BraveWords.com's Mitch Lafon caught up with industry veteran and former GUNS N’ ROSES/GREAT WHITE "manager, producer, songwriter, friend" Alan Niven recently for a riveting feature (found here) that brought to light the early beginnings of two of the greatest hard rock entities that the US has ever produced.

In a new Q&A;, Niven talks more about the young Guns and the master plan behind their 1987 major label monster Appetite For Destruction, which is the highest selling debut album of all time.

BraveWords.com: When you were working on Destruction and Lies (1988), were you concerned about the swearing on the albums. Back then it wasn't really common place and it really took rock music in a new direction.

Niven: "I felt that it was honest within the context and not merely gratuitous. The same reasoning behind 'One In A Million' - I thought Axl was making an honest statement about who he once was. I would not make the same decision about that song today btw. I'd roll it up in a Charley Manson shirt and flush it."

BraveWords.com: Did you worry about the record company rejecting the album?

Niven: "No - David Geffen was receptive the idea of teenage angst."

BraveWords.com: Did you worry about being accepted on mainstream radio?

Niven: "The first single released was 'It's So Easy' in the UK, a deliberate move since we knew the BBC would reject it. Just as the first cover was a deliberate move - there were 30,000 units of the original cover manufactured, and the 30,001 cover was the 'replacement' artwork that had already been formed and fabricated prior even to the release of the first cover. We were playing the games, we expected to be rejected, counting on it in fact, in order to stir up attention and pique the interest of the rebellious and disenfranchised mindset. It was all designed to distance from the contemporary established bands, the status quo."

BraveWords.com: Did you try to change the band's mind?

Niven: "Who do you think said the Robert Williams painting should be used? Axl showed to me 'as a joke'. I thought it was a brilliant idea, and together we went of to find the artist and persuade him to let us use it."

BraveWords.com: I'm curious how that all went down. In today's market an artist wouldn't even pause to reflect if 'fuck' can be on an album, but back in the day, there must have been a ton of meetings about it?

Niven: "No, there weren't - it was a case of it is what it is and to dilute any aspect of the band or the strategy would be a mistake ... they were raw, and I expected AOR to ignore us, for retail to get upset over the cover, which they did, and that we would have to pull every stunt we could, playing on predictable responses. We had to be perceived as seperate from the others in the L.A pack at that time, FASTER PUSSYCAT, L.A. GUNS etc etc - that GnR were the best and the baddest, exemplars of the extreme rock n roll attitude ... move it on over, Mick n' Keef, who used to piss on gas station walls for effect. Loog Oldham put up a billboard asking, 'would you let your daughter marry a ROLLING STONE?' Our question was would you even let GN'R on your property? Just pushing the attitude envelope is all."

Today, Alan Niven lives a quiet life in Arizona championing the cause of up and coming artists COLD FUSION, STORM OF PERCEPTION (photo above) and the TOM HOLLISTER TRIO (photo below) via his new Tru-B-Dor label.