LOS ANGELES : Guns N’ Roses Manager Tells of Drummer’s Exit

The manager of Guns N’ Roses testified Friday that ex-drummer Steven Adler was put on probation to help save him from a deadly heroin addiction, not to cheat him out of money.

“I tried for a year and a half to get him clean, and we decided we had to do more,” Doug Goldstein told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury.

“We had to clean him up because he’d wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars” in worthless studio and rehearsal time, Goldstein said.

The testimony came in the trial of a lawsuit brought by Adler in July, 1991, against his former band mates--Axl Rose (whose real name is William Bailey), former rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin (Jeffrey Isbell), bass guitarist Michael (Duff) McKagan and lead guitarist Slash (Saul Hudson).

Adler alleges that he was thrown out of Guns N’ Roses and cheated out of his share of millions of dollars the heavy metal group made during the 1980s.

On March 28, 1990, Adler signed an agreement that forfeited his rights as a partner in the band. He essentially became an employee of the band for a 30-day probation period, during which he was urged to kick his heroin addiction.