"'If Slash apologizes publicly for the things he said about me in the press I have three songs that he could play on the new album'." - Axl Rose (as told by Marc Canter, circa 2001)

[Gackt]

We need to look at the songs that sound the most classic GNR of the bunch, songs that sound like something Izzy & Duff would have thrown together.

• The Rebel
• Hard School
• Tonto

I wanted to say Oklahoma in place of Tonto, but OK & QS both sound like Axl just listened to Nevermind and wanted a taste of Nirvana on his album.

[downzy]

7 hours ago, KeyserSoze said:

Axl and Slash always had that brother bond that was never going to go away

Really? 

Call me cynical, but if there wasn't as much money on the table and had Ron and Ashba not quit back in 2015, I'm not sure we'd be seeing Axl and Slash on the stage together.  

[Legendador]

7 hours ago, KeyserSoze said:

I truly think as these leaks come out, we are not only finding out about Chinese Democracy, but also Axl as a person. It seems to me like it was a mix of middle age Axl ego, and the people he surrounded himself with (or the record label forced him to surround himself with) were not good for him and the blatant mental issues he so obviously had. Based on what we've learned over the past couple of years with NITL, Axl and Slash always had that brother bond that was never going to go away, 

So based on these leaks, or the actual CD songs Slash has played live, which ones do you think were meant to be for Slash? 

1. Oklahoma.

2. Hard School (maybe? the band apparently rehearsed it the other day.)

3. Tonto. Idk I just hear slash all over this song. And based on what he was doing with Snakepit, its right up his alley. 

I think is simpler than that: Axl was hurt, Slash was hurt and that happens in any kind of relationships (friends, lovers, work, family)! Sometimes we take hours to forgive someone and sometimes not even ten years are enough.

I really think "Street of Dreams" was a song that has that Slash vibe all along.

[baldek]

1 minute ago, Creed said:

Doesn't fit with the rumored blacklist MSL told about, the blacked AFD cross tattoo and the Leeds incident.

And drunken Slash at Axls mansion is actually a 'i'm sorry, Axl' behaviour. 

Care to elaborate on this? 

[Legendador]

36 minutes ago, Creed said:

Doesn't fit with the rumored blacklist MSL told about, the blacked AFD cross tattoo and the Leeds incident.

And drunken Slash at Axls mansion is actually a 'i'm sorry, Axl' behaviour. 

 

33 minutes ago, baldek said:

Care to elaborate on this? 

The cross is not blacked, it is just an illusion (no pun intended), with time tattoos tend to lose their tones and colors and many colors start to blend, it's not blacked, it is just a 33 old tattoo.

Edited October 9, 2019 by Legendador

[Voodoochild]

6 minutes ago, Legendador said:

 

The cross is not blacked, it is just an illusion (no pun intended), with time tattoos tend to lose their tones and colors and many colors start to blend, it's not blacked, it is just an 33 old tattoo.

This. And wasnt this already a rumour from 2006 or something?

Why people keep bringing back the same old shit? And why would anyone believe in anything MSL says?

[RussTCB]

56 minutes ago, Creed said:

Doesn't fit with the rumored blacklist MSL told about, the blacked AFD cross tattoo and the Leeds incident.

And drunken Slash at Axls mansion is actually a 'i'm sorry, Axl' behaviour. 

What does any of that have to do with what I said? Not being a smart ass, I just don't understand what these things have to do with anything. 

[Blackstar]

3 hours ago, vloors said:

Pretty sure I read rough versions of prostitute and this i love had been kicking around before slash left the band in the 90s.

Not sure of the third track. 

3 hours ago, Pacha said:

I think one of the songs may be This I love. It is the typical Axl song where Slash can make a great contribution. And as old as it is, it is possible that Slash has worked on it. Besides that Axl didn't want to include it in the Chinese.

Other songs that I think are old enough for Slash to have contributed are TWAT and Oklahoma.

