The album is now 30-years-old
Warning: This post contains graphic imagery and language.
Read on for highlights.
“This was for a select intelligent group that loved this kind of s,” says Williams.
Courtesy of Robert Williams
He agreed, unaware of just how huge the record would become.
“Not a whole lot at all.
They were just, to me, another garage band.”
Courtesy of Robert Williams
Rose initially saw the image on a postcard somewhere in Los Angeles.
As with so many perfect unions, this collaboration started off as the happiest of accidents.
“So he sets out to get in touch with me, and it took him a long time.
No one had heard of the band before.
It had no previous history.”
Williams tried to convince the band not to use the image.
“This was not for the general public.
This was never to go in people’s homes,” Williams says.
“There is no sophistication in this fing picture.
It’s an overdone cartoon for people who like underground comics and understand underground art.
But that’s a very small audience.”
Still, Rose and co. were not to be deterred.
“His agent called up and said, ‘We would be very interested in this picture.’
And I said, ‘Well, y’know, this is not a good idea.
This is too violent.
You’re gonna get in an awful lot of trouble,'” Williams remembers.
Williams initially thought Rose was female.
“But it was actually Axl Rose.
After I got to see he was a guy, he was a nice young fella.
I always liked him.
He’s very polite, shy, mild-mannered.”
Many retailers across the country refused to sell the album because of the artwork.
“The s hit the fan.
It was an enormous sensation and there was a lot of problems with it.
And I’m just sitting here saying, ‘Well, I told you so!'”
Williams says of the backlash over the artwork.
According to Williams, the image “has vengeance and justice in it.”
Williams reasoned that there was a story behind the action of the painting, which explained its violent imagery.
So this picture has vengeance and justice in it."
“I’m proud of this.
This isn’t the raciest thing I ever did by any means.
This is kind of tame,” Williams says.
