"True stories" LOL!

Yeah doubtless some shit went on at the boarding schools too, but evidently not to him. And it's Eton we're talking about. Not exactly a project school, and if you're there it's because your family is well enough off to afford it. And ultimately they do it because they want what's best for you. While all children in all families experience some trauma it just can't be compared to living in an abusive child hood. You mentioned MJ, same thing. I've meet some social services children in my time too and without avail they were all fucked up. Alan really showed his ignorance there and frankly the moment was extremely embarrassing coming from a 50 something, intelligent man. Of course he's going to be obsessed about control and power when feeling so powerless as a child. You don't really need to be a psychologist to see that.

I can totally understand the Axl bias though. It's not surprising that a manager fails to see the importance of Axl's erratic behavior in the creation of the music. He's a level headed guy with probably not too many strong polarizing emotions. Works great for that role, but he's no musician. If he can't see the brilliance of Coma and Estranged I really don't know what to tell him other than he must have a narrow perspective on music. He almost seems to treat it as an English factory or something. Just do your thing and go home, why should that be so hard? Well it's art Alan, it doesn't arrive on demand. If your singer is crazy with all kinds of peculiarities getting in the way of things, well that's just how it is. Either you pull through and end up being part of something special creatively (and the pay day to match) or you go work with some easy going guys and create something more standard (and the lesser pay day to match that).

Another funny example is him criticizing Axl for trying to measure himself against greats like Led Zeppelin, when a few minutes earlier he had blasted him for not being John Lennon/Bob Dylan enough..

Either way there's no reason to continue ripping on a guy who treated you a little hard in a professional relationship 25 years ago. Same goes for Axl by the way. Why can't these guys just let it go? I'm all for hearing cool and gritty stories, just leave the bias at the door. If anything it only makes yourself look bad.

He's cool but still a fair bit biased towards his own world view. Comparing being sent to boarding school with being abused and bullied as a child really is ridiculous. And I'll give him an answer to what Axl stands for, pouring true emotion into his work making it a class of its own. As a music fan, what else is of interest to me?

If his job his maximizing the bands earnings he surely should be able to see NR and DC (and their videos) contribution to that. If he wants to talk about being elemental and creating great, genuine music someone should show him the recent poll from this forum, where hardcore GN'R fans picked Coma and Estranged as clear favorites on the Illusions.

"The problem with Bon Jovi is he's not an artist. He's just a pretty boy."

Edit: On the other hand Coma puts him in a coma so I guess we shouldn't trust his musical judgement too much.