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It was a good show last tour, but yeah, the price is putting me off, as well as my nearest venue being far too big compared to last tour. I'm hoping for a cheaper ticket nearer the date. 

Glad you know him so well!  I have no idea what he thinks, only that he seems incredibly private. 

My understanding, having been present on the message board of certain "insiders" (IYKYK) was that Chinese Democracy, against all odds, set the ledger to zero when it came to production costs. People throw around the $13 million dollar number a lot, but almost all of that was written off over the years through the various mergers and acquisitions of the record labels. Apparently, Universal only footed a small portion of the Chinese Democracy expenses before cutting off Axl in 2004. When Azoff, one of the most powerful managers in the business, negotiated the Best Buy deal, Best Buy covered the portion of the money Universal spent and ordered a million copies of the record. Despite all the money sunk into the project and the jokes made at its expense, Universal essentially went into immediate profit on the album AND got to state that the album debuted as a platinum record. The Azoff thing is tough. I have no doubt Azoff probably used less than truthful tactics with Axl, but at the end of it all, Azoff was probably the only person powerful enough in the business at the time to negotiate the deal he did. I honestly believe, without Azoff, Chinese Democracy would never have been released (at least in a conventional sense).  Also worth nothing was that the costs of the Chinese Democracy sessions also (per the same "insider") covered the costs of the CD2 material. So beyond the fact that the record company made all their money back on Chinese Democracy, they also had the recording cots of the next album covered as well. The issue, apparently, came from the fact that the record label, in 2009/10 (when Axl wanted to release the next record), would not release anything unless Slash/Duff were back in the band in some capacity. Despite the majority of CD2's costs for recording having been paid back, the label apparently did not want to spend another dime on other costs (like marketing) for "Axl's band" given the muted reception to Chinese Democracy.  So how did we get to where we are now (as @Blackstar laid out). As a former entertainment attorney, my guess would be one of two things: 1. Unlikely: Axl's contract had some kind of reversion right for masters. This would be very unlikely given that this is not something that really got added to contracts until fairly recently.  2. More Likely: Given that things were in a "stalemate", the band probably paid a lump sum to acquire the masters back to the remainder of the songs with the record label having a right of first refusal on a distribution deal. In other words, the band would foot the costs for extra recording, mixing, mastering, videos, and the majority of the marketing. Under the distribution deal, the record label would pay to manufacture the physical product, coordinate getting the song on streaming and download platforms, and (possibly depending on the deal) paying some minor marketing costs. The record label would then take a cut of the money made from these sales/streams/downloads (usually 15% for a distribution deal vs the up to 80% a record label can take under a normal record contract). It's also possible, with a band the size of GN'R, they just paid the label a lump sum for these services and GN'R gets to keep all money from streaming/sales/downloads. 

It’s a good point that he would be wise not to release an autobiography until the lawsuit is resolved. However, with his money, he’s very much able to just settle this lawsuit for practically whatever and whenever he wants to.

Maybe true, there is no way to know until we hear something, because even Rock The Rock was plenty of years ago now. Even still, I have to disagree with the other poster, because it would be literally just re-applying the tone of his own voice, to his own voice. He would still have to sing and record it all. That's not a "robot". Using AUTO TUNE is "a robot", where notes are added and adjusted in a robot way, not reminiscent of how the original vocals were recorded and sung into the mic at all, that shit is WAY more "robot" than adding bits rasp back to the vocals that he himself has to record. And live, that point doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because he ALREADY sings ALL the songs that he recorded back then with his classic tone live with his current voice. So it'll just be the same thing as literally all the other songs.