RONIN

Rose wasn't kidding when he said he was struggling with writing lyrics back in the mid-90's. I guess he kind of gave everything he had on AFD and Illusions. The CD stuff (to me) feels like an afterthought - an epilogue to the Axl Rose story rather than an epic next chapter or conclusion.

10 hours ago, D4NNY said:

The perfect meme for this band.

The weirdest thing about this whole situation is that The General was built up to be a "big gun" - THE epic song of Chinese Democracy like "Estranged" was to UYI. It's a legendary track for the Chinese Democracy fanboys. And the genius management of this band decide to release this mythic track as a b-side with no promo or fanfare at the END of an endless tour. AND...it's only on vinyl. Truly a WTF moment.

And now it has missed its original release date just like CD.

my most listened to "GnR" tracks are: Sympathy for the Devil, Aint it Fun, and Since I Don't Have You. 

I love mid-90's GnR - Axl's vocals, Slash's guitar tone, and the production are amazing.

6 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Well, in recent interviews Patton said he was butthurt because GN'R treated FNM "like shit" and didn't talk to them, so that's why he did all that:

https://loudwire.com/mike-patton-peed-axl-rose-teleprompter/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/19/mike-patton-on-the-return-of-dead-cross-this-record-was-forged-through-covid-cancer-and-alcoholism

Yeah, GnR treated FNM like shit  

Whatever you say Mike.

I was a bit too young to experience the Illusion era but it really does read like some of these young upstart alternative bands that were emerging kind of positioned themselves as antagonists to the mega band of the era (in this case GnR). Sort of a combo of jealousy, rebellion against what was mainstream at the time, and a distaste for the LA "hair metal" scene that GnR was lumped into. And then Axl's behavior and goofiness during the Illusion era (bicycle shorts, cigarette holders, meltdowns, etc) just pours rocket fuel on the whole thing.

There's a clip of James Hetfield on Stern taking a shot at GnR by calling them glam or Dave Grohl derisively saying in that interview with John Stewart that GnR came from a world that they didn't consider "real" (1 hour 22 mins) - whatever that means. I guess Flea kinda sums up the attitude of these bands:

“We were definitely against the hair-metal scene,” the bassist said. “We were like, 'F**k them. We're the underground, art-rock, get-weird east side guys; those guys are just rehashing Aerosmith and Kiss.’”

“In retrospect it was all petty bulls**t," he admitted. "A lot of those bands were f**king great. Guns N’ Roses was a great band.”

https://www.iheart.com/content/2022-03-06-flea-reflects-on-red-hot-chili-peppers-petty-views-of-guns-n-roses/

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Slash had some of them on his solo album with guest singers.

Duff has made a good case for himself about being part of the early '80s Seattle scene that preceded those bands (and from which many of them came from), because he really was. He's also been friends with the AIC guys since the early '90s. Izzy doesn't care about anything anyway.

Agreed. I think Duff and Axl definitely developed a bit of insecurity because a lot of these alternative bands went to great lengths to disassociate themselves from GnR. I think there is more connective tissue between GnR and the grunge bands than a lot of people on that side would care to admit.

1 hour ago, axlfan88 said:

Exactly, it's so hypocritical. Cobain was an asshole too but at least he refused to tour with GNR,

Well...at one time he was considering it apparently. Check out the first 45 seconds of this clip:

Never gets old.

On 10/14/2023 at 5:53 AM, Frankfurt93 said:

it is the only thing that enables Axl to tour same setlist for another 5 years. It is about branding the tour and it amazes me how many people there are who are clueless how things work.

As for studio record, no band that didn't have the chemistry ever made a half decent record, GNR or whoever (even Oasis w/o Bonehead and Guiggsy).

The only thing that can happen is the uninspired crap we've been getting under that moniker since 1993.  In the AFD - UYI era, the band has proven that when that bunch gets in the room - the magic happens, anyone doubting is delussional or deaf, but can always see record sales for evidence, if they were not around in that time.

You're correct obviously but you must understand that this band is not a creatively viable entity anymore. This is not even a real band. Just three former partners who decided to get together again to make a lot of money for their retirement fund and cash-in on nostalgia for the incredible music they put out many years ago. I mean - good for them - in a way, I get where they're coming from because, thanks to Axl and to a lesser extent Slash, the band imploded at their peak and these guys could not amass a fortune or take advantage of the incredible brand equity they had built. So while Metallica continued to make money hand over fist for decades, GnR withered away into irrelevance for years before the reunion. All that to say....good for them to cash in, they should have put their BS aside and done it earlier. I imagine they're all kicking themselves (including Axl) over it for how much money they left on the table. Compare the net worth of the Metallica guys or Dave Grohl to Rose, Slash, and Duff. They left millions on the table by breaking up.

