Interesting bits from an Axl interview, April 1990

[Amir]

Amazing how you could take huge chunks of this and pass it off an interview for just before the release of Chinese Democracy.

K : How different has it been writing these new songs compared to the way you wrote songs for Appetite for destruction?

A : One reason things have been so hard, in a way, is this. The first album was basically written with Axl comin’ up with maybe one line, and maybe a melody for that line, or how I’m gonna say it or yell it or whatever. And the band would build a song around it. This time round...Izzy’s brought in eight songs at least, OK? Slash has brought in an album, I’ve brought in an album. And Duff’s brought in one song - Duff said it all in one song- it’s called ‘Why do you look at me when you hate me?’ and it’s just bad-assed. None of this ever happened before. I mean, before the first album, I think Izzy had written one song in his entire life, ya know? But they’re coming now... And Izzy has this, like, very wry sense of humour, man. He’s got this song about...(half-singing the lyrics) : « She lost her mind today, got splattered out on the highway, I say that’s OK... » (laughs) ! It’s called ‘Dust and bones’, I think, and it’s great. The rhythm reminds me of something like ‘Cherokee people’ by Paul Revere and the Raiders, only really weird and rocked out. It’s a weird song. But then it is by Izzy, what can I tell you?

K : You seem very happy now you’re back with the band in a recording studio. You like recording?

A : Yeah, I do. I prefer recording to doing a live gig, unless I’m psyched for the gig. Before the gig I always don’t wanna do that fuckin’ show, and nine times out of 10 I hate it. If I’m psyched it’s like, let’s go ! But most of the time I’m mad about something, or something’s going fucking wrong....I don’t enjoy most of it at all.

K : Do you act the way you do because your fame and popularity allows you to, or would you act that way anyway?

A : I’ve always been that way, but now I’m in a position to just be myself more. And the thing is, people do allow me to do it, whether they like it or not. It’s weird. [Thought this bit was interesting because it reminded me of that Alan Niven comment: "Axl's always been Axl. Money and fame only amplified him."].

K : Do you ever take unfair advantage of that, though?

A : (long pause)....No. No, usually I’m just an emotionally unbalanced person. (laughs) No, really, I’m usually an emotional wreck before a show because of something else that’s going on in my life. I mean, as I say, somethin’ weird just always happens to me two seconds before I’m supposed to go onstage, you know?

A : There’s, like, 37 songs right now, but I know by the end of the record there’ll be 42 to 45, and I want 30 of ‘em down.

K : A double album then?

A : Well, a double album but a single 76 mn CD, something like that. Then I want five B-sides - people never listen to B-sides anymore - and that’ll be the back of another EP. We’ll say it’s B-sides, you know, plus there should be four extra songs for an EP, if we pull this off. So that’s the next record and then there’s the live record from the tour. If we do this right, we won’t have to make another album for five years ! (laughs) But it’s not so much like five years to sit on our ass. It’s like, five years to figure out what we’re gonna say next, you know? After the crowd and the people figure out how they’re gonna react to this album.

K : How conscious are you of the role as leaders, in terms of your position - both critically and commercially - at the forefront of modern rock music?

A : It’s been.....shown to me in a lot of ways. I didn’t want to accept the responsibility of it really, even though I was trying, but I still was reluctant. Now I’m kind of into it. Because it’s like, you have a choice, man, you can grow or die. We have to do it - we have to grow. If we don’t grow, we die. We can’t do the same sludge forever. I’m not Paul Stanley, man ! I can’t fuckin’ play sludge, man, for fuckin’ 20 years. Sludge, man. It’s sludge rock. That’s one of the reasons why 1989 kinda got written off. We had to find a whole new way of working together. Everybody got successful and it changed things, of course it did. Everybody had the dream, when they got successful they could do what they want, right? That turns into Slash bringing in eight songs ! It’s never been done before, Slash bringing in a song first and me writing words to it. I’ve done it twice with him before and we didn’t use either of those songs, out of Slash’s choice. Now he’s got eight of ‘em that I gotta write words to! They’re bad-assed songs, too. I was working on, like, writing these ballads that I feel have really rich tapestries and stuff, and making sure each note, in effect, is right. Cos whether I’m using a lot of instrumentation and stuff or not, I’ll still write with minimalism. But it has to be right; it has to be the right note and it has to be held the right way, and it has to have the right effect, do you know what I mean?

