Perhaps - New Guns N' Roses Single - Discussion

[felixGNR]

3 minutes ago, AxlRQ93 said:

hey you seem to know a lot about this. what cd / post cd songs were written first? If HS is 96, OMG was 97 is there anything else from that time frame that has been out?

when did dave navarro recorded the guitars for OMG?

[Voodoochild]

39 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Proof that I'm not:

  Hide contents

(ChatGPT is stupid )

 

Seems like ChatGPT doesn’t like Buckethead. Probably because of his dance moves. 

[Blackstar]

59 minutes ago, Its Tino said:

Thanks. I wonder why that is. 

Probably a mistake. I think it was one of the things Axl complained about.

24 minutes ago, AxlRQ93 said:

hey you seem to know a lot about this. what cd / post cd songs were written first? If HS is 96, OMG was 97 is there anything else from that time frame that has been out?

No evidence or conclusive information about other tracks. But odds are for Oklahoma, and maybe I.R.S. and Prostitute.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Blackstar

[SlashisGOD]

I just hope Oklahoma sees an official release. It’s too good to pass up.

[ZoSoRose]

4 hours ago, SlashisGOD said:

I just hope Oklahoma sees an official release. It’s too good to pass up.

The General is going to be surreal . If we ever got Tonto, Soul Monster, Berlin, Zodiac, and Quicksong with vocals I’d be ecstatic. Would be cool to hear Seven and Idea of March if those were ever finished, too.

Edited August 29, 2023 by ZoSoRose

[agustingloger]

After a week of listening i really like it but Hardskool>Perhaps in My books

[evilfacelessturtle]

19 hours ago, Voodoochild said:

Yeah, CD era songs like It’s so Easy, My Michelle, You’re Crazy, Reckless Life, 14 years, Perfect Crime, Shadow of your Love..

Most of those songs were not written by Slash and the ones that were are very clearly riff-based. RL and SOYL are some of their earliest compositions, of course they're simpler. And I never said ONLY CD era songs are built around chord changes anyway.

[Trin9498]

Was just watching the ‘02 VMA footage - crazy that Perhaps was already 2yrs old at this point…..side note, Fincks look, yikes! He was much more GNR in ‘06. 

[DK6]

Paul Tobias sure was involved in the writing of a lot of GnR songs for someone who supposedly didn't have the chops.

I find it interesting - Izzy would never have got a position in NuGuns if he was an unknown up and comer at the time - they would say he doesn't have the chops.

The best music is not necessarily written by the best technical musicians that's for sure!

[mystery]

Its a trip that Perhaps along with Hardskool and Absurd could have actually been performed by 2002 braid era big jersey Axl and 2006 ponytail braid, goatee Axl but they weren't.

Everything to do with Chinese Democracy and its associated sessions is a band doing things out of time and long after the era they were conceived. Bill Clinton was still president when a lot of this stuff was recorded.

[Slugworth]

2 hours ago, Trin9498 said:

Was just watching the ‘02 VMA footage - crazy that Perhaps was already 2yrs old at this point….

And Madagascar was already 4 years old at that point.

[GNR78]

On 8/29/2023 at 4:54 AM, Jakey Styley said:

Finck wrote on only one song? Never realized that

Edit: NVM just saw post above

 

On 8/29/2023 at 3:37 AM, Its Tino said:

I think this is a nice time to review writing credits from CD (only including band members)

Dizzy -3

Tommy - 2

Huge - 4

Finck - 1

Shitman - 2

Reese - 1

Bucket - 3

Brain - 2

 

Now that we have that out of the way, my money is on Hard Skool being written by Huge and Axl. I’m thinking the same for Perhaps. 

Melissa Reese is not on CD;

[RONIN]

10 hours ago, DK6 said:

Paul Tobias sure was involved in the writing of a lot of GnR songs for someone who supposedly didn't have the chops.

Yes but what exactly were those contributions is the million dollar question. Was Axl generous with crediting him or was Tobias a legit co-songwriting team with Axl like how Izzy used to be? Also does he ever get more than 20% credit on a song in CD? I don't think he does. Tobias is associated with 3 tracks I love: Catcher, Oh My God, and Prostitute. From what I remember, Axl is the primary writer of all three, particularly prostitute. I'm inclined to believe that the other Tobias credited songs are primarily Axl compositions.

Tobias' contributions to the band were also not respected by either Duff, Matt, or Slash. So his "chops" are in question. There are some old quotes from Tommy where he may have taken a shot at Tobias as well. So, imho, at best he's a mixed bag. Would love to get a more objective take on him from some of the people who were associated with the CD era. There's a recent-ish Dave Abruzzese interview on youtube where he tells a quick story about Tobias. Paul comes off as a bit of a douche in the story.

