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The "New Album" Thread . The maybe, possibly, at some point, soon, whenever, wtf Axl thread🤞


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1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

But then we have songs like Fall To Pieces that we know Slash worked on before he left GN'R

Do we know this for sure? We have this Axl quote from the chats I think, were he said  something like Slash worked on that one in '96 iirc. But we've also Slash pretending the origin of that song lies in '99 or 2000...something like that. I'm sure you have the exact quote documented.

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45 minutes ago, DTJ80 said:

I know - it’s probably why it’s one of the most interesting periods of the bands history for me as we absolutely know stuff was worked on but that’s about it.

Aside from Sorum…I don’t know who else would be able to shine a light on those sessions as it’s almost guaranteed the ‘big three’ won’t offer up any info (and certainly didn’t when Slash/Duff had their books). 

Paul Huge and Dizzy might be able to give us some info, they were both included in the last 1996 sessions (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1996: THE LINEUP, PAUL IS STILL OUT IN THE WINGS). Regardless, Paul is prohibited from speaking his mind so we might never get his side of the story. The tapes exist somewhere, so anyone with access to them might give us info (Doug Goldstein likely had access, Del James, too). Then comes anyone else working in the studio at the time. I am sure we will get more information in due course, when people don't have anything to lose from it.

 

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35 minutes ago, Free Bird said:

Do we know this for sure? We have this Axl quote from the chats I think, were he said  something like Slash worked on that one in '96 iirc. But we've also Slash pretending the origin of that song lies in '99 or 2000...something like that. I'm sure you have the exact quote documented.

Unless someone has mentioned this again after 2008 (which is as far as I have got with the writing), only Axl mentioned that Fall To Pieces were included in the material that was considered in 1996:

Axl: Which led to the trial period where Slash played the key bits of 'Fall to Pieces' but once I showed some interest that was over [mygnrforum.com, December 14, 2008].

Three interesting things about this: 1) "the trial period". It is clear that Slash returned under a trial period and that he did 10-11 sessions in the fall of 1996 with the band but ultimately quit. His heart wasn't in it, as he would later say. Axl mentions this trial a few times, no on else really does. Did they sign a contract? Had he formally quit before and then he came back for the trial period to see if he would join again? 2) Why on earth would Slash not work on the music as soon as Axl got interested? Axl would say this a few times and it doesn't make much sense to me. One would think Slash would be happy that Axl wanted to work on his music. So is Axl lying about this or is there more to the story that I am not grasping? Was Slash so disinterested in being with GN'æR that he played them some music he had intended for another project almost out of spite? That doesn't sound right, either. 3) This also means the band didn't exclusively work on Axl songs, unless they didn't really work on Fall To Pieces and that it was just a riff/melody that Slash played them and it ended with that. If so, though, it implies that it wasn't Axl's decision they should only work on his songs, it was at least partly Slash's decision.

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16 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Paul Huge and Dizzy might be able to give us some info, they were both included in the last 1996 sessions (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1996: THE LINEUP, PAUL IS STILL OUT IN THE WINGS). Regardless, Paul is prohibited from speaking his mind so we might never get his side of the story. The tapes exist somewhere, so anyone with access to them might give us info (Doug Goldstein likely had access, Del James, too). Then comes anyone else working in the studio at the time. I am sure we will get more information in due course, when people don't have anything to lose from it.

 

I was wondering about who else was around. Doug MIGHT give info…Del I can’t see. Fingers crossed info does eventually find its way out.

Thinking more about it - what sessions did ToothPuller/Machine Gun supposedly appear from?

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7 minutes ago, DTJ80 said:

Thinking more about it - what sessions did ToothPuller/Machine Gun supposedly appear from?

Toothpuller was a song that Dizzy mentioned in 2005 that Izzy having written "a couple of years back". Dizzy mentioned it because he was talking about how Izzy had deteriorated as a song-writer. If Dizzy is accurate with his recollection, it must have been written by Izzy around 2003. Btw, this part of the interview was written down from memory by madagascar88 (a used at a fan forum), so it is not direct quotes but paraphrases.

I don't know about Machine Gun, it doesn't seem to have been mentioned before 2009.

Edited by SoulMonster
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Didn’t we recently obtain photographic evidence which shows that Tooth Puller, Machine Gun and Down By The Ocean all come from the 1995 Duff/Izzy sessions? Just cause Dizzy said “a couple years back” doesn’t mean that’s literal. The older we get, the more distorted our perception time becomes. When Dizzy said “a couple of years,” he probably meant a decade.

