Malcolm Malcolm

Rick Rubin was identified pretty recently as the producer of what we think was Hard Skool. Axl apparently fired him when he asked him to work on vocals. It's a shame because I think he would've been the right producer for the band at the time.

1 hour ago, themadcaplaughs said:

I pretty much agree with what everyone says about the book. Just a few GN'R tidbits I noticed that I haven't seen mentioned here:

-The first day Matt rehearsed with the band, it started with him just hanging out with Duff and Slash. Izzy came in after a while, and played acoustic demos of a couple of songs (I cannot remember which ones he said, but they are both songs that made the album). He describes the demos as very "raw." After going over the chord changes with Izzy, Slash and Duff start playing over Izzy's song. Matt describes it as basically two different things going on: Izzy playing with the underlying song with his roots-y sound, and Slash and Duff doing their own thing over the song (he specifically mentions how Slash's guitar parts and Duff's bass lines play off each other perfectly). Matt says the second he heard this jamming, he realized this was the Guns N' Roses "sound" and what made them so distinctive. To Matt's credit, I think this may be the most detailed and accurate description of the GN'R dynamic. 

-Lars has been mentioned here a few times, and I think everyone knows Lars is a very competitive man, but it seems like Lars really felt a bit jealous/threatened of Guns N' Roses' success and the amount of their output during the Use Your Illusion era. At different times, Matt mentions Slash and management both getting mad at him for "talking shop" with Lars.

-On the Metallica note, Matt does go out of his way to stick up for Axl in regards to the Montreal riot. As stated earlier on the thread, Metallica kept adding more and more pyro to the show to upstage Guns N' Roses (to the point that Matt believed they had broken their contract - which specifically addressed such matters). Matt says he was a little pissed off when Metallica said the band was just "chilling backstage." Apparently they were all together, and as soon as they got the word, Axl immediately got up and said "let's get out there as quickly as possible." Metallica had insisted on using their own lighting rig and sound equipment/PA, so during a normal show, it would usually take 55 minutes to an hour to get Guns N' Roses' rig ready. That night, the crew managed to do it in 45 minutes, but Matt says that Axl was not lying when he said the PA was malfunctioning. He could hear it from the drum set.

-Dizzy knocked up three different women during the Use Your Illusion tour. Matt suggests child support may be the biggest reason Dizzy stayed with Guns N' Roses through the 1990s. 

-One day during the late 1993-1997 era, Axl came into the studio in a particularly good mood and exclaimed that "I think we may have a good verse and a good chorus." Matt asked Axl to clarify what he mean, and Axl said that he had one good verse for a song, and a good chorus for another song. This was after approximately four years of work. Matt states that this was when he really lost all hope that anything could come of the sessions. 

-During the same time period, Matt was the one who first explained the looping process to Axl. Axl apparently heard some loops in a song Matt produced for another artist. Matt explained the whole concept of Pro-Tools and looping to Axl (Axl had never worked on anything but tape before). After that, Axl became obsessed with looping. This was all at the same time Slash had all but officially left, and Axl was learning guitar. During the few times Axl came in and rehearsed with Matt and Duff, Axl would play some terrible guitar part, immediately scream for the engineer to "loop it," and make Slash and Duff jam on that riff for hours. 

-At one point in 1994/1995, the band finally decided to have the entire band at that point - Slash, Axl, Duff, Dizzy, and Matt meet in one room to have a meeting, air out any grievances, and genuinely try to pave a path forward for the band. Apparently, it mainly turned into Axl bringing up random issues he had with Slash and Duff from the early and mid 1980s; things that neither Slash or Duff actually remembered. When the band finally got to discussing music, Axl brought up "modernizing" the band with synthesizers. Slash went back and forth with Axl on this for a while, but eventually gave up and left the room. This was the last time Slash did anything with the band before officially leaving in 1996.