As for Steven and Izzy....they are not relevant to this band anymore. The "partners" are just touring musicians at this point and custodians of the brand. There will likely be no new music from them and if there is it will be uninspired crap like what you hear on Slash's solo albums. And Rose's chinese leftovers like Perhaps and Absurd stink as well so it's not like his involvement is an indicator of higher quality material. So why do you even need Izzy and Adler when the others are so creatively spent and more interested in being a legacy act?

I do think there's a slim chance of an AFD 5 reunion though. Maybe towards the very end - a capstone to their farewell tour -  I could see it as a teaser before the farewell tour begins to juice up the ticket sales. I imagine it will be a short residency in Vegas like someone said earlier or a limited 3 month arena tour when Axl is ready to hang it up and retire. Kind of a final cash-in gimmick for the partners once all other avenues are tapped. Once these guys have exhausted North America with these endless tours - the promoters themselves will be pushing for some new gimmick and this will be the last card in the deck to play. If you ask me, they're nearly there.

This tour should be renamed to the "Money grab FU! Tour". No pyro, cheap penny pinching all the way through for each show to maximize profits, and ripoff ticket prices as an extra FU from the oldies. Don't forget the shitty overpriced merch - a $49.95 lavender scented candle is just what you need from this band, no need for any new music. They have more in common with Kiss than Metallica at this point. The wise words of James Hetfield still ring true: "one cup cubed ham, it's gotta be cubed right so it can get down his little neck..."

3 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I guess it depends on whether the tour had already been booked or not. Because if it was booked there were contracts probably with stipulations about postponements that wouldn't be due to a health issue, so there could be lawsuits.

Must you bring logic and facts into everything? Can't you let me be critical of Axl as usual

I do wonder though if Tommy decided to quit not so much because of the tour not working out but rather because the writing was on the wall for the reunion. Maybe it was all but certain that nu-Guns was done after that tour? If not, why wouldn't GnR management simply find a replacement just for that tour and let Tommy come back later?  Is there a future where Tommy does not quit and the reunion happens without Duff? Seems unlikely.

6 hours ago, meadsoap said:

I think the fact Axl was upset about Tommy going shows that he cared for him and valued his presence. Same reason why he was saying "fuck Izzy" on stage some nights during the UYI tour, and other nights saying he missed Izzy a lot and wished he was there. That's kind of always been Axl's M.O. 

Personally, I think there's a good chance Tommy and Axl are on good terms, considering that Tommy has gone to multiple reunion concerts to watch them play. I can't imagine Tommy doing that if things were bad between them. But it's a tossup whether they actually talk or not. I think not, since Axl doesn't seem to talk to anyone outside of his core circle of people with any regularity. DJ Ashba (I know how much this site dislikes him but it's relevant) said pretty much exactly this. That Axl lives in his own bubble, and once your out of the bubble then that's it. Not necessarily because there's any hard feelings, but because Axl just doesn't interact with many people at once.

If he cared that much about Izzy, then maybe don't give the guy who co-founded the band a contract demoting him?

If he cared that much about Tommy leaving, postpone the tour or figure out a way to make the schedules work instead of saying No and leaving Tommy no choice but to quit? Seems pretty straightforward. This is a guy who would throw tantrums about not going on stage unless he gets a lamb dinner with yorkshire pudding or being 4 hrs late to a gig because he was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 in his hotel room or seeing fireworks in Paris. Nothing happens without Axl's say so. He has no problem canceling gigs, cancelling tours, not showing up whenever he wants to put on his furcoat and hit the club. Figuring out a tour to accommodate Tommy who needed to take care of his kid doesn't seem insurmountable.

50 minutes ago, kiwiguns said:

Not sure we're you got that from, more so from a few simple words that came out of Tommy's mouth.

I wasn't referring to this interview - what he said here seemed pretty straightforward. I'm referring to his older interviews. 

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Tommy has moved on in life, and generally things from the past hold no relevance to the future more so when you aren't involved in that relationship anymore.

Tommy left the band to tend to family matters. I respect the man for that alone, as many of us fathers have left our jobs/professions for the same reason. 

