Tommy Stinson On GN'R Reunion: I Had To Decline Taking A Few Tours - Axl Had To Make A Decision To Do Some Other Things

[maxpax]

23 hours ago, Slash787 said:

FUCK NO.

I was just joking...never liked tommy...and tobias...and pitman...and brain...

[wondering where's izzy?]

7 hours ago, Billsfan said:

Yeah but that still doesn't mean shit.  You and I read a lot more about the bullshit than actually dealing with it. 

We can read about him being late 30 nights a year but we actually didn't wait 30 nights a year.. we didn't tour and actually record and were lead to believe we would compete or outdo something that couldn't be outdone.  Stinson is the man

And being told you will be in a band that has 3 albums worth of material and writing/recording parts for said albums only to have one of those albums be released and only ever play the same few songs from that album and then basically just playing Appetite and a few other hits since 2001.

Yeah the man put up with a whole lot of spinning wheels and Axl getting his head on straight.

Edited October 1, 2016 by wondering where's izzy?

[Billsfan]

15 minutes ago, wondering where's izzy? said:

And being told you will be in a band that has 3 albums worth of material and writing/recording parts for said albums only to have one of those albums be released and only ever play the same few songs from that album and then basically just playing Appetite and a few other hits since 2001.

Yeah the man put up with a whole lot of spinning wheels and Axl getting his head on straight.

Exactly. I could understand Tommy feeling bittersweet about the whole thing. I'd be dissapointed if I put years into something that would never even see the light of day especially when I've been abused for not being duff mckagan. 

Hate to say it but,  it's true. Axl blew it as far as the Chinese democracy era went. And before someone reading this tries to manipulate or twist my words, NO the new band would not have outdone the old gnr. But considering the amount of work the people involved put into it, it's a shame we couldn't have gotten at least another album out of that era. But hey, we should get Chinese leftovers regardless if music ever gets released again so..

[RONIN]

10 hours ago, Funky.Monkey said:

It's a direct quote, I just broke it into two parts.

Tommy explains how he had to decline a few tours and Axl had to decide how to go forward.  Yes he stepped aside willingly but listening to the interview it sounds like it's been a little bittersweet.

 

Bittersweet...as in, he's disappointed that the stuff he worked on with Axl is still mostly in the vault or....because of his personal issues, he had to decline touring and the GnR gravy train of huge paychecks for little work stopped?

Always found him to be a douche but respect his honesty that GnR was pretty much a paycheck gig for him. 

[Good, Fuck'n, Night.]

Who cares what he has to say, we know he supports the reunion. He has given multiple interviews about this & has attended shows. This is just rinse & repeat. He seems like a great bloke, at the very least he is smart enough to maintain relations just in case the gravy train comes back through town. The same certainly can not be said for one other lol.

[J Dog]

Tommy's cool. Duff is of course the man and THE Guns N Roses bassist, but I always liked Tommy in GNR. He's got respect and knows how the music biz goes. 

[Estranged Reality]

On 9/30/2016 at 1:59 PM, Funky.Monkey said:

Tommy Stinson Interview - The Tom Dunne Show

September 27, 2016

Tommy was interviewed by Tom Dunne an Irish radio broadcaster with Newstalk. I've transcribed some of the interview below:

Tom Dunne: You had a long run with Guns N' Roses and then the reunion of them...that didn't really suit you, did it? Having Duff McKagan coming back.

Tommy Stinson: Well no, I mean no no because you know what, I'll be honest with you, I had to decline taking a few tours because of my personal issues back home here. And I think it just got to be a point where, well, if this guy can't work, I gotta, I think Axl had to make a decision to do some other things. I'm not saying I was part of that decision necessarily, I think they inevitably at some point would have done a reunion tour. For my input I think I had to kind of bow out a little bit because of stuff going on at home here and -- a sad thing on one hand but on the other hand I'm glad to see them up doing the thing.

I'm glad him and Slash made amends and you know working it out. I went and saw two of those shows you know this last summer and thought they were great. And a bunch of my friends are in that band, so including Axl, so it was cool, it's a good thing. I don't have anything bad to say about that except I'm glad they are out there doing the reunion thing best they can. Ya know.

Tom Dunne: It was a good solid section of your life wasn't it. I think, how many years...  

Tommy Stinson: I was in that band longer than I was in The Replacements. Almost 17, 18 years something like that.

