Interview with Lonn Friend (Chronicler of a Decade) - Part Two: Rip Magazine and beyond.
Before I got into stand-up I wanted to be a rock journalist. I was obsessed with music, it seemed like the perfect job/lifestyle for a music loving kid who couldn't actually play an instrument or sing. In the late eighties there was a guy, who in my eyes had the perfect life. He hung with and wrote about all the biggest bands of that time thru the early nineties. He was the editor of THE BEST HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE at that time, RIP MAGAZINE and a sometime feature writer for Rolling Stone. That man was LONN FRIEND.

Several years ago I'm at a barbeque at a friend's house and Lonn walked into the backyard. I don't nerd out on that many "legitimately" famous people and here was this guy that unless you're a thirty to forty-something metal-head you wouldn't recognize and I freaked out. We started talking that night and we've been friends ever since.
Lonn published his memoirs, LIFE ON PLANET ROCK at the end of 2006. 

Back then I had Lonn come to my house in the valley to talk about the book, his life and my favorite topic, heavy metal.  I put the FIRST PART up in 2006 and fully intended on transcribing and posting the remainder of the interview.   Thanks to weed, not keeping my desk organized and moving;  the tapes went un-transcribed until I recently found my old mini-cassette recorder.  Please bare with my sub-par interviewing skills. I haven't done this since College Journalism and it shows.

 Brian:  Why do you think kids and bands respected Rip magazine more than the other heavy metal publications of the eighties?

Lonn: Because it was my intention that Rip be more sophisticated. That it was a “Rolling Stone” for metal fans.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: That it walked this fine, precarious line between being a fan magazine, which it was with big color photos, to also a great editorial publication with exclusive interviews and the best freelancers. I mean, two of my best writers I took right out of the first gig which was Steffan Chirazi at Kerrang.  I met him the first time I heard the name Guns n Roses, he was 17, he had just gotten off the boat from England. He was writing for Kerrang. And he said,… I just hit it off with him, he goes, (affected Brit accent) “You’re at Flint’s. You’re doing a rock magazine, a metal magazine.” I said “Yes”. He said, “How do you plan on doing this magazine?”. I said, “Better than anybody else.”. ‘Cause these fans deserve the respect of a really slick, cool, attitude driven magazine. He says, “I’ll write for you and nobody else if you give me an article a month.” And I said, “Done”. And he never wrote for another American metal mag until 1994. And we know Stephan has gone on to become… he is the gate keeper of Metallica’s fan site. Plus he wrote the great book called, “So What?” Which is like the fan coffee table book for Metallica. And he was gonna do the Ozzy book, but I don’t know what ever happened to that. He was very close with Ozzy Osbourne.

Brian: The other thing, as a fan, as a guy who was around back then and was reading those other magazines, I was reading your competitors before your magazine came out, and was blown away when Rip came out. It just seemed like it wasn’t… it seemed like those other magazines covered bands after they hit.  And you were featuring bands that were blowing up or were about to. Those other ones covered Kiss and AC/DC who were already huge and…

Lonn: Well this is what made us special. Commercially, those other mags like Circus and Hit Parader, they fed the marketplace directly. If Motley Crue was blowing up, they’d have six Motley Crue covers in a row.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: They fed it and a lot of their articles would be that way. But I sacrificed… I knew we would sacrifice a certain amount of newsstand, but our cool factor…is where it hit. Because I would just do fucked up things. My staff was so good. They’d walk into my office and they’d tell me about a new band. They’d say,  “Have you heard Faith No More?” I’d say, “No”. And they’d put it on for me and it was the first singer. Chuck was singing. Chuck Moseley?

Brian: Yeah, Introduce Yourself. Classic.

Lonn: Yeah. (singing) “We Care A Lot”. Great song. KROQ was playing it. Okay. Then Mike Patton comes along and he gets brought by my office even before he’s done his first photo session with the band. So I’m sitting with him and I go, “Oh, you’re in Faith No More. This is a good opportunity ‘cause they’re ready to make a great record. So we need some pictures of you for the magazine.” And I took him and got together with Glen LeFerman at Glen’s studio with the band, and we did a session without the publicist, without the label! Just shot it and we ran the first photos!
That’s the sort of… we had to be somewhat rebellious or else, you know we were jerking off.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: If we didn’t have Scott Ian interview Fishbone, we’re not showing our true colors. Or cover that tour that Anthrax did with Public Enemy. Or run the first articles on Nine Inch Nails after Pretty Hate Machine went…. Christina, my assistant talked about this record every day. Now, where I come from, I had to listen to the people who were down in the gutters listening to these tunes. They’re the ones that are directing it. They’d come in with the list of articles they’d wanna do and I go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll do this , this, this, this and this.” And then the record reviews would come in for Ear Candy the fresh, fresh blood….I didn’t approve ANY of that stuff before. I gave them total autonomy, those editors, to bring in the records they wanted to review and then they would…

Brian: And these were young people who loved that stuff…

Lonn: No, not loved it, LIVED it! Lived it!