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12 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Didn’t we recently obtain photographic evidence which shows that Tooth Puller, Machine Gun and Down By The Ocean all come from the 1995 Duff/Izzy sessions? Just cause Dizzy said “a couple years back” doesn’t mean that’s literal. The older we get, the more distorted our perception time becomes. When Dizzy said “a couple of years,” he probably meant a decade.

You are probably correct. I remember the pictures of the stash of tapes. Izzy and Duff did a lot of work together over the years. Now, as I said, that part of the interview with Dizzy was also paraphrased so there's also that uncertainty to account for.

The sessions between Duff and Izzy in 1995 resulted in about 10 songs. Axl expressed an interest in at least one of them. Izzy would later mention sending a tape with 20 songs to Axl in 1996, possible containing this song. 

Still, the sessions between Duff and Izzy were separate from what Guns N' Roses were doing, and the songs weren't GN'R's legally. We don't know the fate of these 10 songs, but it is not unlikely that some would later end up on one of Izzy's solo records, or even on one of Duff's projects. And maybe, just maybe, Axl worked on at least Down by the Sea at some point (but this must have happened after 2001, because that's when Axl reached out to Izzy about the song).

It is also probably not a coincidence that Izzy came back to LA to write with Duff and reconnect with Axl in 1995, a year where Slash was checking out of the band and they needed some help to get traction. 

More on the Izzy and Duff recording sessions and Izzy reconnecting with Axl: 1995-1996: IZZY WRITES WITH DUFF, RUMOURS ABOUT IZZY JOINING GN'R AGAIN

 

Edited by SoulMonster
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20 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Didn’t we recently obtain photographic evidence which shows that Tooth Puller, Machine Gun and Down By The Ocean all come from the 1995 Duff/Izzy sessions? Just cause Dizzy said “a couple years back” doesn’t mean that’s literal. The older we get, the more distorted our perception time becomes. When Dizzy said “a couple of years,” he probably meant a decade.

Yeah - that was what I had recalled….the stuff found in the storage locker which appeared to have been forgotten about. 🤦‍♂️

8 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

You are probably correct. I remember the pictures of the stash of tapes. Izzy and Duff did a lot of work together over the years. Now, as I said, that part of the interview with Dizzy was also paraphrased so there's also that uncertainty to account for.

The sessions between Duff and Izzy in 1995 resulted in about 10 songs. Axl expressed an interest in at least one of them. Izzy would later mention sending a tape with 20 songs to Axl in 1996, possible containing this song. 

Still, the sessions between Duff and Izzy were separate from what Guns N' Roses were doing, and the songs weren't GN'R's legally. We don't know the fate of these 10 songs, but it is not unlikely that some would later end up on one of Izzy's solo records, or even on one of Duff's projects. And maybe, just maybe, Axl worked on at least Down by the Sea at some point (but this must have happened after 2001, because that's when Axl reached out to Izzy about the song).

It is also probably not a coincidence that Izzy came back to LA to write with Duff and reconnect with Axl in 1995, a year where Slash was checking out of the band and they needed some help to get traction. 

More on the Izzy and Duff recording sessions and Izzy reconnecting with Axl: 1995-1996: IZZY WRITES WITH DUFF, RUMOURS ABOUT IZZY JOINING GN'R AGAIN

 

This mysterious time just gets more mysterious all the time. 🤣

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30 minutes ago, DTJ80 said:

Yeah - that was what I had recalled….the stuff found in the storage locker which appeared to have been forgotten about. 🤦‍♂️

This mysterious time just gets more mysterious all the time. 🤣

You know, Slash left to tour Snakepit in February/March 1995 and would be gone for a while. Duff probably reached out to Izzy about writing to have some movement, some process going on. It doesn't seem like these sessions were "proper Guns N' Roses sessions", more like Duff and Izzy just having fun. The GN'R lineup was also up in the ear with the Paul Huge issue still unresolved and Slash clearly not being interested in the band. So Duff and Izzy wrote separately while Axl possibly worked with Paul and Dizzy. In September 1995, Slash returned from touring with Snakepit, but it doesn't seem much got done then, either - likely because of unresolved issues between Axl and Slash. According to Matt, Slash refused to come to rehearsals. It ended up with Axl, Duff and Slash working separately with the alleged plan to reconvene in the studio in early 1996.

