Cool Tommy interview

[Young_Gun]

http://www.avclub.com/twincities/articles/tommy-stinson,56282/

Some really interesting stuff in there:

The A.V. Club: You have a pretty varied résumé: The Replacements, Guns N’ Roses, Soul Asylum. Do you see a common thread in those bands?

Tommy Stinson: Just that they’re all rock bands. And that they all have fairly emotional singers who are a little bit on the dangerous side. And they’re real—they’re all the real deal. I guess I got lucky enough to not have to play with people who aren’t.

AVC: Do you consciously seek out those types of singers?

TS: It’s sort of by default. I think there’s a yin and yang to it. I’m probably more comfortable with Dave [Pirner, of Soul Asylum] and Paul [Westerberg] than I am with Axl [Rose], just because I’ve known them longer and I’ve been friends with them longer. That’s not to bag on Axl in any way—it’s just to say that I think I’ve managed to get along with Dave and Paul better.

AVC: How did you end up with GN’R?

TS: It was kind of a fluke. A friend of mine, Josh Freese, was playing drums with them, and I asked him what he was up to, and he was like, “Oh, fuck, I can’t really talk about it, but I’ll tell you anyway.” And it turned out he was playing drums, and working on the record. He said, “It’s funny that you’re asking me, because Duff [McKagan] just quit, and we need a bass player.” I was just joking with him: “Oh, that would be a fucking hoot,” given my thoughts about Guns N’ Roses at that time. But I did it anyway just as a laugh, and it turned out pretty good. They didn’t really audition anyone else. They liked me, and because Josh was doing it, it was a compelling notion.

At the time, coincidentally, I was about to get kind of screwed by yet another record label with the Perfect record. I felt like, “You know what? This is enough.” It’s been five years of trying to get this thing going, I keep getting screwed, and I just want a break. So I looked at it as something to do until I figured out my next move. And it worked out pretty good, all things considered.

AVC: Chinese Democracy took all of 10 years to make. What was the recording process like? I mean, you couldn’t have been working at it every day for 10 years.

TS: At first we were in there a lot. We were working on the writing aspect of it, but it just kept going on. We had [interscope Chairman] Jimmy Iovine intervening in a not-so-productive way, and we had other guys coming and going with nutty ideas. My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart. Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All he did was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.

It was a bummer. Most of the songs that are on the record now were done 10 fucking years ago. But all the talking heads in the mix were saying, “Make ’em sound better! Make ’em sound better!” So we kept redoing this and that. And it ended up coming back down to the same fucking songs that they were 10 years ago, except that now they were a super-dense mishmash of a bunch of instrumentation. That whole era pretty much sums up what happened to the record industry. Those kinds of people, making those kinds of decisions and not really helping the artist.

AVC: I imagine that recording experience and your experience with The Replacements would be night and day.

TS: The Replacements stuff we would record pretty much live on the spot, especially the early stuff. We didn’t have money to dick around in the studio. Towards the Sire [Records] years, we actually had budgets to do stuff and spend more time on things, not that it made anything better or worse. It just gave us a little more room to move.

Credit goes to BBA for finding the article.

Edited May 19, 2011 by Young_Gun

[STARABOSTES]

nice found man!

it is a cool interview.

Thank you.

[WhazUp]

I was wondering about Jimmy Iovine

Thats the dude who works with all of the people on Idol plus a shitload of big name pop and hip hop artists

I can see how he wouldn't translate into a nice fit for a rock n' roll group.

[Damn_Smooth]

It's nice to hear someone that was there comment on the situation.

I wish Dizzy would do more interviews.

[jellyzero]

He's the guy who had Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers record something like 200 takes of "Refugee" because he wanted a perfect live in the studio take with no overdubs. So all 5 of them had to get their parts perfect at the same time. I think one of the guys said that somewhere there is a vault with nothing but tapes and tapes of "Refugee" takes.

[Liquor & Whores]

Tommy rarely does interviews, so that's a nice find

and this puts some more light on ChD recording sessions...

[jekylhyde]

Interesting tidbits indeed.

[Spoon87]

Now that's some interesting insight right there! Thanks for posting!

Tommy's cool!

[wasted]

wonder if Roy was trying to get Shackler's to sound like Queen.

[Rovim]

Thanks for posting. Very interesting. Tommy seems to be really honest and cool.

It makes me feel like I know so little of what really happened with the recording and all the behind the scenes stuff.

[Dean]

Brilliant read. Always liked Tommy, great bass player.

[oneway23]

Can't go wrong reading an interview with Thomas Eugene Stinson...Thanks!

[Young_Gun]

nice found man!

it is a cool interview.

Thank you.

No probs Thought it would be a nice change if I posted something positive for once

[dalsh327]

Hopefully GNR are a self contained unit and can just produce and release the material their way. There's enough guys in that band that have producing experience.

