6th May 2003 - Longtime
GUNS N' ROSES Photographer Sues AXL ROSE For Failing To Honor Contract
On April 28 in Los Angeles, photographer Robert John,
41, sued GUNS N' ROSES frontman Axl Rose, 41, for allegedly refusing
to honor an earlier contract in which Rose agreed to pay $80,000 for
hundreds of photos of the band that John has taken since 1985. John
claims that Rose has been keeping the photos since January.
A longtime friend of the group, John was known as the GUNS N' ROSES'
"official" photographer from their earliest days as a struggling
band in the clubs of Los Angeles to their early '90s status as one
of the biggest rock acts in the world. Wherever the band went, from
the studio to the stage and everywhere in between, John was there
with them, eventually documenting the group's entire career in the
widely-acclaimed 1993 book "Guns N' Roses - The Photographic
History", which included a foreword written by Rose.
In a 1989 interview originally published in the long-defunct
magazine Rock Scene, Robert explained how he connected with the Gunners
and ended up becoming the band's official photographer and personal
friend.
"The way I first met GUNS N' ROSES was that
Izzy was in this local band in Hollywood that I used to work with,
and we became friends," John recalled. "Then we lost touch
for a while and I ran into him at the [Hollywood club] Troubadour
one night. We started talking and he said, 'You gotta come down and
check out my new band, GUNS N' ROSES.' So I thought, 'Okay, that sounds
cool.' So I went down to their next gig and I thought they were really
cool. I had seen Axl before in L.A. GUNS, which Izzy's band was opening
for one night. He was playing with this little kid on stage [apparently
referring to Tracii Guns — Ed.] who had braces and black hair,
and then all of a sudden I saw this guy come down from the drum riser
and he's in a gray suit jacket, with all this puffed up red hair.
He jumped down on stage and he was like a maniac, plus he had this
radical voice. I was really impressed so when Izzy told me that this
Axl guy was in the band, I really wanted to check them out.
"Izzy asked me if I would take a few shots of
the band and I said 'Sure.' I went down and shot them at a Country
Club gig," John continued. "They wanted to see the photos
afterwards and Izzy warned me that Axl was the pickiest. So I brought
over a projector and my slides and met with Axl for the first time.
We sat down, looked at the slides and he really liked them. He asked
me if I would do a group session of the guys so we did, and from then
on I've been working with them, cause the whole band was happy with
my work.
"I used to go over to the old studio that they
rehearsed in, this little pill box place about the size of my bedroom,
and one day it was raining real hard and there was nobody there but
Axl. They had this loft that they built from wood that they stole
from construction sites, and they used to sleep in it and take girls
up there all the time. So Axl was just there hanging out and we started
talking and before we knew it we had been talking for about seven
hours just about everything. We had so much in common, it was great,
and we became good friends just from that, just from getting to know
each other. Me and Slash, well, I never trusted him back then because
he was like this little street-wise kid, and he used to question everything.
But I soon realized from the questions he would ask that he was finding
out information, which I liked. I thought that was real smart because
he didn't want anybody working with the band that was gonna screw
them over with money and stuff like that, even though there was no
money back then..."
To view samples of Robert John's work, visit his
official web
site