Tom Dunne: It served you well in many ways didn't it.  

Tommy Stinson: Totally. I've got nothing bad to say about it. I'm not saying it was always easy but I'll tell you it was good for me on so many levels, aside from the financial level. There were lots of times when we had a year of so off here and there those were hard to fill up ya know. I think overall I count my blessing and I'm glad that I had the opportunity and glad to know all those guys. I'm glad those guys are my friends...even Duff. I've texted with him a few times, I check in with him once in a while because he's such a gracious human being.

Audio here: http://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/The_Tom_Dunne_Show/Highlights_from_Tom_Dunne/159523/Tommy_Stinson_on_reforming_Bash__Pop

 

 

Tommy's a champ. Always liked the guy.

It'd be cool if he gets a chance to play a song here or there in the future, and I agree with his comments on Duff. A seemingly great and humble human being.

[PsychoKiss344]

Duff and Tommy text eh

[Powerage5]

7 hours ago, Estranged Reality said:

 

Tommy's a champ. Always liked the guy.

It'd be cool if he gets a chance to play a song here or there in the future, and I agree with his comments on Duff. A seemingly great and humble human being.

Tommy is by far the most deserving NuGN'R member of a guest spot at some point. I'd love to see it happen.

[DieselDaisy]

The only thing the Nugnr scabs deserve is being publicly pilloried. Didn't this guy spend his entire tenure with Guns blind drunk? We, the people who defended the old band on occasion, were forced to put up with all of this silliness (from the Axl brigade) about ''Slash and Duff being useless drunks'' yet Axl recruited a bass player for his hireling project who was permanently paralytic!! Stinson spent the best part of his GN'R years sousing himself silly backstage (I do not blame him really: I would have also If I had accepted the cash for such a demeaning role - blotting out the humiliation!).

[bigpoop]

Tommy was making records and touring before Axl even left Lafayette, and he's played on more great albums than anyone else that's ever been in GNR. It's not even close.  

[RONIN]

3 minutes ago, bigpoop said:

Tommy was making records and touring before Axl even left Lafayette, and he's played on more great albums than anyone else that's ever been in GNR. It's not even close.  

I'm not disputing what you said but what exactly did he bring creatively to Nu Guns? Aren't Buckethead and Finck the main creative forces on Chinese Democracy aside from Axl? From the writing credits on CD, the only songs he's involved with that I'm into are TWAT and Catcher in The Rye and his contributions to the songs seem minimal at best considering TWAT is a Buckethead tour de force and Catcher in the Rye started as an Axl/Brian May collaboration. Again -- perhaps he was vital to the album, but his contributions seem nebulous to me on Chinese Democracy. Even Paul Tobias has more writing credits on CD than Tommy.

As far as talent goes, he wasn't even the most talented person in the band. Nowhere near the virtuoso raw talent of Buckethead and Thal-- two guys who are probably in the top 1% of elite guitarists in the world. Finck, whatever we may think of him, is a pretty solid songwriter. Not sure how well Tommy stacks up to other bassists but I'm guessing he's no Les Claypool.

With all that said, I've never heard his work outside of GnR so I can't say much about him beyond what I heard in CD. He sure seemed to behave like a dick in GnR though.

[WAR41]

14 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

The only thing the Nugnr scabs deserve is being publicly pilloried. Didn't this guy spend his entire tenure with Guns blind drunk? We, the people who defended the old band on occasion, were forced to put up with all of this silliness (from the Axl brigade) about ''Slash and Duff being useless drunks'' yet Axl recruited a bass player for his hireling project who was permanently paralytic!! Stinson spent the best part of his GN'R years sousing himself silly backstage (I do not blame him really: I would have also If I had accepted the cash for such a demeaning role - blotting out the humiliation!).

Haha that was the harshest, yet most accurate description of Tommy I've seen on this board.  When I saw Tommy on one of his solo tours he was blitzed off his ass.  Guy is a total alcoholic and I'm not trying to be funny.  I feel for him like some one else mentioned that he recorded 3 albums of material supposedly, only one of which was released and which Axl himself wasn't even happy about releasing.  The rest of the time he played some of those songs live and was stuck playing almost the entire AFD record from 2001 onward. 

