Popular Post RONIN Posted March 17, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) I didn't just listen to punk rock, I also listened to Prince and all kinds of music. Izzy was more like me, listening to Thunders, Hanoi Rocks, Aerosmith or whatever. Steve and Slash were more into metal. Axl was into Nazareth. But they all were crazy about W.A.S.P., they loved that record '(Animal) Fuck Like A Beast'! They [Guns] were real rockers. How did it feel playing with your old mate Izzy? Awesome! We are real fast friends. By the way, when my pancreas fucked Izzy phoned too. We've always been friends and our friendship has gone beyond music. We've been through a lot of things together. I play in his records, which usually takes no more than two days. It's like "Here's the song, play, thank you". For this last record he wanted to go away and play some shows with me. We were rehearsing in Hollywood for a week and then we wanted to play some shows, which were really fun. It was so easy! In Japan everybody was around us freaked, seeing the two of us together. It was exciting. We are recording a new album in two weeks time. Rick [Richards, guitar] is coming from Atlanta and Taz [Bentley, drums] will come from Dallas. The same guys that were in Japan. It's nothing but that - things are pretty easy with Izzy. The songs are not very hard actually, they are based in good old rock roots. That's what I like about Izzy. I think he's keeping something essential - rock roots. They are slowly being lost and no one seems to do what he's doing. He's mixing country and rock and roll, and he's good at it. When Izzy left Guns N' Roses, he supposedly did so by the same reasons you did - because Guns were turned into a big money-making machine. Is that right? (Duff nods). Can you give us something about that and why Guns N' Roses became this money-making thing? If you give too much to someone like Axl. Let's put it this way. If everyone around you is answering "yes" for years, if everything is reduced to "yes, yes, yes", then in your relation with other people, when someone says "no" you think that person is wrong. You're gonna tell him to fuck off! You're in this band from the start, and then suddenly everything turns autocratic, just because one person is surrounded by people saying yes to everything. It's not autocracy legally, but there is just one person thinking that's his band. Well then, keep your damned band! One can't stand it anymore. I love each and every member of Guns N' Roses, and that feeling is not going to fade away. I would do anything for them, no question. But people change. I have changed. I've got a larger goal in life now. So, what could I do? Be pissed and make a lot of money? To me, making music is not oriented to making money. If you're in it for the money, then you're in it for the wrong reason. You'll never make any good music, I tell you. When you left the band, how did it all happen? You said you were out, you said you needed to talk? Yeah, just talk, sit down and talk. I told them I had changed. I said if they needed help, they could just call me. I told Axl this was his band, he had ignored everyone and had hired his best friend for the band. I couldn't play with him. Paul Huge, that was the guy! He's a friend of Axl, he's a 'yes man'. Why couldn't you play with him? Man, you can't be in Guns N' Roses just like that. That was a real band. Do you play guitar? No. Well, imagine you and I grow up together and you're my best friend. OK, I'm in Guns N' Roses and I tell the rest you're going to join the band. "OK, Slash, Axl, Matt, guys, this guy is in the band". "Duff, you got a minute?" "No, he's in the band" "Well, no. Everyone in the band has to vote it, Duff, so no way!" "Fuck you, this guy is in the band! I'm not doing anything unless this guy is in the band" "OK, you know what? We'll try and play with him, since you're that much interested in it. Hey Duff, the guy can't play" "I don't care" "Well that's not very reasonable." "I don't care" At that point, what would you do? I came to a point where I couldn't even look at him (Paul Huge). If I were in such a situation, if I were the friend joining the band, I'd say "Hey guys, you've done very good yourselves alone, I'm not going any further. Hey, Duff, thanks for the offer, but I'm breaking your band." But he didn't say it. So far, when you were working on the new stuff, how did it sound like? There was no sound. There was no nothing. We didn't play. We tried. Matt and I did play. It was cool when Slash joined for a week. Even when Zakk Wylde and Slash played together, there were a couple of songs in which there was a natural progression and they were very rocking. You can imagine, they were really hard songs. As hard as I like them, yeah! But I can't tell you what they sounded like, there was not a definite sound. How was it like working with Zakk Wylde for that brief time? I liked it a lot. He's a good guy. He's the funniest guy I know! You can't help but liking him. I worked with him and the guy is a genius. When he sits at the piano and starts playing, he can bring tears to your eyes. When he was 18 he was like the champion of his state playing the piano. Do you keep in touch with Steven Adler? No one