Edited August 30, 2023 by RONIN

[Cosmo]

10 hours ago, DK6 said:

Paul Tobias sure was involved in the writing of a lot of GnR songs for someone who supposedly didn't have the chops.

I find it interesting - Izzy would never have got a position in NuGuns if he was an unknown up and comer at the time - they would say he doesn't have the chops.

The best music is not necessarily written by the best technical musicians that's for sure!

We don't really know how much of that was Axl helping his buddy out, though. I have no idea if Paul was trully the asshole Slash made him out to be, or if it's all the circumstances of the time that made Slash hate him so much. Maybe Paul was kind of Axl's strawman and Slash's negative feelings about Axl and his behaviour kinda were targeted at the dude Axl put there without anyone's consent. 

[rebeldhipi]

25 minutes ago, RONIN said:

There's a recent-ish Dave Abruzzese interview on youtube where he tells a quick story about Tobias. Paul comes off as a bit of a douche in the story.

What was it?

[ruttu69]

3 hours ago, GNR78 said:

 

Melissa Reese is not on CD;

That’s typo, He means Josh Freese

[RONIN]

43 minutes ago, rebeldhipi said:

What was it?

 

[RONIN]

59 minutes ago, Cosmo said:

We don't really know how much of that was Axl helping his buddy out, though. I have no idea if Paul was trully the asshole Slash made him out to be, or if it's all the circumstances of the time that made Slash hate him so much. Maybe Paul was kind of Axl's strawman and Slash's negative feelings about Axl and his behaviour kinda were targeted at the dude Axl put there without anyone's consent. 

Duff and Matt back up Slash's take on Paul. Duff back in the day was a relatively level headed guy so his perspective holds a little more weight with me. From what we have heard about Paul from various different sources, he kinda comes off as "Axl's boy". Like there's a bit of unearned entitlement he had purely through his association with Axl. He was in a room with arguably some of the top rock talent of the era (Slash, Duff, Bucket, Matt, Finck, Freese, etc). Imagine these guys listening to Paul's "suggestions" and having to put up with him in a band. A guy who was there purely because he was Axl's friend.

[Blackstar]

11 minutes ago, RONIN said:

 

Thanks for this. Abbruzzese did two other interviews on the same podcast in 2020 and talked about GN'R quite a bit

https://www.a-4-d.com/t5240-2020-10-18-12-09-2020-d-podcast-interviews-with-david-abbruzzese

but I missed this recent one.

[RONIN]

20 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Thanks for this. Abbruzzese did two other interviews on the same podcast in 2020 and talked about GN'R quite a bit

https://www.a-4-d.com/t5240-2020-10-18-12-09-2020-d-podcast-interviews-with-david-abbruzzese

but I missed this recent one.

What do you make of Dave and his time in the band?

The big takeaway for me was how he was really drawn to the incredible lineup of talent Axl had assembled with nu guns. That he thought the music coming out of those sessions was really cool and interesting. I recall reading an interview with Chris Vrenna that essentially said the same. Remember these quotes?

"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)

"There's nothing out there right now that has that kind of scope. Axl hasn't spent the last several years struggling to write Use Your Illusion over again. [...] An artist [like Axl], who's had as much success with Guns N' Roses as he has, gets to a point in his career where he can settle into one sound and do it over and over again, usually with diminishing returns. Axl is determined not to do that. There's a sort of ruthlessness about pushing Guns N' Roses to grow, and to find some depth in their music, and to evolve." (James Barber, Rolling Stone, 05/11/00)

"The record just needed a lead vocal and a mix. [...] If Axl had recorded vocals, it would have been an absolutely contemporary record in 1999." (James Barber, Poptones, 10/16/05)

The other thing of note is just how deep into the new age psychic aura stuff Axl was. It seems like he was neck deep in the Yoda lunacy during that time. The meltdown he had when Dave decided to quit was rather revealing of how fragile Axl's mental state was.

Edited August 30, 2023 by RONIN

[Blackstar]

3 minutes ago, RONIN said:

What do you make of Dave and his time in the band?

The big takeaway for me was how he was really drawn to the incredible lineup of talent Axl had assembled with nu guns. It seems like all of these we hear from whether it's Dave, Vrenna, etc was that the music coming out of those sessions was cool and interesting. Remember this quote?

"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)

The other thing of note is just how deep into the new age psychic aura stuff Axl was. It seems like he was neck deep in the Yoda lunacy during that time. The meltdown he had when Dave decided to quit was rather revealing of how fragile Axl's mental state was.

Yes, it seems he really liked Axl and what he was going for musically. He also liked Robin Finck. Very interesting insight to that transitional period (1997) that not much else is known about.