It is also known that Axl worked in Back and Forth, perhaps he still had the idea of working it.

This I Love was written in 1992. It's unknown if Slash had written/played on it or if it was just Axl on the piano. It was going to be used in a Robin Williams movie in 1998, but, according to Dave Dominguez, when Axl heard a line in the end about Stephanie Seymour, he told him to erase it (it's not clear if the whole song or part of it was erased). Then Axl abandoned the idea of recording the song for a long time, until he was convinced by Robin Finck and Tommy to do so. So definitely This I Love wasn't one of the songs Axl wanted on the album in 2001.

I haven't read anything about Prostitute or TWAT predating the CD era. Prostitute was developed in the Youth era, as well as Madagascar. 

Back and Forth again was used on "It's Five O' Clock Somewhere", so why would Axl have wanted to work on that.

But I think that Oklahoma definitely might have been one of them, as, according to Dominguez, it was written before the very first CD studio sessions started.

I generally doubt that it was one of the songs that are on CD, because the songs Marc Canter referred to were songs Slash already had been part of, and I don't think Axl would have put Slash songs on the album without Slash playing them. 

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by Blackstar

[moreblack]

32 minutes ago, Voodoochild said:

Why people keep bringing back the same old shit? And why would anyone believe in anything MSL says?

I remember he posted here a lot. Then he doesn't now. What happened?

[RussTCB]

1 minute ago, moreblack said:

I remember he posted here a lot. Then he doesn't now. What happened?

Who? MSL?

He and several of his alt accounts have been banned over the years for causing too many problems for the site. 

[RussTCB]

2 minutes ago, Creed said:

Just wanted to say that i don't believe that its just TB doing Axl a favour. Maybe he did not order that, but he must have been pissed so many times about Slash at home that TB knew what to do. Axl never hated Slash, but he was like a unloyal brother or an ex-gf that he didnt want to see anymore. And Slash shirts and banners totally distracted him at gigs. Cant blame him for that. But i blame him for the whole situation. He created this Slash problem. Instead of making peace with them, he made silent war with Slash. Its so absurd that he said out of a sudden to Flebeis: Ok. Call Slash. 

Why was this phone call impossible for him for more than 20 years. Its ridiculous.

 

Fair enough. 

I guess the idea of banning Slash shirts was just so ridiculous to me, that I never thought it would actually come from Axl. 

I just feel like if any one of us had a one on one conversation with Axl and said "this, this and this has happened over the years" that Axl would genuinely be like "wtf?!" 

[KeyserSoze]

9 hours ago, The Holographic Universe said:

I Axl initially recorded This I Love as a catharsis to the ending of relationship and as time moved on and life moved on he was hesitant to revisit that particular energy and feeling associated with the song.

Of course, but that wouldn't stop Slash from at least knowing of that tune from way back in the day. I'm sure thats one of the reasons why he is playing that song almost every night on the NITL tour. 

 

8 hours ago, jacdaniel said:

No way Slash would have contributed to that album at the time. He was really livid that Axl was carrying on the band after they had all left. Him contributing would have made CD more successful which he wouldn’t have wanted at that time. 
 

Don’t really believe Axl would have wanted him on the album either. 

Okay, I would say these things pre-2016... But all of this kind of goes out the window given what we know now. Slash may have not contributed at the time, and thats fine this is totally a hypothetical. But given that Axl was *apparently* trying to not only reach out, but actively have Izzy and Slash apart of his projects in the early 2000's says tons about the multiple visions he had of the band, and I think all of that is laid out perfectly with these tracks. Most are industrial pieces of fuzz, but a good few of them sound like classic GNR rockers. Would have made CD more successful, isn't that what Axl wanted in the long term any way? I don't think thats a valid argument point as both musicians egos were so clouded at the time, and the money was rolling in from AFD/UYI sales that success wasn't really the light at the end of the tunnel at that time so to speak. 