seems to know what he's been up to lately. Very little. Steven damaged himself a lot. The only thing you can do for the guy is cry for him. It's hard to talk to him sometimes. He's still the same guy, but there's a lot of things that have changed him forever. At that time the band released some very elaborated video-clips of songs like "Estranged" and "November Rain" that some of the old fans hated, because on them the wild essence of Guns was lost. I think they took our music to the redneck America, as we say here. During that time, did you enjoy making those videos? Or were they more Axl's or the record company's ideas? They were all Axl's ideas, but there are five guys in a band and everyone's got an opinion. At the time, I think the record company was afraid of telling us not to do them. They saw what was happening too, but when you are generating such big money no one's telling you what you have to do. Oh well, it's done and my take is, if it were for me we would never have done those videos. But it was not in my hands. Especially you, coming from a punk background. Yeah, all that shit about the limousine and that. C'mon man, don't show your fucking house and the limousine! You're going to alienate all your fans! The fans of our first record were rednecks, punks, and rockers. We were in this street level and suddenly everyone was bringing their parents to our shows. Like in "November Rain". I love the song, but the video. Beautiful people, we became beautiful people. Since you left Guns N' Roses, have you been in touch with Axl? A couple of times. Is you relationship good? I don't know if it is for him. I don't know. I think Axl is really pissed at me now. I think he's getting more and more pissed. First time I saw him, everything seemed to work out fine, but it looks like things have changed. Axl is like today's Greta Garbo. There's a lot of mystery around him, no one has seen a picture of him in years, except for that mugshot when we was arrested in Phoenix. No one knows anything about the music he's doing and there's a lot of mystery around his persona. What's your take on this? Weird things happen when you become famous. There's no school to teach you how to be famous. It happens and people are affected in different ways. I don't have an answer for you. I've got a lot of opinions and I know a lot of things about this matter, but I'm not explaining them. I will not. He's there to answer. If he puts out a record and it is good, he's gonna be alright. He's very scared about this. I believe in this situation you have to leave home a bit to see what's happening. Go away, live. Or do what you have to do, but be sure about it. That's how I think. If you keep fooling yourself and keep doing the same things, you're going to be fucked. Guns were never like that. We did what we had to do, and we didn't have a name for it. It's only rock'n'roll, let's go! Let others put you in a category. Finally, could you tell us which were your favorite songs from Guns? I don't know, there's a load of songs I like. For many a year "My Michelle" was the song I loved to play the most, but towards the end of the Illusions tour my favorite was "Pretty Tied Up". http://www.gnrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?pid=54622#p54622 So far, Slash and McKagan say the band has worked up about 16 songs, and the bassist reports that: "the material is really strong...This record is going to fuckin' rock. There's nothing like the chemistry of Guns when we're in the same room." But Slash warns of potential chemical alteration in the future. "Right now we're in sort of a trial and error period," he says. "To me, the group is actually Duff and Matt and Axl. Where I stand is not etched in stone." Oh. "I can't say it's all working out perfectly," he continues. "That's part of the illusion of looking at five different personalities onstage and seeing them actually get on. It's not as easy at it looks. Over the last year, everybody has gone in different directions. Putting us all back together in one room is not simple." There are issues, he says. He was unhappy with the Sympathy For The Devil remake, mostly due to tinkering on Rose's part after Slash had recorded his part. And then there's the matter of Guns' second guitarist. Guns has been working with a friend of Rose's, a guy Slash firmly says he 'can't stand'. And then there have been the rumours - Zakk Wylde, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani... "Steve Vai - I have no idea about that one. He might have to take my place is anything weird were to happen," slash says. "As far as Zakk is concerned, he was there. I rehearsed with Zakk for like two days. I think he is a great guitar player. The problem is taking two lead guitar players and trying to get a lead-rhythm thing happening. We play the same guitar style at the same volume. There's no texture there. "It'd definitely be the same thing with Vai, having two overly - I wouldn't say flamboyant - but two aggressive front guys as lead guitar players. We'd both be doing the same thing at the same time, and it would lose its personality. The guitar playing shouldn't be excessive; it should be one of the instruments in the band." Slash, in fact, is putting his money