chunking these beer bottles
at us and I'm just you know, it's been pushed
and pushed. And then we tell them, Hey, no cameras,
all right, we can't have any cameras here, and lo
and behold, here's a guy right here on the front
road taking my picture over and over again. And I
just said, that's enough. Nobody's going to listen to what
we're telling you. Has to happen. I'll take care of
it myself. And that's how he jumps off the stage,
and that's how he gets arrested a couple of years later,
once they get back from tour of you know, the
rest of the world.
Speaker 2: You know, we looked before we started recording. In the
liner notes in usual lusion one, there's a special dedication
thanks under the thanks dear Saint Louis. We love you
guns residens.
Speaker 1: That is not what they said. I believe it says
f ugh Saint Louis few Saint Louis right in the
middle of all of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these guys are awesome at given the few to people.
The list is long and distinguished.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some great there's some great thank yous on there.
You got Alice Cooper, you got.
Speaker 2: Sebastian Bach, Rachel Bowlin, Shennanhun Yep, yeah, Okay. September seventeenth,
of ninety one, Usual Vision one and.
Speaker 1: Two is released.
Speaker 2: Okay, November seventh of ninety one, is He Stradling quits
the band.
Speaker 1: So by that time Adler was gone, Aler was gone.
They had brought in the former drummer for the Cult,
Matt Sorem. Yep. And with Matt Sorum, I mean Matt
is obviously a gifted drummer, but he's not the same drummer.
It's different and is he said whenever Steven wasn't there,
it didn't have that swing in and out kind of
motion that made appetite great, and he just felt like
it was all wrong. And he also had gotten sober
and nobody else had. And so he loses the drummer
who thinks is a key piece, replaced by a guy
he doesn't care for, who then immediately starts doing drugs
with Duff and Slash and he's newly sober and he's like,
is this really you know what my life is going
to be like? And he says I'm done. At the
height of their fame, the man who is arguably the
originator of the band says, guys, I'm out.
Speaker 2: He's like the soul of band. He wrote a lot
of the songs. Yeah, he was missing from the You
Could Be Mind video. He didn't like to do videos,
he didn't like to tour. He just kind of liked
to write songs.
Speaker 1: You know. Right, well, forget it, I'm out all right.
Speaker 2: Briefly, in October of ninety two, you have the Freddie
Mercury Benefit concert. If he listened closely, you can actually
hear Axel tell protesters to shove it.
Speaker 1: They were urged not to have Guns N' Roses play again.
One in a million. The homophobic things that came out.
Speaker 2: There a little tough to defend. That why you're honoring Freddie.
Speaker 1: Mercury, right, But Brian May, the guitarist for Queen, is
like the fact that they're here is enough and they
still play.
Speaker 2: They did just a couple more dates I want to hit.
While we're on the subject. August eighth of nineteen ninety two,
a day that will live in infamy. This is where
we kind of join these two together.
Speaker 1: These iconic rock bands with mammoth albums, decide we're going
to tour together.
Speaker 2: Metallica and Guns and Roses on the same ticket.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money, bro gosh, that's a lot
of money because I'm going to buy that ticket right
of course.
Speaker 2: If they're coming anywhere near me, I'm going to see
this concert.
Speaker 1: Absolutely tragically. It's more likely that you're going to show
up than the Axle is.
Speaker 2: It's funny because Metallica knew that Guns and Roses notoriously
late to show up for shows. Yeah, and so rather
than fight over who was the closer, they just said,
we'll open every concert right, We'll get in, we'll get out.
Speaker 1: You guys deal with the drama after that. And because
they were such big bands, there was a complete set
change that had to occur in between the sets, and
so Metallica would get done and they would start tearing
down Metallica stuff, they would start putting up Guns and
Roses stuff. And we're talking about a couple of hours
worth at a time where all of these hot and
bothered headbanger fans are just sitting there, standing there, waiting there,
sweating their balls off and just waiting for waiting and
are to start. Yeah, that's not a good recipe. Brop.
Speaker 2: So on August the eighth of ninety two, Yeah, Metallica
is playing their set. James Heffeld's on stage YEP. During
the song Fade to Black, which we talked a little
bit about last week. Yep, he gets a little lost,
not sure where he is.
Speaker 1: Some new pyrotechnics in the show that they're doing, and
he walks into one that wasn't there in the previous shows.
He's disoriented and that thing sets his flesh on fire.
Speaker 2: Second and third degree burns his the hand where he's
actually strumming the guitar gets it the worst yep, and
very very serious condition. He's rushed to the hospital. Lars
has to come on stage and say there was.
Speaker 4: An incident with the pyrotechnics. Unfortunately, James is on his
way to the hospital right now and we're worth sorry, Paul,
we can't continue the concert for you guys tonight, right.
Speaker 2: And at that moment, that's when Guns n' Roses could
have come in save the day, rock their balls off right,
come in helped out well. They got about forty five
minutes in and Axel decides that his voice doesn't feel
good and it's gone home.