With little else happening in the second half of 1995, Duff and Matt started the Neurotic Outsiders. Axl wanted musicians in the studio to record demos, so Dizzy got Sid Riggs (drummer) and Krys Baratto (bass) to come in (they had been in the band The Jaguars/Johnny Crash/The Real McCoys with Dizzy (Sin) previously). So then you had Axl, Dizzy, Paul, Riggs and Baratto working in the studio as a complete band while Matt and Duff was touring with the Neurotic Outsiders and Slash was probably doing everything besides thinking about GN'R. Riggs and Baratto would hang around for quite a while and Riggs got writing credits on Oh My God. They would also claim to have been around much earlier, already in February 1995 when Zakk rehearsed with the band.

It seems like the band only got starting to work again properly in May 1996 (which is when they worked on the Jackie Chan song), but it doesn't seem like Slash was involved in these sessions either (he would later claim he had done nothing with the band since returning from the Snakepit tour in 1995). First in the fall of 1996 did Slash reluctantly return to GN'R for 9-11 sessions (the "trial period"; and this might have come about only when nothing happened with him and The Stone Roses). This trial period was settled in some form of contract (Axl always wanted to be a lawyer, after all) but nothing had been resolved and he was out of the band not long after.

Edited by SoulMonster
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2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Unless someone has mentioned this again after 2008 (which is as far as I have got with the writing), only Axl mentioned that Fall To Pieces were included in the material that was considered in 1996:

Axl: Which led to the trial period where Slash played the key bits of 'Fall to Pieces' but once I showed some interest that was over [mygnrforum.com, December 14, 2008].

Three interesting things about this: 1) "the trial period". It is clear that Slash returned under a trial period and that he did 10-11 sessions in the fall of 1996 with the band but ultimately quit. His heart wasn't in it, as he would later say. Axl mentions this trial a few times, no on else really does. Did they sign a contract? Had he formally quit before and then he came back for the trial period to see if he would join again? 2) Why on earth would Slash not work on the music as soon as Axl got interested? Axl would say this a few times and it doesn't make much sense to me. One would think Slash would be happy that Axl wanted to work on his music. So is Axl lying about this or is there more to the story that I am not grasping? Was Slash so disinterested in being with GN'æR that he played them some music he had intended for another project almost out of spite? That doesn't sound right, either. 3) This also means the band didn't exclusively work on Axl songs, unless they didn't really work on Fall To Pieces and that it was just a riff/melody that Slash played them and it ended with that. If so, though, it implies that it wasn't Axl's decision they should only work on his songs, it was at least partly Slash's decision.

Slash decided to walk away again due to Axl delegating. My guess is after he played for example “Fall To Pieces”, Axl started going into one of his grand delusions of how he wanted the song to sound which was in conflict with what Slash had intended for it. Ultimately they were just walking down two different paths, it seems Axl was not willing to budge on his visions. 

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2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

You are probably correct. I remember the pictures of the stash of tapes. Izzy and Duff did a lot of work together over the years. Now, as I said, that part of the interview with Dizzy was also paraphrased so there's also that uncertainty to account for.

The sessions between Duff and Izzy in 1995 resulted in about 10 songs. Axl expressed an interest in at least one of them. Izzy would later mention sending a tape with 20 songs to Axl in 1996, possible containing this song. 

Still, the sessions between Duff and Izzy were separate from what Guns N' Roses were doing, and the songs weren't GN'R's legally. We don't know the fate of these 10 songs, but it is not unlikely that some would later end up on one of Izzy's solo records, or even on one of Duff's projects. And maybe, just maybe, Axl worked on at least Down by the Sea at some point (but this must have happened after 2001, because that's when Axl reached out to Izzy about the song).

It is also probably not a coincidence that Izzy came back to LA to write with Duff and reconnect with Axl in 1995, a year where Slash was checking out of the band and they needed some help to get traction. 

More on the Izzy and Duff recording sessions and Izzy reconnecting with Axl: 1995-1996: IZZY WRITES WITH DUFF, RUMOURS ABOUT IZZY JOINING GN'R AGAIN

 

Yeah I have a feeling “Box” from Izzy’s album Fire (2007) is actually “Down By the Ocean.”

