What's going on my fellow rock n' rollers. Don't forget to hit the bell notification
icon to be notified every time I put out a new video on my channel. Now Guns N’ Roses
would rule the world for six short years from 1988 to 1993 and remade rock n’ roll in
their own decadent image. Of course it didn’t come without any costs as drug abuse, in fighting
and controversy seemed to tear the band apart by the mid 90’s with the only remaining
member by 1997 being original vocalist Axl Rose. The last studio album from the band
to feature the classic members Axl Rose, bassist Duff McKagan, and guitarist Slash would be
the group’s 1993 cover album ‘The Spaghetti Incident?” It seemed like with every album
release leading up to the Spaghetti Incident the band was marred in controversy. The band’s
debut record 1987's Appetite for Destruction was criticized over it’s original artwork
that depicted a half naked woman with some criticizing the band for glorifying rape.
The band’s subsequent release, 1988 EP GN’R Lies created a firestorm over the song ‘One
in a million’ that featured explosive lyrics against immigrants, and gay people. 1991’s
double album Use your Illusion was no different as the band was accused of being misogyenstic
with songs like back off bitch and locomotive. And of course 1993’s Spaghetti Incident
was no different.
Only a week after the album hit store shelves in November of 1993 law-enforcement and victims-rights
groups began expressing outrage What were the outraged over? Stay tuned to find out!
The covers album was mostly a tribute to the glam and punk bands who influenced Guns N’
Roses including the Dead Boys, The Misfits, T-Rex, but it also included was a hidden track
written by cult leader Charles Manson called ‘Look At Your Game Girl.’ Even David Geffen,
the head of the the band’s label Geffen Records wasn’t aware of the song’s inclusion
until he saw a news report on CNN. He was appalled by the song releasing a statement
to the LA Times that read. "I would hope that if Axl Rose had realized how offensive people
would find this, he would not ever have recorded the song in the first place. The fact that
Charles Manson would be earning money based on the fame he derived committing one of the
most horrific crimes of the 20th century is unthinkable to me" he'd say
If you’ve looked at pretty much any photo of Rose in 1993 then you’d see him frequently
wearing a Charles Manson shirt in concert. He even wears one in the band’s music video
for the power ballad Estranged. According to the California Board of Corrections,
for every million copies the band would sell of the covers album, Manson would receive
about $62,000 in royalties.
Rose for his part would release a statement almost a week after the album came out claiming
that the band had no intention of glamorizing the cult leader revealing
"The reason we didn't list that song on our album is we wanted to downplay it. We don't
give any credit to Manson on the album; it's like a hidden, bonus track." And Rose was
correct on the packaging for the album "The Spaghetti Incident?" the song isn't listed
and Manson isn't mentioned anywhere. The song plays after 12 seconds of silence following
the final listed track a cover of the Fear song "I Don't Care About You".
Well you’re probably wondering how the song even ended up on a guns n’ roses album or
even on their radar. Well It was Rose’s brother Stuart who brought it to Axl’s attention
According to interviews with band members over the years it appears it was the singer’s
idea to include the track, while the other members were reluctant but they agreed provided
it was hidden. You’re probably wondering why Rose chose the songs to begin with. Well
in early 1993 his longtime girlfriend model Stephanie Seymour broke up with the singer
and it affected him deeply and Rose would claim what appealed to him about the song
was and i quote "it's about a woman who has thrown things
away. She thinks she's gaining love but basically she's basically gaining sadness.” he'd say.
Regarding Manson possibly collecting royalties on the track Rose would claim
"It is my understanding that the song was written by Beach Boys member Dennis Wilson,",
adding that in any case, he was donating any personal profits from the song to an environmental
group and It seemed like at press time in 1993 nobody including the record label knew
who owned the copyright
As for the Manson song it first showed up on the 1970 album “lie”, which was a bootlegged
collection of recordings issued by awareness records following the 1969 LA murder spree
during which actress sharon tate and 6 others were killed.
