Was Nu Guns a really toxic environment?

[Martin Riggs]

15 minutes ago, Mikey Whipwreck said:

Here's the Tommy interview I mentioned where he talked about the negative impact Jimmy Iovine and RTB had on CD

https://slpmode.com/a-v-club-interview-tommy-stinson/

I don’t really get the below quote. Jimmy has famously said he doesn’t think music executives should be involved in the process of creating the music. He intentionally keeps them (and himself once he got to that level) out of the studio. Why would Axl expect him to be involved? It just sounds like an excuse as Axl was lost and didn’t have any obvious hit singles to propel the album. Better was probably written to alleviate this issue but they bungled that as well. I’m sure he deluded himself and others into blaming the big bad record label but I bet it was mostly his inept leadership. 
 

 My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart. Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All hedid was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.

[Blackstar]

3 minutes ago, Martin Riggs said:

I don’t really get the below quote. Jimmy has famously said he doesn’t think music executives should be involved in the process of creating the music. He intentionally keeps them (and himself once he got to that level) out of the studio. Why would Axl expect him to be involved? It just sounds like an excuse as Axl was lost and didn’t have any obvious hit singles to propel the album. Better was probably written to alleviate this issue but they bungled that as well. I’m sure he deluded himself and others into blaming the big bad record label but I bet it was mostly his inept leadership. 
 

 My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart. Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All hedid was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.

Based on what has become known, maybe what Tommy is referring to is that when it seemed that Axl felt ready and there was really little left to be done, Iovine, instead of supporting Axl, brought in RTB and Bob Ezrin, which pushed the project further back.

[rumandraisin]

1 minute ago, Blackstar said:

Based on what has become known, maybe what Tommy is referring to is that when it seemed that Axl felt ready and there was really little left to be done, Iovine, instead of supporting Axl, brought in RTB and Bob Ezrin, which pushed the project further back.

RTB delayed the project then Ezrin delayed it further. The rest of the delays past 2002 were nothing but Axl though. 

[Martin Riggs]

14 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Based on what has become known, maybe what Tommy is referring to is that when it seemed that Axl felt ready and there was really little left to be done, Iovine, instead of supporting Axl, brought in RTB and Bob Ezrin, which pushed the project further back.

Yeah, I wonder if Axl actually presented it to the label in a “I’m basically done” way. I’m sure the band felt that way, but not sure on Axl’s end. I could then see Axl/management blaming the record label for things (Baker coming in for one) that Axl actually requested. 

[djtripp20]

I remember seeing a backstage video from somewhere on the 2006 tour where Ron was basically pushed against the wall by Axl's security just so Axl could walk to the stage. May have been one of the Hammerstein shows. Seems pretty dysfunctional at best. 

[Blackstar]

6 minutes ago, Martin Riggs said:

Yeah, I wonder if Axl actually presented it to the label in a “I’m basically done” way. I’m sure the band felt that way, but not sure on Axl’s end. I could then see Axl/management blaming the record label for things (Baker coming in for one) that Axl actually requested. 

As per Bob Ezrin, Axl told him that he was ready to mix.

I think the biggest mistake on the label's part was replacing Sean Beavan with RTB. Although it took a while (about a year) for things to get started with Beavan as far as Axl was concerned, the project seemed to be rolling in early 2000; Axl was recording vocals, even if at a slow pace. But the label people felt that Beavan wasn't pushing Axl enough to finish it and they also - and that was probably the main reason - they didn't think that it could be a hit, so they recruited RTB to give it a more "classic rock" edge.

[Martin Riggs]

11 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

As per Bob Ezrin, Axl told him that he was ready to mix.

I think the biggest mistake on the label's part was replacing Sean Beavan with RTB. Although it took a while (about a year) for things to get started with Beavan as far as Axl was concerned, the project seemed to be rolling in early 2000; Axl was recording vocals, even if at a slow pace. But the label people felt that Beavan wasn't pushing Axl enough to finish it and they also - and that was probably the main reason - they didn't think that it could be a hit, so they recruited RTB to give it a more "classic rock" edge.

Whose idea was it to include Oh My God on the End of Days soundtrack? I’m sure  that song probably did little to make the label feel good about investing in Axl’s “vision” of GNR after Slash/Duff left. 

[Blackstar]

1 minute ago, Martin Riggs said:

Whose idea was it to include Oh My God on the End of Days soundtrack? I’m sure  that song probably did little to make the label feel good about investing in Axl’s “vision” of GNR after Slash/Duff left. 

