“Hey, f__kers! Suck on f__kin’ Guns N’ Roses!” So begins the group’s first-ever launch, the Reside ?!*@ Like A Suicide EP, launched on December 16, 1986. And with that exhortation, they kick into “Reckless Life,” sounding for all of the world like a supercharged Aerosmith: rolling their punk dynamics and nascent rock-god bombast into one and laying the groundwork for the punk-metal hybrid that will outline their juggernaut debut album the next yr.
But regardless of its title, Reside ?!*@ Like A Suicide was a studio effort, recorded at Hollywood’s Pasha Studios in October 1986, with crowd noise overdubbed on prime. However this was simply one other key a part of the early Weapons N’ Roses legend: an anarchic humor that led them to (as recalled by drummer Steven Adler) approximate a Sundown Strip membership’s response to the band by lifting audio from the stadium crowd gathered at a 70s Texxas Jam rock pageant.
Browse Weapons N’ Roses’ music on restricted version vinyl and CDs right here.
The EP’s launch was all in regards to the followers, anyway. Within the quick 12 months since they’d strafed the LA music scene with their punk’n’roll assault, GN’R had turn out to be nationwide information, with a fiercely devoted following on the Strip. With their debut album, Urge for food For Destruction, nonetheless below development, the group determined to difficulty a limited-run EP – ostensibly on their very own Uzi Suicide label, to retain their street-level indie cred, although truly launched with Geffen’s full backing – to offer their earliest converts one thing to cherish. The followers who supported them “in the streets as well as the stage” (because the dedication on the rear sleeve learn) duly snapped up the ten,000 12” copies that snuck into the racks in LA’s document shops.
And whereas the EP wasn’t truly a reside recording, it nonetheless captured the efficiency of Weapons’ anarchic early LA reveals. “Reckless Life” is bolstered by one other group unique, “Move To The City” (an actual “nitty gritty” portrait of the street-punk life-style the group lived of their early days), each of which had been staples of the group’s setlists on the time. The EP’s different two songs additionally turned up in early reveals: a frantic cowl of “Nice Boys,” initially by Australian rock legends Rose Tattoo, and, fittingly, a snarling tackle Aerosmith’s “Mama Kin.” The latter was an astute selection: choosing one in every of Steven Tyler and co’s earliest songs, penned within the early 70s earlier than they themselves had been a signed band, it was an express assertion of Weapons’ deep fandom.
Although GN’R had their very own most devoted followers in thoughts for the EP, Reside ?!*@ Like A Suicide drew each nationwide and worldwide press, completely priming the world for Urge for food’s look the next yr. Circus praised the “truly manic punk/R&B/glam/metal noise that’s guaranteed to piss off your folks (and half your friends as well)”, whereas within the UK, legendary rock scribe Mick Wall, writing for Kerrang!, hailed the EP, calling it, “The choicest side of lowlife rock’n’roll roll to emerge out of LA since Mötley Crüe’s Too Fast For Love in 1981.”
Regardless of being reissued as a part of the GN’R Lies assortment of 1988, unique copies of Reside ?!*@ Like A Suicide nonetheless command in extra of £100 – although anybody in the hunt for one ought to beware that bootlegs have lengthy since entered the market.
Store Weapons N’ Roses’ music on restricted version vinyl and CDs right here.