 

7 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

 

Does this meme also apply to.. I dunno... literally anything that happens in GNR world? We literally bitched about when Axl and Slash would give up this fued for DECADES, only to be more excited by demos of songs Slash never even worked on! Is it not okay to speculate on wether Axl would have wanted Slash to work on only a select few songs and not the industrial rockers that most of these CD's are, and what Chi Dem ultimately became? 

7 hours ago, Creed said:

it just shows how confused Axl was...

Very true. Probably 100% fuled by what his description of events were in his mind, and people telling him to take 3 steps forward, only to have him take 2 steps back anytime he tried to do something with the band. 

 

6 hours ago, Blackstar said:

So this excludes at least most of the songs we know. Maybe it was Oklahoma and/or Hardschool, Quick Song maybe, or maybe 1-2 other songs we don't know.

 

5 hours ago, ZoSoRose said:

I could see Slash on the 3 Brian May songs, Oklahoma, Quicksong, and Hardschool

 

5 hours ago, Freightrain said:

I still think Slash IS the guitar we hear in oklahoma 

Seems like the general consensus is that Oklahoma is the track? I get real UYI meets Snakepit vibes from that song, Especially that little breakdown part. That is classic UYI era GNR.. Even listening to the bass, it sounds like Duff. I mean you could literally put this song on Slashes album from last year and nobody would have been able to tell the difference. 

Edited October 9, 2019 by KeyserSoze

[RussTCB]

10 minutes ago, Creed said:

But Madison had this kind of critique conversation with Axl, right? And the result was an Axl rant online.

The shirt story just fits with the rumored blacklist and other stuff. don't forget about Yoda. it started with her. magnetic cities/places, her checking photos and gifts,...slash shirts must have been pure evil.

while listening to NIN and using Charles Manson stuff was not.

Good lord. I forget about a lot of that stuff!

I've said this a lot recently, but it rings so true: GNR must have the craziest back story in the history of popular music. 

The fans, the people around the band as a whole, the people around individual band members, all of the different band members, the ridiculous press through the years, the tiny catelog for being so huge...

Some of these things are shared by other artists but I really GNR is the one and only act where it's all bundled together. 

[Stiff Competition]

2 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

Good lord. I forget about a lot of that stuff!

I've said this a lot recently, but it rings so true: GNR must have the craziest back story in the history of popular music. 

The fans, the people around the band as a whole, the people around individual band members, the ridiculous press through the years, the tiny catelog for being so huge... Some of these things are shared by other artists but I really GNR is the one and only act where it's all bundled together. 

I think the Beach Boys are a strong contender as well.

But for how little output GNR has had, the craziness surrounding them is pretty insane.

[RussTCB]

1 minute ago, Stiff Competition said:

I think the Beach Boys are a strong contender as well.

But for how little output GNR has had, the craziness surrounding them is pretty insane.

Yeah, The Beach Boys line up in some respects but the tiny output still puts GNR in a category of their own. 

[Blackstar]

11 minutes ago, KeyserSoze said:

Seems like the general consensus is that Oklahoma is the track? I get real UYI meets Snakepit vibes from that song, Especially that little breakdown part. That is classic UYI era GNR.. Even listening to the bass, it sounds like Duff. I mean you could literally put this song on Slashes album from last year and nobody would have been able to tell the difference.

I get the same vibe from the bass line. I hear some British post-punk influence on Oklahoma, e.g. Bauhaus and Killing Joke. I don't know about Tommy, but Duff was a fun of those bands (Axl was a Bauhaus fan as well).

[baldek]

1 hour ago, Legendador said:

 

The cross is not blacked, it is just an illusion (no pun intended), with time tattoos tend to lose their tones and colors and many colors start to blend, it's not blacked, it is just a 33 old tattoo.

Those were my thoughts too as I remember that nonsense rumour back in the day. Was just trying to understand if it was still something being passed on as truth.