on a return of Izzy Stradlin, Guns' original guitarist who split in '91 amid much acrimony but came back to play some shows on the Illusions tour after now-departed replacement Gilby Clarke suffered an injury. "It works that way," Slash says. "If you have someone who plays like Izzy and someone like myself, you play off each other. You have two textural things, a different mentality." http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/tg1997.htm But here you are, his closest friend in the band, putting together your own group - with songs that he now considers Guns songs! Plus, you're with a drummer who's in Guns N' Roses and a guitar player Axl kicked out of the band! He must think you've turned against him as well! "The Gilby thing did piss Axl off. But Gilby was pissed off too. He was shocked when he was fired, because there was no other reason behind it other than Axl had made up his mind. And of course I had to be the f***king messenger of bad news, which was f**ked for me because Gilby and I are really close. You don't play with people like that. I hooked up with Gilby and rightly so, because Gilby didn't deserve that kind of treatment - especially when he covered our ass so we could complete the world tour when Izzy quit. I wasn't mad at Gilby. I can do what the f**k I want. And if he wanted to work with me after all this shit... We (Slash and Axl) just had a really rare, heated conversation a couple of days ago, where everything that I've had brewing - you know how quiet and laidback I am - I just let everything out. He sort of listened to me. I said everything I could possibly say that I didn't agree with. So that's about it." http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/ksnake95.htm Edited March 17, 2017 by RONIN 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RONIN Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) 30 minutes ago, Blackstar said: Yes, I remember this quote. This means that Slash was more or less Axl's puppet? Or maybe Izzy believed, like Alan Niven, that Axl was using psychic energy Ha - yeah who knows, could be a combination of both really. I think in all seriousness, Slash probably said whatever needed to be said in the press to keep a brave front and stay united as a band despite the foundations crumbling. It's only in '94 and '95 that he starts going rogue and talking about the issues in the band. There's also this : I love the guy dearly, so I don't want to belittle his character by saying anything about him. But he just got sick and tired of dealing with everything. I think more than anything he didn't want to do the amount of work that Guns N' Roses has to do to keep it together. [...]I totally sold my soul to this thing, but Izzy wasn't that way. He didn't want to do videos or spend all those hours in the studio, and slowly but surely he started to drop out. [...] In fact, I was really happy because I could never understand what was going on with him. Like even on stage, he would just sort of stand there--and that was the only time I'd see him on the road because he traveled separately. When he finally left, it was like a relief because there had been no communication at all. [Los Angeles Times, August 1992] And we went out on tour, and he finally quit. And the time that he was on tour, right before he quit, I was just really pissed off. Because it seemed like he'd show up and he would stand on the stage, for the alotted two and a half, three hours. And then, you know, split. I felt for that whole period of time that he was on stage, he really didn't wanna be there [Civil War Single / Making Fuckin' Boxes, March 1993] And even before Izzy quit, he was pretty much phased out - he's even phased out of his own band [Q Magazine, March 1994]. And this gem from around that time: It was recorded the way I'd prefer to do any Guns N' Roses record. When we did Appetite and Use Your Illusion, I had to deal with Izzy. I never liked playing with Izzy the whole time I've been in this band. It was great not having to deal with him on this record. It sounds a lot tighter, or at least a little more cool than it sounded before. I always used to get bummed out about certain songs on Appetite that Izzy didn't play right. For this record, we took off all of Izzy's tracks and Gilby played them. I wasn't there when Gilby did it, but when I got the tapes back, it was a relief. It sounded perfect. - Slash http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/gwtrial92.htm I look at a lot of these passive aggressive things Slash said at the time to be the difficulties incurred during the Illusions tour from Izzy leaving. I imagine it was tough to lose Izzy given that it was now up to Duff and Slash to deal with Axl and they probably resented him for it on some level. I know later on he has mentioned in the press how Izzy and him are great friends and play all the time together (which indirectly led to VR). Edited March 17, 2017 by RONIN 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RONIN Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) Skid Row are the support group only because Axl is a personal friend of their lead singer Sebastian Bach. Several of the Gunners can't stomach them. Even the choice of music