 

Yeah, fully agree and I think all of that applies to most people. Tommy probably worked on the bulk of those CD tracks in the late 90's. Anyone would have moved on by that point.

I'm not taking a shot at Tommy with my previous post by the way. He is what he is - a guy who needed a job and did solid work for GnR. If anything, I'm critical of Axl for hiring him in the first place.

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I would suggest Axl respected that decision... 

Well...I don't know if it was Axl or management, but as per Tommy, there was some drama over him leaving but I guess they worked it out since he seems to be on decent terms with GnR Inc. But he says he hasn't spoken to Axl in years which is....normal in GnR land I guess?

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Tommy strikes me as a person who knows, its not his place to speak about things, out of respect to others.

I get the opposite impression. He doesn't seem like someone who would hold back his opinion. He certainly hasn't hidden his distaste for Buckethead. Dealing with GnR's (Axl) penchant for litigation I imagine is a good motivator to not stray too far from the company line.

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Tommy was highly respected by all involved during the period he was involved in the band... 

No doubt. He has a lot of credibility based on his past work in The Replacements and it appears like Axl, Duff, and most of the other nu band members held him in high regard.

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Just relate some of this to general life. Would you want to talk about something that happened 20 years ago like a bad relationship/marriage break up, or a previous job and wouldn't you want to move on in life and out of respect to others involved, and to not open a new can of worms, wouldn't it be better, to just say nothing... 

Yeah, I fully agree - this was never in question. No one blames him for being so far removed from this stuff. I'm just of the opinion that nu GnR should have had members that actually respected the band's legacy and felt honored to be part of the band. It seems like Axl was hiring a lot of people who were (at best) ambivalent about the job. Tommy's attitude towards joining Guns is very different from Sorum, Gilby, or Bumblefoot who were honored to be part of the band. Allegedly Buckethead was also a fan of Axl and GnR.

It reminds me of the Dave Abbruzese situation a bit. He had the same sort of distaste for GnR as Tommy, but he thought the ideas Axl had were cool. Just like Tommy. Dave wanted to potentially be a part of that stuff...but as a wholly different entity away from GnR. Trying to meld that newer sound to the GnR brand and sound made him get cold feet. And he had the integrity to walk away. As did Bucket, Finck, Freese, Brain, Vrenna, etc. Even Bumble left. None of those guys stuck around for 15+ years as salaried employees like Tommy.

1 hour ago, Sweersa said:

Tommy didn’t speak highly about Bucket during his last interview with AFD.

Which speaks volumes about Tommy if you ask me. He also wasn't the nicest guy to Bumblefoot either.

As someone earlier said, the GnR job was just another gig to the guy. I doubt he cares even a scintilla about GnR or those songs he recorded in 2000. He's been very upfront about not being a fan of the band, not thinking too highly of the scene GnR came from, etc. It's pretty clear he viewed his scene/band as being of a higher caliber and the GnR thing was a downgrade. And ofcourse Axl, needless to say, heard all that and thought he was the perfect fit.

He's also been upfront that he was barely working and was making ends meet as a telemarketer prior to getting the call from Axl. No punk rock guy with real prospects would be hanging around with Axl and his merry men for 15+ years sporadically playing gigs and recording  bass layer #12 over decade old songs -  or playing instrumental jam #364831 on a tuesday at 2 AM with other random session players. He needed a job and Axl was dumb enough to keep all of these guys on a payroll for over a decade to work once a month on Chinese Democracy instead of reuniting the original lineup. Wasn't Tommy collecting like 200-250k/ yr for GnR - I remember the band salaries discussed here some years ago. That's a doctor's salary for basically doing next to nothing since his boss was MIA most of the time.

The world lost interest in Chinese Democracy after 2002's touring disaster and the missed release date for the album. Axl lost immense credibility and was considered damaged goods by then. That was the last window of real mainstream success for nu-GnR.  By the time he missed the 2006 release date and threw Merck under the bus, most of us die hards had lost interest - especially since a majority of the tracks had leaked by then.  The tour garnered some positive press but whatever last vestiges of interest in the band died with that missed release date for the album. By 2008, hardly anyone cared outside of the ride or die Axl fans. He just blew it. Lost two amazing lineups (original band, and the bucket/finck band) with just one album to show for all of those wasted years. Then he didn't do any press and then tours nearly a year later when people had long forgotten about Chinese Democracy. A total dumpster fire. By 2014, GnR was basically one step above a bar band and they were broke in spite of numerous AFD/CD tours since 2001. The GnR brand was irreparably tarnished. And Axl seemed determined to go down with the ship. Frankly, I'm amazed Axl even agreed to a reunion given how resistant he was to the idea even a year or two prior. What changed?

