Steven Adler was born on January 22, 1965, in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1972. His first attempt to play was, according to himself, when he heard Kiss on the radio and "grabbed my mother's Tupperware and started slamming a drum beat".
While in LA, the only thing he could think of was to play in a band. He left his parents early and moved in to his grandmother's home. He held several different jobs so he could buy his first drum kit.
He eventually met an equal soul, Slash. In 1984-’85 they formed the band Road Crew. They didn’t have a bass player so Slash put out an ad in the Recycler. A guy called Duff McKagan answered. After some time Road Crew split up and when Guns N’ Roses were going to do a tour in Seattle in ’85 their drummer didn’t want to do it so Duff suggested Steven as new drummer.
In his years with Guns his drug-addiction became more and more serious. When GN’R played at Farm Aid IV in 1990 they could only do two songs due to Steven's bad condition. He was fired in the summer of 1991.
In 1992 did Steven make an attempt to resurrect Road Crew together with Davy Vain. It was basically Vain's old band now calling themselves Road Crew, so Steven can't be credited too much for it. The band soon disappeared.
In October 1992 he launched a lawsuit against Guns where he blamed them for his drug addiction. Guns made a $2.5 million dollar out-of-court settlement payment to Steven in September 1993.
In 1996 he played in the band Freaks In The Room. He’s also been writing a book called "No Bed Of Roses".
In the spring of 1998 was he arrested. There were rumors about Steven joining the band Bulletboys in the summer of 1998 but they appeared to be false.