Adriana Smith, is best known by GUNS N' ROSES fans as the girl heard having sex with Axl Rose in the recording studio during the song 'Rocket Queen'. Today, over two decades after the album's release, Smith has ventured out into the music world to carve her own niche. Her band, ADRIANA & GHOST IN THE GRAVEYARD, recently released their debut CD, Wars In The Graveyard.

Jason Price of Live-Metal.Net recently sat down with her relationship with Guns N' Roses, her new album, her feeling about Steven Adler on Celebrity Rehab and the song that she has dedicated to Axl Rose in hopes of opening up the lines of communication.

Excerpts can be found below:

Live-Metal.Net: For those who aren't familiar with the story, how did your "voice," so to speak, end up on the 'Rocket Queen' track on Appetite For Destruction?

Adriana Smith: "I had gone to New York to hang out with Slash, who was my drinking buddy at the time. They were mixing down the final mix of Appetite For Destruction at the time. Basically, Axl propositioned me in the studio. I was really drunk and although we were both seeing other people at the time, he had a really creative interest for this song and wanted to give it an edge and I was the girl to do it. I did it for the band."

Live-Metal.Net: It wasn't widely known for many years that you were the voice on that track. What made you break your silence and was it a tough decision for you?

Adriana Smith: "Actually, it was a decision made of years of progress in my personal life. I had shame and guilt over what I had done and I felt as if I had done something wrong for a long time. Basically, I came out twenty something years later because it was a sense of closure for myself. I realized that it was something that I didn't have to be ashamed of and something that was really good. I came out and told the world about it. A friend of mine named Brooke, runs Steven Adler's web page and he is a part time journalist. He said to me 'Why don't you go ahead and tell your story?' and with the release of the Reckless Road book, I just felt that it was time for the story of The Rocket Queen to be heard."

Live-Metal.Net: You even dedicated a song from the album, Come Find Me, to Axl Rose. How did that song take shape?

Adriana Smith: "I have been trying to reach Axl directly for a really long time. He's got his own agenda and a lot of stuff going on in his life right now, especially the last 13 years with Chinese Democracy. With old friends coming in and out of the scene, I just don't know who to trust and who is passing my message along or not. The bottom line is that I have some amends to make to him and I wanted him to know that I still care about him and that my friendship hasn't faltered just because we haven't seen each other in years. He is still a really strong figure and a really important, inspiring person to me. I wrote that song so that perhaps it would reach him. With the internet and everything else today, your message goes farther, easier and perhaps he would stumble upon it. That is really why I wrote it. I have tried for years to get a message through and this is just another medium to do that. I like singing about things that are close to my heart and hopefully the song can inspire someone else to say their true feelings about someone too and to not be afraid."

Live-Metal.Net: Being a drug and alcohol counsellor yourself and having a tie to someone involved, how do you feel about a show like Celebrity Rehab?

Adriana Smith: "I am glad that the show is out there to promote people's understanding of addiction, however it is really exploitive. Some of the things that they choose to do with their participates, like trying to open up a communication line between mother and son like you have seen with Steven (Adler) on that show at eleven days sober is just inappropriate. I'm sorry but it is just not done in the real world. You don't take a raw sore and pour salt into it. The fog lifts when it lifts. First of all it takes a while to get the substances out of your system, and second of all to handle things like anger or fear or rage which are normal emotions that people drink and use over. It's like a broken shoelace or a winning lottery ticket— "What's going to take me out today and make me dose on heroin?"

A lot of things on the show address certain issues but it looks to me to be more for ratings. I know that Dr. Drew has credentials and I have worked in the therapeutic community for over a decade and I know what his intentions are. However, it still is a business and you have to make it palatable for the networks and for people to watch it. You have to get people of interest and you have to address their core issues so that it is interesting. It is Jerry Springer of Recovery."

Read the full interview at this location.