what axl could have been

[Steamboat]

We know he was extremely talented in terms of songwriting, singing, piano playing and theres been talk recently (on the board recently) abbout him playing guitar and lead guitar and pissing slash off with it (we know slash likes to adhere to typical rock band tradition and stuff so it wouldnt surprise me) and we all know the crazy stuff he has had behind covers back in the late nineties from working with zakk wylde to indsutrial style music like OMG and using pro tools and all that crazy stuff

then of course slash left, obviously because he's afraid of evolution, and still plays typical rock music to this day, which might be nice to others but its kind of boring, he did the same throughout VR and snakepit too

whereas axl sounded fucking promising, know whati mean? like this guy could have been one of those evolving and awesome artists.. he could have made GNR like nine inch nails or radiohead and stuff i have no doubt that was his intention, i read somewhere he wanted to evolve to a pearl jam sound on the 3rd gnr album or something

he could have been on stage with a crazy keyboard setup and playing guitar with a pedal board doing all kinds of sick shit and putting out albums like Kid A but it seems this was sabotaged by a multitude of things

and it really PAINS me to think of all that went to waste

from what.. 1994 to 2008 til some of this material saw official release, and it was pretty damn good some of it standing out in the midst of gnrs catalogue and lots of interesting fresh sounds mixed in with the hard rock gnr foundation

well theres my little rant. i'm sure some of it is axls fault, and maybe he didnt have the guts, lets say, that radiohead did putting out kid A or something

what do you think? Axl could have been an absolute stand out musician from all of time.. he had broad interests and i bet he had 2000 intentions in terms of project ideas and new music n stuff

just picture a UYI era axl on stage with a NIN type setup and like.. zakk wylde on guitar

FuCK

i wish someone could put together acollection of interview quotes and anecdotes and such as well as pictures and make a true account of what may have been happening 1994 thru house of blues

[Sonic Reducer]

Um, no. Musical "chameleons" usually change in order to remain popular. I definitely don't support that, I think that artists should confine themselves to certain gernes instead of following trends and let the younger people go forward and experiment.

[dalsh327]

We know he was extremely talented in terms of songwriting, singing, piano playing and theres been talk recently (on the board recently) abbout him playing guitar and lead guitar and pissing slash off with it (we know slash likes to adhere to typical rock band tradition and stuff so it wouldnt surprise me) and we all know the crazy stuff he has had behind covers back in the late nineties from working with zakk wylde to indsutrial style music like OMG and using pro tools and all that crazy stuff

then of course slash left, obviously because he's afraid of evolution, and still plays typical rock music to this day, which might be nice to others but its kind of boring, he did the same throughout VR and snakepit too

whereas axl sounded fucking promising, know whati mean? like this guy could have been one of those evolving and awesome artists.. he could have made GNR like nine inch nails or radiohead and stuff i have no doubt that was his intention, i read somewhere he wanted to evolve to a pearl jam sound on the 3rd gnr album or something

he could have been on stage with a crazy keyboard setup and playing guitar with a pedal board doing all kinds of sick shit and putting out albums like Kid A but it seems this was sabotaged by a multitude of things

and it really PAINS me to think of all that went to waste

from what.. 1994 to 2008 til some of this material saw official release, and it was pretty damn good some of it standing out in the midst of gnrs catalogue and lots of interesting fresh sounds mixed in with the hard rock gnr foundation

well theres my little rant. i'm sure some of it is axls fault, and maybe he didnt have the guts, lets say, that radiohead did putting out kid A or something

what do you think? Axl could have been an absolute stand out musician from all of time.. he had broad interests and i bet he had 2000 intentions in terms of project ideas and new music n stuff

just picture a UYI era axl on stage with a NIN type setup and like.. zakk wylde on guitar

FuCK

I could see Axl playing guitar the way Edge plays guitar - more abut the sounds you can make from it than virtuosity.

I've read about Reznor writing his songs, and he said the hardest thing for him is to avoid making "Billy Joel songs", but he also said songwriting is a very difficult process for him, which is why there's very little NIN outtakes. I think Axl has the same struggles when he writes, and we have to keep in mind part of what happened between Slash and Axl has partly to do with Axl writing more songs, but it just came down to two stubborn individuals unwilling to compromise.

