The big "Fuck Bob Ezrin" thread

[Tom-Ass]

49 minutes ago, Stiff Competition said:

Thank you Bob Ezrin for producing Destroyer, Get Your Wings and many Alice Cooper albums.

Fuck yeah!! Get Your Wings is my favorite Aerosmith Record.. Some great Alice Cooper stuff too. The guy knows great music.. Axl didn't have any... 

[guitarpatch]

Just now, Tom-Ass said:

Fuck yeah!! Get Your Wings is my favorite Aerosmith Record.. Some great Alice Cooper stuff too. The guy knows great music.. Axl didn't have any... 

The guy also wants to make a living so who knows what the motives were. 

I personally don’t need Bob Ezrin to tell me which songs I like/dislike. To each their own 

[WhazUp]

I have mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, yes a lot of these early mixes IMO sound better than the final versions

 

But looking at it from Bob's perspective... this is GNR, the band that wrote SCOM and Jungle.  The band that had hits that overtook radio and make the entire world look at them, and going from albums filled with rock and blues and songwriting that is a perfect blend of integrity AND hit potential to the songs here.... there are very few songs that I can say match up to what GNR already did, if any at all.  I personally like CD but there are no hits on the album, and as much as I like it as a hardcore GNR fan I can't neccesarily blame a guy going into it with "this doesn't match the level of the albums GNR have already put out"

 

Again I say this as someone who loves Chinese and all the songs around in its era, it isn't hard to imagine Bob's perspective - going from Appetite and the Illusions, to a more self-indulgent mix of styles GNR is not typically known for, with none of the members there that made GNR what they were, and with very very few actual songs that have the potential to do well in terms of hits

Edited September 26, 2019 by WhazUp

[Blackstar]

I wonder what Ezrin thinks, or what he would say, about the Illusions. The Illusions had big hits (YCBM, DC, NR and the two covers) but most of the albums wasn't "hit material". Estranged is a big fan favourite, but the single wasn't a hit (I think it didn't even make the general Top 40).

[WhazUp]

6 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

I wonder what Ezrin thinks, or what he would say, about the Illusions. The Illusions had big hits (YCBM, DC, NR and the two covers) but most of the albums wasn't "hit material". Estranged is a big fan favourite, but the single wasn't a hit (I think it didn't even make the general Top 40).

The Illusions did have enough hits to compel the public into buying the record and it doing well - between Civil War, KOHD, November Rain, YCBM, Don't Cry and and Live and Let Die that is a ton of radioplay and so the ability to stretch out on the albums as a whole and exciersizing more self-indulgence would be something totally still doable and still able to reach a huge audience - something that even as a fan of Chinese I don't think the majority of the "big guns" would have that commercial viability regardless if they came out in 1999 or 2008

Edited September 26, 2019 by WhazUp

[Pacha]

15 minutes ago, WhazUp said:

I have mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, yes a lot of these early mixes IMO sound better than the final versions

 

But looking at it from Bob's perspective... this is GNR, the band that wrote SCOM and Jungle.  The band that had hits that overtook radio and make the entire world look at them, and going from albums filled with rock and blues and songwriting that is a perfect blend of integrity AND hit potential to the songs here.... there are very few songs that I can say match up to what GNR already did, if any at all.  I personally like CD but there are no hits on the album, and as much as I like it as a hardcore GNR fan I can't neccesarily blame a guy going into it with "this doesn't match the level of the albums GNR have already put out"

 

Again I say this as someone who loves Chinese and all the songs around in its era, it isn't hard to imagine Bob's perspective - going from Appetite and the Illusions, to a more self-indulgent mix of styles GNR is not typically known for, with none of the members there that made GNR what they were, and with very very few actual songs that have the potential to do well in terms of hits

Axl should have released the album with another name, not under GNR.

With these songs, he would have had an excellent solo album, much better than other former GNR members

[Gackt]

Long story short with Ezrin, he likely wanted Slash back in the band and told Axl the album wasn't good to push him towards reuniting the classic band.  Axl's got a fragile ego, so he ended up tinkering with his material for years before he got a push from Dr. Pepper to release the album.

2000 Intentions would've done really well with the current state of what's popular in rock music at the time; a follow-up album that was heavy on Bucket & Brain songs would have been like the Illusions II to the album.