Brian: And you could tell as a fan, I mean as a reader. You could tell.

Lonn: Well that’s how early Rolling Stone was, man. I mean they were living the culture.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: If you’re sitting in an office… you can be a managing editor and direct the traffic like the great Richard Lang did for me for so many years. I mean my managing editor was a direct disciple of T. Boyle , the author. He was a student of his at USC.  And now he’s a metal mag editor, so I utilized his greatest talents! But he’s brilliant, and I never worried about the copy from day to day. I didn’t even see a lot of it. I put it on him. I was out developing those contacts. Getting to places that nobody could get to. I mean really, the things I saw from behind the ropes?

Brian: Yeah. So was there more stuff that you couldn’t report than you actually could?

Lonn: Well if you think that that whole life was like, “the dirt” and that’s what’s titillating to you? There were some things. But it’s not as exciting as witnessing the creation of the music up close. It’s not like sitting and having Axl Rose play November Rain for you and it’s a demo and it’s a sound stage in Chicago.

Brian: Yeah, I love that chapter. Even though I don’t love that song, I know how iconic it was. And just to be there…

Lonn: Yeah, that’s where I want… my ethos as a writer over the years as it’s developed, cause I went through so many changes, but what’s stayed consistent is I want you to see what I’m seeing.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: ‘Cause if you’re a fan, you’ll appreciate my POV. Where I’ve been. And that’s why I always try to articulate those moments.

Brian: Do you think you were always a fan first?

Lonn: Well, I’ve been a fan of music since the Beatles. I bought, “Meet the Beatles” the day after the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. And I just discovered that that’s the exact place that Steve Lukather, the great guitar player, who I went to high school with… HIS first album was “Meet the Beatles” and he was a year younger than me.

Brian:  I see the influence of Rip magazine in current metal magazines. Do you read any current magazines?

Lonn: I don’t read any.

Brian: Have you seen Revolver though?

Lonn: Yeah, I got a copy of Revolver. After I met the editor who doesn’t return emails and… that’s cool. I didn’t have email back then (there was no such thing), so I can’t say whether I would be a dick and not return emails or…

Brian: I’m bad with them.

Lonn: I tried to return phone calls, but… I’m not saying he’s a dick

Brian: Right, right, right.

Lonn: He’s busy and I know… I was fabulous for a while, too. But he came to one of my chapter readings at one of the super group sessions. Scott and I put together these weekly events that were so much fun. I’d read a chapter of my book and then we’d watch that great show on VH-1. With his POV telling the truth. “It’s such bullshit”, ‘cause that’s Scott. I mean we don’t have to talk about Scott now, we can talk about it later, because he’s one of the true… we share him in out heart. He’s one of the genuine articles. Never got affected. No. Never. He is a fan. Huge.

Brian: Still is.

Lonn: Still is.

Brian: Yeah, I see him freak out around Gene Simmons and he knows Gene.

Lonn: Freaked out around Ted Nugent in that house.

Brian: Yeah.

Lonn: Still a fan. And that was what I was commandeering at that time and there was… every week was another, every DAY was a new “who is calling me today. Who am I going to get invited to see? What studio am I… oh, cool.”  I am invited to A&M Records to sit in a huge studio filled with candles and food with one other person and listen to Soundgarden’s Superunknown record. And then I wrote for the album network. I didn’t write this for Rip, for Rip I interviewed Chris Cornell later for that Heroes and Heroin article about the dark side of Seattle. And that was his first cover. He’s got a blue background and he was so Christ-like back then. And, I wrote this piece about that record. About what I was experiencing in the moment and the notes I took listening to Chris Cornell go to another level with his presentation and the songs like, “Black Hole Sun”. And years later I found out that Michael Bienhorn who produced that record (I met him once in the Arista years) and he said that’s the only review that he ever had framed and put up, and that meant a lot to me.

Brian: That’s cool.

Lonn: Yeah, he’s a great producer. We shared a love of Roxy Music.

Brian: So you touched on this a little bit earlier, but you worked with both porn stars and rock stars. And you were saying that you were able to get into the rock stars because they loved porn, but do you think there is something similar about those two personalities? Somebody who would decide that they could be a rock star and someone who would decide to be a porn star.?

Lonn: Yeah. Exhibitionism. It runs between the two. Because when you’re on stage, especially during the glam era, in those outfits? You’re role playing.

Brian: (laughs) Right, right.

Lonn: And… you’re not afraid.

Brian: But it also seems like it draws self-destructive personalities to both sides.

Lonn: Well sure.

Brian: On the bad end. They both have super dark stories.

Lonn: Well here’s a hybrid example of art imitating life. The Poison “Fallen Angel” video. That girl comes literally off the bus from the Midwest. I don’t remember where. Bret meets her, and

Brian: The girl IN the video.

Lonn: In the video. She’s gorgeous. Corn fed. Everything’s real. Bret meets her. She makes a video and Bret falls for her. She gets dragged into the decadence. Has a spoon up her nose…

Brian: Didn’t he ever once go, “Hey, this is kind of like my song”?