According to Sean Beavan, it was Jimmy Iovine's idea. He convinced Axl that it would be cool.

[Martin Riggs]

4 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

According to Sean Beavan, it was Jimmy Iovine's idea. He convinced Axl that it would be cool.

Yeah, I just read that he apparently picked that song after hearing multiple works in progress. Maybe there wasn’t much to pick from and I can see how attaching a song to another Arnold film would seem like a smart idea, but the following is what you’re reintroducing yourself to the world with…

The song was primarily written by Paul Tobiasaround 1997.^[4] Dizzy Reed wrote the hook of the chorus.^[4] Rose claimed that former members Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum'failed to see the potential' of the song and had no interest in recording or playing the piece.^[4]Sean Riggs, Reed's roommate and occasional fill-in GNR studio drummer, assisted in writing the song.

[Mikey Whipwreck]

1 hour ago, Martin Riggs said:

I don’t really get the below quote. Jimmy has famously said he doesn’t think music executives should be involved in the process of creating the music. He intentionally keeps them (and himself once he got to that level) out of the studio. Why would Axl expect him to be involved? It just sounds like an excuse as Axl was lost and didn’t have any obvious hit singles to propel the album. Better was probably written to alleviate this issue but they bungled that as well. I’m sure he deluded himself and others into blaming the big bad record label but I bet it was mostly his inept leadership. 
 

 My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart. Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All hedid was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.

I'm not sure whose idea RTB was. But he certainly didn't seem to help the process. The best "inside baseball" article I can recall is the one featuring Tom Zutaut, who came aboard in 2001 after RTB was already involved. He tells the story of how Axl had been asking RTB for 6 months to get the drums on one track to sound like Smells Like Teen Spirit and they couldn't get it right. So Zutaut stepped out, bought a copy of Nevermind, brought it back and played it for them. Problem solved. Or how they were spending $75,000 a month renting gear that hadn't been touched for 3 years. Nobody thought to return it until Zutaut got there. Situations like that, there's plenty of blame to go around. It shows the label had no clue what they were doing and the producer was there just to collect a check.

Axl deserves a huge amount of the blame for the endless delays especially from 2002 and beyond, no question. But fundamentally, Tommy is correct, especially in retrospect. How many of the songs recorded from 1998 to 2000 that ended up on CD were significantly improved by all the tinkering and re-recording? TWAT was really the only one, due to Bucket's solo which really makes the song. And his stuff on Prostitute brought it up too. But they would have been better served putting out a 12 track album with the more aggressive industrial, nu metal tinged songs that would have been better received in 2000 or 2001 and done a follow up a few years later. It may not have set the world on fire but it would have done alright and would not have had all the baggage attached to it 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Mikey Whipwreck

[Seb91]

To be fair to Bucket, I get the impression that he's incredibly shy and is very much an introvert which is probably why he wears the mask and used the puppet to speak. I can really relate as I have social anxiety really badly. His demand for the coop, whilst odd, I think highlights his desire to have somewhere he could be alone and get some personal space.  I think the thing with Bucket is that given his desire to be under the radar and not the centre of attention I doubt even if it was a regular band in terms of organisation that he'd have stuck around too long as doing big tours and being in the spotlight all the time like that seems to go against how his solo stuff has been organised. I have no doubt though that had he been properly cemented in the band he'd have been huge as his playing is second to none. 

The guy is without a doubt the best guitarist Guns has ever had (and I say that as a massive fan of Bumble and Slash). Bucket's the only guitar player who's able to get a really high emotional response out of me through their playing like David Gilmour and he's up there with Steve Vai technique wise and Bucket's the only player I think that could genuinely be said of. That's why the guy's so damn exceptional - he's got the melodic chops and soul in his playing like Gilmour paired with the technical ability of Vai to really go to town with the heavier stuff. A lot of his more experimental stuff also really reminds me of Robert Fripp/King Crimson. I used to listen to a ton of shredders as a kid - Vai, Bucket and Satriani are the only ones who I still listen to really regularly (if we're talking instrumental guys) because they know when to hang back. Malmsteen's cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps is just excruciating because there's no attempt to fit with the song - just neo-classical shred at a million miles an hour the whole way through. 