[GnR Chris]

4 hours ago, RussTCB said:

Yep. Dead on. 

It's like the age old "no Slash shirts" rumor. I always thought "Oh come on, now that's complete bullshit!" until I saw it happen at the Chicago HoB show. 

We were all standing in line and about 30 minutes before the doors opened, a couple of guys were sent out to scan the line for Slash shirts. They even had a guy turn his T Rex shirt inside out because it sort of looked like Slash. 

If I hadn't seen it for myself, I never would have believed it. Anyways, the point is that I'm 100% certain Axl Rose never told anyone that Slash shirts shouldn't be allowed. Some dumb ass in his little circle of people probably took it upon themselves to make that rule. 

100 percent happened. I remember I posted about it on this forum and people thought it was bullshit till others also chimed in that it definitely happened. Even still, there were people who thought we were lying.

[Blackstar]

Marc Canter said Axl told him that at the pool after RIR 2001.

Axl talked a lot about Slash, at least during that period. Gilby referring to what he and Axl talked about when they saw each other again at that club in 2000 (where Axl joined Gilby on stage):

Gilby: [...]  Then we talked until late. [Axl] told me a lot of stuff about the new album, what was going on with that. He talked about Slash a lot and the album we did with Snakepit. He tried to make it sound like Slash and I were against him. And I said, “It wasn't like that, you have the wrong idea about it. I’m just speaking for myself. I didn’t talk to Slash about how I felt, I only told you. We wanted to make a Guns record, not a Snakepit record. But we couldn’t, so we did the Snakepit album.” 

http://www.a-4-d.com/t3659-2005-03-06-gunsnroses-gr-interview-with-gilby-translated-from-greek

---------

There is also this story of the electronica musician Uwe Schmidt's meeting with Axl, which is kind of funny. Based on  Schmidt's biography, it must have happened when Axl was in Chile in 2001:

- In Santiago, you met with Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses. How did this come about?

Schmidt: After I arrived Chile, at some point I decided to sell some old machines that I had brought with me and didn’t want anymore. This guy Chris from Los Angeles wrote to me and wanted to buy them. He was a fan of mine and did actually buy them, so I packed them all up and sent them to Los Angeles. We got into an exchange of emails, and he said he worked as a technician in Axl Rose’s studio. He said that sometimes he would play my music in the studio. One time Axl came in and asked what it was. After a while, Axl remembered my music when he heard it in the studio and would say, “Oh yeah, that’s that guy.” I thought it was just a funny anecdote.

A year later my phone rang on a late afternoon and it was Chris, who said that Axl Rose was in Santiago as part of a tour around South America. They were in a restaurant around the corner, and that I should come by. I thought, “Okay, I’ll go.” I got there and they’d cleared out the restaurant; it was just Axl sitting there with this massive bodyguard, a Brazilian manager, this woman from Argentina, and my friend Chris. I sat at the other end of the table from him and didn’t understand what he was saying. He was talking about Slash the whole time and I didn’t know anything about Slash, so I couldn’t add anything. After an hour he said to me, “You’re Chris’ friend, what do you do? You’re a musician, right?”. So, I said “Yeah I’m a musician. I live here. I just wanted to come down and see Chris.” We went to his hotel and had some drinks and so on, and I only exchanged about three sentences with him. It was a really surreal situation. They had cleared out the whole floor of the hotel for him and there were all these fans standing around waiting for autographs.

(I guess "Chris" must have been Pitman. If it was him, it's also funny that Schmidt thought he was a "technician").

https://www.electronicbeats.net/interview-with-uwe-schmidt/

--------

I'm also gonna leave this here again:

http://www.a-4-d.com/t3843-2019-04-26-music-week-ex-guns-n-roses-manager-merck-mercuriadis-talks-slash-axl-s-reunion

Hipgnosis Songs boss Mercuriadis, who left the GNR fold in 2006, managed the Axl Rose-fronted rock legends for several years during guitarist Slash's exile from the group.