piped through the PA before the group hits the stage is dictated by Rose. Rose's craving for control reached its apparent zenith a month before this tour when he called for the resignation of Alan Niven, the group's New Zealand-born manager for the past five years, accusing him, from at least one stage on tour, of excessive greed. Several of the band won't be drawn into commenting on the break-up. Neither will Niven. Izzy Stradlin, however, "felt really bad about it, because I'm still friends with Alan. I felt I had to choose between him and the band. He was kinda like the sixth member of the group for a while. And he really helped put us where we are now. I still think he's a great manager. "But Axl and he finally had too much of a clash of personalities. Alan has his way of doing things which is more like a military strategy. Axl wants to do stuff his way, at his pace, in his time." Into Niven's place stepped his former partner Doug Goldstein, and amiable, compact figure who dresses like an aging surfer and who was the group's road manager for the last tour. "Dougie's done a lot of stuff in the last couple of years," Stradlin avows, before chuckling darkly. "He's the guy who now gets to go over to Axl's at six in the morning when his piano's hanging out at the window of his house. All kind of shit like that. Now we get these fuckin' calls - 'You hear what happened?' No, what now? 'Axl just smashed his $50,000 grand piano out the fuckin' picture-window of his new house.' That's nice, Dougie. You just take care of it. Call me when it's all over." And I'm sitting there playing acoustic guitar with Keith Richards and I'm thinking 'This is sooo cool!' 'Cos we're playing it thru' and Charlie and Bill Wyman are sitting there, listening to it. And I'm just flipping out, thinking 'God, this is sooo wild!' Finally we finished the song. They all turned to me and said: 'So where's your singer?' And I didn't have an answer! Axl was late again. Real late." The two groups had already performed together on the same bill in Los Angeles two months earlier. "It was the biggest thrill I ever had working with this band, but it was also pretty nerve-wracking, 'cos - we did four gigs in LA, right? - at six the morning of the first one, Axl called me completely hammered, and told me 'I'm quitting'. I told the other guys 'It's gonna be a long four days, fellas'. Then he went on-stage that night and announced he was quitting in front of 80,000 fuckin' people. That's typical of Axl's style, though. Here's a guy who knows how to go the whole nine yards! "How we managed to get through those gigs, I'll never know. There was so much shit down on us. Axl's mood to quit, the drug problems, the Steven problem, the whole 'One In A Million' controversy - plus I had a court date the morning after the last Stones date, at eight in the morning, for pissing in a trash can on an airplane, and I was facing six months in jail because I had a prior arrest for drug possession (later dropped). So that was a fuckin' major psycho-time." Stradlin's version of what happened on that fateful flight is as follows: "I was on this plane going to LA to work on the never-ending albums, and I was drunk in the middle of this bunch of senior citizen types. I was smoking, and the stewardess came over. I told her to fuck herself. I was drinking so much I had to take a piss. The people in the bathroom… Man, it seemed like I waited an hour. So I pissed in the trashcan instead. And one stewardess saw me, right? Next thing I know we've landed, I'm walking out and I see ten policemen, and the other passengers are pointing at me, shouting 'He's the guy!' And I remember thinking: 'Uh-oh! I think I fucked up again'." "Living with that 'One In A Million' fall-out was heavy shit. I don't know if Axl learned anything from the experience - I would hope he did. Actually, Slash said the best things about that in some interview he did when he said that Axl's free expression was all well and good but he'd hate to think what would happen to any of the band if they got thrown in jail and had to explain the lyrics to the other guys doing time. 'Cos during that period I ended up in jail in Phoenix for a day. I found out… It was pretty fucked up." http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/vox91.htm In May manager Alan Niven got his walking papers, reportedly because Axl refused to finish the albums until Doug Goldstein, the band's road manager, unseated him. http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/circus91.htm As for Axl, well, there might be some solo work out one day...maybe...it depends what mood he's in 'I want to do some stuff on my own, but not for my sense of identity.' The notorious frontman declared. 'I want to do some things like the song My World on Use Your Illusion II. I want to do a project like that with myself and a computer engineer with anyone who wants to be on it - raw expression.' Ask him to elaborate on this one-off project, and Axl mentions that he'd like to create with Nine Inch Nails Trent Razor and former Janes' Addiction and current Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro (who if you recall, was once rumored to place Izzy Stradlin when he quit GN'R) 'Those are the two people I want to work with more than anybody else.' admitted Axl. 