-Matt actually likes the Libertad record a lot, and says he considers it even more impressive given how fractured the relationship in the band was at that point between Scott and everyone else. As had been stated before, Rubin was supposed to produce the record, but basically dismissed all the songs the band had brought to the table and told them "keep writing." Scott brought up the idea of Brendan O' Brien. Slash and Duff were against the idea because they thought it would just fuel the idea that Velvet Revolver was a Stone Temple Pilots/Guns N' Roses mash-up rather than a true band. Matt, however, was all for the idea just to keep the ball rolling, and Duff and Slash eventually gave in. Brendan apparently really liked all of the songs, and made some "solid" suggestions to improve them; at which point the band commenced recording. I thought this was particularly interesting given how Dave Kushner told this story on Appetite for Distortion a few years back, but saw it as a negative (he felt the band rushed into the second album way too quickly, and should have spent more time working on better material). 

This was really interesting and informative - thank you.

8 hours ago, Propaganda said:

So the book was cancelled? Or did I misunderstood something.

The book is cancelled and now Matt is cancelled too.

19 minutes ago, Kira said:

I think it's a really bad decision on Matt's part to slam Slash and Duff like this.  You're right, a lot of the perks he has enjoyed over the years is because of his association with them.  But he isn't and never was the star.  He seems to think he is though.  

It might well be, but he's not that young, he's probably fine financially, and he seems to do alright for work. Sorum is a surprisingly popular guy, even if he can seem like an asshole.

9 hours ago, MaskingApathy said:

So she's actually almost 40?

I spent most of the Rolling Stone article thinking 'was Brain grooming an underage teenager?!'

This explains a lot haha.

The line ups around the turn of the millennium were musically fantastic, although the band and the frontman looked a bit weird. Axl put together a hell of a group for his comeback, even if the comeback itself was somewhat botched.

4 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

There isn't a rule for using or not using one, Brad didn't use one because they didn't want that type of 'on the grid' record, it was supposed to be loose like the early records. Tommy who did the live stuff I 100% agree, with what you said I think he's a total metal drummer, hit hard and play fast. I don't enjoy him, Mike Bordin on the other hand was great!

I loved Bordin with Ozzy and Zakk and Rob - that was a fantastic unit.

19 minutes ago, Malcolm Malcolm said:

One of the reasons he stands out so much is that he's following Matt Sorum, Josh Freese, and Bryan Mantia. They're three of the best drummers in the world. 

I should mention here that Steven is Steven and he just has that iconic sound. I loved the reunion appearances he made a few years back. They seemed to really fire up Axl too which was interesting.

1 minute ago, Tom2112 said:

Yeah it's a very dated mix, very of its time! I know I was still in school when that came out, a long time ago!

It's an Andy Wallace mix, the same as Chinese Democracy. Perhaps the mastering is the problem.

12 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

Click tracks aren't a bad thing, like if you can have time / feel and with a click track that actually says that you're a tight player... not the opposite, are suggesting it's a bad thing? Many of the worlds most renowned players use them live. 

Clicks are there when there's time based effects / samples being used, like a lot of the CD era music... or they are used because the band has worked out in rehearsal that x song sounds great at 117bpm... it can also be there to keep a rowdy drummer or guitarist from going off the rails.

Sure, but given his limitations it's an interesting question. Also, I mentioned Black Sabbath earlier - Brad Wilk didn't play to a click track on 13.

4 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

He wasn't his tech.

He knew Brain and Richard and maybe some others, and that's how he got the call when Brain needed to leave 'we need someone dependable that can get the job done in short notice'. He stayed on because Axl liked him and Brain was kinda himming and hawing about coming back and eventually just said he wanted to stay at home. 

One of the reasons he stands out so much is that he's following Matt Sorum, Josh Freese, and Bryan Mantia. They're three of the best drummers in the world. 

7 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

He's been using a click track since at least 2009 though, probably since 2006. It's weird to listen to the songs from that era, if you listen to the 2011 pro-shots for example, especially a song like Paradise City, it sounds like it's in slow-motion. A song like Estranged still had unnecessary fills but at least it didn't sound rushed.

