Adler (band)

Lore & Background

After the breakup of his band Adler's Appetite in late 2011, Steven Adler formed Adler in 2012. The band's only album, Back from the Dead, was released November 26, 2012, via New Ocean Media. Producer Jeff Pilson was described by vocalist Jacob Bunton as 'like a 5th member of the band' who brought out much and helped channel the songs. Steven Adler stated his goal was to take the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 25 years, wanting to be part of a team like the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, or Rush.

An American tour began in early 2013, with a European tour planned for fall of that year, but these plans were curtailed when Steven Adler entered rehabilitation in May 2013, and the band entered hiatus. The band returned to active service in 2015, undertaking a US tour that summer. In 2016, the band performed at the M3 and the Monsters of Rock West Coast Cruise. These proved to be the band's last performances, as in February 2017 Steven Adler revealed that the band was over due to his disinterest in performing concerts with low attendances.

Reader's Guide

Adler represents a brief but notable chapter in the post-Guns N' Roses career of drummer Steven Adler. Formed after the dissolution of Adler's Appetite, the supergroup brought together musicians from Lynam, Mars Electric, and L.A. Guns, releasing a single album, Back from the Dead, in 2012. The band's trajectory was interrupted by Adler's rehabilitation in 2013, leading to a hiatus, though they resumed touring in 2015 and performed at festivals in 2016. The band ended in 2017 due to Adler's loss of interest in low-attendance concerts. Their significance lies in being Adler's final band project before he launched a solo incarnation in 2019, and in capturing a moment of collaboration among hard rock musicians from the Los Angeles scene. The album's production, with Jeff Pilson acting as a de facto fifth member, highlights the collaborative spirit of the project.

Did You Know?

• Adler was formed in 2012 after the breakup of Steven Adler's previous band, Adler's Appetite.
• The band ended in February 2017 because Steven Adler lost interest in performing concerts with low attendances.

Early Life and the Seeds of a Drummer

Steven Adler was born Michael Coletti on January 22, 1965, in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian-American father and a Jewish-American mother. His father's departure from the family led his mother to relocate the children to Los Angeles. A Jewish naming convention—prohibiting naming a child after a living relative—prompted his mother to rename him Steven when she returned to her parents' home. He later took the surname Adler after his mother married Melvin Adler, who adopted him and his older brother Kenny. Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, his behavior eventually led to him being sent to live with grandparents in Hollywood at age thirteen. It was at Bancroft Junior High that he met Saul Hudson, later known as Slash, after a skateboarding accident. By the early 1980s he had taught himself drums and, after a failed audition for the Sunset Strip band London, co-founded Road Crew with Slash and bassist Duff McKagan. The group even developed the main riff for what would become "Rocket Queen" before Slash disbanded them over the inability to secure a lead singer.

The Guns N' Roses Ascent

In June 1985, Adler became the drummer for a newly formed Guns N' Roses, joining Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, and Duff McKagan after the original drummer departed. The quintet honed their craft playing Sunset Strip venues like the Whisky a Go Go, The Roxy, and The Troubadour, and opened for established acts throughout 1985 and 1986. Their persistence paid off when Geffen Records signed them in March 1986. The July 1987 release of Appetite for Destruction became a cultural phenomenon, eventually selling over 30 million copies worldwide and 18 million in the United States—a record that made it the best-selling debut album in American history. G N' R Lies followed in November 1988, moving over five million copies domestically despite containing only eight tracks. Adler's drumming was central to this sound; guitarist Izzy Stradlin later emphasized that Adler's unique sense of swing provided the "push and pull" that defined the band's feel, a quality he felt was lost when the lineup changed.

Addiction and the Breaking Point

Adler's relationship with heroin progressively derailed his career within Guns N' Roses. An early incident saw him break his hand punching a streetlight after a barroom brawl during a 1987 tour, requiring Cinderella's Fred Coury to fill in. By January 1989, his absence from the American Music Awards—officially attributed to the flu—was actually due to a drug rehabilitation stay, with Don Henley covering his drum duties. In October 1989, Axl Rose issued an ultimatum, threatening to quit if members did not stop what he called "dancing with Mr. Brownstone." Adler pledged to clean up but was briefly fired and reinstated in early 1990 under a no-drugs contract. His addiction, however, had become unmanageable by the time the band recorded "Civil War." By his own account, he attempted the drum part twenty to thirty times, and the track required heavy editing for his bandmates to play along. After sessions repeatedly collapsed for days, he was formally dismissed on July 11, 1990, his final performance having been the April 7 Farm Aid IV show.

Rebuilding and Enduring Legacy

After his departure, Adler reformed Road Crew before stepping away from music entirely in 1991. Years of personal struggle followed before he re-entered the scene in 1998 with a brief stint in BulletBoys. From 2003 to 2011, he fronted his own project Adler's Appetite, and from 2012 to 2017 he drummed for the band Adler. Since 2019, he has been touring as a solo artist. His transparency about addiction became publicly visible when he appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2008 and 2011, as well as on the spin-off Sober House in 2009. Perhaps the most significant acknowledgment of his contributions came in 2012, when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Guns N' Roses. Izzy Stradlin's retrospective remarks—that the band's songs were written around Adler's swing and that nothing felt right without it—underscore how deeply his rhythmic identity was woven into one of rock's most iconic lineups, even as his personal battles ultimately tore that lineup apart.