I think if Axl decided to do something like what Maynard Keenan does, he would have put out a lot more music. He's able to write stuff and designate it for different projects, and as a result, Tool's stuck together because they are completely collaborative and dependent on each other. If one of them didn't want to do it anymore, it would disband. I think Axl prob. has a bunch of instrumental songs that wouldn't fit in as a GNR song, but that doesn't mean with band input, that wouldn't change.

[CoolRanchDressing]

First, let me state that I love and treasure Chinese Democracy as much as anyone. But I totally agree with the above post. I only wish there could have been more. That album was just the tip of the iceberg. Not just in terms of unreleased recordings, but recordings that were never made. The reasons why these records were never made, and Axl never got to lend his voice to a variety of evolving musical sounds, in my opinion was because of Slash.... Not because he left the band, which I was totally fine with for multiple reasons. But I wish he could have gone and done his thing and kept his mouth shut, and not trash-talked or sued Axl at every turn while presenting himself as the good guy in the media. Is Axl sensitive? Hell yes, just like any artist. But Slash knew this. He stated in his book that he realized Axl was sensitive early in thier relationship and tried to be accordingly respectful of that, though he chose to use the rather condescending phrase "kid gloves" to describe his years of being respectful towards Axl's feelings when it was financially beneficial for him to do so. The way Slash presented Axl, the mocking way he and VR and Scott treated him, the countless lawsuits, it all adds up... public sentiment was turned against him. But more importantly, industry sentiment was turned against him. Until recently, it was very uncool to defend Axl Rose. This, I feel is because of the way Slash behaved after their break-up. It's not different than a couple splitting up, and one of them trashing the other secretly behnd their back while acting like a friend in public. This made it nearly impossible for a guy like Axl to work, either emotionally or practically as professional relationships were soured and potential professional relationships never happened. Remember when Axl said he wanted to Dave Grohl to join the band? That would have been amazing, and I'm sure they would have made memorable music together. But Axl had the most productive years of his life robbed from him -- his hands tied -- while others continued to profit off of the band they all pillaged and abandoned and he was left to play the villain, defenseless because there was no one willing to trust him in the media.

[axlsalinger]

i wish someone could put together acollection of interview quotes and anecdotes and such as well as pictures and make a true account of what may have been happening 1994 thru house of blues

http://www.gnrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?id=5059

[JimMorrison4]

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. He chose to not do anything musically for about 7 years.

If he had Zakk Wylde playing guitar, I really doubt he would've sounded anything like Radiohead. I also doubt Chinese Democracy would have sounded anything like it did.

[chevelle]

Yeah, that's the most disappointing thing about this new band. If he put CD out in '99, he could've done all kinds of crazy experimental shit from there on and solidified himself as one of the greats (not that he doesn't earn that from the early days), that wasn't afraid to try new sounds. I really want to hear some of that released material, but even if it does come out someday, it won't be appreciated in the same light as if he had one awesome run of good albums.

[saber_]

and

Nigel Tufnel's 3 instrument solo

Edited December 26, 2011 by Popcorn's Timbre

[Stipemanblue]

The only thing Axl could have been is a little bit more awesome but I'm not sure if that's possible. The guy rocks. If you like live shows, GN'R's been playing 3 hours lately. As far as unreleased music, there was something said on facebook by GNR that they would try to put some new tracks up on Facebook in 2011. That would rock. We'll see. If you're a fair weather fan then you're fine. No problem. "Hey, GN'R rocks!" On to the next group. Whatever. I think it's only tough if you're a true fan because the only negative is when you feel like you're just another person in a sea of people. When you come out and say, "GN'R is the greatest!" there's a tendency for an artist to feel like, "Oh cool. We converted another one. Well, that was nice but we've got millions of other people who like us so that one person doesn't mean as much as these 20 million." What I would say about Axl is: "He's Axl and you're not." Kind of sums it up. GN'R rules. Look forward to new music if and when it happens.

[Steamboat]

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. He chose to not do anything musically for about 7 years.