I'll quote one of my non-GNR favorite bands that I feel describes how Tommy felt throughout his tenure with GNR:

"So this is how it feels and it doesn't feel so good.  To know you couldn't give enough after giving all you could.  Its been raining for so long it's like the sun will never shine.  I've been losing for so long, I think I fell too far behind"

[DieselDaisy]

2 hours ago, WAR41 said:

Haha that was the harshest, yet most accurate description of Tommy I've seen on this board.  When I saw Tommy on one of his solo tours he was blitzed off his ass.  Guy is a total alcoholic and I'm not trying to be funny.  I feel for him like some one else mentioned that he recorded 3 albums of material supposedly, only one of which was released and which Axl himself wasn't even happy about releasing.  The rest of the time he played some of those songs live and was stuck playing almost the entire AFD record from 2001 onward. 

I'll quote one of my non-GNR favorite bands that I feel describes how Tommy felt throughout his tenure with GNR:

"So this is how it feels and it doesn't feel so good.  To know you couldn't give enough after giving all you could.  Its been raining for so long it's like the sun will never shine.  I've been losing for so long, I think I fell too far behind"

I'm not necesserly criticising Stinson (beyond choosing to be in Nugnr). I'm merely mentioning that for years - up until this hybrid-reunion thing infact - McKagan and Hudson were derided as ''useless drunks'' by the Axl lobby, yet, meanwhile Axl had replaced Duff, the former of those two luminaries, with somebody who was permanently, to use English colloquial, ''off his tits''. This is all ancient history anyhow as now Slash and Duff have been rehabilitated and Stradlin has become the new bête noire.

[Original]

17 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

The only thing the Nugnr scabs deserve is being publicly pilloried. Didn't this guy spend his entire tenure with Guns blind drunk? We, the people who defended the old band on occasion, were forced to put up with all of this silliness (from the Axl brigade) about ''Slash and Duff being useless drunks'' yet Axl recruited a bass player for his hireling project who was permanently paralytic!! Stinson spent the best part of his GN'R years sousing himself silly backstage (I do not blame him really: I would have also If I had accepted the cash for such a demeaning role - blotting out the humiliation!).

Tommy is/was a soak...which is surprising as you think he woulda learned his lessen after what his brother did to himself.  Tommy's old band were notorious junkies and soaks (of course if I had to play or listen to that music that they wrote and played I'd have to be absolutely hammered too). 

[WAR41]

3 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I'm not necesserly criticising Stinson (beyond choosing to be in Nugnr). I'm merely mentioning that for years - up until this hybrid-reunion thing infact - McKagan and Hudson were derided as ''useless drunks'' by the Axl lobby, yet, meanwhile Axl had replaced Duff, the former of those two luminaries, with somebody who was permanently, to use English colloquial, ''off his tits''. This is all ancient history anyhow as now Slash and Duff have been rehabilitated and Stradlin has become the new bête noire.

Nah man I didn't think you were criticizing him.  If I were in his position, nevermind the fact that I'm a hardcore GNR fan, how could you say no to that gig?  At the time when he was offered the job you're looking at a guaranteed paycheck, working with one of the most notorious figures in rock and you'll probably have some cool stories out of it all.  I would take that job in a second.  But yeah the guy was a functioning alcoholic during his time which is ironic for the obvious reasons you mentioned.  No matter what he did I think he knew deep down people would never accept him as the bassist of GNR.  Not saying its responsible for his drinking, but goddamn if I gave it my all for almost 2 decades and I heard some dipshit in the audience every show asking where Slash, Duff, Izzy and Steven were I'd probably turn to the bottle too. 

[Malcolm Malcolm]

1 hour ago, WAR41 said:

Nah man I didn't think you were criticizing him.  If I were in his position, nevermind the fact that I'm a hardcore GNR fan, how could you say no to that gig?  At the time when he was offered the job you're looking at a guaranteed paycheck, working with one of the most notorious figures in rock and you'll probably have some cool stories out of it all.  I would take that job in a second.  But yeah the guy was a functioning alcoholic during his time which is ironic for the obvious reasons you mentioned.  No matter what he did I think he knew deep down people would never accept him as the bassist of GNR.  Not saying its responsible for his drinking, but goddamn if I gave it my all for almost 2 decades and I heard some dipshit in the audience every show asking where Slash, Duff, Izzy and Steven were I'd probably turn to the bottle too. 

You all seem very sure he's got a drink problem, which is a pretty serious accusation. Where's the concrete evidence asides from the fact The Replacements (who were amazing by the way) were a drinking band?

