Former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven has taken his dispute with the band to court and, at the same time, asked a judge to bless the publication of his autobiography, Sound N’ Fury.
According to Loudwire, in filings submitted on Nov. 3, 2025, Niven is seeking a jury trial while accusing the camp around Guns N’ Roses of leaning on an unenforceable agreement to stall his memoir.
At the heart of the suit is a confidentiality clause drafted in 1991. As Niven prepared to move forward with Sound N’ Fury, he says the band’s representatives pointed to that agreement in a letter sent in May 2025, linking it to his buyout when he exited the organization.
Niven’s position is straightforward: the clause can’t be enforced because not everyone signed it. He notes that Slash, Duff McKagan, and Izzy Stradlin added their names, but Axl Rose allegedly did not. The filings also say Izzy Stradlin has not commented, and it remains unclear which specific party is pushing to block the book.
Niven argues the horse has long since left the barn. He and various band members have, by his account, publicly revisited shared history for years without anyone crying foul. He further says that between 2015 and 2018, someone within the Guns N’ Roses orbit encouraged him to write down his experiences.
“GNR’s members have commented publicly on Niven; one member encouraged him to write the book; and he has been speaking about his time in GNR for over a decade,” says the court document.
All of this, Niven claims, has delayed publication and caused tangible harm to his publisher. He’s seeking damages tied to that alleged interference.
The court papers also frame the old deal as deliberately broad, privacy and confidentiality “written in broad strokes.” Both sides, the documents say, agreed to keep confidences from their time working together. But Niven maintains the language doesn’t cover things learned after the split, and he reiterates that the agreement required signatures from all parties to take effect, again pointing out that Axl Rose did not sign.
Over the years, both camps have published and spoken about the past in ways that, strictly read, could have tripped the agreement’s wires. Niven adds that he was invited to take part in Guns N’ Roses’ history projects and documentaries, and that when he publicly announced his memoir, there was initially no pushback.
That stance, he says, changed on May 9, 2026, when his attorney received a letter accusing him of violating the deal and warning that Guns N’ Roses would seek injunctive and monetary relief. The letter, according to Niven, demanded that he stop publishing or promoting the book. With no settlement in sight, he’s now moved for a declaratory judgment to clear the path forward.
It’s also worth noting that Sound N’ Fury is not just a backstage diary of the Axl Rose era. Niven recounts a career that intersects with The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Clarence Clemons, Whitesnake, Elton John, and a long list of others; material that, he argues, stands on its own regardless of the current impasse.
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