If he had Zakk Wylde playing guitar, I really doubt he would've sounded anything like Radiohead. I also doubt Chinese Democracy would have sounded anything like it did.

nah man you're missing the point

i just mean, more collaboration, more freedom, more creativity, more evolution

from what i read and such i feel slash kind of restricted the band i wanted to keep it standard hard rock style, whereas at the point where axl wanted to evolve and due to his stubborn nature or whatever, refusing the hard rock path, he just left, and when axl was like oh shit and called back to say he liked the demos slash made, slash already used them for snakepit lol

althoug in that interview on the radio he did in like 1999 he said something about wanting to make a classic rock album firstly but slash stopped him. that conflicts with other stuff i read but their may be a different reason he said it

as for radiohead thing, i just mean they evolve and challenge themselves every new album... from ok computer to kid a and amnesiac to hail to thetheif then inrainbows and you get the picture

and NIN has a open minded and somewhat varied production style.. like trent ventured into electro poppy sounding tracks with hand that feeds and the latest album the slip

the musicians i cited mean nothing of the sound i think guns would have created, but examples of people who did evolve and zakk was an example of a cool collaboration

[Brodie]

I think it's cool that Axl learned the guitar -it'll help creatively.

But I don't even want to see him play it.

I've always hated when Mick Jagger played guitar and 95% of the time Keith Richards has sung, so...

Edited December 26, 2011 by Brodie

[Steamboat]

i wish someone could put together acollection of interview quotes and anecdotes and such as well as pictures and make a true account of what may have been happening 1994 thru house of blues

http://www.gnrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?id=5059

wow reading this it definitely sounds like slash wanted the typical gnr style record and axl wanted to do something new and no compromise was made so they split

got dang this is interesting reading thanks for this bro

also not in reply to your post, i think a lot of people are stuck in the past/have slashes point of view, and dont really listen to music anymore except for the old ones they love i.e. gnr

"My last conversation with [Axl] was when he called me and was trying to explain what he wanted to do. And, basically, it was: I want to change the sound of the band. You know, I want to go more into a current direction. You know, I want to use, you know, more industrial type things. You know, he was really into bands like Jane's Addiction, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. And I just kinda laughed and said: You know, look - I want to play guitar in a loud version of The Rolling Stones, you know?"

DAYYYMN THIS IS IT

[Bards]

"My last conversation with [Axl] was when he called me and was trying to explain what he wanted to do. And, basically, it was: I want to change the sound of the band. You know, I want to go more into a current direction. You know, I want to use, you know, more industrial type things. You know, he was really into bands like Jane's Addiction, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. And I just kinda laughed and said: You know, look - I want to play guitar in a loud version of The Rolling Stones, you know?"

DAYYYMN THIS IS IT

That's Gilby's quote, no?

[WhazUp]

"My last conversation with [Axl] was when he called me and was trying to explain what he wanted to do. And, basically, it was: I want to change the sound of the band. You know, I want to go more into a current direction. You know, I want to use, you know, more industrial type things. You know, he was really into bands like Jane's Addiction, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. And I just kinda laughed and said: You know, look - I want to play guitar in a loud version of The Rolling Stones, you know?"

DAYYYMN THIS IS IT

Yeah I could swear that was Gilby's quote too, I am too lazy to find the page its from though

It's ironic considering Pearl Jam and Jane's Addiction were not industrial at all lol

Edited December 26, 2011 by WhazUp

[KiraMPD]

"My last conversation with [Axl] was when he called me and was trying to explain what he wanted to do. And, basically, it was: I want to change the sound of the band. You know, I want to go more into a current direction. You know, I want to use, you know, more industrial type things. You know, he was really into bands like Jane's Addiction, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. And I just kinda laughed and said: You know, look - I want to play guitar in a loud version of The Rolling Stones, you know?"

DAYYYMN THIS IS IT

That's Gilby's quote, no?

Yes, quote is Gilby (SPIN magazine, 1999?)

