Slash and Adler met their future Guns N' Roses bandmates when they placed an ad in The LA Times searching for a bassist for their band. Duff McKagan responded to the ad, and later worked with Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin in Hollywood Rose, who Slash had originally auditioned for, before merging with LA Guns (Rob Gardner, Tracii Guns and Ole Beich) to create Guns N' Roses.

The three joined Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin to create the most famous and "original" line-up of Guns N' Roses. Adler drummed on the first two GN'R albums: the multi-platinum Appetite for Destruction and G N' R Lies. Adler's work also appeared on one song on Use Your Illusion II, the opening track "Civil War", although his drum track is said to be heavily edited.[5]

In late 1987, while Guns N' Roses was on tour, an intoxicated Adler broke his hand when he punched a streetlight after a barroom brawl. Fred Coury from the band Cinderella substituted on drums for several shows until Adler recovered.[6] At the 1989 American Music Awards, where Guns N' Roses performed their latest single, "Patience," Nobody filled in for Adler on drums because no drums were planned for the song and it ended up being acoustic only song. Officially, the absence was attributed to a case of the flu; it was later revealed that Adler had actually been in a drug rehabilitation program at the time.

Problems continued in 1990, as the band recorded "Civil War" for Nobody's Child, an album benefiting the Romanian Angel Appeal. Axl Rose has said in interviews that "Civil War was recorded a good 60 times" due to problems with Adler[citation needed] ; Slash, in another article, stated that the band had to edit the drum track to "Civil War" simply to be able to play along with it.[5] By Adler's own admission, he tried to play the song "20, maybe 30 times."[3] During the recording of "Civil War" Adler was still trying to stop using drugs.[4]

Adler was briefly fired from the band, but was reinstated after signing a contract promising to stop using drugs.[7] In July 1990, he performed with Guns N' Roses at Farm Aid IV in Indiana. It would be his last appearance with the band. When problems in the studio continued, he was formally fired on July 11, 1990,[8][9] during the recording of the Use Your Illusion I & Use Your Illusion II albums, and replaced with Matt Sorum. The official reason for his departure, according to various members of the band, was his heavy substance abuse which impeded his ability to work. Geffen A&R rep Tom Zutaut, who worked with Guns N' Roses, corroborated this claim, stating in a 1999 interview, "Steven Adler would show up at the recording studio completely high. Recording sessions would abort for several days when he couldn't put it together."[10]

In October 1991, he filed a lawsuit against his former Guns N' Roses bandmates, claiming that they were responsible for his drug addiction and that the contracts he had signed actually took away his financial interest in the band.[11] In a 2005 interview he stated, "Doug Goldstein called me into the office about two weeks later. He wanted me to sign some contracts. I was told that every time I did heroin, the band would fine me $2,000. There was a whole stack of papers, with colored paper clips everywhere for my signatures. What these contracts actually said was that the band were paying me $2,000 to leave. They were taking my royalties, all my writing credits. They didn't like me anymore and just wanted me gone. That's why I filed the lawsuit - to get all those things back."[3][9]

Adler's lawsuit against his former Guns N' Roses bandmates was settled out of court in 1993. He received a back-payment check of $2,250,000 USD and was granted 15% of the royalties for everything he recorded prior to his departure.

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