Guns N’ Roses' Ex-Manager Reveals 'Nightmare' Behavior: 'No One Wanted To Deal With Them'

Former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven is lifting the lid on his chaotic time with one of rock’s most notorious bands in a bombshell new memoir, "Sound N’ Fury: Rock N’ Roll Stories," set for release on August 5.

The New Zealand-born producer and industry veteran, who also worked with Great White, Mötley Crüe, and Dokken, opens up about what it was really like managing Axl Rose, Slash, and the rest of the original Guns N’ Roses lineup during their meteoric rise to fame and infamy.

Speaking to Daily Mail, Niven recalled rejecting the job three times.

"No one wanted Guns N’ Roses. They'd been through at least two other management situations," he said. "They couldn't get rid of them fast enough. No one wanted to deal with them. They were a nightmare."

He was ultimately swayed by Slash’s unexpected charisma.

"It was Slash because I found out, one, he was English, and two, he was not just articulate, he was eloquent, he was smart, he was incredibly charming. And I'm going, 'This is not just a knucklehead drunk like I saw on the stage of the Troubadour where he was just a knucklehead, Sunset guitarist drunk. This is a really interesting guy. He's smart, very charming.'"

From the moment he stepped into their world, Niven said he knew he was dealing with a different breed of band.

One of his first meetings included a broken toilet on the front porch, a wandering stripper, and Izzy Stradlin nodding out mid-conversation. Things only escalated when Slash invited him into a room to watch him feed a live bunny to a massive snake.

"I turn up for a band meeting and I park my bike outside and there's this broken toilet by the front door and I go, 'That's interesting symbolism,'" he recalled. "Most people put a big old pots of beautiful flowers, but they’ve got a broken toilet by the front door. That's a different message."

"The door opens and out wanders this quite well-known stripper and she smiles and walks past," he continued. As he walks inside, Slash reportedly said, “Let me show you something in the bedroom."

"Oh, that’s an interesting invitation," Niven recalls thinking at the time. "I go in and I freeze 'cause there's this enormous snake in there and I hate snakes."

"He goes, 'Watch this.' And he takes a perfect beautiful little white bunny and feeds it to this legless monster," he added.

Despite the dysfunction, Niven saw their potential early, especially Slash and Izzy. “Izzy personified rock and roll,” he said, calling Stradlin “incredibly street smart and cool.”

But as Guns N’ Roses skyrocketed, so did the chaos.

“My sense of lighthearted joy evaporated in September of 1986 when I signed a contract with five individuals collectively known as Guns and Roses,” Niven joked. “From that point on, we had stress and pressure every day.”

The pressure included clashes with Geffen Records co-founder David Geffen, who once demanded to know when the debut album would be finished. “When it’s done, David!” Niven recalled firing back.

Behind the scenes, drug use and deep emotional wounds haunted the band. Niven believes most band members came from dysfunctional backgrounds and were drawn to music as a way to recreate a “perfect family.”

He said Axl, in particular, was deeply shaped by a traumatic childhood, though Rose wasn’t the one most consumed by drugs. “Slash, bless his heart, had an appetite for anything,” Niven said, recalling how Izzy once admitted to selling drugs to Aerosmith’s Steven Tylerand Joe Perry.

Still, Niven says it wasn’t addiction that destroyed the band. It was ego. “It became about power. It became about control,” he explained.

His own exit came in 1991 via a sudden phone call from Axl Rose. “I can’t work with you anymore,” Axl told him. Niven tried to arrange a dinner to discuss things, but never heard from him again.

Twelve weeks later, Izzy left the band too, citing the unbearable internal turmoil. “You are playing Wembley,” Niven insisted, and Stradlin honored that request, performing one last time with the original lineup in August 1991.

Drummer Steven Adler had already been fired in 1990 due to his drug issues. By 1997, Slash and Duff McKagan had also exited, leaving Axl as the lone original member.

The band’s tumultuous saga reached a surprising new chapter in 2016 when Slash and Duff rejoined Rose for the massively successful "Not in This Lifetime" tour, their first time onstage together since 1993.

Today, Guns N’ Roses' roster includes Rose, Slash, McKagan, Richard Fortus, Isaac Carpenter, Dizzy Reed, and Melissa Reese, a far cry from the wild, snake-feeding, toilet-decorated beginnings Niven chronicles in his gripping new memoir.