What happened to THIS album?

[Vincent Vega]

Read these interview excepts with people who worked with Axl from 1997-2000. The album as described then sounds like an almost utterly different record from what we ended up getting. Where did THAT album go?:

"'I don't think this new music is just a vehicle for him as a solo performer. He wants this to be a band where everyone contributes,' says Moby. 'On the music I've heard, you can hear everyone's distinctive voice coming through. [...] The music they're working on has a very dramatic quality to it. They're using some modern technology. Axl's really excited about sampling. He loves the DJ Shadow record and Nine Inch Nails. The stuff I've heard is much more concise than, say, 'November Rain.' Not bombastic. Very stripped down. Very intense. It's not hard-rock music in the way that 'Welcome to the Jungle' was.'" (Moby, Icon Magazine, 10/97)

"The story goes that Moby [...] went in to soak up some music compiled on nearly 300 DAT tapes that the band had filled with what the source described as 'ideas, loops and sketches,' and was duly impressed with what Rose and crew had come up with." (Addicted to Noise, 03/19/97)

"[Axl expects to get] another record out of the hours and hours of material he's committed to tape, possibly one that's even more industrial and electronica-influence than Chinese Democracy." (Rolling Stone, 01/00)

"He had some brilliant ideas, but they really were just sketches. He really wanted to leave the past behind and make a hugely ambitious album, like Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti crossed with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon." (Youth, The Times, 03/18/05)

"The Robin Finck/Josh Freese/Tommy Stinson/Billy Howerdel/Dizzy Reed version of the album that existed in 1998 was pretty incredible. It still sounded like GNR but there were elements of Zeppelin, Nine Inch Nails and Pink Floyd mixed in." (James Barber, Poptones, 10/16/05)

"In late November, Axl Rose plays nearly a dozen tracks from the long in the works Guns N` Roses album for Rolling Stone, [...] occasionally getting up to whisper details about what still must be done to complete the tracks - 'I gotta put some guitar here!' [...] Imagine Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti remixed by Beck and Trent Reznor, and you'll have some sense of Axl's new sound.

"The time I was on [the songs], they were very industrial sounding with the old GN'R elements on top. Axl had some vocal ideas down, but not many." (Dave Dominguez, 2004)

"I'm not sure what Axl is doing right now but when I was there, he had around 40 songs... I'm not sure this record will ever see the light of day." (Rob Holliday, Vagabond Hearts, 2004)

"I'd helped write and arrange and recorded enough songs for several records. [...] Honestly, we recorded so many different song ideas and completed so many different types of songs; from quiet, very simple traditional piano songs to 16 stereo tracks of keyboard blur and everything in between. [...] Most of the stronger songs that ended up on A-lists when I was there were huge rock songs, built for the masses, really guitar-driven." (Robin, Wall of Sound, 05/00)

"We wrote and rehearsed and argued and laboriously recorded several records worth of musical material, which to the best of my knowledge Axl is still finishing. But my work was through. We had dozens of finished songs, as far as I was concerned, and we were waiting for Axl to complete the songs." (Robin, 2000)

"There's a whole album of vocal parts [in late '99]. In fact, there's two albums worth that they've got there, at least." (Brian May, Radio One Rock Show, 05/10/00)

Would anyone else kill to hear that album?

Edited August 11, 2013 by Vincent Vega

[cooker]

Interesting... the mystery of Axl Rose and the what if...

[gunsfanoldie]

Not really. I'm sick of post Slash GNR being all Chinese Democracy stuff. I get it, the guy did NOTHING except for that. But who cares, we have one version of the album that was released. The others won't be THAT different. Its ridiculous that all we have in this 20 year period is variations of the same fucking album.

[Izzy_Stradlin_XX]

It's Chinese Democracy, the problem with CD was that it was so adulterated by the time it came out, that the mix sounded dated and crappy. The right time for CD to have come out would have been in early 2000.

