Ex Guns N’ Roses Drummer Steven Adler Says He First Tried Heroin to Fit in with Bandmates Slash and Izzy Stradlin

Guns N’ Roses has had six drummers in its nearly 40 years of existence, and the one who helped steer them to fame in the late ’80s became the band’s first casualty of excess.

In Paramount+’s new three-part docuseries Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal, drummer Steven Adler, 59, discusses his five-year stint in Appetite for Destruction-era Guns N’ Roses. Unfortunately, his time with the group was cut short by his addiction to heroin.

In a new interview filmed for the docuseries, which charts the course of hair metal through the ’80s and into the early ’90s, when the arrival of grunge turned hair metal bands into dinosaur acts, Steven explains how he got hooked. He starts by saying he wasn’t the only person in the band who was abusing drugs.

“Who the hell do you think I was doing them with? When I started doing heroin, I wanted to be a part of what [G N’ R lead guitarist] Slash and [rhythm guitarist] Izzy [Stradlin] were doing,” he recalls in episode 3. “I took two hits, I was never so sick in my whole life.”

“And wouldn’t you know what an a—— I am, I had to try it one more time,” he continues. “And the third time was the charm. I fell in love with it.”

Eventually, his addiction got so bad that he was booted from the band. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the wake-up call it should have been.

“I’ve always loved the whole team thing,” Adler says. “That’s why putting a band together was so important to me, where we work together and create something. And then when my team threw me out, I didn’t know what to do. I know I could either have gotten better, or continued doing what I was doing. I continued doing what I was doing. I was that hurt.”

In stock footage of an early ’90s interview with MTV’s Kurt Loder, frontman Axl Rose clarifies how Adler’s departure from the band went down during the recording of the 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II.

“Steven didn’t leave the band,” Rose says. “Steven was fired. We gave him every ultimatum. We had Steven sign a contract saying if he went back to drugs, he was out. He couldn’t leave his drugs.”

Guns N’ Roses replaced Adler with Matt Sorum from the Cult. Adler spent many of the years that followed in a sort of rock & roll wilderness. He battled health problems (including a 1996 stroke) and had run-ins with the law (a domestic violence charge in 1997). He also joined several other bands while continuing to battle addiction.

Since being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of G N’ R’s classic line-up, Adler, who has had several sober stretches since 2008, has performed with the band on several occasions.

Whether he has regrets about how things ended, Adler is apparently grateful for his contribution to the Gun N’ Roses legacy and his time in the band. “I just loved being part of a team,” he says, “and Guns N’ Roses, the five of us, were a great f—— team.