Was listening to a 2002 bootleg the other day and Bucket's Nightrain was certainly mindblowing - it was like Nightrain 2.0 with Bucket! 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Seb91

[Mikey Whipwreck]

9 minutes ago, Seb91 said:

To be fair to Bucket, I get the impression that he's incredibly shy and is very much an introvert which is probably why he wears the mask and used the puppet to speak. I can really relate as I have social anxiety really badly. His demand for the coop, whilst odd, I think highlights his desire to have somewhere he could be alone and get some personal space.  I think the thing with Bucket is that given his desire to be under the radar and not the centre of attention I doubt even if it was a regular band in terms of organisation that he'd have stuck around too long as doing big tours and being in the spotlight all the time like that seems to go against how his solo stuff has been organised. I have no doubt though that had he been properly cemented in the band he'd have been huge as his playing is second to none. 

The guy is without a doubt the best guitarist Guns has ever had (and I say that as a massive fan of Bumble and Slash). Bucket's the only guitar player who's able to get a really high emotional response out of me through their playing like David Gilmour and he's up there with Steve Vai technique wise and Bucket's the only player I think that could genuinely be said of. That's why the guy's so damn exceptional - he's got the melodic chops and soul in his playing like Gilmour paired with the technical ability of Vai to really go to town with the heavier stuff. A lot of his more experimental stuff also really reminds me of Robert Fripp/King Crimson. I used to listen to a ton of shredders as a kid - Vai, Bucket and Satriani are the only ones who I still listen to really regularly (if we're talking instrumental guys) because they know when to hang back. Malmsteen's cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps is just excruciating because there's no attempt to fit with the song - just neo-classical shred at a million miles an hour the whole way through. 

Was listening to a 2002 bootleg the other day and Bucket's Nightrain was certainly mindblowing - it was like Nightrain 2.0 with Bucket! 

Buckethead is talented enough that you tolerate his eccentricities and odd behavior. Outside the context of GNR he's demonstrated that he eats, sleeps, breathes music. He wants to write, record and release new songs. And prior to his health issues he was consistently on tour. 

You are not going to keep him engaged by having him in the studio re-recording parts for the same song over and over again. I have little doubt that he would have stayed in the band longer and been a productive member had they completed the 2002 tour and released a new album shortly after that. The stories of him going MIA and being unreachable came after the plug got pulled on the tour and it was obvious the album was not coming anytime soon 

[drlaban]

1 hour ago, Martin Riggs said:

Whose idea was it to include Oh My God on the End of Days soundtrack? I’m sure  that song probably did little to make the label feel good about investing in Axl’s “vision” of GNR after Slash/Duff left. 

The production was good enough to put out the album with 9-11 songs other than OMG. Nice to end the 90's/start the 00's with. No one knows what would've come after that. I guess the reunion would have come a few years sooner than 2016. No involvement of Dj Ashba and probably no Bumblefoot either.

[DSTK]

Too many people involved,from production to musicians...it was always going to go wrong at points

[Jakey Styley]

3 hours ago, Lio said:

Seems to be confirmed by at least Zutaut and Goldstein. Seems to be an odd thing to make up.

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/manager_recalls_bucketheads_insane_demand_for_guns_n_roses_recording_a_chicken_coop_in_the_studio_for_him_to_play_in.html

Brain has said Tom Zutaut lied about the porn rumor in particular

Edited August 24, 2023 by Jakey Styley

[dave94]

Toxic or not, ultimately if they had good chemistry they’d probably have released more music than 1 album in nearly 20 years, and what they did release wouldn’t have been an overproduced sterile mess (as much as I do really like parts of CD)

[Seb91]

1 hour ago, Mikey Whipwreck said:

Buckethead is talented enough that you tolerate his eccentricities and odd behavior. Outside the context of GNR he's demonstrated that he eats, sleeps, breathes music. He wants to write, record and release new songs. And prior to his health issues he was consistently on tour. 

You are not going to keep him engaged by having him in the studio re-recording parts for the same song over and over again. I have little doubt that he would have stayed in the band longer and been a productive member had they completed the 2002 tour and released a new album shortly after that. The stories of him going MIA and being unreachable came after the plug got pulled on the tour and it was obvious the album was not coming anytime soon 

Yeah, he is one of the most dedicated musicians out there I feel. The amount of music he puts out is unreal, had he stayed and Axl been keen to put out music, he'd never have been short of song ideas with Bucket around that's for sure! 