[Vincent Vega]

Not really. I'm sick of post Slash GNR being all Chinese Democracy stuff. I get it, the guy did NOTHING except for that. But who cares, we have one version of the album that was released. The others won't be THAT different. Its ridiculous that all we have in this 20 year period is variations of the same fucking album.

"I'm not sure what Axl is doing right now but when I was there, he had around 40 songs... I'm not sure this record will ever see the light of day." (Rob Holliday, Vagabond Hearts, 2004)

"We wrote and rehearsed and argued and laboriously recorded several records worth of musical material, which to the best of my knowledge Axl is still finishing. But my work was through. We had dozens of finished songs, as far as I was concerned, and we were waiting for Axl to complete the songs." (Robin, 2000)

"There's a whole album of vocal parts [in late '99]. In fact, there's two albums worth that they've got there, at least." (Brian May, Radio One Rock Show, 05/10/00)

[gunsfanoldie]

These also sound suspiciously like those comments Sebastian Bach (Axl's butt buddy) made. The exact perfect comment he knew wasn't true but he knew people would love to hear "the album has the rawness of Appetite and the grandiosity of November Rain." You couldn't manufacture a better fake comment to drum up interest if you tried.

[Dazey]

This is the kind of thread you do well Miser. Don't get your stupid ass banned again eh?

[gunsfanoldie]

Not really. I'm sick of post Slash GNR being all Chinese Democracy stuff. I get it, the guy did NOTHING except for that. But who cares, we have one version of the album that was released. The others won't be THAT different. Its ridiculous that all we have in this 20 year period is variations of the same fucking album.

"I'm not sure what Axl is doing right now but when I was there, he had around 40 songs... I'm not sure this record will ever see the light of day." (Rob Holliday, Vagabond Hearts, 2004)

"We wrote and rehearsed and argued and laboriously recorded several records worth of musical material, which to the best of my knowledge Axl is still finishing. But my work was through. We had dozens of finished songs, as far as I was concerned, and we were waiting for Axl to complete the songs." (Robin, 2000)

"There's a whole album of vocal parts [in late '99]. In fact, there's two albums worth that they've got there, at least." (Brian May, Radio One Rock Show, 05/10/00)

We keep "hearing" that, but there really isn't any proof. You honestly have to have faith in Axl, which is stupid because he's outright lied countless times over the last 20 years. Or you have to believe other people that could very easily just not want to get on Axl's bad side. I'm not saying its not true, but we got 14 songs on Chinese Democracy. There are maybe 6 others we know exist. So it seems there are 20 songs that have been truly worked on since 1993. All this talk about 40 songs just seems unbelievable to me that we wouldn't have heard ANY of the other 20. Right? We got the same 10 songs over and over again throughout the 2000s, but there's 30 more that just so happen to be very heavily guarded. Seems unrealistic to me.

[Vincent Vega]

These also sound suspiciously like those comments Sebastian Bach (Axl's butt buddy) made. The exact perfect comment he knew wasn't true but he knew people would love to hear "the album has the rawness of Appetite and the grandiosity of November Rain." You couldn't manufacture a better fake comment to drum up interest if you tried.

What interest would Brian May, who is a rockstar by his own merit, have for drumming up interest for CD by saying they had two albums worth of material?

Or one guy who was rejected from the process saying they had 40 albums in the can?

Also, James Barber is an A&R man who was kicked off the project. He didn't have to say that. Nothing gained for him in saying that.

Not really. I'm sick of post Slash GNR being all Chinese Democracy stuff. I get it, the guy did NOTHING except for that. But who cares, we have one version of the album that was released. The others won't be THAT different. Its ridiculous that all we have in this 20 year period is variations of the same fucking album.

