Alan Niven, who managed Guns N’ Roses from 1986 to 1991, has filed a lawsuit on November 3 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona to compel the band to stop blocking the release of his memoir Sound N’ Fury: Rock N’ Roll Stories. The book, originally slated for July 2025 and later postponed to September, now carries a tentative release date of March 31 2026.
According to the complaint, Niven alleges that the band invoked a confidentiality clause from a 1991 buyout agreement in May 2025 via letter, using it to threaten both Niven and publisher ECW Press and effectively delay publication. He argues that the agreement is unenforceable because it wasn’t signed by all members, including frontman Axl Rose, and that the clause only covered material learned during his time with the band—not decades of anecdotes or commentary shared publicly.
Niven’s book features tales from his five-year tenure with GNR and beyond. It recounts everything from his early days distributing the first Sex Pistols singles in the U.S. to managing the band through their breakout debut Appetite for Destruction and turbulent Use Your Illusion era. “It was Axl’s battle to take complete control and most of the money. The more control he gained, the less they were productive and the worse the material got,” Niven writes. “Whatever, it’s all in the rear-view mirror.”
Niven contends that Guns N’ Roses complicated—or attempted to block—his book despite earlier signals of approval. He claims a band member encouraged him to write the book between 2015–18, and that GNR members have publicly discussed him before, illustrating a lack of consistency in the band’s objections.
As the case unfolds, the rock world watches another chapter of the Guns N’ Roses saga: less about riffs and stadiums and more about contracts, memory, and who gets to tell the story.