Lonn: Well I don’t know what came first, that’s the whole thing, but she got fucked up.

Brian: Well, the video came first.

Lonn: Yeah, the video had to come first. Because look at how she looks in the video.

Lonn: But that’s “Welcome to the Jungle”, too. That’s Axl getting off the bus like “Whoa, Hollywood”. And you know what porn is. There is a porn casting agent named Jim South. He’s still in the business. He’s still interviewed for the HBO sex documentaries and everything else. Because sex is so, porn is so mainstream now. It was still taboo back when I was reviewing films. It was still on 35mm at the Pussycat theatre. But the consistent thing is sex IS rock and roll. It’s like the  foundation of rock and roll. That guitarist is... that guitar is phallic. It’s like ALL the girls wanna fuck him. The guitar hero is the god, man. The front man is like, he’s the statue. It’s like the heart and the soul. All the balances to me in rock, like Plant and Page, John and Richie, and Axl and Slash, and Bono and Edge; they all represent a yin and yang energy. That one knows his place and the other knows his place. And the egos are so huge that there’s got to be ultimate respect for that other person. Mick and Keith is the archetype. Just to watch them now, 40 years later. There is so much love there and there’s so much distance. They really understand the magic. It’s incredible to watch those two, because everything else that came after came after those two.

Lonn: Like Ozzy and Tony Iomi. You know Ozzy’s had to play off a lot of guitar players. That’s like the Spinal Tap drummer, the Ozzy guitarist. They never last! They never last too long…

Brian: So besides Althea being in to metal, when Rip started there were other musical genres that could have used a smart, well-written niche magazine. But, why not Hip Hop why not… Depeche Mode?

Lonn: Because metal was Guns n Roses, Motley Crue and Metallica, Def Leppard, Scorpions.

Brian: Right, but wasn’t rap blowing up at the same time?

Lonn: No.

Brian: Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, etc?

Lonn: No. Public Enemy fused with Aerosmith and really set the match for the resurrection of Aerosmith.

Brian: Well, Run DMC.

Lonn: Run DMC and Aerosmith. “Walk This Way” video. Um, no. My memory is… metal was THE hottest thing. I mean it was it, dude.

Brian: Yeah.

Lonn: I mean it was huge. There was still great music coming out of the like New Wave and Alterative. I mean U2 and REM they were making great records in those days. And Prince was big.

Brian: And they were covered in the mainstream media.

Lonn: Yeah, they were covered. But also, those genres… they don’t excite fans into mania. They don’t…

Brian: No, I know. Metal is very special like that.

Lonn: It’s very special. It starts to become a life force. It’s in your blood.

Brian: Yeah, there’s not like hand gestures for the other styles of music. Like new wave.

Lonn: No! There isn’t.

Brian: There’s not some kind of like New Wave thing that you throw up and people are like, oh that guy likes new wave.

Lonn: They don’t have a symbol. A sign. That sort of galvanizing something.

Brian: (laughs)

Lonn: Yeah, that’s it.

Brian: There’s just not that same level of energy or fanaticism there.

Lonn: Because of Ronnie James Dio. Ronnie Dio and a random event.

Brian: Or Gene, depending on who you believe…

Lonn: Gene Simmons takes credit for the creation of the Earth. You know everything  starts with Gene.

Brian: Yeah, I know you cover that…

Lonn: Gene’s been reincarnated 1000 times.

Lonn: He’s also one of the smartest music people I’ve ever known. I just enjoy running into him at events. Like a golf tournament in half moon bay one time which Gregg Giuffria(Angel, Giuffira)  used to throw.  During his House of Lords phase when Gene signed them. RCA records signed them. They had the launch party, guess where? The House of Lords restaurant at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. That’s creative promotion. And that night we all went upstairs to Elvis’ suite at the… wherever it was, the Desert Inn or something. And everybody was drunk and we looked down out at Vegas and that just, “look at us, man! We’re on top of the world”.

Brian: With Gregg Giuffria.

Lonn: With Gregg Giuffria. The hair.

Brian: So why do you think, and we talked briefly about this, and this is me. You may not even agree, this is just me putting it out there, but I’ve always felt like (and this comes from being a metal kid) mainstream rock journalists didn’t seem to respect metal.

Lonn: You’re right.

Brian: Even at the time when it was huge it seemed like they had to. When they’d talk about bands like Guns n Roses it seemed like their arm was behind their back and they had to.