Slash announced his return to the band alongside fellow original member Duff McKagan in January 2016 following a 20-year absence.

“The reunion was always a possibility because Axl [Rose] was open-minded to it," said Mercuriadis. "All he ever wanted was for Slash to apologise for certain things and while Slash was in a position where he maybe didn’t understand that was what was necessary, then the band were never going to come together.

"But at some point it was inevitable that they would have that conversation and Slash would be able to have his say, because there were things that he wasn’t happy about."

Beginning in April 2016 the Not In This Lifetime... tour, which reunited original members Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan, became the second highest grossing of all-time, generating $563.3 million (£436.8m) from 159 shows.

"Axl was always protective of Slash and the other guys in Guns N’ Roses," said Mercuriadis, who stars on the cover of the latest issue of Music Week. "There were just certain things that he wanted to be put right. They obviously figured out how to put them right and it’s been incredibly successful.”
 

Edited October 9, 2019 by Blackstar

[username05]

did oklahoma leak?

hard to keep track...

[Ratam]

46 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Marc Canter said Axl told him that at the pool after RIR 2001.

Axl talked a lot about Slash, at least during that period. Gilby referring to what he and Axl talked about when they saw each other again at that club in 2000 (where Axl joined Gilby on stage):

Gilby: [...]  Then we talked until late. [Axl] told me a lot of stuff about the new album, what was going on with that. He talked about Slash a lot and the album we did with Snakepit. He tried to make it sound like Slash and I were against him. And I said, “It wasn't like that, you have the wrong idea about it. I’m just speaking for myself. I didn’t talk to Slash about how I felt, I only told you. We wanted to make a Guns record, not a Snakepit record. But we couldn’t, so we did the Snakepit album.” 

http://www.a-4-d.com/t3659-2005-03-06-gunsnroses-gr-interview-with-gilby-translated-from-greek

---------

There is also this story of the electronica musician Uwe Schmidt's meeting with Axl, which is kind of funny. Based on  Schmidt's biography, it must have happened when Axl was in Chile in 2001:

- In Santiago, you met with Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses. How did this come about?

Schmidt: After I arrived Chile, at some point I decided to sell some old machines that I had brought with me and didn’t want anymore. This guy Chris from Los Angeles wrote to me and wanted to buy them. He was a fan of mine and did actually buy them, so I packed them all up and sent them to Los Angeles. We got into an exchange of emails, and he said he worked as a technician in Axl Rose’s studio. He said that sometimes he would play my music in the studio. One time Axl came in and asked what it was. After a while, Axl remembered my music when he heard it in the studio and would say, “Oh yeah, that’s that guy.” I thought it was just a funny anecdote.

A year later my phone rang on a late afternoon and it was Chris, who said that Axl Rose was in Santiago as part of a tour around South America. They were in a restaurant around the corner, and that I should come by. I thought, “Okay, I’ll go.” I got there and they’d cleared out the restaurant; it was just Axl sitting there with this massive bodyguard, a Brazilian manager, this woman from Argentina, and my friend Chris. I sat at the other end of the table from him and didn’t understand what he was saying. He was talking about Slash the whole time and I didn’t know anything about Slash, so I couldn’t add anything. After an hour he said to me, “You’re Chris’ friend, what do you do? You’re a musician, right?”. So, I said “Yeah I’m a musician. I live here. I just wanted to come down and see Chris.” We went to his hotel and had some drinks and so on, and I only exchanged about three sentences with him. It was a really surreal situation. They had cleared out the whole floor of the hotel for him and there were all these fans standing around waiting for autographs.

(I guess "Chris" must have been Pitman. If it was him, it's also funny that Schmidt thought he was a "technician").

https://www.electronicbeats.net/interview-with-uwe-schmidt/

--------

I'm also gonna leave this here again:

http://www.a-4-d.com/t3843-2019-04-26-music-week-ex-guns-n-roses-manager-merck-mercuriadis-talks-slash-axl-s-reunion

Hipgnosis Songs boss Mercuriadis, who left the GNR fold in 2006, managed the Axl Rose-fronted rock legends for several years during guitarist Slash's exile from the group.