I think the point about Oh My God is an interesting one - reception seems to have been negative at the time. Given we now know thanks to the locker stuff Axl could have released an album in '99 or '00 had he wanted to, I wonder how much that knocked his confidence and caused him to rethink things. 

[Coma16]

It was all evident when Dizzys daughter needed a gofundme to pay for skool because daddy's checks were stuck in the mail.

[Jakey Styley]

31 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

It was all evident when Dizzys daughter needed a gofundme to pay for skool because daddy's checks were stuck in the mail.

Not familiar with this

[Coma16]

8 minutes ago, Jakey Styley said:

Not familiar with this

Oh it's true

[Lio]

Just now, Coma16 said:

Oh it's true

I remember the gofundme. Must have been 2014 or something?

[ChineseDemocracy2004]

7 hours ago, Mikey Whipwreck said:

Ron was not welcomed with open arms by Tommy, Richard and Robin, that's for sure. They probably thought he was unnecessary. Seemed like that calmed down though. The biggest thing with Ron that  is now overlooked is he got severely messed up in that car wreck. He was in an incredible amount of pain and started self medicating with painkillers and booze. That's when he seemed to get very bitter and negative. I think he felt like he was coerced into returning to the road earlier than he wanted to and then taken for granted. Can't say I blame him, he was put in a bad position that was probably a nightmare for him to deal with. 

IIRC BBF pulled a knife on someone in the band to defend himself on their tour bus, played the majority of an up close and personal show on his back after his accident and had suicidal thoughts too.

[denin]

6 hours ago, Blackstar said:

Although some of the members joined after being recommended by another member (Josh Freese recommended Tommy, Buckethead recommended Brain, Tommy recommended Richard, Richard, mostly, recommended Frank)

Also, Robin got in via Matt Sorum (of all people!).

6 hours ago, Free Bird said:

I read that more than once but c'mon, that surely is just a rumor that can't have anything to do with reality. 

According to Beta, Axl had a litter of wolf dog puppies at the time. And given this is Guns we're talking about...

11 hours ago, drlaban said:

The real problems seems to have started when Sean Beavan was replaced by Roy Thomas Baker with the unnecessary re-recording of the drums & bass.

Yup. Beavan seemed to be liked by almost everyone in the band. Tommy and Bucket had issues with RTB. I can imagine Robin having some gripes too.

 

[RONIN]

Some great insight shared by everyone. My thoughts on this thread:

1. As Riggs pointed out, I don't think they had a viable single when Beavan was attached. As much as I enjoy the Beavan demos and feel his work was the strongest, I think Jimmy Iovine made the right call. There's a reason he's Jimmy Iovine and Axl is well...Axl. WIthout "Better", I don't think they have a marketable album. CD has no hit singles outside of Better.

2. I imagine they made the switch from Beavan to RTB because the gestation process had taken so long that Industrial music had already had its moment and music was going in a different direction from NIN and Marilyn Manson. It makes sense why they brought RTB in - to reshape this quasi-industrial sound into a classic sound. What we should be asking is why there was no producer who could get Axl to deliver work on time for Chinese Democracy. They went through something like 7 producers and each one left due to Axl's work ethic starting with Youth and Moby.

3. There was a great post on this topic of nu guns band dynamics by a forum member years ago that had some insider insight into what may have happened. From what I remember, the gist of it was, the Axl hangers-on like Del, Beta, and Paul Tobias would interfere with the band's affairs and try to establish dominance, particularly Del and Tobias. And each member of nu-guns would be fighting for Axl's attention and approval to secure their own position in this band where the leader/frontman is MIA 99% of the time. So Tommy was the main guy who was able to get Axl's attention and ingratiate himself to the hangers-on. Axl became close to Buckethead and recognized what a great talent he was. This apparently was perceived as a threat by guys like Del and Tommy who were jockeying for Axl's attention. So from there, Bucket becomes more alienated from the band and Tommy/Richard/Del/Finck become a clique. When Finck comes back to the band, he finds Buckethead in his lead guitar spot and resents it. Axl tries to placate him by having Finck as still the main guitarist but sharing some of his leads with Bucket. This is grudgingly accepted by Finck. Once Buckethead gets tired of this high school bullshit and Axl missing deadline after deadline to release the album, he quits. Ron Thal unfortunately gets thrust into Bucket's old role as "the stunt guitarist". Basically this entire saga is simply about getting Rose's attention because he's never around or actually working on anything while these guys are mindlessly jamming in some obscenely expensive studio night after night with no direction for years on end.

