Guns N' Roses' former manager recalls harrowing stories

As the manager of Guns N’ Roses during the band’s debauched heyday, Alan Niven has no shortage of colorful stories.

About 15 minutes into a thoughtful Zoom conversation, the garrulous Niven poses a question of his own: “Why was I managing Guns N’ Roses?”

“Because nobody else would do it,” he says, noting that the band’s former management firm “could not get away fast enough” from the group. “No one else would deal with them. Literally, I was not bottom of the barrel, darling — I was underneath the barrel. It was desperation.”

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June 23, 2025 10:18 PM

Case in point: his very first Guns N’ Roses band meeting. On the way into the house, Niven says, he passed by a broken toilet and “one of the better-known strippers from [the] Sunset Strip.” Stradlin and Slash were the only ones who'd shown up. Once the meeting started, Stradlin nodded out at the table and Slash fed “a little white bunny rabbit” to a massive pet python.

“And I'm sitting there going, ‘Keep your cool. This may be a test. Just go with it and get through it.’ But that was my first GNR meeting.”

These kinds of stranger-than-fiction anecdotes dominate Niven’s wildly entertaining (and occasionally jaw-dropping) new book, “Sound N' Fury: Rock N' Roll Stories.” With brutal honesty and vivid imagery, he describes the challenges of wrangling Guns N’ Roses before and after the band’s 1987 debut, “Appetite for Destruction.” These include mundane business matters (like shooting music videos on a budget) and more stressful moments, such as navigating Rose’s mercurial moods and ensuring that band members didn’t take drugs on international flights.

As the manager of Guns N’ Roses during the band’s debauched heyday, Alan Niven has no shortage of colorful stories.

The LAPD fetching Axl Rose from his West Hollywood condo and bringing him directly to the stage so Guns N’ Roses could open for the Rolling Stones at the L.A. Coliseum.

Slash going off script and taking a Winnebago for a joyride — and then standing in rush hour traffic and brandishing a bottle of Jack Daniels — while filming the “Welcome to the Jungle” music video.

Guitarist Izzy Stradlin carrying a $750,000 cashier’s check that Niven had to take from him and hide in his own shoe for safekeeping during a raucous trip to New Orleans.

Niven mixes delightful bits of insider gossip into these harrowing moments: firing for bad behavior future superstar director Michael Bay from filming Great White’s “Call It Rock ’n’ Roll” music video; Berlin’s Terri Nunn sending President Reagan an 8-by-10 photo with a saucy message; clandestinely buying Ozzy Osbourne drinks on an airplane behind Sharon Osbourne’s back.

And his lifelong passion for championing promising artists also comes through, including his recent advocacy for guitarist Chris Buck of Cardinal Black.