SoulMonster

You might find more information here: (5) 19. DECEMBER 1994-OCTOBER 1996: AXL AND SLASH FIGHTS, SLASH QUITS - Page 2 (a-4-d.com)

I never saw that comment about Slash being lazy. I was just responding to your statement that Slash didn't skip rehearsals. I wasn't aware of the context of your post. As for whether Slash is lazy, of course not. He is one of the hardest working men in show business. He is always busy. What happened was that he was in a bad relationship and he got a mistress that he started to hang out with. Many can relate to kind of being stuck in a bad relationship but not seeing an exit so you just keep on hanging around even if it is hurtful. But then, if you find someone else, the break is easier because you can immediately just transition to another relationship so you skip all the heartache of suddenly being alone. Slash's mistress was Snakepit. She was young and free of drama and did all he wanted. GN'R was the wife and there was nothing but headache and fighting with her. What Slash didn't do, at least not back in 1994-1995, was to leave his wife for his mistress - he wanted both. He wanted to hang out with his fun mistress and then come back to his wife at some point, because that's where his future was, at least financially. So he stopped coming to rehearsals with GN'R for a while. So what were the problems between Axl and Slash at the time? Why was their relationship so bad? There were many things, actually, built up over years, but at this time (late 1994) I believe the two main problems Slash had with Axl was that his ego was wounded after Axl (and Duff) had rejected the songs he had written with Gilby and Matt, and that they couldn't agree on Gilby's replacement and Axl tried to shoehorn Paul in on the band (Slash had wanted to keep Gilby or get Ryan Roxie). At the time, Duff was also recuperating from his burst pancreas so Slash was in a sense alone in the conflict with Axl, and Slash is very conflict aversive. He prefers to avoid conflicts. He is more of the flee than the fight type. So he decided to prioritize Snakepit, where he could play his songs in a drama free band with guys picked by him, and stopped going to GN'R rehearsals. And that is kind of ironic since Axl actually wanted to get work done at the time. It is easy to assign blame for the situation but it is hard to get it right, in my opinion. It is a common belief that Axl wanted to completely change the music of the band at the time and that this pushed Slash away. Slash himself would state this in interviews from 1995 and onwards, which is a really efficient way to turn the fans against Axl (because most fans, after all, were fans of the early GN'R music and would hate to think the band would drastically change their music). It also worked wonders since Axl by then had stopped talking to the press so Slash got to steer the narrative and public opinion. Axl would vehemently deny this on the rare occasions when he did speak out (mostly many years later in interviews and lawsuit documents) and this would be one of the reasons Axl was so vengeful against Slash in the 2000s - he felt that Slash was manipulating the public opinion against him. That being said, Axl was interested in pushing GN'R forward and not regressing to earlier states, so to speak. Which is why Slash's songs, which ended up on Snakepit, didn't fit with what Axl had in mind. Axl probably wanted the next record to be a natural evolution from the UYIs, like UYIs had developed from Appetite. Which is probably also why he wanted Dave Navarro to replace Gilby (and we heard the result of that on Oh My God): Axl: But the idea of working with [Navarro] excites me to no end because I still put on Jane's Addiction and it always seems brand new, no matter how many times I hear it. I'd like to try to achieve a fusion of what they were trying and what GNR is doing. I think that blend, if taken seriously and patiently, could be amazing. It could be a fuller thing than anyone's done before. Dave and Slash together could be incredible-two guys very "out there" on their own, working together. […] I think the world kind of missed Dave. I'd really like to help fix that [Hit Parader, June 1993]. Still, Axl was willing to compromise here and try to find some solution Slash would accept, especially when the situation became deadlocked and Slash started to drift away. Axl brought in Zakk Wylde (early 1995, just before Slash took off touring with Snakepit) in the hope that that would click and excite Slash - it didn't. And eventually the music they worked on was, allegedly, purely guitar-driven rockers the type that Slash wanted, presumably not what Axl originally had in mind. Axl adamantly insists this to be the case and has claimed to have the rehearsal tapes that proves this to be true. Interestingly, Axl would also claim, in a lawsuit, that Slash, on three occasions, sabotaged the making of a new record in the vein of Appetite. I think Axl is exaggerating and is taking instances where Slash didn't do what Axl wanted and interpret this as deliberate sabotage from Slash - still, it does lend credence to the claim that the music they were working on was Appetite-styled. Anyway, Slash left for Snakepit and was basically out of the band, he just hadn't formally quit. He came back in late 1996 for a few weeks of rehearsals or testing out the waters, but for whatever reasons it didn't work out and he finally quit. Paul was still in the wings then, which probably was one of the reasons Slash couldn't take it, and although Snakepit had not been a commercial success, it had probably been fun for Slash after the stadium touring in 1991-1993 and something he wanted to do more of (whereas Axl still wanted GN'R to grow and become even bigger). If Axl had been more diplomatic and compromised regarding Gilby's replacement, kept Paul away, I think it would have been easier for Slash, but by late 1996 I think it was too late anyway to change the course of history. Slash had already left many months before, he just hadn't realized himself. There was also a powerplay at the time regarding ownership of the band, with Axl indelicately insisting on now owning the band and wanting Duff and Slash on contracts, which probably also killed much of Slash's enthusiasm.