Slash announced his return to the band alongside fellow original member Duff McKagan in January 2016 following a 20-year absence.

“The reunion was always a possibility because Axl [Rose] was open-minded to it," said Mercuriadis. "All he ever wanted was for Slash to apologise for certain things and while Slash was in a position where he maybe didn’t understand that was what was necessary, then the band were never going to come together.

"But at some point it was inevitable that they would have that conversation and Slash would be able to have his say, because there were things that he wasn’t happy about."

Beginning in April 2016 the Not In This Lifetime... tour, which reunited original members Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan, became the second highest grossing of all-time, generating $563.3 million (£436.8m) from 159 shows.

"Axl was always protective of Slash and the other guys in Guns N’ Roses," said Mercuriadis, who stars on the cover of the latest issue of Music Week. "There were just certain things that he wanted to be put right. They obviously figured out how to put them right and it’s been incredibly successful.”
 

Who is it "Woman from Argentina"  ❓

[Blackstar]

12 minutes ago, Ratam said:

Who is it "Woman from Argentina"  ❓

Maybe he meant Beta. He didn't know anyone well, maybe he heard she was Brazilian, but after so many years he didn't remember and confused it.

[Ratam]

Just now, Blackstar said:

Maybe he meant Beta. He didn't know anyone well, maybe he heard she was Brazilian, but after so many years he didn't remember and confused it.

Thanks, i guess it too, because.many people confuse Brazil with Argentina. Americans always think that Argentina and Brazil is an only country ☺

[ChildOfTheMoon]

First of all, you guys have an amazing memory! Congrats!

Axl was a mess during that time imo. There was all the resentment with Duff and Slash, he didn’t know exactly what direction to go musically with the band, he was isolated, paranoid, there was the stuff he was dealing with since the early nineties from his childhood and if I’m not mistaken his mom died during that same time. There was also the lawsuits and the problems with managers, the record company etc.

Besides the lack of communication between all of them, apparently there were many people between them causing even more problems. I think all of them, but especially Axl, had to do a lot of thinking, put things in perspective, self analysis and therapy, but for me it was always pretty clear that they missed and loved each other, they just couldn’t and didn’t know how to make amendments.

The other day I was watching again an interview Slash gave to Nikki Sixx and he totally confirmed my theory. When you have a fight with someone that’s not important to you, you just let it go. But when it’s someone you love, it hurts like hell and makes it all harder. If you haven’t seen, take a look, he starts talking about that around 30min in.

 

[vloors]

2 hours ago, Blackstar said:

This I Love was written in 1992. It's unknown if Slash had written/played on it or if it was just Axl on the piano. It was going to be used in a Robin Williams movie in 1998, but, according to Dave Dominguez, when Axl heard a line in the end about Stephanie Seymour, he told him to erase it (it's not clear if the whole song or part of it was erased). Then Axl abandoned the idea of recording the song for a long time, until he was convinced by Robin Finck and Tommy to do so. So definitely This I Love wasn't one of the songs Axl wanted on the album in 2001.

I haven't read anything about Prostitute or TWAT predating the CD era. Prostitute was developed in the Youth era, as well as Madagascar. 

Back and Forth again was used on "It's Five O' Clock Somewhere", so why would Axl have wanted to work on that.

But I think that Oklahoma definitely might have been one of them, as, according to Dominguez, it was written before the very first CD studio sessions started.

I generally doubt that it was one of the songs that are on CD, because the songs Marc Canter referred to were songs Slash already had been part of, and I don't think Axl would have put Slash songs on the album without Slash playing them. 

 

Oklahoma was also written when he was going through divorce. I remember that from somewhere too now.