[StrangerInThisTown]

In essence, Axl not only fucked the band, but rather himself with having Slash and Duff sign over the name to him. He should have went solo with this material and he wouldn't have had this problem at all. I wonder how Bob would have reacted to this exact same material, knowing it was supposed to be Axls solo record? Probably not as negative about it as he listened to it thinking this is supposed to be Guns N Roses (even if it's just Axl with backing musicians at that point). 2000 Intentions should have been Axls solo debut

Edited September 26, 2019 by StrangerInThisTown

[guitarpatch]

Just now, Nicklord said:

I'd more like to say fuck you Axl. He rejected pretty much every Buckethead's idea and dude had some great ones 

They were years into the project by then and working on what was close to being done. Maybe he has a whole record full of a buckethead songs w vocals. We have no idea 

[AxlRoseCDII]

28 minutes ago, WhazUp said:

I have mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, yes a lot of these early mixes IMO sound better than the final versions

 

But looking at it from Bob's perspective... this is GNR, the band that wrote SCOM and Jungle.  The band that had hits that overtook radio and make the entire world look at them, and going from albums filled with rock and blues and songwriting that is a perfect blend of integrity AND hit potential to the songs here.... there are very few songs that I can say match up to what GNR already did, if any at all.  I personally like CD but there are no hits on the album, and as much as I like it as a hardcore GNR fan I can't neccesarily blame a guy going into it with "this doesn't match the level of the albums GNR have already put out"

 

Again I say this as someone who loves Chinese and all the songs around in its era, it isn't hard to imagine Bob's perspective - going from Appetite and the Illusions, to a more self-indulgent mix of styles GNR is not typically known for, with none of the members there that made GNR what they were, and with very very few actual songs that have the potential to do well in terms of hits

Almost every song on Disc #1 imo besides Silkworms and Riad had the potential to be a hit. I don’t agree with “there’s no hits on here at all” claim.

[StrangerInThisTown]

2 minutes ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

Almost every song on Disc #1 imo besides Silkworms and Riad had the potential to be a hit. I don’t agree with “there’s no hits on here at all” claim.

You have to remember that whether a song will be a hit or not also depends on the timing. You would have to have known the musical landscape of 1999/2000 and look at it from that perspective to really evaluate whether a song would have been a hit or not. We don't have that, our judgement is clouded by the 2010s which we are 9 years into. Early 2000s Kid Rock / Limp Bizkit was really big from what I remember, a far cry from what we know today.

Edited September 26, 2019 by StrangerInThisTown

[WhazUp]

1 minute ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

Almost every song on Disc #1 imo besides Silkworms and Riad had the potential to be a hit. I don’t agree with “there’s no hits on here at all” claim.

I like all of those songs on Rough Mix #1, but I don't think they would have a huge impact on radiowaves as hits IMO.  Or they would get radioplay on inital release and once the excitement of the realese wears off the waters would subside and the old GNR radio hits would still remain

 

 

[Azifwekare]

2 hours ago, RONIN said:

Axl did not know what he wanted..from his music, his band, or his career. Blaming Bob doesn't change that fundamental fact. The leaks we've heard so far reflect this absence of a clear cohesive vision/direction. 

Axl and Slash began talking in 2015. They started touring in early 2016. We're nearing the end of 2019. Who will we blame if 2020 rolls by with no new music? Jimmy Iovine? Paul Huge?

Slash.

[GnR Chris]

9 hours ago, El Guapo said:

Nah. You have to see the context here. Have we heard even ONE finished song with vocals with all the leaks that comes close to former GNR material? 

The Rough Mix #3 stuff is great but very differnet, so it might have bombed hard.

And the leaked songs with vocals? I enjoy hearing them a lot, but after a while...Atlas? No. Perhaps? Kinda cool but come on, doesn't make anybody dance in a hallway, right. Hardschool is great, but not a big gun too. 

You're just excited about the leaks, that's it.

Don't tell others why they're excited about something. It's arrogant. It's fine for you not to enjoy the leaked material as much as your beloved Illusions. The near-complete rough mixes we've heard with demos are all awesome and all so wildly different. Judged against what was going on in the rock landscape at the time, yes, this record would have been fantastic. It's better Axl was moving Guns in a different direction rather than trying to mimic what he had with the past lineup.

[effectfreak]

1 hour ago, TheSeeker said:

I think the Rough Mixes CD's were a "here's what we have so far pre-Village" compilation from November 2000 and then you can see after that with the rest of the discs that Axl just farted around with overdubs for the next year, outside of some new Buckethead songs and re-recording KOHD the month after 9/11

Remember the timeline here 

February 2000 - Doug Goldstein says album is "99 percent musically done and 80 percent vocals done" and will be done in February or March for a Summer 2000 release

April 2000 - Jimmy Iovine listens to the Sean Beavan album, tells Axl he needs better production

April 2000 - Roy Thomas Baker hired

October 2000 - Bob Ezrin hired, band is moved to The Village recording studio

November 2000 - Rough Mixes compiled

February 2001 - Tom Zutaut hired

March 2001 - Beta tells the press that the label has "48 songs" and is choosing what ones will be on the album

March 2001 - Bob Ezrin listens to all the material, tells Axl he has 2 good songs and leaves the project

November 2001 - Tom Zutaut fired

February 2002 - Roy Thomas Baker fired

September 2002 - Doug Goldstein fired

Good timeline, just wanted to point out that Rolling Stone interview was done November 1999 and came out early february 2000.

I also believe that rough mixes are "everything we have" compilations and first previewable versions of the songs. 

