6. Guns N’ RosesAppetite For Destruction
I have very good memories of this album because it was a way for me to feel something again from the US, a coolness from Los Angeles. The nectar of the Los Angeles style; topless, a lot of jewellery, cowboy boots with leather pants inside; Slash with the golden Les Paul, and Axl Rose was a super exciting person – like a crazy rat. At the same time super generous, because I think for him it must have been terrible to sing like that every night, it’s hurting your body to sing like that! It’s a true performance. So I said to myself ‘these guys are super stylish for sure.’ They did super strong songs, plus it’s a sacrifice. The guys sacrificed their lives for the music; taking too much drugs, too much colouration of hair, too much everything. I said to myself if I want to be a huge star I have to sacrifice my life – that’s the message I took from Guns N’ Roses! Plus, the album is really good; all of the songs are super strong. Each time a new song begins you say ‘ah yes, this one!’ It’s full of energy, with a strong spirit. It’s really hard to say through music how much cool you have, and they did it, like ‘we are super cool guys but we can show our coolness through our notes’ –they did that so well.
It’s really stylish for me. It’s really the expression of their world. It had a big impact on me. I was a huge fan of Guns N’ Roses. I bought the cowboy boots, I bought a red bandana, I wasn’t topless because my body wasn’t muscled enough, I had long hair. I was a very lost teenager. I was always lost between Run-DMC and Guns N’ Roses, so for me it was really difficult to choose – am I a hip-hop guy or am I a rock guy? It was super ridiculous, but some days I was a kind of hip-hop guy with the big Adidas shirt, but the next day I was with my skinny trousers in my boots.