Lonn: And you know why they had to? Rolling Stone was looking at the cover of Rip magazine with Axl Rose on the cover with a shotgun and talking about such raw, ballsy truths about the lifestyle and rock and roll and where everything was vibrating from.  And so what do they do? They say, “We need this guy”. Rolling Stone did 4 or 5 (imagine that), 4 or 5 Guns n Roses covers! I did one of them. I did the one with Slash. With Jeffrey Reznor. Which came directly out of the Rip Slash cover and the Rip Axl cover. This is one of the real highpoints of how truly powerful Rip got so quickly. Rolling Stone wants GnR. Jann Wenner has personally asked for them for a cover story. And this is after two Rip cover stories. But Axl, he hates the press. They love us. We’re family. It’s like they can almost control the dissemination.  Del is on staff working for me. He’s the senior editor. He’s Axl’s friend. Who he met when he came here from Indiana, Del came from New York. And they are best friends. And he says since the beginning. Since Zutaut signed him, since Ricky Hamilton financed their meals on the streets of Hollywood, so it’s all about relationships with that band. And they’re also fragmented and fucked up most of the time. It’s too much trouble to do Rolling Stone with anybody to just get it together. So they end up using my writer Del James to do the cover story AND our photographer Robert John! We dictated to Rolling Stone how they would present their first Guns n Roses story. Which was fantastic, by the way.

Brian: Beyond that, why do you think they don’t respect it and why did you give it respect? I mean metal as a whole.

Lonn: I don’t wanna be disingenuous here… I don’t think it’s so much that I or Rip respected the music so much, as we respected the fans that much. And the fans thought that Dokken was great. So we were going to present Dokken as great. You know I grew up listening to Dylan, Lennon and McCartney and Robert Plant and Pete Townshend. A lot of that stuff was just so disposable because it was all about letting it go and having a good time. And that’s not a judgment call on whether it will last in eternity or it’ll be gone in 6 months. It’s just that whole scene wasn’t trying to change the world in any way. It was about trying to get the most bang out of the minute that you could.
Lonn: Kiss is the greatest example of all that. Just, the loudest, the biggest. That’s what that was! And it was so escapist and it was so important to the working class fan who’s got a shitty fucking job or is in school. They wanna escape. The way I escaped to The Who’s “Tommy” is the way that era escapes to Ozzy or Metallica. I mean you put on, “Ride the Lightning” and you didn’t have any problems any more. Just melted away. So the fan is the one who paid the greatest respect, to. And that’s why the magazine is remembered. It’s been dead for 12 years! The letters I’m getting about my book are from people who grew up reading the magazine and they still remember moments. That’s pretty amazing for a magazine. Especially for a music magazine, where you can recall specific things and where you were in time. That’s the magic of music. That’s the magic of music. Not just Rock and Roll. It evokes something from where you grew up. That’s why I think Bon Jovi is so huge. It’s soooo many people’s, “I remember my first kiss, or my first fuck… or my first shuddering in the left ventricle.” You know? Love.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: And that’s it. That’s why they come back. Most of our life we don’t a whole lot of super good feelings and good memories. We have to hold on to them. And the music threads it for us. And it’s immortal because we can always pop that disk in and now it’s so easy for us to access. We just push a button on our ipod and it’s just, “There it is! It’s back!”. And the concerts from the 70’s and 80’s. That’s why we wanna go see them. I mean, who’s around now that we’re going to want to see? Are we going to want to go see Avenged Sevenfold in 15 or 20 years?

Brian shrugs.

Lonn: They’ve got to step up. They’ve got to write some great songs.

Brian: It doesn’t seem like there are a lot of big stars right now in hard rock.

Lonn: Right, there aren’t any Avatars.

Brian: I mean maybe System of the Down and Tool, and that’s about it.

Lonn: Serj. Yeah, He’s just a freak, Maynard. So’s Thom Yorke from Radiohead. They’re freaks. They’re artists.

Brian: Yeah. So this is kind of a left turn, but going back to audiences. In the book you talk about Chicago audiences being the best and it resonated with me because I’ve heard that from almost every band I’ve ever talked to.

Lonn: Really?

Brian: Scott Ian especially. I’ve talked to other people and they play all over the world and…

Lonn: Why is it? I mean there are great cities and on any given night a show can be as thick. I’ve been at shows in LA. I mean, the last Pearl Jam show I saw at the Forum was as loud as any show. And Billy Joel at Staples was as loud as any crowd. But there’s a whole different kind of… they live through hard winters, that’s one of the oldest cities in America for immigrants. They come there. My family came there from Poland two generations ago. It was like, New York and Chicago. Those were the centers for what was coming in from Europe and migrating from overseas. S there’s a lot of heritage. There’s a richness. The city is eclectic. They’ve got crazy neighborhoods and rock n roll is so much about lineage. What’s passed on. Those acts that come from a certain part of the country, you know, Cheap Trick, STYX, you know Chicago bands. Each region of America has it’s own heroes. REO Speedwagon. (pause) What metal came out of Chicago?

Brian:  Trouble?

Lonn: But from an overall rock perspective they’re just really loud. They don’t mind waiting in line. They don’t complain a lot. They’ve got hot dogs and pizza. They’re great sports fans. Look at how they sell out Cubs games and that’s the most tragic team ever!
Lonn: I will tell you who examined this in film better than anyone. John Hughes did, because he did all of his movies in Chicago. And what did he examine in all of those characters like Ferris Bueller and John Candy in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? He examined how the people are just Essentially simple, good-hearted people. Not full of shit, not affected, not chasing the Golden Calf. And we identified with their humanity. You know Ferris Bueller has humanity. He’s still one of the most lovable characters and Tom Cruise from “Risky Business” (not John Hughes, but shot in Chicago). Those are for pop culture modern iconoclastic films. My parents were born there. I’m from LA, so I got fucked. ‘Cause most bands I know hate to come here. It’s the “show me what you got” capital. It’s press-crazed, it’s arrogant tinseltown, poser fucking attitude. It’s not meant to be a grand indictment because there are great nights and there are great fans.

