I dunno man...I think he felt way more pressure on his shoulders, being the lone wolf of past GNR weighing him down...he talked about just that feeling a few times...
With Slash and Duff onboard, living up to whatever they think the classic fan wants, is surely easier and less stressful with originals to carry that load and expectation too. π€·
About Guns N'Roses firing Steven for being a drug addict, and hiring Matt to replace him, do you think that Guns N'Roses should have just cut out the drums out of Guns N'Roses out of respect for Steven and just have Axl singing, Duff playing Bass, Izzy playing Rhythm Guitar, and Slash playing Lead Guitar? π€ I mean they probably could have made it work with just guitars and Axl's vocals. π€
I don't think we can assume that at all. I think there would be a LOT of back and forth with Axl; "I like this, I don't like that, can we do this here instead?" over the music before he does vocals, and probably also after he does vocals, if we're to go by how CD songs were changing throughout production. If Axl felt pressure to live up to his larger than life persona with CD, just imagine how much more pressure he feels to knock it out of the park with a reunion album.
IDK if you're referring to the chord changes repeating, or Slash's lick repeating, but both are perfectly capable of coming up with something on the fly and repeating it. In fact, Slash has said that the Anastasia riff was something he stumbled on during his solo spots in 2011 and developed further into a song. Slash knows his scales like the back of his hands. It's not hard for him to create a descending lick that follows a pattern. Heck, it's not hard for anyone who knows some basics.
I just remembered that last night I had an inception-style dream (where I went two levels down) and in my dream within a dream I heard loud thunder and I still donβt know if it was from the real world or if it was all in my head lol