That's a wonderful side effect of leather pants: when you pee yourself in them, they're more forgiving than jeans. - Slash

If it had been any different, if I had been born just one minute later, or been in the wrong pace at the right time or vice versa, the life that I've lived and come to love would not exist. And that is a situation that I would not want to consider in the slightest.

As we mixed down the song “Rocket Queen,” Axl felt that the bridge needed something; some other element to elevate the drama. He suggested that Adrianna Smith, who was with us in the studio that day, fuck him in the live room so that we could record her vocals and layer them over the breakdown. We’d been drinking Jack pretty heavily all day, so it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I was all for it; I knew too well what she was capable of vocally — she had kept me up for the past three nights. So we lit up some candles for atmosphere, then she and Axl went out into the live room, got down on the floor by the drum riser, and we recorded Smith’s performance in all of its honest moaning and groaning. Enjoy it — it’s right there in the final mix. That breakdown said it all; I couldn’t think of a better song to close the album and I couldn’t think of a more telling slice of our lives at the time to hand to our fans.

I was fascinated by the machinations of performance back then and I still am now. A stage full of instruments awaiting a band is exciting to me. The sight of a guitar still turns me on. There is an unstated wonder in both of them: they hold the ability to transcend reality given the right set of players.