'I've talked with Trent about doing this industrial synth thing and if we're able to work it out, we'll do a whole project or at least one song. And I definitely want to work with Dave on something. I've always been curious to see what it would sound like to have him and Slash on at least one song.' http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/hp94.htm According to this source, there has always been an overweening ambition behind Rose's creative madness: "Axl used to sit around and talk about world domination. From the very beginning he has always gone for the big ring." Unfortunately for Axl, his talk of world denomination could well be a concept better suited to the past. Malcolm Dome, editor of Kerrang! - a former bastion of Guns mania - sees the Axl-Slash split as "total bloody suicide. Axl's new band could very easily come out and die the death. From what I can tell you, from our readers' reaction, they just don't care that much about Axl anymore." A promoter in France notes, "In 1992 Guns played to 30,000 people on Paris, in '93 to less than half that number. If Slash were still in the band, he'd book them into a 60,000 seater." "In his years away from the stage, Axl Rose's thunder has been stolen by younger performers," an American promoter points out. "If the kids want a bad-ass hellion to admire, Phil Anselmo of Pantera, Jonathan Davis of Korn, and the singer from Tool do the whole 'I'm a fucked-up child and now you're going to suffer' routine. And if you want the beer-swilling drug-taking hooligan with charisma who sometimes doesn't turn up to gigs - look no further that Oasis's Liam Gallagher. http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/icon97.htm Edited March 17, 2017 by RONIN 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trev Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Oh lol...if Izzy stayed in Guns with Axl there'd be those making fun or hating on him like they do Dizzy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
double talkin jive mfkr Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 5 minutes ago, trev said: Oh lol...if Izzy stayed in Guns with Axl there'd be those making fun or hating on him like they do Dizzy... TOTALLY! That makes perfect sense dogging on an original founder and songwriting leader would make entire sense! yeah that wasn't another troll comment.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnumpi Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 46 minutes ago, trev said: Oh lol...if Izzy stayed in Guns with Axl there'd be those making fun or hating on him like they do Dizzy... Someone translate this gibbierish 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trev Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 2 hours ago, double talkin jive mfkr said: TOTALLY! That makes perfect sense dogging on an original founder and songwriting leader would make entire sense! yeah that wasn't another troll comment.. Who's dogging "an original founder and songwriting leader"? lol what the fuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
double talkin jive mfkr Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 not even going to quote you, but you're essentially comparing izzy with dizzy which is an idiotic argument 13 hours ago, RONIN said: Skid Row are the support group only because Axl is a personal friend of their lead singer Sebastian Bach. Several of the Gunners can't stomach them. Even the choice of music piped through the PA before the group hits the stage is dictated by Rose. Rose's craving for control reached its apparent zenith a month before this tour when he called for the resignation of Alan Niven, the group's New Zealand-born manager for the past five years, accusing him, from at least one stage on tour, of excessive greed. Several of the band won't be drawn into commenting on the break-up. Neither will Niven. Izzy Stradlin, however, "felt really bad about it, because I'm still friends with Alan. I felt I had to choose between him and the band. He was kinda like the sixth member of the group for a while. And he really helped put us where we are now. I still think he's a great manager. "But Axl and he finally had too much of a clash of personalities. Alan has his way of doing things which is more like a military strategy. Axl wants to do stuff his way, at his pace, in his time." Into Niven's place stepped his former partner Doug Goldstein, and amiable, compact figure who dresses like an aging surfer and who was the group's road manager for the last tour. "Dougie's done a lot of stuff in the last couple of years," Stradlin avows, before chuckling darkly. "He's the guy who now gets to go over to Axl's at six in the morning when his piano's hanging out at the window of his house. All kind of shit like that. Now we get these fuckin' calls - 'You hear what happened?' No, what now? 'Axl just smashed his $50,000 grand piano out the fuckin' picture-window of his new house.' That's nice, Dougie. You just take care of it. Call me when it's all over." And I'm sitting there playing acoustic guitar with Keith Richards and I'm thinking 'This is sooo cool!' 