[Kickingthehabit]

I think Tommy should stop talking about it at this point. Time to move on. The real show is back.

[RONIN]

2 minutes ago, Kickingthehabit said:

I think Tommy should stop talking about it at this point. Time to move on. The real show is back.

To be fair, he's probably asked about it all the time since it's the highest profile gig he's ever done. Nobody in new guns was a big enough star to avoid getting overshadowed by the GnR gig. Except Buckethead -- but he chose to be a cult-ish figure after his stab at mainstream success with GnR didn't go as planned.

But I agree, time for all the nu guns members to move on. Most of them have been really quiet about it unless they are specifically asked like Freese and Brain. Thal, Finck and Bucket seem pretty reluctant to talk about GnR in their post guns interviews which probably speaks volumes about how they feel.

[chevelle]

On 10/1/2016 at 4:52 PM, Billsfan said:

Exactly. I could understand Tommy feeling bittersweet about the whole thing. I'd be dissapointed if I put years into something that would never even see the light of day especially when I've been abused for not being duff mckagan. 

Hate to say it but,  it's true. Axl blew it as far as the Chinese democracy era went. And before someone reading this tries to manipulate or twist my words, NO the new band would not have outdone the old gnr. But considering the amount of work the people involved put into it, it's a shame we couldn't have gotten at least another album out of that era. But hey, we should get Chinese leftovers regardless if music ever gets released again so..

 

The only thing I ever wanted from the CD era was for them to deliver on just being a band. I didn't need it to be as good as the old GNR, or even sound the same, I just wanted some albums and decent tours. It was a good opportunity for Axl to break the mold, do something a little different, at least justify to the world that he had some reason for keeping the name, but he literally wasted roughly a decade altogether doing nothing. It was depressing then and it's more depressing now.

[Graeme]

10 minutes ago, chevelle said:

The only thing I ever wanted from the CD era was for them to deliver on just being a band. I didn't need it to be as good as the old GNR, or even sound the same, I just wanted some albums and decent tours. It was a good opportunity for Axl to break the mold, do something a little different, at least justify to the world that he had some reason for keeping the name, but he literally wasted roughly a decade altogether doing nothing. It was depressing then and it's more depressing now.

I think you're basically the only person on here I have anything remotely in common with regarding the band anymore.

[DieselDaisy]

3 hours ago, Malcolm Malcolm said:

You all seem very sure he's got a drink problem, which is a pretty serious accusation. Where's the concrete evidence asides from the fact The Replacements (who were amazing by the way) were a drinking band?

Being drunk at just about every show would about prove it.

[chevelle]

10 minutes ago, Graeme said:

I think you're basically the only person on here I have anything remotely in common with regarding the band anymore.

Yeah, ever since the reunion the attitudes around here changed really fast. Feels like that whole era was all for nothing now.

[WhazUp]

42 minutes ago, chevelle said:

The only thing I ever wanted from the CD era was for them to deliver on just being a band. I didn't need it to be as good as the old GNR, or even sound the same, I just wanted some albums and decent tours. It was a good opportunity for Axl to break the mold, do something a little different, at least justify to the world that he had some reason for keeping the name, but he literally wasted roughly a decade altogether doing nothing. It was depressing then and it's more depressing now.

 

I had the same attitude before the reunion, but really only because I never thought a reunion would actually happen between Axl and Slash lol.  I was just really looking forward to whatever would have been the follow up to CD and the band at the time being a real band and releasing music and just doing what they do.  It was frustrating because the band was ruining all of their potential chances at any sort of creative momentum moving forward

 

But honestly, this reunion kind of made me honest with myself and realize that the only reason why I was so into the CD era is because it was all we had.  Now, Slash is back, Axl is back to being awesome vocally, the band kicks ass, and there is more going on now that is awesome than the entire CD era combined - in my personal opinion of course.  So it sucks that nuGNR was built up for nothing but at least we have "the real thing" to enjoy now

[Graeme]

See, I don't think that... Being completely honest with myself, I love and respect Slash for the songs he wrote and the work he did, with GN'R up until '94 but I thought that both he and Guns had moved on for the better. A lot of people in the community seemed really into Guns during the CD era, I used to meet people at concerts who'd travelled hundreds of miles to be there, this place was never short of discussion and up until all the Vegas shit started, there was so much potential... wasted. I just can't quite fathom that out of all those people, there's only @chevelle and I who feel the way we do.