Speaker 1: Because they were under the stress and trying to change
things over quickly, and people probably weren't prepared because it
was an hour sooner. They didn't have the monitors set
properly right, So the band couldn't hear themselves. Monitors are key,
couldn't hear themselves, and so they got frustrated. But at
that point, yeah, if if you're that guy, you just
got to go, Okay, guys, fix the problem and we're
going to start singing again. Not I'm tired this, I
quit right. Sorry for all of our guns and roses
fans who want to defend this, but I don't know
how you do. No, no, no, no, there's just no defense.
Jason News said said that shortly after they went back
to backstage and like, what's going on? What do you
get is doing? And Axel said, you know, my voice
is gone. I can't sing. While he's smoking a cigarette
and drinking out of champagne glass.
Speaker 2: I'd have another cigarette, but I can't sing. So what
happened after that was the fans got a little upset.
Speaker 1: Yeah they did. This is in Montreal, by the way, right.
They turned over cars, they set the place on fire,
multiple fires. Thirteen different people and officers injured in the
onslaught that occurred. It was mass hysteria, dogs and cats
living together.
Speaker 2: But more importantly than that, Metallica lost all respect for
guns Roses at that moment. Yeah, Slash said he couldn't
look any of those guys in the eye.
Speaker 1: He didn't like them that much to begin with. That
killed it. It was over. So after that, there's there's
a part in the documentary that we talked about last time,
the year and a half in the Life of Metallica
where James Hetfield reads Axel Rose's tour writer where he's
got all of his special requests and is kind of
making fun of him so with a way that Axel
responded was to do it in front of the crowd
at a later concert, called Hetfield a racist for his
decision to pull body Count from the tour and called
him a stupid little and then insult with the rest
of the band as well well.
Speaker 2: So coming over for Thanksgiving, so much for making amends
right there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: July seventeenth and ninety three, the usual Allusion tour finally ends.
Speaker 1: Yep, sorry, I just heard this. Gilby Clark said that
on the final show of the User Illusion tour, Rose goes, hey,
enjoy your last show. Apparently he didn't just mean of
the tour.
Speaker 2: And then sometime in the mid nineties this was kept
under wraps slash overdose. Yeah, died did the Nikky six
dead for eight minutes?
Speaker 1: Thing? M hm rose revived And they called the tour
manager and said, hey, one of your band members is
passed out in front of the elevator on you know,
like the fifth floor. And he goes up there and
slashes blue like no heartbeat. He's dead, but he made it.
Shot of adrenaline started his heart. He made it.
Speaker 2: And then on May the tenth of ninety four, due
to excessive alcohol, Duff McKagan's pancreas explodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you read his book, right, I did it. That
was a huge part of his book, and that that
happened right around the same time that he had seen
Kirk Cobains for the last time. Like that's right. They
flew on the plane together, both Seattle guys, both going home.
Duff is dealing with his demons and thinks, hey, we
actually had a good plane ride together, even though they
had their differences over the course of these things, which
we can talk about it here in a little bit
as well. But he thinks, hey, I need to holler
at him and we need to have lunch so that
I can kind of, yeah, do it, right, you know,
help him out maybe, And then about a week later,
Kirk Cobain's Bodies found listen to this.
Speaker 2: If Axel had had his way, Nirvana would have opened
for Metallica and Guns and Roses.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? I can imagine, And it would have
been epic. So we talked about it in the Metallica
episode that the reason that the diehard thrash fans for
Metallica didn't like the Black Album was because it had
mass appeal. And these guys had seen Metallica as a
revolution against the spandex and the glamrock and the hair
and the makeup and all of that. And so when
the Black Album comes out and everybody knows who they
are and everybody says this is the best album, we
can see how that's frustrating to those fans because they
saw them as a revolution. And then the revolution became
the man appetite for destruction. Same thing, man, it's a revolution.
They weren't wearing the spandex. They well act at a
little bit, but it was a revolution, right. These guys
were different than those hair metal guys that were super
popular in eighty seven and eighty eight. And so again
you've got this, Yeah, these guys are us. They represent
an anti establishment thing. But what happened between appetite and
use your illusion? Again? He he had no idea. He
thinks he's still in the revolution group. Whenever Nirvana comes out, right,
he still thinks he's in the revolt. Well, it turns
out he's completely lost his way. There's one concert where
you can hear him talking about how much he likes Nirvana. Right,
this is the voice of revolution and rock and roll
is about that rebellion, and this is and then a
little bit later on, once he's been once Kurt Cobain
has said, screw you, you're just part of the establishment.
He's like really insulting, and he's like, you know, we're
the ones that were the revolution. We're the ones that
did it different than everybody else. And now we've got
thirty million people in front of us, and I'm like, dude,
you can't even hear yourself talk about how your criteria
is how many people are at your concert. And then
he goes on to say, and they're doing drugs while
she's pregnant with that baby, and if it has any
birth defects, then I think they should both be arrested
and go to prison. That's just not afraid to speak
his mind. He is. He needs to read this book
called how to Win Friends and Influence.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, there is so much to talk about.