Brian: Yeah, I’ve seen amazing shows here.

Lonn: But the sheer numbers of this city. I mean you wanna talk about Rock n Roll history? Look at what bands came out of here. The Doors came out of Los Angeles, and they are one of the iconic bands. The Eagles came out of Los Angeles. X came out of Los Angeles. Love, and Arthur Lee who influenced the Doors came out of LA. Then what we were just talking about, the whole glam scene…

Brian: Poison, Ratt…

Lonn: All of them! From here! All of ‘em… Sunset Blvd!

Brian: Right.

Lonn: That’s because the city’s so big that scenes can develop. But if you ask me, there hasn’t been a scene since then.

Brian: That’s true.

Lonn: Since grunge killed the hair era (with MTV’s help) there hasn’t been a scene in Los Angeles so much. No one’s risen up to be like those bands were here. Van Halen came from Pasadena, that’s still Los Angeles.

Brian: Okay.  Switching gears.  I’ll try no to be too broad or too junior high school newspaper here, but…

Lonn: I wrote for my junior high newspaper.

Brian: I did too. But in the book (and just a thing that I think about and I wonder if you’ve thought about), you talk about the biggest bands in hard rock and heavy metal; Guns n Roses, Kiss, Metallica, Jovi. And then you talk about these other smaller bands. What is it about these big ones that I just mentioned beyond their songs that made them icons? Is that too big of a question?

Lonn: No, it’s not.

Brian: And why are these bands bigger than their contemporaries? You know? Why wasn’t Dokken as big?

Lonn: Well, the reason why Bon Jovi is what they are is because they toured the world. They built it over there. And when they went through a “not cool” period over here and lost the hits here, they got bigger over there. The loyalty overseas is ten times what it is here in America.

Brian: And also the personalities that we talked about earlier.

Lonn: They’re mythic. They’re mythical creatures over there. Bon Jovi in Germany? They can tour a month and just play Germany. Stadiums!  It’s mythical how big they are there. And Metallica, too. I mean Metallica went to Iceland and Russia and… do you know what it’s like to go to those cities where no one ever gets to see that? We’re spoiled here! Who’s coming through? There’s 75 acts playing this weekend in Los Angeles. They get nothing so it’s an event.

Brian: But weren’t they big before they toured?

Lonn: Yeah, but “big”, that’s a relative term. What is big?

Brian: Well then why did they blow up? What makes those records so much more special?

Lonn: Well, in America it’s hits. And MTV blew up the 80’s. Don’t forget MTV was born in 1980 (edit note – actually, August 1, 1981). So the whole 80’s, that music was just being pummeled onto the eyeballs of youth. So you saw David Coverdale and he becomes like a God. You’ve got these great big cheesy riffs and metal pop songs, and they’re everywhere! They’re ubiquitous. So you’ve sold 7 million records before you turn around.

Brian: Right, well then why do people still know Axl’s name and they don’t know David Coverdale?

Lonn: Oh, they do. What they don’t know is the lead singer of Nickelback’s name. And they sold 25 million albums.

Brian: Right. Why is that though?

Lonn: Why is that? Because where are the heroes? Do you think being a hero is an everyday event? It’s rare.

Brian: Right, so then why does everybody connect? Do you know what I mean?

Lonn: Well, you’re making a sweeping generalization that it’s everybody.

Brian: No, but I mean what makes so many people connect with, like, Bon Jovi or Axl? And that, like we were talking about earlier, they still want to see them live? There’s people that bought Whitesnake albums that wouldn’t cross the street to see them right now.

Lonn: Oh, I know. There’s bands out there right now that have bigger records than anyone and they’re playing at House of Blues. And yet Bon Jovi still sells out a stadium for two nights.

Brian: Exactly.

Lonn: Well, part of it is the live experience has never been weak. It’s always been strong. They bring the fan close to them. Proximity to the fan has always been key. This is why Pearl Jam is still so huge. They stopped making records for the radio and TV and kept making music for the fans and just became Grateful Dead huge. And they toured the world. When you have kind of still a “fuck you” attitude… you’ll transcend to the next generation. Especially now because my generation has fucked up the planet so bad that the kids in their 20’s, 30’s and teens, they REALLY identify with the true rebellious artists. With the songwriter who just doesn’t give a fuck. That’s why Radiohead and Tool with no radio wave exposure practically (except alternative radio and satellite). They have a mythological following. They’re like Pink Floyd to me. They are both like modern Pink Floyd’s. No one could ever explain why Pink Floyd was as huge as they were. No one could ever explain why Dark Side of the Moon was on the charts for 20 years! How could that be? What is that? That’s something else taking over.

