Marc Canter - Reckless Road Guns n Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction

Act I

I actually said it out loud to Slash that I was starting a project.

1981 is when I first realized that I wanted to document this project, or at least with Slash at that time. I said, "Wouldn't that be neat if we could start documenting this right now, and every time there's an event just capture it. I mean what does it cost to put a TDK tape into, what is it a dollar? And a roll of film, it's not that much." I never knew it would grow into something like this.

I first met Slash in 1976 when we were in the fifth grade and we became good friends. At that time, I noticed that he had a great talent for sketching on school projects.

Slash, third row, second from left. Marc Canter, first row on end.

By 1978 we were riding bicycle motocross. The tricks that he performed were ahead of the time. Slash was a star. Camera flashes would go off when he took his jumps. He approached bicycle motocross with the same style and flash as he did everything else, including the guitar, which he took up in 1980.

By 1981, he was flying again, but with guitar, and I would always push him to learn tough solos. He understood how to get the right tone.

In trying to contribute to his success, I always helped out in any way I could. I would help him buy guitar strings, I'd help him with the effects that he might be interested in. He worked a lot, like twelve-hour days at a clock company and he got by on very little wages, but he did buy his own guitars. The twelve-hour days at a clock company supported his guitar habit.

Slash wanted to play the bass, but when his teacher, Robert Wolin, pointed out that the bass had four strings, whereas the guitar had an alluring six, Slash characteristically went for the more challenging instrument. A quick study, he didn't need many lessons to master the basics and achieve his own expressive style. He had a lot of respect and admiration for Wolin's playing and credits him with inspiring his own ambitious approach to the instrument.

When Slash hooked up with Axl, because of the chemistry they had, I knew that if they could stay together they would go places. In June of 1985, when Guns N' Roses were together with the Appetite for Destruction line up, songs started to pile up quickly. They were the perfect team of songwriters and they were all living together at that time. Slash knew what to do with whatever Izzy and Duff came up with and Axl knew what to do with whatever Slash came up with. At that point, I helped the band with some money for flyers, advertising, food and other odds and ends. Later that year, as the band became a better draw in the Hollywood scene, better backing soon arrived.

I took the photographs, audio and video taped the shows, and collected the memorabilia including ticket stubs, newspaper ads, press clippings, set lists, show fliers, and just about everything else from every performance that Guns N' Roses did from their very first gig until the recording of Appetite for Destruction.

My goal here is to let everybody that likes this band -- or even if you don't like the band -- see the making of one of the greatest records ever made. It shows how the band came together and how their style emerged. I want to share that with the world; let you see what I was lucky enough to witness. I was there and witnessed the making of Guns N' Roses.

It took me fifteen months and over three thousand hours to complete this book. It covers over fifty performances, thirty of them prior to their being signed by Geffen Records. Between Jack Lue and myself, we somehow managed to shoot just about every performance. Through this book you will see how it all came together. The goal was to use as many photos as I could, so the reader could feel the flow of the live shows. And when the reader is finished reading this book I want them to feel that they were there, right next to me. That's my goal.

If you ask me, I guess I'm still documenting. Anytime something comes around with Guns N' Roses on the cover, I'm buying it no matter what. So, I guess I never stopped. Enjoy the show,

Marc Canter, Los Angeles, CA

Photo shoot for Appetite for Destruction, 1987.
Marc Canter, second from left, with the band. Album credits: Marc Canter - without you?

Act I

Marc and I became friends when I was stealing his mini-bike. I probably came up with some stupid excuse and managed to soften the blow a little bit and then we managed to get into a normal conversation. We started to hang out. We did fifth grade, sixth grade, then seventh grade and junior high school together and we were just really good friends -- all the way up until now.

He's my best friend; one of the only good friends that is consistent. I can't nail it down in a word what makes Marc the person that he is -- he is just a character unto himself. He is a really good, loyal friend and we had a lot of common interests: I was into bikes and he was into bikes. A lot of the same stuff that I got into, he was already into.

Marc was always good at taking pictures. He always kept a lot of pictures. As we got older, Marc turned into a big fan of the band Aerosmith, and he got into collecting their magazine interviews and photos and any kind of rarities he could find. So I guess at one point he started to put a scrapbook together of stuff that I was doing when I started putting bands together. He always had a camera around. Marc has been working on the peripheral forever and I just never really paid much attention to it because he just always kept shots and kept scrapbooks of everything. It's Marc's nature and it's great. I wish I were like that. I would have a clearer memory of my past.

SLASH There isn't a better person to actually release any material having to do with the coming together and history of Guns N' Roses and where it went and what was going on behind the scenes.

DUFF McKAGAN I met Slash and Steven [Adler] at Canter's restaurant. It was the first time I had ever been to Canter's. I'm sure I met Marc that night or within a very short period of time. When Guns N' Roses formed, Marc became like a sixth guy in the band. He was always around and he had unlimited access to the band, especially in the early days. He was really the only guy who cared about the band outside of the guys in the band. I think he believed in us from the beginning and had a much broader view of what the band was about than we had from the early stages. He documented the whole thing, tirelessly. He was a guy, to all of us, who meant stability. He had a life in L.A.; a legitimate life, with a family and a business that had been around forever. Living the nomadic lifestyle, that was our life for a couple years, Marc would always come around and you'd get a little piece of stability from him.