“We were on [interscope]. And I have had Jimmy Iovine, the president of that label, come up to me on every record from With Teeth onwards saying I should do some sort of urban thing — it was Timbaland for a while, then it was Pharrell for a while — because ‘that’s how you sell records.’ The idea seemed so preposterous and insulting.” - Trent Reznor

I'm sure Axl also heard the same thing.

The old school producers never live up to their reputation, either.

Also read old interviews on John Fogerty. He had a lot of legal shit going on between his former record label and bandmates, but just tried to live his life and recorded when he felt in the mood. 2 albums in the 80s,but towards the late 90s, when he started doing the CCR stuff out, started rolling out a bunch of new music. Eventually he made peace with that record label once the owner retired. He could completely relate to Axl's situation.

[Guest gunns5]

http://www.avclub.com/twincities/articles/tommy-stinson,56282/

Some really interesting stuff in there:

The A.V. Club: You have a pretty varied résumé: The Replacements, Guns N’ Roses, Soul Asylum. Do you see a common thread in those bands?

Tommy Stinson: Just that they’re all rock bands. And that they all have fairly emotional singers who are a little bit on the dangerous side. And they’re real—they’re all the real deal. I guess I got lucky enough to not have to play with people who aren’t.

AVC: Do you consciously seek out those types of singers?

TS: It’s sort of by default. I think there’s a yin and yang to it. I’m probably more comfortable with Dave [Pirner, of Soul Asylum] and Paul [Westerberg] than I am with Axl [Rose], just because I’ve known them longer and I’ve been friends with them longer. That’s not to bag on Axl in any Iway—it’s just to say that I think I’ve managed to get along with Dave and Paul better.

AVC: How did you end up with GN’R?

TS: It was kind of a fluke. A friend of mine, Josh Freese, was playing drums with them, and I asked him what he was up to, and he was like, “Oh, fuck, I can’t really talk about it, but I’ll tell you anyway.” And it turned out he was playing drums, and working on the record. He said, “It’s funny that you’re asking me, because Duff [McKagan] just quit, and we need a bass player.” I was just joking with him: “Oh, that would be a fucking hoot,” given my thoughts about Guns N’ Roses at that time. But I did it anyway just as a laugh, and it turned out pretty good. They didn’t really audition anyone else. They liked me, and because Josh was doing it, it was a compelling notion.

At the time, coincidentally, I was about to get kind of screwed by yet another record label with the Perfect record. I felt like, “You know what? This is enough.” It’s been five years of trying to get this thing going, I keep getting screwed, and I just want a break. So I looked at it as something to do until I figured out my next move. And it worked out pretty good, all things considered.

AVC: Chinese Democracy took all of 10 years to make. What was the recording process like? I mean, you couldn’t have been working at it every day for 10 years.

TS: At first we were in there a lot. We were working on the writing aspect of it, but it just kept going on. We had [interscope Chairman] Jimmy Iovine intervening in a not-so-productive way, and we had other guys coming and going with nutty ideas. My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart. Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All he did was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.

It was a bummer. Most of the songs that are on the record now were done 10 fucking years ago. But all the talking heads in the mix were saying, “Make ’em sound better! Make ’em sound better!” So we kept redoing this and that. And it ended up coming back down to the same fucking songs that they were 10 years ago, except that now they were a super-dense mishmash of a bunch of instrumentation. That whole era pretty much sums up what happened to the record industry. Those kinds of people, making those kinds of decisions and not really helping the artist.

AVC: I imagine that recording experience and your experience with The Replacements would be night and day.

TS: The Replacements stuff we would record pretty much live on the spot, especially the early stuff. We didn’t have money to dick around in the studio. Towards the Sire [Records] years, we actually had budgets to do stuff and spend more time on things, not that it made anything better or worse. It just gave us a little more room to move.

Credit goes to BBA for finding the article.

very nice find, great to see such honest insight into the best era of gnr

[Young_Gun]

http://www.avclub.com/twincities/articles/tommy-stinson,56282/

Some really interesting stuff in there:

The A.V. Club: You have a pretty varied résumé: The Replacements, Guns N’ Roses, Soul Asylum. Do you see a common thread in those bands?

Tommy Stinson: Just that they’re all rock bands. And that they all have fairly emotional singers who are a little bit on the dangerous side. And they’re real—they’re all the real deal. I guess I got lucky enough to not have to play with people who aren’t.

AVC: Do you consciously seek out those types of singers?

TS: It’s sort of by default. I think there’s a yin and yang to it. I’m probably more comfortable with Dave [Pirner, of Soul Asylum] and Paul [Westerberg] than I am with Axl [Rose], just because I’ve known them longer and I’ve been friends with them longer. That’s not to bag on Axl in any Iway—it’s just to say that I think I’ve managed to get along with Dave and Paul better.

AVC: How did you end up with GN’R?