4. I do not subscribe to the blame game of the record label, jimmy iovine, RTB, etc delaying CD. It is obviously Axl Rose who cannot deliver anything on time. He couldn't even be bothered to show up to his own rehearsals. It's all in Duff's book - he wasn't showing up, money was getting wasted in recording studios for 2.5 years, there were no vocals, no lyrics, nada.  He could not deliver Use Your Illusion on time either. It was pulled from him by the efforts of Geffen, Niven, and (presumably) Slash. When has Rose taken responsibility and accountability for his screw ups?

5. About everyone in nu guns saying nice things about Axl - we can take it at face value. Let's also not forget that they are all under heavy gag orders and have signed NDAs. Axl is obsessed with litigation. There's a very good reason so little actual facts are known about Chinese Democracy's development and the inner workings of that era - all we have is mostly rumors and hearsay. None of these guys want to get sued by GnR.

I'll end with the below quotes from Duff McKagan that in a nutshell portend what nu guns was going to be dealing with : A frontman who is paralyzed with self doubt, losing touch with reality, and zero work ethic or even really an idea of what he wanted. Hence....14 years and 13 million in wasted cash for an album with 4-6 good tracks (imho).
 

Quote

 

After you left Guns N' Roses you joined Steve Jones to set up Neurotic Outsiders. How did the idea build up?

I was still in Guns when the idea started to take shape, but we were idle. I used to go to our practice place, me and Matt would play for a while, but no one else used to show up. Slash was having trouble with Axl and, well, you know the story already. Axl would finally show up like at 4 a.m., oh well, fuck it! I realized I didn't want to wait until 4 in the morning to practice anymore. My life had changed. I'm not going to talk shit about anyone. Everybody does things for their own reasons. I've grown more reasonable, and I think I've always been, but now I do stick to it. I do as I say, and say as I think. I was not going to go "Ok, it's fine man, I'll swallow it again". No. I faced it and said no way, this is not fair. if it happens three more times I'm out.

 

Quote

 

So far, when you were working on the new stuff, how did it sound like?

There was no sound. There was no nothing. We didn't play. We tried. Matt and I did play. It was cool when Slash joined for a week. Even when Zakk Wylde and Slash played together, there were a couple of songs in which there was a natural progression and they were very rocking. You can imagine, they were really hard songs. As hard as I like them, yeah! But I can't tell you what they sounded like, there was not a definite sound.

 

Quote

 

Axl is like today's Greta Garbo. There's a lot of mystery around him, no one has seen a picture of him in years, except for that mugshot when we was arrested in Phoenix. No one knows anything about the music he's doing and there's a lot of mystery around his persona. What's your take on this?

Weird things happen when you become famous. There's no school to teach you how to be famous. It happens and people are affected in different ways. I don't have an answer for you. I've got a lot of opinions and I know a lot of things about this matter, but I'm not explaining them. I will not. He's there to answer. If he puts out a record and it is good, he's gonna be alright. He's very scared about this. I believe in this situation you have to leave home a bit to see what's happening. Go away, live. Or do what you have to do, but be sure about it. That's how I think. If you keep fooling yourself and keep doing the same things, you're going to be fucked. Guns were never like that. We did what we had to do, and we didn't have a name for it. It's only rock'n'roll, let's go! Let others put you in a category.

 

Quote

 

Everybody was trying to persuade me to stay in the band for money. I didn't want to stay the band. It was not good as it used be. It won't go well. Only three guys, not five. And AXL wanted to do something else. He didn't know what he was doing.

Even if I went to rehearsal at nine at night, AXL shows up at four or five in the next morning for about two years. I could not keep up with the schedule. There was no respect for me. That's enough, so I quit. I went to dinner with AXL and his manager. He was a manager of GN'R and still AXL's. I said "AXL, We had very fun together, but it's your own band now. I'm not interested in you as a dictator. I didn't come here to talk about the money advanced for next record. You can have it. See Ya." That's it. 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by RONIN

[Slugworth]

14 hours ago, jacdaniel said:

Even the fact that so many people left is a good indication that things weren't good. 

You can't expect talented musicians with other options to keep spinning their wheels year in and year out with nothing to show for it.

 

He's lucky both Finck and Buckethead stayed as long as they did. In the case of Finck, he left temporarily before Buckethead came in.

 

His first instincts were right. It wasn't coming out anytime soon.