K : I didn’t know you were such a perfectionist.

A : What people don’t understand is there was a perfectionist attitude to ‘Appetite..’. There was a definite plan to that. We could have made it all smooth and polished. We went and did test tracks with different people and they came out smooth and polished. We did some stuff with Spencer Proffer and Geffen records said it was too fuckin’ radio. That’s why we went with Mike Clink, we went for a raw sound because it just didn’t gel having it too tight and concise. We knew what we were doing, and we knew this : we know the way we are onstage, and the only way to capture that energy on the record, is by making it somewhat live, doing the bass, the drums and the rhythm guitar at the same time. Getting the best track, having it a bit faster than you play it live, so that brings some energy into it. Adding lots of vocal parts, and overdubs with the guitar. Adding more music to capture....because Guns N’ Roses onstage, man, can be out to lunch! But it’s like, you know, visually, we’re all over the place and you don’t know what to expect. How do you get that on a record? That’s the thing. That’s why recording is my favourite thing, because it’s like painting a picture. You start out with a shadow, or an idea, and you come up with something and it’s a shadow of that. You might like it better. It’s still not exactly what you pictured in your head. But you go into the studio and add all these things and you come up with something you didn’t even expect. Slash will do, like, one slow little guitar fill that adds a while different mood that you didn’t expect. That’s what I love. It’s like you’re doing a painting and you go away and come back and it’s different. You allow different shadings to creep in and then you go, "Wow, I got a whole different effect on this that’s even heavier than what I pictured. I don’t know quite what I’m onto, but I’m on it, you know?"

A : The main thing about the next record is this is our dream, to get these songs out there into the public. Then once we get out there we’ll fight for them with the business side and stuff. But at this point that’s not what’s important. What’s important is the recording of the songs. If the business comes down on us really hard in a weird way, then we’ll make our choices - do we wanna deal with this, or do we not wanna fuckin’ deal with it? The record will sell a certain amount of copies the minute it comes out anyway, and we could live off that for the rest of our lives and record our records on small independent labels, it doesn’t matter. I mean, that’s not in the plans, but...ultimately, it just doesn’t matter, you know? It’s all down to what we want to deal with. Do we wanna give everything that we feel we have inside of ourselves, to do the shows to our top potential? Yes, we do. But I don’t choreograph things. I don’t know when I’m gonna slam down on my knees or whatever. It’s like, you have to ask yourself, do I wanna give all that, and have someone fuckin’ spitting in my face? Does it mean that much to me? No! I dig the songs. If you don’t want ‘em, fine. But I don’t have to give them to you.

K : I know you’ve often threatened it, but if you wanted to, could you really leave all this behind - the band, your career in the music business - not just financially, but emotionally, artistically?

A : If I wanted to badly enough, sure. This is all right, in bits and pieces, but whether it’ll take up all the chapters in the book of my life, I don’t know. I would like to record for a long time....I have to make this album. Then it doesn’t matter. This album is the album I’ve always been waiting on. Our second album is the album I’ve been waiting on since before we got signed. We were planning out the second album before we started work on the first one! But as much as it means to me, if it bombs, if that happens, yeah, I’m sure I’ll be bummed business-wise and let down or whatever, but at the same time it doesn’t matter. It’s like, I got it out there. That’s the artistic thing taken care of. Then I could walk away...

K : What about the money - could you walk away from that?

A : I’d like to make the cash off the touring, and then I’d like to walk away knowing that I can support my kids, for whatever they want, for the rest of my life, you know?....and that I can still donate to charities. I’d like to have that security. I’ve never known any security in my whole life. The financial aspect is just to get that security. If I have that in the bank I can live off the interest and still have money to spend on whatever - including, top of the list, the welfare of my own immediate and future family.

K : Last question. First question. Same question, in fact, I’ve been asking for the last couple of years....

A : When will the album actually fuckin’ come out, right?

I nod. He doesn’t.

