Live Era album questions

[WAR41]

Hey Marc,

I believe I've read that Axl, Duff and Slash chose songs for Live Era through a mediator. What do you remember about the process of making that album? It seems to me that something as simple as a Live album shouldn't have been a problem to produce, but it sounds like it was more difficult than it should have been.

• Was it just Axl, Duff and Slash picking the tracks and creating the album? What input did other members have?
  
• Did Axl expect that calling Gilby and Matt 'additional musicians' would piss them off a lot? And at any point was Dizzy going to be considered an 'additional musician'
  
• Why were other rarer GNR shows not considered for the track listing? It contains tracks that were easily available to find even back in 1999 (the Paris PPV show, Tokyo VHS, etc.)
  
• Were any of your pictures used on that album?

Thanks in advance.

[Dean]

I remember reading a Matt Sorum interview that he talked about the whole 'additional musician' thing. I'll try to look it up, but he pretty much said he thought he and Axl were fine despite the firing, but in an interview around the time just before the release, he said that there was a lot of people taking advantage of Axl's money and that the people he surrounded himself with were weird. Something to that effect. Axl apparently wouldn't have released the album if Sorum wasn't listed as an additional musician.

[Padme]

Duff says in his book that the deal they had with Geffen back in 86 was for 6 albums. I could be wrong. But it seems the Live Era album was done mostly because of a contract obligation. Axl was rebulding the band at the time. So Geffen, Axl and all former members find a way to release an album without making a new one together.

Matt and Gilby were never members of the patnership, just guys under contract to performed.