Mr. Brownstone
Axl
"When we moved out of our place on Fountain and La Cienga, I was the last one to leave, and found this piece of yellow paper wadded up in the corner where Izzy's and Steven's room was. It had the lyrics to Brownstone on it. I read it and went, "this is great". They said they had music for it and we ended up starting to rehearse this thing."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]

"And "Mr. Brownstone"... It reminded me of a Stones-ish type funk-thing and so, I just played around with it. And then, you know, we heard our rehearsal tape back and it sounded like it might work. So, I just started practicing that way. /../ We have countless other friends that have spent, you know, upwards to like 50 grand on rehabilitation. They can't get away from drugs. "..." I've lost at least five or six people that I hung out with every day. So Brownstone is just about having a battle with it, and wishing you'd never touched the stuff and trying to get away from it."
[Axl/Slash Interview - 1988]

Slash
"A lot of people have a misconception about this song. They think it's about drugs. It's not so much a statement about our drug habits; it's a more a statement about other people's drug habits. It's a good little ditty that people can listen to and maybe think about what they're doing. Try and get themselves in perspective. I know one thing, a lot of people who are doing a lot of fucking drugs all the time don't have any kind of..."
  "It's not preaching. Just a statement-you can listen to it or not. You can just listen to the guitars or the drums...whatever you want."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]

Izzy
"It can mean a million different things to a million different people. It's like when you listen to a Zeppelin song, what do you think? I have all kinds of fucking wild ideas about what "Custard Pie" is about."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]