A : It’s taken a lot of time to put together the ideas for this album...in certain ways, no one’s done what we’ve done - come out with a record that captured that kind of spirit, since maybe the first Sex Pistols album. No one’s followed it up, and we’re not gonna put out a fuckin’ record until we’re sure we can ! So we’ve been trying to build it up. It’s like, it’s only really these last couple of months that I’ve been writing the right words. Now suddenly I’m on a roll, all the words for Slash’s songs are there. But it’s taken this long to find ‘em. I just hope the people are into it, you know? I think that the audience will have grown enough, though. It’s been three years - they’ve gone through three years of shit too, so hopefully they’ll be ready to relate to some new things. When you’re writing about real life, not fantasy, you have to take time to live your own life first and allow yourself to go through different phases. Now I think there’s enough different sides of Guns N’ Roses that when the album is finally released no one will know what to think, let alone us ! Like, what are they tryin’ to say? Sometimes I don’t fuckin’ know....

Well, that explains just about everything that's happened the past 25 years.

[wfuckinga]

Wow. The similarities....wow. Too bad ChiD didn't get all that stuff. (i'd love that UYI live album by the way...the Inglewood show @ the Forum).

[Dariablue]

Jesus. It's eerie how little has changed with Axl's reasoning and his inner workings.

[Gordon Comstock]

Wow. The similarities....wow. Too bad ChiD didn't get all that stuff. (i'd love that UYI live album by the way...the Inglewood show @ the Forum).

You got the live album, it's called Live Era 87-93

On topic, that interview explains a lot about how Axl probably works...... It doesn't work well for people who want future music

....not that we didn't already know that though, right?

edit: Axl/Dexter, feel free to chime in and give this context....

Edited December 3, 2013 by RickRoses

[wasted]

Maybe also his decisions about the name and cautiousness. He made it and dug his heels in. You can sort of see why he doesnt want to just throw out mediocre records every other year. He wrote a record about the aftermath of success i think. Its the morning after the party of the decade.

[Stro]

"If you don’t want ‘em, fine. But I don’t have to give them to you."

That's really everything you need to know about GNR post 1993.

[Johnny Drama]

Some things might be the same but there's a marked difference between the man in this interview and the one we have now. ... the above interview has hunger, enthusiasm, no bitterness, no grudges and he doesn't talk in riddles like he just bought a Thesaurus.

[SoulMonster]

And with Axl unbound from other band members who are able to actually force him forward, this tedious process of releasing music would just become even slower. That's why I never thought I would here more music from him after the UYI lineup died out and was so surprised and happy when CD was released. I never thought he would be able to get more music out, not without band members who on an almost equal footing could push him forward. And that's why I don't expect any new music in a while.

[Intercourse]

Despite all of the war etc, you really get the sense that Axl believed in the band and used that belief to drive himself forward against his own demons.

And for all the ragging on Axl as a dictator, his appropach to his bandmates above as a collaborator is very much on point. The respect for them, their talent and contributions is there.

I still think they had more albums in them, they would have had to evolve like U2 did, moving painfully from the old sound of "Rattle and Hum" to the new sound of "Acthung Baby".

It could have been done, with the help and support of the right manager.

Was the whole meltdown really Doug's fault and Doug's alone?

[dalsh327]

And with Axl unbound from other band members who are able to actually force him forward, this tedious process of releasing music would just become even slower. That's why I never thought I would here more music from him after the UYI lineup died out and was so surprised and happy when CD was released. I never thought he would be able to get more music out, not without band members who on an almost equal footing could push him forward. And that's why I don't expect any new music in a while.

It would be interesting to find someone who's good at data crunching "why did it take so long and what percentage of the blame falls on Axl procrastinating?" I'm going with 20 percent, maybe 15. Pretty low I know. We have to rule out 1993-1997 because the band as we knew them fell apart, and 1998-2002 was the most productive time. 2002-2005 and part of 2008 was a mess. 2006-2007 the album was pretty much done.

[ZoSoRose]

God, i wish GNR didn't break up. He was so enthusiastic about working with slash there, Its sad.

At least we have some GNR in existence

[trqster]

Axl will always be Axl, the troubled music genius outcast.

[ARBeast]

I think Axl's vision for reality and expectation for success got confused by him, and him alone. I feel that beyond the facts,one can defer.

[wasted]

I think it's more that Axl was drawing a line under GNR at that point. This was before the release, so it was one last mission. There was similar talk around CD, with much more set backs, but the plan was there, we'll get it out and tour for a real long time type quote.

I wonder which were the bonus tracks at that point.