For most musos, dedicating their lives to the highs of lows of rock’n’roll is a dream. For some, reality comes as a harsh wake up call sending shredders and headbangers everywhere into a 9-5 abyss.

Dizzy Reed of GNR recently opened up to metal-heads.de about his aspirations as a young rocker and how the rock all night party all day lifestyle isn’t as easy as it looks. The keyboardist detailed how he never aspired to work a regular job, however, pondered the catch-22 of having to treat music as a “career” rather than just a passion.

“It’s not as easy as it looks. It’s not all glitz and glam,” he said, “I started playing rock and roll because I didn’t wanna work; I didn’t wanna have a 9-to-5 [job]. And I realized at some point… Now all I do is work. If you wanna stay busy out there and [remain] relevant, you have to work harder.”

He opened up about the financial struggle musicians often endure, and the prevailing feeling of wanting to give up when times get tough.

“There’s a lot of times when, especially at that point in my life, where I was wondering why I was doing it still, and there was nothing coming in, and you don’t have anything to fall back on. If I went to a McDonald’s right now to apply for a job, they wouldn’t take me. What am I gonna do?”

He also sounded off on the inspiration behind the album Rock And Roll Ain’t Easy, explaining the prevailing narrative as, “a story about how difficult things were and how much time I had to spend sticking it out, wondering where I was gonna go to sleep that night, wondering where I was gonna get a shower and get something to eat,” he added. “I mean, that went on for years. And I think when I did write that song, I thought I had kind of come full circle.”

The keyboardist debuted his solo album live at Sydney’s favourite hub of all things heavy, Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice back in February. Rumours of an Appetite For Destruction era Guns N’ Roses revival swelled, however, it was revealed the band would be re-issuing a deluxe version of the album instead. 

The article was originally published on Tone Deaf