'Cos we're playing it thru' and Charlie and Bill Wyman are sitting there, listening to it. And I'm just flipping out, thinking 'God, this is sooo wild!' Finally we finished the song. They all turned to me and said: 'So where's your singer?' And I didn't have an answer! Axl was late again. Real late." The two groups had already performed together on the same bill in Los Angeles two months earlier. "It was the biggest thrill I ever had working with this band, but it was also pretty nerve-wracking, 'cos - we did four gigs in LA, right? - at six the morning of the first one, Axl called me completely hammered, and told me 'I'm quitting'. I told the other guys 'It's gonna be a long four days, fellas'. Then he went on-stage that night and announced he was quitting in front of 80,000 fuckin' people. That's typical of Axl's style, though. Here's a guy who knows how to go the whole nine yards! "How we managed to get through those gigs, I'll never know. There was so much shit down on us. Axl's mood to quit, the drug problems, the Steven problem, the whole 'One In A Million' controversy - plus I had a court date the morning after the last Stones date, at eight in the morning, for pissing in a trash can on an airplane, and I was facing six months in jail because I had a prior arrest for drug possession (later dropped). So that was a fuckin' major psycho-time." Stradlin's version of what happened on that fateful flight is as follows: "I was on this plane going to LA to work on the never-ending albums, and I was drunk in the middle of this bunch of senior citizen types. I was smoking, and the stewardess came over. I told her to fuck herself. I was drinking so much I had to take a piss. The people in the bathroom… Man, it seemed like I waited an hour. So I pissed in the trashcan instead. And one stewardess saw me, right? Next thing I know we've landed, I'm walking out and I see ten policemen, and the other passengers are pointing at me, shouting 'He's the guy!' And I remember thinking: 'Uh-oh! I think I fucked up again'." "Living with that 'One In A Million' fall-out was heavy shit. I don't know if Axl learned anything from the experience - I would hope he did. Actually, Slash said the best things about that in some interview he did when he said that Axl's free expression was all well and good but he'd hate to think what would happen to any of the band if they got thrown in jail and had to explain the lyrics to the other guys doing time. 'Cos during that period I ended up in jail in Phoenix for a day. I found out… It was pretty fucked up." http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/vox91.htm In May manager Alan Niven got his walking papers, reportedly because Axl refused to finish the albums until Doug Goldstein, the band's road manager, unseated him. http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/circus91.htm As for Axl, well, there might be some solo work out one day...maybe...it depends what mood he's in 'I want to do some stuff on my own, but not for my sense of identity.' The notorious frontman declared. 'I want to do some things like the song My World on Use Your Illusion II. I want to do a project like that with myself and a computer engineer with anyone who wants to be on it - raw expression.' Ask him to elaborate on this one-off project, and Axl mentions that he'd like to create with Nine Inch Nails Trent Razor and former Janes' Addiction and current Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro (who if you recall, was once rumored to place Izzy Stradlin when he quit GN'R) 'Those are the two people I want to work with more than anybody else.' admitted Axl. 'I've talked with Trent about doing this industrial synth thing and if we're able to work it out, we'll do a whole project or at least one song. And I definitely want to work with Dave on something. I've always been curious to see what it would sound like to have him and Slash on at least one song.' http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/hp94.htm According to this source, there has always been an overweening ambition behind Rose's creative madness: "Axl used to sit around and talk about world domination. From the very beginning he has always gone for the big ring." Unfortunately for Axl, his talk of world denomination could well be a concept better suited to the past. Malcolm Dome, editor of Kerrang! - a former bastion of Guns mania - sees the Axl-Slash split as "total bloody suicide. Axl's new band could very easily come out and die the death. From what I can tell you, from our readers' reaction, they just don't care that much about Axl anymore." A promoter in France notes, "In 1992 Guns played to 30,000 people on Paris, in '93 to less than half that number. If Slash were still in the band, he'd book them into a 60,000 seater." "In his years away from the stage, Axl Rose's thunder has been stolen by younger performers," an American promoter points out. "If the kids want a bad-ass hellion to admire, Phil Anselmo of Pantera, Jonathan Davis of Korn, and the singer from Tool do the whole 'I'm a fucked-up child and now you're going to suffer' routine. And if you want the beer-swilling drug-taking hooligan with charisma who sometimes doesn't turn up to gigs - look no further that Oasis's Liam