[GnR Chris]

6 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

What is interesting here is his comment about the songs being painted over too many times. That doesn't fit with the leaked songs that have a much simpler arrangement than most songs on CD. So either he heard these songs in a different version, after Axl had added lots to them, or he is revising history based on his impression of the released record (since the interview was from 2012). 

Great point. He is revising history to paint himself in a better light.

[GnR Chris]

5 hours ago, PatrickS77 said:

Seems like the world agree's with him though. CD is far from a masterpiece and dismissed by most. Also not sure how he would have delayed anything. According to this quote it seems like he worked 2 mins on it.

No, Bob more than likely heard the recently-leaked material, not Chinese Democracy. But CD  is actually a critically acclaimed album. Only dismissed by people who cling to the Illusions-era GNR. 

[Blackstar]

40 minutes ago, WhazUp said:

The Illusions did have enough hits to compel the public into buying the record and it doing well - between Civil War, KOHD, November Rain, YCBM, Don't Cry and and Live and Let Die that is a ton of radioplay and so the ability to stretch out on the albums as a whole and exciersizing more self-indulgence would be something totally still doable and still able to reach a huge audience - something that even as a fan of Chinese I don't think the majority of the "big guns" would have that commercial viability regardless if they came out in 1999 or 2008

Still, I suspect that in a hypothetical scenario where Ezrin had been invited to give his input on the Illusions before they were released, he would have said, at the very least, that they should be made into a single album. The difference is that then GnR "ruled the world" and they could do whatever they wanted. So they probably would have just told Ezrin to fuck off and proceeded with what they had planned; and the label would have complied with what the band wanted.

In 2000 GnR was a band from the past, and Axl was the only original member left, trying to build a new band under the name.

I agree it would have been better if Axl has started a new band under another name. Better for everybody, including himself. Maybe he didn't have enough confidence to himself and thought he needed the name, but as things turned out it made it worse.

[StrangerInThisTown]

3 minutes ago, GnR Chris said:

No, Bob more than likely heard the recently-leaked material, not Chinese Democracy. But CD  is actually a critically acclaimed album. Only dismissed by people who cling to the Illusions-era GNR. 

But the material we have is from the place bob relocated them to after he heard the material. He definitely heard different versions because we have the recordings from the place he had them go to

Edited September 26, 2019 by StrangerInThisTown

[Blackstar]

1 minute ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

But the material we have is from the place bob relocated them to after he heard the material. He definitely heard different versions because we have the recordings from after he had them go there.

If the above timeline is correct, though (the timeline for Ezrin is based on press reports), Ezrin was hired in October 2000, and the dates on many of the mixes are earlier.

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

I wonder what the 3 songs were that were good according to him?

[StrangerInThisTown]

6 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

I wonder what the 3 songs were that were good according to him?

Maybe @Gambit83 can try to contact Bob and get him on the show in light of the recent situation and have him listen to these recent leaks aswell and give his story/opinion and he could also answer that question for us.

6 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

If the above timeline is correct, though (the timeline for Ezrin is based on press reports), Ezrin was hired in October 2000, and the dates on many of the mixes are earlier.

But aren't the leaks from "the village sessions"? Which have taken place because bob had them go there? Maybe the date he was officially hired is different from when he heard the stuff, I don't know. Something doesn't make sense here.

Edited September 26, 2019 by StrangerInThisTown

[effectfreak]

4 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Maybe @Gambit83 can try to contact Bob and get him on the show in light of the recent situation and have him listen to these recent leaks aswell and give his story/opinion and he could also answer that question for us.

But aren't the leaks from "the village sessions"? Which have taken place because bob had them go there? Maybe the date he was officially hired is different from when he heard the stuff, I don't know. Something doesn't make sense here.

They were (rough) mixed at Village and possibly done some overdubs, mainly recorded in Rumbo between 98-00

[Blackstar]

2 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

But aren't the leaks from "the village sessions"? Which have taken place because bob had them go there? Maybe the date he was officially hired is different from when he heard the stuff, I don't know. Something doesn't make sense here.

Yes, they are from the Village sessions. The thing is, as discussed in this thread, that we don't know what exactly the dates represent, if it's recordings, mixes or something else. It definitely seems that some of the tracks are from earlier sessions.  Possibly, if we assume that the dates are mix dates, they were earlier rough mixes that were transferred to the Village tapes as references to work on.

[Gaanzer]

14 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Maybe @Gambit83 can try to contact Bob and get him on the show in light of the recent situation and have him listen to these recent leaks aswell and give his story/opinion and he could also answer that question for us.

But aren't the leaks from "the village sessions"? Which have taken place because bob had them go there? Maybe the date he was officially hired is different from when he heard the stuff, I don't know. Something doesn't make sense here.

That also means there are earlier versions that haven't leaked yet. "drool" 🤤 I 'm not necessarily the biggest fan of all songs but the lore behind it is so g' damn fascinating. 🤯