Oh yeah, you're right. I wouldn't make Heidelberg my main destination if I came from the US. But as a place to visit while exploring that region of Europe, it makes some sense. You're right.

It is considered one of the nicest cities in south Germany, with a very well preserved old city and a nice castle on the hill above. It is a university city which is vibrant and with lots of nice restaurants, pubs and cafes. It is also small enough to walk everywhere. And the surrounding region has lots of nice wineries, castles and nature.

I don't speak that dialect, I am a transplant, originally from Sørlandet.

Hah, yes, that wasn't me. I am not the complaining type and your posts never irritate me

Heidelberg is good. And there's lots of pharma/biotech companies in the region.

In fact, Slash stopped coming to rehearsals and admitted as much: Slash: And a lot of time went by, we started working the Snakepit album and I wasn’t coming down to Guns N’ Roses rehearsals, so Axl was getting pissed off about that [Alice Cooper Vintage Vault, 1995]. This was in the period he realized that having his own band, Snakepit, was a lot more fun than dealing with Axl. It is easy to sympathize with Slash here and understand him being fed up with GN'R, he himself would express disgust over the ballads, expensive videos, etc: Slash: I love Guns with a passion. It just got to the point where - after two band member changes, ballads about Stephanie (Seymour), multi-million-dollar videos, the whole f**king cabaret thing that went on onstage - I just went, ‘There’s too much going on! [Kerrang! February 18, 1995]. But not showing up for rehearsals and basically blowing Axl off when Axl actually wanted to work on new music, was not really the right way to go about it. Some clear communication that he would be gone for two years working Snakepit, or even simply quitting GN'R, would have been better than this half-assed approach to GN'R and then later making it seem that Axl was the sole problem why they didn't manage to make a new album in 1994-1996.