"I'm not sure what Axl is doing right now but when I was there, he had around 40 songs... I'm not sure this record will ever see the light of day." (Rob Holliday, Vagabond Hearts, 2004)

"We wrote and rehearsed and argued and laboriously recorded several records worth of musical material, which to the best of my knowledge Axl is still finishing. But my work was through. We had dozens of finished songs, as far as I was concerned, and we were waiting for Axl to complete the songs." (Robin, 2000)

"There's a whole album of vocal parts [in late '99]. In fact, there's two albums worth that they've got there, at least." (Brian May, Radio One Rock Show, 05/10/00)

We keep "hearing" that, but there really isn't any proof. You honestly have to have faith in Axl, which is stupid because he's outright lied countless times over the last 20 years. Or you have to believe other people that could very easily just not want to get on Axl's bad side. I'm not saying its not true, but we got 14 songs on Chinese Democracy. There are maybe 6 others we know exist. So it seems there are 20 songs that have been truly worked on since 1993. All this talk about 40 songs just seems unbelievable to me that we wouldn't have heard ANY of the other 20. Right? We got the same 10 songs over and over again throughout the 2000s, but there's 30 more that just so happen to be very heavily guarded. Seems unrealistic to me.

I guess Brian May is a liar? Or Robin, who had quit the band already when he made those comments and at the time had no interest in coming back?

[gunsfanoldie]

I understand. Can you at least see where I'm coming from though when in the 2000s we got multiple leaks of IRS, TWAT, the title track, and we never got anything from 20 songs that seem to apparently exist? It just seems odd that they couldn't guard some songs, yet there are others like these other fabled 20 songs that they are just extremely good at keeping secret. You can understand how that seems alittle fishy right?

[Lies They Tell]

Sounds like they're describing Chinese Democracy to me. The album is ambitious and has elements of Led Zeppelin, Nine Inch Nails and Pink Floyd. The songs are not as Bombastic as November Rain except maybe Madagascar. Some of the songs are industrial sounding. The early stuff must have been even more so.

I do believe they have lots of unreleased stuff up their sleeves, but that to me sounds pretty much like their describing CD. Nothing more nothing less.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Lies They Tell

[alfierose]

I think there was so much going on in that period and so many people with their fingers in the pie that even respected musicians like Brian May probably didn't have a clue what was really going on or what the final plan was. I very much doubt he was lying more repeating what he understood to be the case at the point he was involved.

[ColdHeartBreaker]

Nostalgia time:

I wonder if at 16 secs, that is the "Punk" version of the title track, classic rock magazine got to hear.

[ManetsBR]

"This album" was never really released. UMG and Azoff just picked the songs that had already leaked and launched them. That was a fraction of the whole thing.

[Dazey]

"This album" was never really released. UMG and Azoff just picked the songs that had already leaked and launched them. That was a fraction of the whole thing.

Pretty much this.

[TheSeeker]

Not really. I'm sick of post Slash GNR being all Chinese Democracy stuff. I get it, the guy did NOTHING except for that. But who cares, we have one version of the album that was released. The others won't be THAT different. Its ridiculous that all we have in this 20 year period is variations of the same fucking album.

"We wrote and rehearsed and argued and laboriously recorded several records worth of musical material, which to the best of my knowledge Axl is still finishing. But my work was through. We had dozens of finished songs, as far as I was concerned, and we were waiting for Axl to complete the songs." (Robin, 2000)

Look at that closer:

We had dozens of finished songs, as far as I was concerned, and we were waiting for Axl to complete the songs.

Just because they had dozens of completed instrumental songs done in 2000, that doesn't mean Axl ever put vocals to all of them.

We know that Axl wrote and recorded lyrics for Silkworms.

We know that Axl wrote and recorded lyrics for whatever "Checkmate" is.

"Oklahoma" has lyrics, but we don't know if Axl ever recorded them in-studio.

"The General" exists as an instrumental track...no idea if there's lyrics to it or not.

That's all we have confirmed.

Edited August 11, 2013 by TheSeeker

[dalsh327]

Just because someone says they have all these songs in the vault doesn't mean they're any good.

[Amir]

Nostalgia time:

I wonder if at 16 secs, that is the "Punk" version of the title track, classic rock magazine got to hear.