Brian: So it’s a whole other force. It’s people connecting.

Lonn: Yes. It’s people connecting. And Pink Floyd did it before there was a web before there was connection like that. Now you’ve got this video world where this baby band made and they’re hugging people on the street and it’s been seen all over the world 9 million times and it’s in the mindset of everybody. We can disseminate information now 100,000 times faster than we could then, but there was something… more pure about back then. Why were there only 4 or 5 magazines and only a couple of hard rock stations? Because it was still not quite the mainstream. It was not accepted. You don’t want your parents to like this music. You just don’t.

Brian: No, I remember. (laughs)

Lonn: Yeah.

Brian: When my mom was singing it in my doorway that’s how I knew it was time to move on to something harder.

Lonn: Hello?

Brian: She’d come in and go, “Oh I kinda like that”. And I’d say, “Oh really?”…

Lonn: If your mom’s in the shower going, (sings) “Every Rose has it’s thorn…”, it’s time to move on.

Brian: You’re gonna go buy a Testament record.

Lonn: That’s right, it’s goodbye Bret Michaels and hello, Chuck Billy!
(laughs)

Lonn: That’s an un-sung band.

Brian: Oh yeah.

Lonn: They were…

Brian: Back to the question of why were some bands bigger than others, so you don’t think it was just the songs?

Lonn: No.

Brian: So if Skid Row and Guns n Roses switch catalogs, would Guns n Roses still come out on top? You know what I mean? Would they still be remembered more than Skid Row? Would they… Skid Row is kind of a joke even though they sold…

Lonn: But they’re not really a joke.

Brian: Not to me they’re not. I love the band, but in most people’s memory they don’t stick out like Guns n Roses does. And is it more than “Sweet Child o Mine”? You know what I mean? If Skid Row had written “Sweet Child o Mine” would they be as huge?

Lonn: Yeah, I don’t know. I think they’re very similar in the way they came together and Axl is Sebastian’s hero to this day. They saw GnR and were following in their footsteps. They made a very conscious decision that the second album “Slave to the Grind” was going to be ten times heavier. Not just in music but an image standpoint. That’s the reason why…

Brian: They didn’t move further.

Lonn: It’s the reason Sebastian asked me to shoot him with Robert John, Guns N Roses photographer, holding a broken bottle on the cover two months after he got in trouble for throwing a bottle out into the audience and almost killing somebody. I’ll tell you this, no other magazine would do that at that time. They wouldn’t. And it was a huge issue for us. It had that double opening spread. By the way, here’s a piece of trivia. In the movie “Airheads” which I music supervised, they took that picture (the opening shot where he has his tongue on the bottle), they took that picture out of my office and they blew it up big and it’s in the radio station there with Brendan Fraser and Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler when they take it over. Little piece of trivia there.

Brian: Cool.

Lonn: You ask very good questions, by the way.

Brian: Oh really? Cool. I was actually nervous about this.

Lonn: Really? Nah! I don’t make anybody nervous.

Brian: No, I just haven’t done this since college when I decided I didn’t want to do this. It’s the direction I was gonna go, when I found stand-up.

Lonn: (old man voice) I was the editor of the school magazine.

Brian: I was! When you were writing for Guns n Roses in Rip magazine I was writing about Guns n Roses in my college newspaper. I was! Right when that record came out I was the first person that I knew that was writing about it.

Lonn: Tell me something; What were your bands? The bands that lit you up as a fan? That’s what I want to know. And did we cover them properly?

Brian: Yeah, well. Your Beatles… Beatles was your first record and mine was KISS. KISS were my Beatles…

(“Master of Puppets” begins to blare. It is Brian’s cell ringing)

Lonn: James Hetfield, Ladies and Gentlemen! On his cell phone…

Brian: (stops the ring) That’s embarrassing. And from there I just had a bunch of those. It was a great time to be a music fan.

Lonn: How old were you when you saw KISS?

Brian: I didn’t see them until many years later. I didn’t see them until they took the makeup off. But when I got into them it was 1976. Destroyer came out. I was 10 years old and just when crazy for it. I heard them first on a .45  of “Detroit Rock City” some kid at school had brought in and played it in the library. And I went nuts for it! And then once I saw what they looked like and I was like, oh my god it’s a comic book, it’s a horror movie, it’s…

Lonn: Dude, my god, look at your office!

Brian: Yeah, I know.

Lonn: They were made to order.

Brian: Yeah, they were made for me. They were my band. And then Van Halen and AC/DC and Judas Priest. Well, probably AC/DC first and THEN Van Halen and then they all became obsessions. Where I’d find AC/DC and “Highway to Hell” had just come out, and then I had to go and buy all the back catalog.

Lonn: How did you feel when Bon Scott died?

Brian: Very, very sad as a kid. And then…

Lonn: Was it a miracle that “Back in Black” was as incredible as it was?