The only members of the band who played on the recording included Rose himself, keyboardist
Dizzy Reed who played bongos and I kid you not, Axl Rose's gardener a guy named Carlos
Booey who played guitar on the track.
And Patti Tate, the sister of Sharon Tate would release a statement slamming Guns N’
Roses for releasing the song saying “Doesn’t Axl Rose realize what this man did to my family?
It really hurts and angers me that Guns N’ Roses would exploit the murders of my sister
and others for capital gain” And the controversy did little to hurt album
sales as the album was barely promoted by the band and served more as a stop gap for
their next record. "it sold nearly 190,000 copies its first week with local retailers
in maryland telling the baltimore sun that the controversy didn’t result in any backlash
at their stores. Geffen Records for their part tried to do
damage control with president Ed Rosenblatt issuing a statement claiming. "We are looking
into what might be done to mitigate this situation, and plan to provide support for the Doris
Tate Crime Victims Bureau." Doris Tate was the mother Sharon Tate.
Now what’s funny about this whole controversy is that many of other bands covered manson’s
songs but it never generated as much controversy as when Guns N’ Roses did it. In 1994 Axl
and Slash were interviewed on rockline to promote the album. It was also the final interview
the pair have ever done and the song came up during a caller question Here’s the interview
Hey I am a loyal fan of y'all. I had a question are you all planning to pull the charles manson
track off the your album.At this time no, but we've also been notified by a fan that
if we do pull the song he'll sue us and Geffen Records for one dollar per album sold as of
the date we pulled the song he'll file it in federal court. We don't have plans of pulling
it as of now. there was a time when we were planning on pulling it because of the fact
that it was i dunno the messages were all crossed as far as to what we were doing I
mean basically all we did was do a track that had something to do lyrically with the man
band lor you know i like the lyrics of the song and i thought it was something people
haven't heard, it was a missing piece of the puzzle and almost everything about charles
manson has been public but this was something that wasn't public really on a big scale to
my knowledge and i just thought people would be interested in hearing it but even one of
the victim's son' whose getting money supposedly was talking about people worshipping charles
manson and i was like getting a vibe that people were trying to paint a picture that
i worship charles manson now. It's exactly to me the opposite of that. It's sort of a
parody almost. He's a pop cartoon icon of absolutely how far off the edge you can go.
I don't have any desire to go that far. It's really weird because when the song was done
and it was recorded and released there was no attention drawn to it and all the attention
has been given to it so far has come from the media that's been opposing it because
they make the bucks off that and it's ridiculous at this point i'm like like screw you whatever.
It's typical we've been going through that since we started. I'm not phased and as Axl
had mentioned the i guess the royalties for this song go to the son of one of the victims
of the Manson murders. They don't go to charles manson. Yes, but then I did hear also about
someone else saying that charles doesn't have the copyright on it he does and he wants the
money so as long as charlie's not getting it that's cool. You’re probably wondering
after all these years did Manson collect royalties on the record? Well the simple answer is no.
Under a court order the royalties would end up going to the son of one of Manson’s followers
victims. One of the victims of the 1969 killing spree was Voytek Fryskowski. Twenty Two Years
prior to Guns N’ Roses releasing the Spaghetti Incident the son of Frykowski named Bartek
won a 500K lawsuit against Manson over the murder of his father. And as a result of that
settlement he would also collect the royalties over the track ‘Look at your game girl.’
Geffen Records would announce that he would collect $62K for every one million copies
of the album sold. Frykowski would say in a news conference it was a small compensation
for such a tragic event, but the irony of the whole thing is that Frykowski has two
children and they're both fans of Guns N’ Roses.
And following all the controversy the band would promise to pull the song from all future
pressings of the album, but even by the year 2000 that hadn’t happen.
At Charles Manson’s funeral several years ago it was reported that the band’s cover
was apparently played. So that does it for today's video guys. Thanks for watching. What
do you guys think of Guns N' Roses cover of 'look at you'r game girl'. Let me know in
the comments section below. And as always if you have suggestions for future topics
let me know in the comments. Take care.