To see all of these tracks released largely without fanfare just to juice up their tour with Duff/Slash pasted on top of the tracks - it feels really strange, especially given how long Axl labored over them. I don't want to say that they're dumping these songs but that's what it feels like. I wonder if he sees the whole era as a failure that he's washing his hands of. Wasted time. It has to be screwing with his head that he's playing sold out stadiums for the past 7 years after struggling to even fill arenas with nu-guns. Like his life's work for the past 2 decades went up in flames. I wish he'd write a book and explain 1994 onwards - his motivations, dreams, and how he sees the Chinese Democracy project post-reunion. Can he be real about it or will he be in denial and talk about his affection for the DJ Ashba lineup and how Merck/Azoff pulled the album from his hands before it was finished and that's the reason it wasn't perfect.

22 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I agree. I think Axl was always the one who missed Izzy the most and it's obvious why. Slash was fine with Gilby in the UYI era, but Axl still missed Izzy and he was also the first one to realize that the band would have difficulty in creating new music without Izzy.

Probably a longshot theory but...you think this is the reason "Don't Cry" was retired for most of the nu guns shows and seems to be MIA again? It reminds him of Izzy?

38 minutes ago, drlaban said:

It was enough material for a release in 2000. If they could quickly mix and master OMG for the movie in ‘99 of course they could do that for another 9-11 songs. 

Wasn't there even more music written for End of Days? I vaguely remember some old Axl interview where he said he wrote another song for the movie called "Mommy is doing the devil" or something like that...

8 hours ago, Slugworth said:

Chinese Democracy the side hobby.

 

Any time he needed to either do something to justify the existence of new GNR or needed an infusion of cash,  here comes the "Appetite for Destruction thinly disguised as Chinese Democracy" tours.

Exactly. Or if the execs are angry and threaten to cut funding, kick over a few instrumentals or a half-baked demo to keep the cash flowing.

I was just skimming through chinese whispers on GnR evo recently and it's crazy how many times the record company offered Axl a million dollar bonus if he could deliver the album in a certain timeframe. He must have left so much money on the table through this entire saga by not being able to follow through. It really is such a bizarre journey. There was an A&R guy saying that there was a near finished album ready to go even in '98....just needed vocals apparently.

On 8/31/2023 at 8:59 AM, Cosmo said:

Buckethead has a more respectable and artistically rich solo career than Duff, Steven, Izzy and Slash put together. 

Josh Freese is considerably the world's #1 session drummer, and has played with huge acts such as the Foo Fighters, NIN and Wolfmother.

Chris Pitman, as much as I dislike him, plays for Tool, which is one of the biggest rock bands in the world today.

Robin Finck plays for NIN, which is an amazing and huge band (since I guess popularity is really important to you, for some reason)

He had top tier talent in the original incarnations of Nu GnR as you pointed out. From 2006 onwards though it just kept getting watered down. Imho, guys like Fortus, Bumble, Frank, etc are journeymen musicians. Fine session players but hardly worthy of an elite level rock band like GnR. What have they written that is worthy of GnR? And Tommy Stinson is the very definition of a "in it for a paycheck" band member regardless of his "cred".  I think Axl hurt the band's brand by the constant rotating lineups in nu guns - especially when each replacement is a downgrade from the person they are filling in for.

I suppose you could say that Gilby and Matt weren't really worthy of being in Guns either and I'd be inclined to agree.

1 hour ago, Cosmo said:

I wonder what is Axl's problem with rehearsing. I mean, yeah it's not the most pleasant thing ever but man... go once in a while, you know? Why have a band when you're gonna be so damn distant all the time?

I think the more revelations that come out about that time, the more I think GnR was just a side hobby for Axl after the '93 tour. Something he'd work on once a week or a few times a month. I don't think the creative muse was ever really there which explains the lack of output post Illusion.

On 8/30/2023 at 6:47 PM, mystery said:

Weren't they basically a shadow group that worked together? Checks out, Dizzy would also probably have more sympathy for Paul as an outsider coming into this massively successful band.

Right...I forgot all about that. Yep, they were the shadow group. Makes sense that they all got along I suppose.