Gallagher. http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/icon97.htm how much of a role did Niven leaving have to do with Izzy leaving? Seems like that's what broke the camels back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archtop Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 42 minutes ago, double talkin jive mfkr said: not even going to quote you, but you're essentially comparing izzy with dizzy which is an idiotic argument how much of a role did Niven leaving have to do with Izzy leaving? Seems like that's what broke the camels back I would say Izzy probably saw Niven as an ally and a friend, taken away it just emphasised how much he didnt feel able to cope with what was going on around him. Alan would go on to manage Izzy and the JuJu hounds, so Izzy obviously held him in high regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MADDOGJONES Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 On 16/03/2017 at 8:02 PM, RONIN said: Dude, with all due respect, you can be such a drag sometimes. I don't know if you're trolling or just deliberately being obtuse. “And I never saw it coming. I mean, this is my side of it, he'd probably say I'm completely fucking crazy, but I think he went power mad. Suddenly he was trying to control everything. Did you ever see those fucked up contracts for the journalists to sign?” he asks, referring to the notorious ‘consent forms’ that Axl foolishly tried to foist on the media in 1991. “The control issues just became worse and worse and eventually it filtered down to the band. He was trying to draw up contracts for everybody! And this guy, he’s not a Harvard graduate, Axl. He’s just a guy, just a little guy, who sings, is talented. But man, he turned into this fucking maniac. When Axl finally sent his old school friend a contract to sign, it was the final straw. “This is right before I left - demoting me to some lower position. They were gonna cut my percentage of royalties down. I was like ‘Fuck you! I’ve been there from day one, why should I do that? Fuck you, I’ll go play the Whiskey’. That’s what happened. It was insane.” http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-11-07/izzy-stradlin-in-too-deep Push finally came to shove in the fall after GN' R completed the first European leg of the tour. Stradlin says he confronted Rose and the band with some changes he felt had to be made "for the sake of the livelihood of the band." One of them was ending the chronic lateness of the shows. Stradlin even went so far as to propose that the responsible party should be fined. That was the last straw. "It was really fucked that it even had to come into play, to base something like that on money," Stradlin grumbles. "But the reality was that it was bumming me out, to be waiting there because someone else is late. It's just not fair to the audience, to the other band members. And the crew! When you go on three hours late, that's three hours less sleep they get." "I expressed my feeling to Axl," he continues, "and the very next night on MTV I saw that I was going to be replaced by the guy in Jane's Addiction. So I took that as an indication that I'd really pissed him off." Stradlin insists that he never wanted to quit GN' R and pursue a solo career. "But Axl made it clear that he was going to do things his way, and there was no space for debate," he says. "So I had to make it clear to everybody that that was the end of the line for me." Two days before Thanksgiving, Guns N' Roses officially announced that Izzy Stradlin had left the group. http://www.oocities.org/rattlesnake_suitcase/izzyrstone92.htm The same thing of course eventually happened to Duff and Slash in 1996: "One time [Axl] called me for a private meeting at his favorite Italian restaurant in Brentwood. [...] As far as I can remember, the meeting was basically an attempt to coerce me into accepting the arrangement he and his lawyers were pushing, but in a lot less heavy-handed manner.' (Slash, Autobiography) "We signed some document that we'd agree to have put in escrow for a certain amount of time to see if we could work things out. But if we didn't agree to put the terms into effect by certain point, the contract would be null and void, so I signed and let it go."I was forced into a secondary role, while Axl was now offically at the helm if I officially let the escrow contract become effective." (Slash, Autobiography) “It wasn’t even me necessarily leaving the band,” Slash told Piers Morgan years later. “It was not continuing on with the new band that Axl put together, that he was now at the helm of. The new Guns N’ Roses. I was given a contract to basically join his new band, and it took about 24 hours before I decided this was the end of the line.”"One particular evening, after they were done for the day, I went [...] to dinner at Chasen's [with Keith Richards.] [...] I'd been at the studio rehearsing all day, so when the conversation swung around to my band, I let it all out. Keith took it all in, and then looked me deep in the eye. 'Listen,' he said. 