[Steamboat]

thought it was a slash quote but either way

but i;m a few pages on and way to interested to find it again lol uhm shit man i want to meet axl go back and get all these recordings it sounds like they recorded so much and stuff and all for waste.. there could seriously be a massive boxset thing that about 20 of us would buy containing shit ranging from the studio axl drove to in his pick up w/ camper shell and worked with samples with dizzy to the stuff duff and slash recorded as demos

GOT DAYUM I WANT THIS STUFF SO BAD

it goddamn pains me to hear about it all wasted

[Steamboat]

Of Axl's guitar setup, [Dave] Abbruzzese recalls, "You could hunt buffalo with his rig. It had a lot of lights, a lot of blinking lights, a lot of things that you stepped on. It sounded like a freight train that was somehow playable."

amazing

[Steamboat]

It'll be cool if they release an album. I've been around too long at this point to get excited for new music until there is something official though.

since those productive interesting years of axls life are away, i feel like he isnt interested so much in making great music anymore and its really kind of too late.. i feel hed be willing to put a standard hard rock album out or even a reunion more than what i personally would hope for

but i do agree with you

and he did it with CHinese to some extent actually

[Mastodonny]

Zakk wylde has been playing the same riff since 1990. He wouldn't be a catalyst for evolution.

[themadcaplaughs]

No disrespect to Axl as he is a genius, but I think people are expecting too much from all the unreleased material. Would it have been different from GN'R fare from 1986-1993, definitely, but I think people have it in their minds that we have this unreleased album of Axl inventing dub step music. Fact is, I think "Oh My God" and "Silkworms" are the best indicators of what we might have gotten...hard rock/metal songs with slight industrial undertones.

In the end it does not matter to me; Axl felt that the songs on Chinese Democracy were the definitive songs he wanted to release and I respect that and think it is an A+ album.

[DrBrownstone]

To the OP...I can understand your point of view, but your so biased towards Axl and everything you say about Slash is negative, like he "obviously was afraid to evolve, and plays boring rock, still to this day". I'm so tired of people on this board bashing Slash 24/7, it's ridiculous. I'm into the new band, and am as big an Axl fan as anyone, but I like Slash just as much, and he's anything but a "typical" guitarist. I don't know how you can blame the dissolve of GNR on Slash. You got so excited about that quote, which was actually Gilby and not even Slash, but you come on here and post it saying THIS IS IT!! Like that's the missing piece of information on GNR breaking up. It's not just SLASH who didn't want to change the direction of the band...in fact Axl was the only one who did...so if you're gonna blame Slash, you have to blame Duff, Izzy, Matt, Gilby...etc. too.

[axlsalinger]

Yeah, I've always been on "Team Axl", and think that Slash definitely bears his fair share of responsibility for the old band breaking up. I LOVE the new band. But all of this Slash-bashing is ridiculous and tedious. (Mind you, there are so-called Slashites who do the same thing to Axl). The band broke up - it happens. All the time. There's no need to pretend like the guy can barely play the guitar. The Stones didn't become world famous solely because of Mick Jagger. Zep didn't become world famous solely because of Robert Plant. Guns n' Roses became world-famous largely because of Axl AND Slash (Izzy and Duff get some credit too, of course).

All you have to do is listen to the guitar-playing on Appetite and UYI to realize that Slash did some amazing work in GNR, or if you are hard of hearing, perhaps buy a hearing aid first, regardless of how hard it might have been to get Slash to do certain things, the bottom line is that they got done eventually.

Edited December 27, 2011 by axlsalinger

[WhazUp]

I agree wholeheartedly with thee 2 posts ^^^^

To try and demean or undermine Slash's importance in GNR or to try to pin everything on him is just wrong. I truly believe that it is no one person's fault as to what happened, everyone involved probably did shit they could have handled a lot better, both Axl and Slash included

Edited December 27, 2011 by WhazUp

[HowlinWolf]

then of course slash left, obviously because he's afraid of evolution, and still plays typical rock music to this day, which might be nice to others but its kind of boring, he did the same throughout VR and snakepit too

I love how it is always Slash Slash Slash that get's all the beatings from Axlites.. I do believe Duff, Izzy and Steven all play "typical rock to this day" also... Axl may have always been wanting to chase the latest trends but maybe he should have stuck to typical rock too. He was good at that..

[HowlinWolf]

Remember when Axl said he wanted to Dave Grohl to join the band? That would have been amazing, and I'm sure they would have made memorable music together. But Axl had the most productive years of his life robbed from him -- his hands tied -- while others continued to profit off of the band they all pillaged and abandoned and he was left to play the villain, defenseless because there was no one willing to trust him in the media.

This is too funny.. All of Axl's criticism is Slash's fault lol.. I am pretty sure Dave Grohl thought Axl was a tool when Slash was still in Gn'R.. "hi Axl"