Stephen-Davis.Pdf

alumni books profiles and reviews Stephen Davis, at home in Milton, Massachusetts, has chronicled one of hard rock’s last great bands, Guns N’ Roses. From Axl to Zep /// Rock biographer Stephen Davis has seen — and told — it all By Caleb Daniloff To write about rock bands, says rise and fall of one of hard rock’s last and unauthorized, of the Rolling Stephen Davis, who knows a lot about great bands and effectively documents Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, the subject, is to engage in a continual the end of an era in rock music. Davis Bob Marley, Levon Helm, and Jim retelling of the quest saga, one of the (CAS’70) has been chronicling rock and Morrison. oldest forms of literature. “It’s Jason roll for more than forty years, first as “In 1968, I was a junior at BU, and and the Argonauts setting out after an editor at the Boston Phoenix, then the Doors came to town and played at a the Golden Fleece, or Achilles and at Rolling Stone, and now as one of the now-demolished theater on Mass. Ave., Agamemnon going up to Troy for genre’s best-known biographers. called the Back Bay Theater,” he says. booty and to kick some ass,” Davis says. His writing career exploded “Changed my life. The Lizard King “The stories haven’t changed, just the with Hammer of the Gods: The Led came stumbling out on stage, put on names. It’s five guys from nowhere Zeppelin Saga (William Morrow & the best show I’d seen anywhere, just named Axl, Izzy, Slash, Duff, and Co., 1985), which is required reading a killer rock show. I said, ‘This is the Stephen finding the pot of gold at end for any hard rock and metal fan. The energy I want to be around every day of the rainbow.” bio offered readers one of the first for the rest of my life.’ ” Those five guys he’s referring to behind-the-scenes accounts of a rock Davis’s writing career started at the are the stars of Davis’s latest book, band, from debauchery at 30,000 feet BU News, a predecessor of the Daily Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N’ to hotel-room boredom. Davis has Free Press, where he became manag- Roses (Gotham), which narrates the since written biographies, authorized ing editor. He recalls the excitement 46 BOSTONIA Winter 2008–2009 PHOTOGRAPhs: tOP, melODy ko; right, Peter simon and turbulence of life on campus in until ten years later — five years after member. The long-awaited GN’R the late sixties. In 1968, he remembers, Led Zeppelin disbanded following album Chinese Dem ocracy — after he got a call that an Army deserter the death of drummer John Bonham fourteen years of missed release dates, was hiding in the basement of Marsh — that Davis decided to turn his at a cost of $13 million — was finally Chapel. notes into a book. “For a while after released in November. “Within twenty-four hours, they Hammer of the Gods came out, the Much has changed in the twenty had 10,000 students surrounding band said, ‘Who is this Stephen Davis? years since Guns N’ Roses’ classic Marsh Chapel to prevent the FBI from We never knew him.’ But fortunately, Appetite for Destruction was re- snatching him,” Davis says. “They I’ve got these pictures,” he says, as leased, Davis says. The five-piece put up a sign that said Sanctuary. he scrolls through a series of Simon’s hard rock band, with dual attacking Howard Zinn was up there haranguing unpublished photographs on his guitars and a rebel frontman, is over. people. Murray Levin, all these famous laptop, showing the young reporter Grunge saw to that. Then came the professors. It was so exciting. We ran chatting up lead singer Robert Plant in Internet and the breaking up of nothing else for two weeks. It was the his L.A. hotel room, in the elevator, on albums into downloadable comput- epicenter for two weeks of the anti– the balcony, with the dusty city spread er files. Even concerts have become Vietnam War movement.” out below. passive — and expensive — forms The Boston music scene was When GN’R was burning up the of entertainment, with popcorn and bubbling just as hard and hot, he metal scene in the mid-to-late eighties, concessions rather than a communion, recalls, and one of its most famous by- Davis says, he was more focused on rooted in rebellion, between artist and products had strong BU connections. reggae. But when he started looking audience. “Aerosmith started playing out in closely at the band a few years ago, Surprisingly, Davis doesn’t front of the George Sherman Union at he thought their story had all the mourn hard rock’s passing. “I think lunchtime for free,” Davis says. “They classic ingredients: ambition, excess, of rock as an ‘ism,’ like modernism were living on Comm. addiction, discord, and implosion. or romanticism,” he says. “These Web extra Ave. but had a friend Big implosion. artistic movements shouldn’t go on See a playlist of Stephen who was an RA on “They went from a five-piece classic forever. There should be term limits. Davis’s all- West Campus and gave American guitar band,” he says, “to Modernism lasted about forty years. time favorite them meal tickets. this bloated show band with twelve to And hard rock lasted from 1965, with songs at Over the course of fourteen people on stage, keyboards, the Stones and the Yardbirds, and www.bu.edu/ two years, one or two horn sections, three girl singers, pretty much ended with Guns N’ Roses bostonia. members of Aerosmith dancers in bustiers and Madonna in 1990.” could be seen at any given time in the clothes. It was like a Las Vegas act.” But if rock is fading as an art form, West Campus cafeteria.” Despite all that, he says, their does that mean rock biography will In 1975, a publicist friend invited impact on music was undeniable. soon follow? Davis, by that time an editor at Rolling He decided to tell the GN’R tale “No, I’m planning a project on the Stone, to join Led Zeppelin for two unauthorized and flew out to L.A., Jonas Brothers,” Davis says with a wry weeks on the road aboard the Starship, tracking down former bodyguards, smile. “I’m kidding. I’m very interested the band’s private tour plane. The limo drivers, ex-girlfriends. “The in writing about women now. There’s idea was to introduce the British best way to write an unauthorized Carly Simon. There’s Stevie Nicks. I metal group, which had developed a biography is to go to the little people hear Debbie Harry wants to do a book bad reputation at home, to American who remember what happened, as and that they’re looking for a writer. audiences. With Rolling Stone having opposed to the bombed-out rock stars,” The Blondie story would be a good one. already assigned a writer to cover the he says. “In fact, it’s better that way. We’ll see.” band, Davis secured an assignment For these people, from The Atlantic Monthly, and he it’s usually the high and good pal and photographer Peter point of their lives, Davis (left) with Robert Plant Simon (COM’70) set off. so they remember What they came back with be- every detail.” came the stuff of legend. “This was Technically, a book that outed members of Led Guns N’ Roses still Zeppelin as heroin addicts and as exists, although people that brutalized other people,” famously reclusive Davis says. and volatile front- The story was killed by wary senior man Axl Rose is editors at the Atlantic, and it wasn’t the sole remaining Winter 2008–2009 BOSTONIA 47.

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