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Slash: We've got tapes of what Axl considers great songs, which from my point of view is just me playing the guitar! I haven't heard any lyrics or any vocals, so I don't know what a song is until then. [Metal Hammer, November 1995]

The above quote from Slash is from an interview that was conducted while he was on tour with Snakepit. So the guitar material he was referring to would  have been written before he went out on tour. But when? Considering that, based on the available sources, sometime during the summer of 1994 he stopped taking part in rehearsals or doing anything GN'R related, and that after Sympathy for the Devil things got even worse and he only played with the band during the Zakk Wylde tryout sessions, and then didn't return until 1996 (although he was sent tapes by Duff/Matt), those guitar instrumentals must have been  from the sessions  in March/April 1994, during which Slash probably came up with some additional ideas outside the Snakepit songs, and/or from the short period in the summer of 1994 before the fallout over Paul Tobias.

And I believe that Axl in the quote below was referring to that 1994 material mainly and less to the "trial"/"Fall to Pieces" sessions in 1996, because he says that they could have finished the album in 1996 (had Slash not focused on Snakepit and had he worked on developing those riffs, I suppose):

Axl: I think that some of the riffs that were coming out of [Slash] were the meanest, most contemporary, bluesiest, rocking thing since Aerosmith's Rocks. The 2000 version of Aerosmith Rocks or the 1996 Aerosmith Rocks by the time we would have put it out. I don't know if I would have wanted to even do a world tour at the time but I wanted to put that record together and could we have done it? Yes. It's not something I would want to approach (without Slash) because at the time there was only one person that I knew who could do certain riffs that way. We still needed the collaboration of the band as a whole to write the best songs. Since none of that happened, that's the reason why that material got scrapped. [Press release, Aug. 12, 2002]

*

In regards to what they had in 1996, at the time of Slash's final sessions: Slash talked about "80 songs," Duff about 12, Matt about 7 finished songs (instrumentals, I suppose), one of which must have been the "Jackie Chan " song. From some of the interviews of the time, it seems that Axl had been doing some writing separately with Paul Tobias while the band was in a de facto hiatus; he also had recruited Dizzy's friend Sid Riggs and his friend Krys Baratto to work on demos laying drums and bass respectively while Duff and Matt were busy with the Neurotic Outsiders, and they stayed around until some time in 1997 (I guess Matt was referring to them by "a friend of a friend..."). Then, when Duff and Matt returned in the summer of 1996, they probably worked on some existing stuff and wrote some more (without Slash yet), with Axl playing rhythm guitar. Slash said in the online chat he did in July 1996 (before his return), that as far as he knew Axl was playing rhythm only on his own songs. In his second chat, which took place probably just a few days before he quit in October 1996, Slash said that they'd mostly been working on Axl's material.

*

About the "trial period" and what it was: Slash wrote some things about it in his book and explained, from his point of view  of course, why he was reluctant to work in the final sessions. Slash's book may not be very reliable about some events, as it contradicts things we know from other sources (including some of his own earlier interviews), however it contains details about some things Slash hasn't discussed extensively elsewhere, so it's a source that fills blanks about certain situations, at least as far as his side of the story is concerned.

*

As for who could talk and shed a light on the sessions of that whole period: Aside from Matt, I don't think there are many people. Dizzy most likely has signed a contract, too, and can't talk freely. Doug Goldstein wasn't too involved with what the band was doing in the studio, plus he seems to have a very bad memory in regards to that stuff. Maybe someone from Geffen who had access to the material; or an engineer/tech who happened not to sign an NDA (like Dominguez who worked during the very early CD sessions), but that's unlikely.

Edited by Blackstar
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8 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

First in the fall of 1996 did Slash reluctantly return to GN'R for 9-11 sessions (the "trial period"; and this might have come about only when nothing happened with him and The Stone Roses). This trial period was settled in some form of contract (Axl always wanted to be a lawyer, after all) but nothing had been resolved and he was out of the band not long after.

Wow. I did not know about this. What a mental collaboration that would have been.

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About Fall to Pieces: Slash's recollection in his autobiography is that he wrote it while he was putting together a new band after Snakepit and just before Randy Castillo died (i.e. just before the beginning of the Project/Velvet Revolver in 2002):

[After Snakepit 2]  I was ready to come back to my center and make a new start. It was time. I got together with Pete Angelus, who had managed the Black Crowes and had wanted to manage me. He got me together with Steve Gorman, the Crowes’ drummer, and Alan Niven turned me on to a bass player. We started to write and came up with the music for what became “Fall to Pieces.” All we needed was a singer—again. But then my good friend Randy Castillo passed away and I went to his funeral, and out of his death came a rebirth I could have never imagined.