I can only speak for myself and sort of the culture I was in at the time - and I am sure other people would disagree based on what state of life they were in and where they lived - but to me GN'R became terribly uncool around that time. Back in the late 80s they had spearheaded a movement in a sense, they had taken the best, musically, from the bands around them and created a fantastic essence of those bands and that music in Appetite, and how they looked went with that. They fit in. Appetite sat extremely well in the musical landscape of that time. It was better, it was innovative, it was rawer, and it was end-to-end filled with killer songs, but it was still an outcome of the bands before them and the music they played, like Hanoi Rocks, WASP, Motley, Jet Boy, Rolling Stones, etc. UYI kind of lacked that connection to the musical zeitgeist of the time. It was a great rock and roll record (well two records) with some brilliant songs, but it wasn't a clever, contemporary answer to the musical questions of that time. It was an answer to a question no one had asked. It was more in its own place, like a big musical monolith that stood out separated from what other bands were playing at the time and the direction of music. And even more so did the behavior of the band itself stand out to their peers back in the mid- and late 90s. They didn't look and behave like what was cool at the time. While they had looked effortlessly "right" back in the late 80s, they now looked either frozen in time without the sense to evolve with the times (Duff and Matt and Slash, with their leather jackets, big hair, etc) or like they were desperately trying to remain cool by going through all kinds of styles (Axl) - and the same could to a great extent be said about their music. There was no cohesive punch to UYIs, it was in a sense a sprawling mess. So they weren't that appealing anymore. In fact, they became really untrendy and uncool. It was brutal. And again, I am just talking from my perspective at the time, all of this is relative, there were clearly regions or cultures where GN'R was still cool, but in the mainstream that wasn't the case. So MTV weren't that interested anymore.

I never really did join this but I will this time since you initiated it, @Eric Cantona. My problem: I don't really know much about celebrities and their health, etc. Anyway, here's my picks: 1. Joe Biden (currently 81) 2. Donald Trump (currently 77) 3. Keith Richards (currently 80) 4. Willie Nelson (currently 90) 5. Mickey Rourke (currently 71) 6. Tom Hanks (currently 67) 7. Bruce Willis (currently 68) 8. Sylvester Stallone (currently 77) 9. Robert Downey, Jr (currently 58) 10. Elton John (currently 76)

More about the media contract here: (4) 12. JANUARY-JULY 1991: TOURING MAYHEM (a-4-d.com)

Because it states that the lyrics have been interpreted, or something to that effect.

The clipping is gone?

The lyrics in the Japanese CD are not official.

God jul!

As in, on the B side of your Perhaps single the song Monsters is included?

An astounding development in this story or a bad joke in poor taste? I would guess the latter.

You really think so? A bad mix is worse than the 2002 tour cancellation failure? The inability to start the show early and prevent the Montreal riot? The inability to release CD2? Fernando's sexual harassment?

I might as well tell the story of when I became a fan again. Because I lost interest in the 90s. The UYIs were great but then all the drama of the band, Axl's behavior, and the bloated live performances made me feel indifferent to the band. There was something immature and dated about it, especially compared to their peers at the time. And the songs had become more hit or miss, and obviously weren't written as a band anymore. It simply wasn't the band I had fallen in love with. No Izzy, no Steven, no cohesion, just guys obviously at odds with each other behaving all rockstarish. And I got into other music and artists which I felt was just as great. So I guess the band changed, but maybe even more so did I. Fast forward to 2006 and I found myself getting interested again. I grudgingly started to admire Axl for his relentlessness, his ability to get up again after being knocked down, his refusal to throw in the towel. And he could still belt as hell. The live performances in 2006 blew my mind. This was better than the grating, saw-machine delivery of the 90s. It was still a freak show, but it wasn't a cohesive punkish gang turned into bloated rockstars, it felt more real again although very weird. And they did the old songs justice and also had new music which I really liked. So I sort of got into the band again for different reasons than why I got into the 1988 band. But it was still great, not in the way music can affect a 12 year-old boy, but still... So here I am.

I got Marvel fatigue about midway into the first Marvel movie I saw.

In about 2 weeks I will be 48. I still feel like an 18 year-old who feels like a 50 year-old, though.

Sure, I never said otherwise.

It is of course not relevant to those who say the song sounds worse because of it. It is highly relevant to those who made it seem like it was an unprecedented level of incompetence. As I said.

People made it seem like this was an unprecedented level of incompetence, only achievable when Team Brazil really made an effort of fucking up. And then it turns out it isn't that uncommon. I heard it also "plagues" some of Tool's albums.

Really? That's unfortunate.