'There's one thing you never do - you never leave.' [...] Keith inspired me; I felt like I had to try harder. The next day I tried to refocus my outlook and I showed up at The Complex ready to make it work at all costs. [...] Axl never showed up to rehearse and the attorneys' negotiation of our 'employment contracts' had taken a really insulting turn." (Slash, autobiography) "I went to dinner with Axl and his manager. He was a manager of GN'R and still Axl's. [...] Me and Axl were getting along well and we had very good conversation. [...] I said 'Axl, we had very [much] fun together, but it's your own band now. I'm not interested in you as a dictator. I didn't come here to talk about the money advanced for next record. You can have it.'" (Duff, Burrn Magazine, 12/99) "I told them I had changed. I said if they needed help, they could just call me. I told Axl this was his band, he had ignored everyone and had hired [Paul Huge,] his best friend for the band. I couldn't play with [Paul]." (Duff, 2000) D : Yes. I was always in the middle, the one both came to see, and I got the impression I arbitrated little kids’ quarrels. Matt was never a full member of the band, he was on an ejector seat and Axl said : « I’m gonna fire him. » I answered that this decision required more than one person to be taken since we were a band, that he alone didn’t own the majority. All of this because Matt told him he was wrong. The truth is, Matt was right, and Axl wrong indeed. HF : Wrong about what? D : About schedules and the way Axl was late for the next album. Susan, my girlfriend, was pregnant. We were going to have a baby, but this band was becoming a dictatorship, everything had to get done in Axl’s way or it wouldn’t get done at all. It wasn’t like that when we started out. At one point, we were offered a huge sum of money to play a concert in Germany. I thought : « I never played for money and I’m not gonna start now! ». I’ve got a house, I’m secure financially. Post-Neurotic was the worst moment of my career in Guns. I went out for dinner with Axl and I told him : « Enough is enough. This band is a dictatorship and I don’t see myself playing in those conditions. Find someone else. » HF : Why did Axl become so egomaniac and arrogant? D : Because many people around him maintain him in that state of mind. They kept telling him he was right. Some of them feared him cause they were scared they were gonna lose their job. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want to do anything that goes against what I am now. I’m honest with myself and with the people surrounding me. Had I stayed with Axl, I would have acted against my personality. And nothing worse could ever happen to me. In this story, the real losers are Guns N’ Roses fans, unfortunately. http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/articles/showarticle.php?articleid=26 "Imagine you and I grow up together and you're my best friend. OK, I'm in Guns N' Roses and I tell the rest you're going to join the band. "OK, Slash, Axl, Matt, guys, this guy is in the band". "Duff, you got a minute?" "No, he's in the band" "Well, no. Everyone in the band has to vote it, Duff, so no way!" "Fuck you, this guy is in the band! I'm not doing anything unless this guy is in the band" "OK, you know what? We'll try and play with him, since you're that much interested in it. Hey Duff, the guy can't play" "I don't care" "Well that's not very reasonable." (Duff, Popular 1, 07/00) Duff and Slash may have signed off on Izzy's demotion but it was Axl's idea as Izzy indicates. Duff and Slash also signed over the brand name to Axl. Given Paul Huge being hired and Matt being fired, Axl did not need their permission for anything anymore (since he left the GnR partnership in 1995). I'm sorry if this upsets you. Besides, this is Izzy Stradlin, his oldest friend in the band saying this. Pretty damning really. Whether you choose to accept it is really your call, but the evidence seems to support Izzy's side of the story. With regards to Steven, I think considering what happened to him, it all evened out in the end. Huh? We are talking about Izzy, not Slash and Duff. You can't argue your point this way by just moving the goal posts. Regarding Izzy being offered an employment contract, please explain how that would be possible without Slash and Duff in 1991. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
double talkin jive mfkr Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 It's clear they want to treat izzy the same as adler as he'll probably just accept whatever and put up no fight. You're point on Slash and Duff is valid, it's their responsibility to ensure he's back in the fold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowOfTheWave Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 I want an Izzy Stradlin/Tommy Stinson collaboration. An album full of tracks like 14 Years and Going Down would be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
double talkin jive mfkr Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 (edited) 16 minutes ago, ShadowOfTheWave said: I want an Izzy Stradlin/Tommy Stinson collaboration. An album full of tracks like 14 Years and Going Down would be great. that would beat current GNR credibility instantly just include matt sorum on it Edited March 18, 2017 by double talkin jive mfkr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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