 

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6 hours ago, Blackstar said:

About Fall to Pieces: Slash's recollection in his autobiography is that he wrote it while he was putting together a new band after Snakepit and just before Randy Castillo died (i.e. just before the beginning of the Project/Velvet Revolver in 2002):

[After Snakepit 2]  I was ready to come back to my center and make a new start. It was time. I got together with Pete Angelus, who had managed the Black Crowes and had wanted to manage me. He got me together with Steve Gorman, the Crowes’ drummer, and Alan Niven turned me on to a bass player. We started to write and came up with the music for what became “Fall to Pieces.” All we needed was a singer—again. But then my good friend Randy Castillo passed away and I went to his funeral, and out of his death came a rebirth I could have never imagined.

 

Maybe he had the cascading riff earlier, though and showed this to Axl in 94-96, while it got turned into "music" (chords, bass and drums) first after Snakepit? 

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1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

Maybe he had the cascading riff earlier, though and showed this to Axl in 94-96, while it got turned into "music" (chords, bass and drums) first after Snakepit? 

Yes, that may very well have been the case, because I don't think Axl would make something like that up. Slash admits that his memory of the period before he quit is blurry because of the state of mind he was in, so it's likely he doesn't even remember everything he played during those final sessions in 1996 - maybe the riff stayed in his subconscious.

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I'd love to learn more about that 95- 97 period of GNR. I always wondered what sings they worked on turned into songs on their solo albums.  I heard Nightcrawler became speed parade. 

any ideas as to when slash and izzy wrote Ghost?  I know it came out in 2010 but it could have been written way before that especially bc I think Izzy was mad at Slash for some of the things Slash said in his 2007 book. 

 

how about some of the songs from Duffs unrelated album in 1999?  I'd love to get more insight on this

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5 hours ago, Chester 524 said:

I'd love to learn more about that 95- 97 period of GNR. I always wondered what sings they worked on turned into songs on their solo albums.  I heard Nightcrawler became speed parade. 

any ideas as to when slash and izzy wrote Ghost?  I know it came out in 2010 but it could have been written way before that especially bc I think Izzy was mad at Slash for some of the things Slash said in his 2007 book. 

 

how about some of the songs from Duffs unrelated album in 1999?  I'd love to get more insight on this

I think Izzy just plays there and has no writing credit.

On the other hand he has no writing credit on Contraband and we all know he wrote Do It For The Kids riff.

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6 hours ago, Chester 524 said:

I'd love to learn more about that 95- 97 period of GNR. I always wondered what sings they worked on turned into songs on their solo albums.  I heard Nightcrawler became speed parade. 

any ideas as to when slash and izzy wrote Ghost?  I know it came out in 2010 but it could have been written way before that especially bc I think Izzy was mad at Slash for some of the things Slash said in his 2007 book. 

 

how about some of the songs from Duffs unrelated album in 1999?  I'd love to get more insight on this

Be interesting to know more about the crossover with Robin in the band and Duff and Matt still there too. We know pretty much nothing about this 

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5 minutes ago, rumandraisin said:

Be interesting to know more about the crossover with Robin in the band and Duff and Matt still there too. We know pretty much nothing about this 

I don't think much happened in this fairly short period of time where Matt, Duff and Robin were all in the band. Matt recommended Robin for the band but it took quite a few weeks from Robin's first meeting with Axl until he actually started playing with the band, and I think in this period Matt left. And then it didn't take long before Duff was out. Duff would later say he played a couple of times with Robin, though. 

I get the impression that things were a bit up in the air at the time, that Axl was trying to put together a stable lineup but people leaving stopped any momentum he might be building. Only when Josh and Tommy came into the band the following year (1998) did things really start happening. That's to me the first proper lineup since the UYI lineup slowly disintegrated. 

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11 hours ago, Rayno said:

I think Izzy just plays there and has no writing credit.

On the other hand he has no writing credit on Contraband and we all know he wrote Do It For The Kids riff.

No we don't know who wrote the riff. All we know is they both used it. They may have wrote it together...

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1 hour ago, Sweersa said:

What's funny is I'm sure we will hear some vocal takes from the late '90s on the new record.

(Atlas, Perhaps, etc.)

I'd be disappointed if we didn't in all honesty. That ginger bastard at the very top of his game? Yes please.

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