But I'd also take some of the things Dave says with a grain of salt, because he seems to ramble about things he doesn't have first hand knowledge of. For example, in the 2020 interview he told a story about how the original GN'R was formed which just can't be true. So he may be embellishing some stories related to Axl and NuGnR as well.

[Seb91]

11 hours ago, mystery said:

Its a trip that Perhaps along with Hardskool and Absurd could have actually been performed by 2002 braid era big jersey Axl and 2006 ponytail braid, goatee Axl but they weren't.

Everything to do with Chinese Democracy and its associated sessions is a band doing things out of time and long after the era they were conceived. Bill Clinton was still president when a lot of this stuff was recorded.

  I'll echo the comments that it's trippy how these songs had already existed for a whole prior to the 2001/2 comeback. I'd always imagined they'd worked on stuff as time went on whereas songs which never got a live airing before the release like If The World and Prostitute were good to go around a decade before the album dropped. The locker leaks really changed my perception of that whole era. It fully agree that it's like they're out of time - I mean they're dropping individuals singles now like the the Pumpkins did with Teargarden over a decade ago (and there was a general vibe that albums were over). That phase has long since died out though and it's all about albums again.  

 

12 hours ago, DK6 said:

Paul Tobias sure was involved in the writing of a lot of GnR songs for someone who supposedly didn't have the chops.

I find it interesting - Izzy would never have got a position in NuGuns if he was an unknown up and comer at the time - they would say he doesn't have the chops.

The best music is not necessarily written by the best technical musicians that's for sure!

 True that! I mean, Bob Dylan's not a virtuoso guitar player by any means but he's arguably the best songwriter of all time. It's a very different skill I feel. It's hard to get an all-rounder in music - great writer, great musician, great singer - Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Thompson are two guys that spring to mind that I'd put in that bracket. 

 

55 minutes ago, RONIN said:

What do you make of Dave and his time in the band?

The big takeaway for me was how he was really drawn to the incredible lineup of talent Axl had assembled with nu guns. That he thought the music coming out of those sessions was really cool and interesting. I recall reading an interview with Chris Vrenna that essentially said the same. Remember these quotes?

"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)

"There's nothing out there right now that has that kind of scope. Axl hasn't spent the last several years struggling to write Use Your Illusion over again. [...] An artist [like Axl], who's had as much success with Guns N' Roses as he has, gets to a point in his career where he can settle into one sound and do it over and over again, usually with diminishing returns. Axl is determined not to do that. There's a sort of ruthlessness about pushing Guns N' Roses to grow, and to find some depth in their music, and to evolve." (James Barber, Rolling Stone, 05/11/00)

"The record just needed a lead vocal and a mix. [...] If Axl had recorded vocals, it would have been an absolutely contemporary record in 1999." (James Barber, Poptones, 10/16/05)

The other thing of note is just how deep into the new age psychic aura stuff Axl was. It seems like he was neck deep in the Yoda lunacy during that time. The meltdown he had when Dave decided to quit was rather revealing of how fragile Axl's mental state was.

The interview quotes there really chime with the locker leaks. Not releasing it earlier was a massively missed opportunity. 

[Blackstar]

3 hours ago, Cosmo said:

We don't really know how much of that was Axl helping his buddy out, though. I have no idea if Paul was trully the asshole Slash made him out to be, or if it's all the circumstances of the time that made Slash hate him so much. Maybe Paul was kind of Axl's strawman and Slash's negative feelings about Axl and his behaviour kinda were targeted at the dude Axl put there without anyone's consent. 

Yes, I think the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Paul wasn't as incompetent as a guitar player Slash and Matt made him out to be, and at that time Slash would have probably hated anyone who would have been around as Axl's friend, especially a "nobody" from Indiana.

Maybe he genuinely thought he was helping his friend (Axl), but it does seem that he had an entitled attitude in the studio as "Axl's guy". And as far as his songwriting abilities, his contributions are questionable. It's not clear what exactly he contributed in the CD songs he got a credit for. He also has a share for Shadow Of Your Love and Back Off Bitch, but we don't know what stage those early songs were at before Hollywood Rose. And his songwriting work in Mank Rage is nothing to write home about.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Blackstar

[Lethalis]

16 hours ago, ZoSoRose said:

The General is going to be surreal . If we ever got Tonto, Soul Monster, Berlin, Zodiac, and Quicksong with vocals I’d be ecstatic. Would be cool to hear Seven and Idea of March if those were ever finished, too.

I'm just scared The General will suck honestly. Expectations for that song are way too high.

And I will laugh my ass off and cry at the same time if it's just an instrumental without vocals 

[Cosmo]

7 minutes ago, Lethalis said:

I'm just scared The General will suck honestly. Expectations for that song are way too high.

Me too. I don't think it will ever live up to expectations.