TS: It was kind of a fluke. A friend of mine, Josh Freese, was playing drums with them, and I asked him what he was up to, and he was like, “Oh, fuck, I can’t really talk about it, but I’ll tell you anyway.” And it turned out he was playing drums, and working on the record. He said, “It’s funny that you’re asking me, because Duff [McKagan] just quit, and we need a bass player.” I was just joking with him: “Oh, that would be a fucking hoot,” given my thoughts about Guns N’ Roses at that time. But I did it anyway just as a laugh, and it turned out pretty good. They didn’t really audition anyone else. They liked me, and because Josh was doing it, it was a compelling notion.

At the time, coincidentally, I was about to get kind of screwed by yet another record label with the Perfect record. I felt like, “You know what? This is enough.” It’s been five years of trying to get this thing going, I keep getting screwed, and I just want a break. So I looked at it as something to do until I figured out my next move. And it worked out pretty good, all things considered.

AVC: Chinese Democracy took all of 10 years to make. What was the recording process like? I mean, you couldn’t have been working at it every day for 10 years.

TS: At first we were in there a lot. We were working on the writing aspect of it, but it just kept going on. We had [interscope Chairman] Jimmy Iovine intervening in a not-so-productive way, and we had other guys coming and going with nutty ideas. My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart. Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All he did was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.

It was a bummer. Most of the songs that are on the record now were done 10 fucking years ago. But all the talking heads in the mix were saying, “Make ’em sound better! Make ’em sound better!” So we kept redoing this and that. And it ended up coming back down to the same fucking songs that they were 10 years ago, except that now they were a super-dense mishmash of a bunch of instrumentation. That whole era pretty much sums up what happened to the record industry. Those kinds of people, making those kinds of decisions and not really helping the artist.

AVC: I imagine that recording experience and your experience with The Replacements would be night and day.

TS: The Replacements stuff we would record pretty much live on the spot, especially the early stuff. We didn’t have money to dick around in the studio. Towards the Sire [Records] years, we actually had budgets to do stuff and spend more time on things, not that it made anything better or worse. It just gave us a little more room to move.

Credit goes to BBA for finding the article.

very nice find, great to see such honest insight into the best era of gnr

For sure! I think more of this stuff would have made the public more receptive to the new band. It seems Axl has let loose on what the band can talk about, not to an extreme amount, but they are talking more than they used to.

[tkarmy]

Pretty much confirms what I've thought all along.... They should have never brought in Roy and re-recorded everything. From the demo I've heard they could have had this thing out in 2000 had they not wasted all that time and money re-recording what had already been done. We'd have had 3 albums by now if CD came out when it should have in 2000/2001

[ceres]

The more i hear from the members these days, the more i think the whole band is about to fall apart. Going nowhere. Touring same shitty (you may disagree, i don't want to debate this adjective), dated, overproduced album for 10 years. so sad. You can hear it in their interviews. Axl should get off his arse and release some new material (written and featuring current band members). Otherwise this will never be a band again.

Also, cant wait till they stop making 50% of every concert AFD.

Edited May 19, 2011 by ceres

[prez]

I've always wondered why Axl brought in guys like Tommy, who from the sound of this interview, was not a GNR fan before joining, and Richard, who said back in '02 he was only doing it for the money. Say what you will about DJ being a Slash clone but you know he's psyched to be there.

[Liquor & Whores]

Richard, who said back in '02 he was only doing it for the money.

source?

[sheep]

It is surprising to me that Tommy is so straightforward.

[prez]

Richard, who said back in '02 he was only doing it for the money.

source?

http://www.houstonpress.com/2002-12-12/music/november-pain/2/

[Guest gunns5]

Richard, who said back in '02 he was only doing it for the money.

source?

http://www.houstonpress.com/2002-12-12/music/november-pain/2/

"I had decided to pretty much stay out [in California] and do my own stuff because there usually isn't any money in touring. At the same time I didn't like the idea of painting myself into a corner and never going out. But I'll tell you, the money on this one was too good to turn down," says Fortus, who adds that Chinese Democracy will be a lot better than people think when and if it drops. In fact, he says there are already enough songs in the can for three albums.

even back in 2002 there was enough material for 3 albums...

meanwhile 9 years later...

[Liquor & Whores]

and the next passage after the famous quote reads:

But since he [Fortus] signed on, he claims that his mercenary motives have been replaced by something akin to pure pleasure. "I mean just think of it, to have Robin and Buckethead up there, I don't think you could put a better group together," he says. "We all split up the lead breaks pretty well." And early reviews of the tour -- which often cite the trio's guitar work on their phalanx of Les Pauls as pretty intense -- seem to bear this out.

[Liquor & Whores]

Richard, who said back in '02 he was only doing it for the money.

which session musician would turn down an offer of a band like GNR?

you do sth you love and additionally get well paid for that.... it's like living in a dream

and one more thing:

it's always better to start as a session musician and then become a member of a famous band (Fortus) than

start as a member of a famous band and then become a session musician who will play with everybody if the money's right (Slash)