Brian: Yeah, it was pretty weird. But to me they’re still two bands. You know there’s Bon Scott AC/DC and there’s…

Lonn: Like Genesis is two bands. You’ve got the Peter Gabriel Genesis and…

Brian: Right. And then Priest and Maiden and Metallica. And being a Bay Area kid hearing about them early and getting their demos. And reading about them in fanzines before anybody was talking about them.

Lonn: Sure. Did you see them in the Garage?

Brian:  They were an hour away from where I was living.  And then I started to drive and thrash metal ruled my life.

Lonn: Sure like Slayer…

Brian: Yeah, but all the bay area stuff.

Lonn: Exodus. Testament.

Brian: Right. Those were all my bands because I could go see them in clubs. Those were my bands that rocked my world and changed my life.

Lonn: Sure. Did you go into the pit and get knocked around? You’re so big I don’t think anyone could fuck with you.

Brian: Yeah. I was skinny though. I didn’t grow until after high school. I grew probably another 6 or 8 inches after I graduated. So… yeah I grew 8 inches. I think was 5’10 when I graduated. But super skinny, and weighed nothing. Yeah, I’d get messed up in the pit.

Lonn: But you didn’t care, right?

Brian: No, I didn’t care. I remember one night having the top of my head smashed with a spiked wristband of a crowd surfer… Next morning I’m sitting at the breakfast table and my mom starts freaking out because my hair on the top of my head is matted with blood from the night before.

Lonn: (cackles) Awesome!

Brian: It kinda stung, but I had no idea and mom freaks out. I’m like, “Mom, it’s the pit!” But anyway…

Lonn: Did they look like stars to you or did they just look like Aliens? When you saw James playing…

Brian: They were stars.

Lonn: They were stars.

Brian: The first time I saw those guys in SF they were just like the coolest guys ever. They just dressed how they wanted. They didn’t give a fuck about Motley Crue or any of the other stuff that was happening at that time. They didn’t want to be like those Sunset Strip bands.

Lonn: Nope.

Brian: Which I also liked. There was, for a short period, like those first two Motley Crue records, those first two Ratt records I bought. But then this other stuff, I was buying it at the same time and I just connected more with the heavier stuff.

Lonn: Now being a fan then. Didn’t you want to read about these musicians? Did you go to get the magazines because you were curious about them?

Brian: Yeah, and I’d read Circus and Hit Parader and then I’d always be disappointed because it was always about Ozzy which I also loved, but after a while it was like, “Really?” And it always felt like to me, and I don’t know if other kids observed this at the time who were reading, but it felt like they would record one interview and then space it out for months and months. And keep… you know, no NEW news. It wasn’t like, “Hey, what’s going on with Ozzy this month?”…  it’s what he was up to 8 months ago when they went on tour with him. Does that make sense?

Lonn: Yes.

Brian: And as a reader, I felt that. It didn’t feel immediate like your magazine did. But anyway… um… I wanted to get to other stories from other bands. Like, not in the book maybe? Is there one Mustaine story that stands out or…

Lonn: There’s many Mustaine stories. There’s one where he’s so fucked up on smack and we ride on a plane together and he can’t even keep his eyes open. And we check in at the hotel and…

Brian: This is late 80’s, then?

Lonn: Late 80’s. And he’s eating a piece of chocolate and it’s like…it was just sad. I just stared at him and the publicist was just like, “I’m sorry.”.

Brian: And you were supposed to interview him?

Lonn: Yeah, well, the next day he’s like…back in shape! That boy battled some serious demons. And he’s a courageous survivor. I give him a lot of props. I am very fond of Mustaine. I think I understand him inside as well as anybody. Because he’s got a lot of shit going on in there. A lot of stuff.

Brian: Right. You wrote…

Lonn: I watched the “Passion of the Christ” rough cut in Mel Gibson’s office and Dave Mustaine was sitting right across the table from me…

Brian: I remember him talking about his problems in your magazine. When he wasn’t talking about ‘em in other places.

Lonn: He did some amazing shit for us. Megadeth is the reason I got on to MTV, because we did the Megadeth party bus promotion. And we went from town to town in the back of a bus made up like my office. And that turned into Lonn Friend at large. Because they said, “Hey, you’re pretty cool. You can… Maybe we can do a spot on Headbanger’s Ball?”. It started with that. The day that Penelope Spheeris was shooting “The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years” the concert sequence with Megadeth, they came by my office! Penelope and Dave. And I handed Dave a Rip t-shirt and I said, “You know what would be really cool? If you wore it.”. And a couple months later I’m at a movie screening and there on the fucking movie screen is Dave shredding with the Rip logo on his chest. Enormous!

Brian: Right.

Lonn: Dude, that’s how the magazine became branded into the culture was things like that. With Axl wearing the Rip t-shirt in the “Patience” video. How could someone make that happen? You think that’s some kind of endorsement or someone cut a check?! No! Del handed them a shirt and Axl said, “Fuck. Cool.” And put it on! That’s all it was. There’s so much now that’s manipulated. There’s no true love going on out there. There’s a check behind everything. Axl and Slash made a TV commercial for a subscription ad for Rip. And we showed it on MTV.