When Slash and Duff increased the tempos, he should've stopped doing all the unnecessary fills and accents, but he didn't, and it sounded like a mess at times. It's really weird that they apparently spent so much time rehearsing with Frank, only for him to end up sounding worse. I've been saying it since 2016, but he really sounded too much like a 'metal' drummer, instead of a classic rock drummer. He's definitely gotten better since 2016 but his sound and style can still be distracting.

Yeah, I was just emphasising that he appears to have trouble staying on the beat in that video so the click track probably helps him with that.

What you mentioned there is a problem with a lot of conventional session players. I saw Black Sabbath with Tommy Clufetos and I thought he was a terrible fit. Technically he's excellent but his playing was far too slick and technical (the former is not really a word I would use for Frank).

Matt Sorum has a big mouth but I can see why he is so frustrated. I doubt he could have kept his mouth shut but in a musical sense he would have strolled the tour since 2016.

21 minutes ago, StayofExecution2020 said:

Technically he isn't bad. He just lacks any groove or feel.

There is not much point in being technically good at an instrument if you can't convincingly take care of the basics.

20 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

I always laugh at this part

I can believe that Slash and Duff spent a LOT of time rehearsing with Frank. I also don't think the click track is just there to sync with the video screens.

I'm surprised how uninterested everyone seems in the session for Hard School with Rick Rubin. This was something that would've represented a really cool next step for Guns N Roses. Rubin could potentially have been really good at managing Axl emotionally, he's interested in classic and hard rock without being keen on reproducing cheesy cliches, he would've encouraged them to play stripped back as a band in a room, but he isn't against tasteful additions of piano, percussion, or orchestras. This feels like a lost opportunity.

Also, until quite far into the first decade of this century Axl had a really good record for choosing collaborators. It went south pretty fast with the likes of DJ Ashba and Frank, and even Bumblefoot was a pretty bad fit in some ways. Frank seems like a lovely guy but this is shambolic:

Miles sounds overcoached - a bit like a Broadway producer's idea of a rock singer.

3 minutes ago, guitarpatch said:

Slash wasn’t on it and they wanted to sell an album with him. Didn’t matter how good the songs were. They wanted money 

They ended up losing a ton of money as a result. It's as simple as this - at the turn of the millennium a traditional GnR album would've been really unfashionable. This material gave Axl a fighting chance of weathering the storm, for all he wouldn't have sold 15 million. Universal Music wasted a fortune and a career here.

Just now, TeeJay410 said:

This is enthralling and infuriating at the same time. This album was fucking ready and it was fucking good.

Axl was right. They were ready to mix.

And by the way, no wonder Axl half asses his vocals so much of the time. He's probably been bored and frustrated singing the same songs for twenty years, sitting on stuff like this.

I mean what the fuck was wrong with all these industry people? We should've got the Beavan album around the turn of the millennium - it only got harder and harder to explain to the public after that high point of interest.

Just now, GS67 said:

What did Duff say ?

He said that Axl had a ton of material ready to go.

Just now, Malcolm Malcolm said:

No wonder Axl became so disillusioned. Duff was telling us the truth recently too.

Can you imagine being in the music industry and you have this idea of 'mad, lying Axl' and he plays you twenty songs from Chinese Democracy in this period? It presented the label with a huge marketing problem without Slash but Axl was producing shitloads of quality music.

7 minutes ago, liers said:

I can't believe that out of all the songs tr hat have leaked, the possibly two best ones are ones we never even heard of.

No wonder Axl became so disillusioned. Duff was telling us the truth recently too.

1 minute ago, GNRfanMILO said:

PERHAPS, 2000-03-27, Rough Mixes CD #1, 3:56

The leak is 3:51, so we are probably missing 4 or 5 secs of the piano intro.

It's interesting how tonight's two tracks seem to have much fuller and less dry mixes than the first batch of leaks.

One thing that is gradually becoming clear is that Axl, for all his issues, is probably more honest and less difficult than we were told.

Axl was getting some bad advice in this period. Bob Ezrin has a record of being difficult with artists. I think there was a lot of good material, but perhaps not enough in the way of singles.

This one could easily be on the next GnR release, and each of the leaks seems to be more interesting and polished. 

Anyone got a date for this song?