Marc Canter, who grew up best friends with GUNS N’ ROSES members Slash and Axl Rose, is preparing to launch a video podcast called “GNR: The First 50 Gigs”. The first two episodes of the podcast, which promises to focus on Canter‘s archive of the band’s first 50 shows, have already been recorded and are in post-production.
A snippet of episode one is available below.
When teenager and amateur photographer Marc Canter set out to document his best friend Saul Hudson‘s rise as a rock guitarist in 1982, he never imagined he was documenting the genesis of the next great rock ‘n’ roll band. His friend became the legendary guitarist Slash, and Canter found himself witnessing the creation of GUNS N’ ROSES front and center. The candid shots contained in his GUNS N’ ROSES biography “Reckless Road: Guns N’ Roses And The Making Of Appetite For Destruction”, taken as the band toured in 1985-1987 and made the legendary album “Appetite For Destruction”, capture their raw, blood-sweat-and-tears performances as well as their intimate moments. Containing original gig memorabilia including show flyers, ticket stubs, set lists, press clippings, and handwritten lyrics as well as in-depth interviews with band members and the people closest to them, “Reckless Road” offers an explicit, first-person perspective readers won’t find anywhere else.
Originally published in America in 2008, “Reckless Road” contains interviews with Slash, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler, as well as groupies, failed producers, and former managers and bandmates.
Back in 2016, Canter told the Daily Mail that the GUNS N’ ROSES reunion finally fell into place thanks to McKagan brokering a peace settlement between Slash and Axl — but only after Slash left his wife of 13 years, Perla Ferrar. Canter explained: “Duff was a big part in getting them back together. He was working with Axl again and is a good middle man. There was no one else who communicated with Slash and Axl. When Axl was venting about Slash, Duff was able to help him see things through Slash‘s eyes.”
McKagan had been instrumental in getting both ex-bandmates, who had not been speaking since 1996, to sign off on a series of music licensing deals that required both their signatures.
Yet one thing stood in the way of a full-fledged reunion: Perla, who had managed Slash‘s solo career and was an executive in his various companies.
Canter also claimed that the band originally broke up because Slash and Duff wrote a dozen new songs around 1995 and Axl refused to sing on all but three or four of them — leading Slash to pursue a solo venture.
UPDATE:
The first two episodes of GNR: The First 50 Gigs have officially been recorded and are in post-production. We can’t wait to share them with you. For now, here is a snippet of Episode 1. For more information on this project, subscribe here: https://t.co/gEecTiyeVf pic.twitter.com/v8lYjRFyEA
— Marc Canter (@recklessroad) February 15, 2021