Brian: Yeah, I remember.

Lonn: They did it for nothing at like eleven in the morning on a Saturday. Getting them out of bed was the hardest part. Me and Del were just knocking on Axl’s door for…

Brian: (laughs) Were you knock, knock, knocking?

Lonn: Yeah, we were (suddenly gets it) Ohhh, yeah we were (singing) “Knock, knock, knocking on Axl’s door…” .

Brian: (laughs) yeah.

Lonn: And we were shooting them on the street in a phone booth.
Lonn: And it was fucking great! They found that on You Tube and somebody sent it to me and now it’s on my myspace page.

Brian: Oh nice. I gotta see that again.

Lonn: Yeah.

Brian: So real quick, I think this is gonna be a two-parter because I’m seeing other things that I wanted to ask you.

Lonn: Two-parter!

Brian: I have other things to ask you.

Lonn: And we have to have dinner.

Brian: Yeah. But real quick, two or three other bands… like Slayer, not in the book…

Lonn: Slayer. Uh, I’ve known them since the Rip years we did lots of articles. The Clash of the Titans tour was the first.

Brian: When you first heard them though, did you think they would connect and be around forever like they are?

Lonn: No.

Brian: And have like the most intense fans in heavy metal.

Lonn: Right, well I understand Slayer. I understood Pantera. I understood how being heavy had it’s attraction. Being heavy and not giving a shit.

Brian: Speaking to the dark side and…

Lonn: Speaking to the dark side and images of the shadow self and the evil of…images that are like comic book images?

Brian: Right.

Lonn: Or biblical images. I mean Slayer pulled from the bible.

Brian: Yeah.

Lonn: Yeah, in their own way. Don’t you think it’s crazy that they released an album on 9/11, 2001?

Brian: I still have the receipt. I went and bought it that day.

Lonn: Frame that receipt!

Brian: I woke up to this horrible day with everything that was happening. But still, like, I know this sounds fucked up, but I had to go buy that record.

Lonn: That’s really fucked up!

Brian: I had to go buy that record, because I knew it was coming out. And…

Lonn: That’s the last place I went that day was a record store!

Brian: But for me it was like escapism. I mean I woke up watched 8 hours of footage and was like, “you know what, I was gonna go buy this record today”. I knew it was coming out. I was gonna go buy it. I mean that’s what I do. Tuesdays I go buy the new stuff. Wednesdays I go buy the new comic books. And that’s just my personality, and I went… and I still have the receipt that says 9/11 at the top and “God Hates us All” on the bottom.

Lonn: God hates us all. Tell me that’s not prophetic?

Brian: Oh, man.

Lonn: But one of the great moments with Tom Araya, because I’ve always like him, was in Earl’s Court, England London. June 2000. Slayer and Iron Maiden. And I arrive midway through Slayer’s set. And I go backstage after their set and I’m sitting with Tom and Maiden’s not gone on stage yet, and I’m gonna interview Steve Harris in like 10 minutes. But I’m sitting with Tom and Tom goes, “I have to tell you a story about the pyramids.” And I go, “What about the Pyramids”. And he says, “I got really stoned in Egypt, and I climbed the pyramid. I climbed the great Pyramid”. I go, “How far up did you get?”. He goes, “I got fucking far up, man.”

Brian: (laughs)

Lonn: And he had that real stoner, bad kid look on his face. BUT, then I know this is the deeper part of Tom Araya, I said, “You must have felt something.” And he said, “Yeah, I felt like the universe and everything. I felt God. I felt the stars. Dude, I felt it all.”  And he did feel it! That’s the story I wanna hear. I want to hear and see an artist who has been to the other side. Who gets that?  And that’s…what you do with your celebrity and your fortune? You need to do shit like that. If you’re at the Pyramids… get stoned and climb it!

Brian: Totally.  Why not?

Lonn: I remember one time Jon Bon Jovi saying to me, I was in Japan with them 1991 on New Year’s Eve, and we’re driving to Yokohama. And I say to him, “God, you’ve been to Japan so many times and it’s such a beautiful country. Have you ever been to the Zen gardens?” And he says, “I’ve never been out of my hotel”. I go, “What?? What are you talking about?” He says, “I don’t see it. I don’t see anything. I see hotels and buses.” I go, “That’s sad”. And he says, “Yeah, it is sad.”

Brian: Which, that is mostly their life, but you CAN get off the bus.

Lonn: Well, Tom Araya got off the bus!

Brian: (laughing) yeah.

Lonn: Yes, you can get off the bus, but are you inspired to? But Jon, it’s all about building it, man. He never lost focus that he has the keys to the kingdom. And… how big does your castle have to be? I don’t know, but his is still getting bigger.

Brian: Right.

Lonn: That’s the part about fortune I don’t really understand, it’s like how much do you need. And that’s why that chapter is so funky. You know, he gave me $1,000…

Brian: (laughs) See, has he read it?

Lonn: I don’t know.

TAPE ENDS