Speaker 1: But we have two albums to go through, I know,
and so we probably got to get into the office.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get into it. Okay, So just real briefly,
the cover art of Usual Illusion one and two. Yes,
so Usual Illusion one, if you don't remember, is the
yellow and red version of the old painting. They call
it the School of Athens. That's the name of the painting.
Speaker 1: It's in the Sistine Chapter. I've seen it, been.
Speaker 2: There anyway, they took that old ancient painting, did a version.
Speaker 1: Of it Renaissance painting? Yes, yes, the School of Athens. Yes.
Speaker 2: And Usual Allusion one is the yellow and red version.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Now, then when Usual Illusion came out, couldn't sell it
in Walmart, couldn't sell it in kmart. You had that
big fat parental advisory sticker on it.
Speaker 1: So Walmart didn't sell parental advisory cit.
Speaker 2: Not initially, so I think they softened on that. But
five hundred thousand albums of these two are sold in
two hours.
Speaker 1: That's it. It went gold in two hours two hours.
Use Your Illusion one sold six hundred and eighty five
thousand US. Your Illusion two ultimately sold seven hundred and
fifty thousand US. Your Illusion one was number two, and
Use Your Illusion To was number one. Yep, okay dee.
Speaker 2: So one of the cool new things that we've been
doing is we've been having what we call the Shirley Spotlight.
Our good friend Brad Moore in Monroe, Louisiana, wanted to
weigh in on the Nirvana Pearl Jam episode that we
did a few weeks ago. It's Fall of ninety one,
and he's got something to say about that matchup.
Speaker 1: Let's hear from Brad before he gets started. I just
got to say Brad is one of our best fans,
always given us great insight into new things, and excited
to have him give us his opinion on this.
Speaker 3: Good morning everyone. This is Brad Moore from Monroe, Louisiana.
I wanted to weigh in on a past episode of
Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast, which pitted the two
super albums of the early nineties, Pearl Jams ten and
Nirvana's never Mind. These two albums were so good and
came along. It's such a good time when I was
really really deep and interested into a lot of different
types of music, and it just opened up a Pandora's
box that I climbed into and never climbed out of.
It opened the door to the bands like Smashing Compan's,
Sound Garden, Alice and Chains, Screaming Trees. I could keep
going forever. I still listened to all these bands to
this day. But back to the matchup between these two albums,
Nirvana's Nevermind was probably the first one I heard.
Speaker 1: It was just.
Speaker 3: Something so different and it was straightforward. It was in
your face, just straight up hard rock and roll. I
loved it. Got to listen to Pearl Jams ten after
that same thing. It just, you know, just grabbed you
by the hair from the get go and didn't let go.
There was some little bit slower songs in there, very
very deep and had very very good lyrics. In comparing
these two, I'm certainly gonna have to lean towards Pearl
Jams ten. I just always felt like they were just
more personable to me. It was deeper, more meaningful songs.
I liked the musicians, the type of music. Nirvana kind
of reminded me a little bit of punk, of which
I'm not a huge fan of. That being said, I
still love both albums. I'm not taking anything away from Nirvana,
but if I have to pick, I think Pearl jam
ten wins and it's really.
Speaker 1: Not even close.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you guys for coming up with
content that's just great to listen to every week, and
you guys are just knocking out of the park. I
appreciate you give me the opportunity to weigh in on this.
Keep doing what you're doing, and if any of you
are listening to surely you can't be serious podcasts for
the first time.
Speaker 1: Spread the word.
Speaker 3: This is a great thing to listen to. Guys. Keep
it up.
Speaker 2: You have a great day, all right, d Well, he
agrees with both of us, apparently, Yeah, and thank you
very much.
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. It's always nice to have the compliment. And
we really appreciate you listening to Brad. It's hard are
you against Pearl jam ten Man? It is such a
good album. But those two came out almost exactly at
the same time as these two that we're comparing. For
these three that we're comparing, right now Metallica and Guns
N' Roses. So interesting that so many great albums coming
out is exactly at the same time, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's cool that, you know, for Brad anyway, that
Nirvana and Pearl Jim led him down the road to
discover other bands, you know, Spashing Pumpkins and Screaming Trees
and some of these other bands that he probably would
have never found if it hadn't been for those two albums.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, same thing for me. Same thing for me.
I had a bunch of Allison Chain's albums that I
probably never would have had had it not been for
Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
Speaker 2: If you would like to be a part of the
Shurly Spotlight, just send us an email Surelely Podcast at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: We want to hear what you have to think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just weigh in on anything that you've heard the
past or anything that you know we've got coming up.
Send us an audio clip less than three minutes, and
if it's really good, we'll put you on the show.
Speaker 1: All right, were ready to go? Track by track? Let's
do it.
Speaker 2: Let's do track by track?
Speaker 1: Wait, sorry, next week, next week?
Speaker 4: Do there?
Speaker 2: Everyone speaking up with the bags