Interesting to hear that Madagascar sounds like the album version there, guess the vocals always sounded like they did on the album.

[Amir]

They recorded at least 2.5 albums of material with vocals (30-40 songs at least). Plan was to release CD, then release CD II, then either a CD III or just an EP. The reason we got all those leaked songs on CD is because they leaked, almost definitely the track listing for CD I was determined by what leaked and what didn't. We know Atlas Shrugged didn't make it on for length reasons.

[gunsfanoldie]

They recorded at least 2.5 albums of material with vocals (30-40 songs at least). Plan was to release CD, then release CD II, then either a CD III or just an EP. The reason we got all those leaked songs on CD is because they leaked, almost definitely the track listing for CD I was determined by what leaked and what didn't. We know Atlas Shrugged didn't make it on for length reasons.

What are you basing this on? What people involved said? Because Axl also said a video for Better was supposed to come out within a week, so he has just blatantly lied before.

[Amir]

They recorded at least 2.5 albums of material with vocals (30-40 songs at least). Plan was to release CD, then release CD II, then either a CD III or just an EP. The reason we got all those leaked songs on CD is because they leaked, almost definitely the track listing for CD I was determined by what leaked and what didn't. We know Atlas Shrugged didn't make it on for length reasons.

What are you basing this on? What people involved said? Because Axl also said a video for Better was supposed to come out within a week, so he has just blatantly lied before.

Well we know they got Lars to sign off on the Better video, so we know they were planning to release it. And it's leaked, and it's pretty obvious the reason it wasn't released was because it didn't make sense to release a video with Robin n' Bucket in it.

Multiple sources have said over the years there was at least 2 albums worth a material. Read through Chinese Whispers (where Miser cribbed those quotes from):

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

I think from 97-99, there weren't any vocals, but after Beavan got Axl to sing, we start hearing about 2-3 albums worth of material from different sources. Heard about Soul Monster from Axl, Seven and Thyme from Marco Beltrami and Brain, The General from everyone (heard the intro at concerts), Leave Me Alone, Quick Song, Ides of March, (confirmed in Axl chats), Atlas Shrugged and one other song from Brian May, Oklahoma which became Berlin, Checkmate which became Jackie Chan which we've heard a clip of...

To me it just seems obvious that all of Axl's plans turned to shit when CD bombed. If CD had done better, we would have had CD II by 2010 at the latest, since the label would obviously be up to release a follow-up to a highly successful album. But it failed, the label lost interest, and while Axl in Dec '08 said he saw the album as a double, by Feb '09 the bitterness started to come in the Del interview when he said he "didn't care" about new music. A comment that acrimonious could only come from someone who, in Bumble's words, often cares too much. Marc Canter said Axl was busy as hell during the CD years, working on stuff. Sure a lot of it was one take vocals, he got them done for at least 30, prob 40 songs.

[rockerman]

"We are playing song we are thinking of NOT putting on the album" Leeds 06. When I heard that I went OH yeah these are just general interest songs that are there to fill up the time. Then CD dropped and all of them were on it. Something fishy about all of this certainly.

[axlsalinger]

What happened to THIS album?

Easy question. The answer is, The Vault. A place where all new GNR songs, albums, concerts, tweets, and answers to questions go, never to be heard by the people who have been stupid enough to like and follow this band.

[HOOSIER GUNZ]

One thing is for certain, billy and josh got the fuck up out there and hooked up with Maynard to create some seriously fucking incredible timeless rock n roll music (apc).

Any Guns material that includes billy and josh has got to be good.

I would love to see Billy in there playing guitar behind Axl. And you know the video exists in the Axl Vault hopefully to be seen someday very soon.

[Bansidhe]

Interesting to hear that Madagascar sounds like the album version there, guess the vocals always sounded like they did on the album.

I remember a Pitman quote from a few years back where he said he recalls being in the studio with Axl in 1999 where he recorded vocals which ended up on the finished mix of Madagascar so the ones in that clip are the same as are on your cd.