Doug Goldstein, the former manager of Guns N’ Roses, has died, aged 65.
Goldstein began working with the Los Angeles hard rock legends as a tour manager, during the Appetite For Destruction touring cycle, before being promoted to the position of co-manager alongside Alan Niven. After Niven parted company with the band, when Axl Rose reportedly refused to continue working on the Use Your Illusion albums while he remained manager, Goldstein took over the role, steering the group through the Use Your Illusion era, and the original group’s splintering.
In 2001, Iron Maiden’s former management company Sanctuary purchased Doug Goldstein’s Big FD Entertainment, and Merck Mercuriadis took after the group’s management. A statement at the time declared that while Axl Rose has not fired Doug Goldstein, the pair were “taking a break from each other.”
Goldstein’s LinkedIn profile reads: “As a veteran in the music industry, Doug has learned that much of one’s success depends on equal parts talent, great management, and building core relationships.”
Alan Niven has paid tribute to his former friend, saying “It’s very sad. 65 is not old. I will be lighting a candle for him tonight.”
Last year, Alan Niven filed a lawsuit against Guns N’ Roses, claiming that they’ve made “repeated threats” against him in order to halt the publication of his memoir, Sound N’ Fury: Rock’N’Roll Stories.
The biography, which Classic Rock described as “like Mickey Spillane stubbing cigarettes out on the hard-boiled corpse of James Ellroy,” was originally scheduled to be published in July 2025 but has yet to emerge, amid rumours that lawyers for Axl Rose are trying to block publication.
The book is still available to pre-order on Amazon, now with a publishing date of October 29.
