Robb Flynn had a rant on his FB page.  I'm not on FB, I read this from Blabbermouth.

I like his take on things, he has a point. And thinking about what he says about Axl and band, I agree with him there too.

Apologies if its a long load of shit that shouldn't be in this forum, but it's slow round here so thought I'd post it up.

Source: http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/machin … reativity/

"I'm in a shitty mood.

"Not for the story I'm about to tell, but because of my thoughts afterward.

"I went out to San Francisco for my buddy Joe's birthday shenanigans. We went out for Moroccan food at a joint called El Mansour. The place had a great vibe, belly dancing, sword balancing, and amazing food! The lamb in particular was to-freakin'-die-for, slow roasted and covered in honey and cinnamon.

"On the way out there, Joe's buddy Tony picked me up from JingleTown [studio], since I didn't want to drive as I knew I'd be drinking. On the hour-long trip out (Saturday traffic to San Francisco), he was telling me some pretty awesome stories about growing up in the ''70s. You see, Tony was a teenager in 1975, and used to go the famous San Francisco venue Winterland. Winterland was before my time, but being part of the scene you heard the legend, the stories and the history.

"Tony is a big BLACK SABBATH fan, saw them back in '75 on the 'Sabotage' tour and said it was a life-changing experience. Him and his buddies used to go to Winterland, load up on LSD, cigarettes, and weed, and go watch pretty much the cream of the crop of classic rock bands. TED NUGENT, SABBATH, DEEP PURPLE, JOURNEY, MONTROSE, you name it, he went and saw it. The shows would start and if people loved the opening band (essentially cheering non-stop) they'd get to do encores. He was telling me about a show JOURNEY (the opener!), killed it, and they got 4 encores, the support band got 4 encores! Then the headliner, MONTROSE, got 5 ENCORES! MONTROSE didn't stop playing until 2:30 in the morning, everyone stayed, no one would even dare consider leaving and people experienced some of the best music of their lives.

"An opener getting encores, crazy…

"And the venue allowed things like this to happen. The venue just kept the bands rolling.

"Not only that, but all of the shows at Winterland were $4.50.

"4 dollars and 50 cents…..18 freakin' quarters!

"Wow…?!?

"All I could think of was 'what an amazing time for music.'

"People wonder why the 'classic rock' bands were so good. They were playing by their own rules, and they had a culture of venues and people around that were as crazy and fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants as the bands themselves. The promoters around that time did anything to make the bands happy and if it meant playing all goddamn night? Let 'em!

"I tell you right now, though, there isn't a band out there who would play til 2:30 a.m. nowadays, let alone find a major venue that would even ALLOW such a thing.

"I remember when I first started going to /playing thrash shows, it was a very similar thing. It was no rules, no security, no safety, no curfews, and for the most part anything went!
Venues these days are mostly run with union workers. In most major cities, you have to take breaks during the day, where a band can't even sound check for an hour because the union workers need a 'break.' Nowadays if you play 1 minute past 11 p.m. at any of the large union venues, it costs the band $1,000 dollars a minute. When we were out with METALLICA playing arenas they regularly play 20 minutes past 11:00 p.m., and they regularly paid $20,000 to do so.

"I went and saw PEARL JAM about a month ago, and they played one of the best, most truly rock 'n' roll shows I've seen in eons. It was fucking magical, Eddie Vedder drank 3 bottles of wine, and about 2 hours into the set, he started getting a little sloppy, forgetting lyrics, missing cues, it looked like it was about to fall off the rails. The band then they took a quick break and he came back and played 'Black'.

"Let me tell you, it was magic! I'm getting goose bumps writing this, just remembering it. It was such a turn-around; it totally took the night to an even higher level. At this point they were already 45 minutes past 11. They played several more songs and eventually the Oakland Arena (currently called the Oracle Arena, until some different stupid corporate sponsor buys it and changes it to something ridiculous like Florida's 1-800-Ask Gary Amphitheater) turned on the house lights, signaling them to stop. PEARL JAM said 'fuck you!' and played 2 more songs with the house lights on! Eddie Vedder then brought the band back out onstage to do an extra-long goodbye to the crowd. I love their fucking attitude.

"In the end, they played 70 minutes over 'curfew' and I'd imagine left Oakland about $70,000 dollars lighter to do so. Of course PEARL JAM can afford it, and frankly it gave every single person there one of the best shows of their life. But this gesture to keep the 'room' in a good mood in conjunction with the Winterland conversation, it got me thinking.

"Shit has changed.

"On the one hand, I love PEARL JAM's 'fuck you, were doing it our way' attitude, and on the other hand, it angered and depressed me.

"Only the METALLICAs and PEARL JAMs can pull things like this. Bands that have sold millions of records, and they can afford it.

"If MACHINE HEAD tried playing an hour over curfew at say, the House Of Blues in Dallas, Texas, we'd be walking out of there with our entire guarantee eaten up. Even if the fans wanted it, some venue would do their best to shut it down, cut power, close curtain, whatever.

"The music business has sucked the life out of creativity. No one is encouraged to take risks, no one is encouraged to push the envelope, because it's all about first-week sales! It's about pointless radio play and how good your last tour went. How venues and promoters are squeezing the last drop of spontaneity out of your soul by not 'allowing' you to playing past curfew and not drawing outside the line.

"When we play that game, we essentially applaud mediocrity.

"There's nothing dangerous about music these days, there's nothing surprising about it either. There can't be. Other than PEARL JAM, the only 'band' that doesn't seem to really give a flying fuck and plays by their own rules isn't really a band at all, are they? Axl and the ROSES are known for bending the rules and telling the powers that be to 'fuck off,' but because their band is so confusing they come across as a joke. But people don't see this. People don't see any of this!

"And the reason you don't care is because it's too easy to get sucked into your phone, or your Facebook, or your Twitter, or your Tumblr, or your Instagram, or your games, or your TV shows.

"Music isn't important anymore. Say it is all you want, but the fact is, the 2 biggest rock records of last year only sold 400,000 copies, neither even went gold.

"Music is in the background of a game. Why go to a show when you can watch clips of it on YouTube and bitch about how it stinks live?

"And you know what, I miss music being important! I miss live shows being important. I miss feeling a part of something that was so high on my list I'd crawl through broken glass to get it.

"All this technology we have now that's supposed to make us 'connected?' It's making me feel more fucking disconnected than ever. I mean watching all the things that other people are doing that I'm not invited to or even a apart of? And yet at the same time completely disgusted by faux-self-importance it has given everyone, (here's my dog or cat for the millionth time, here's a selfie for the millionth time, here's my kids for the millionth time, here' the food I'm eating for the millionth time, here's what I'm doing and you're not). Don't you wish you were eating what I'm eating?

"Fuck you!

I've thought of tweeting or Facebooking something so many time and just went, 'who cares', why should anyone care about this, and you SHOULDN'T care.

"You're all my 'friends,' you've all 'liked' me, but really, you're not my friends, because we don't know each other. You took a photo of me, or you interviewed me, or we talked after a show. And after you get past the initial coolness, of re-connecting with someone from high school on Facebook or Twitter, you realize you truly have drifted apart.

"And fuckin' A, I'm glad we did.

"I don't want to be 'friends' with everyone; I don't want to be 'liked' by everyone. I want to feel connected to something. And nothing I look at in the music business does that. I don't get radio bands; I don't get any of these fucking 'scene bands.' I don't get bands singing about how great being American is, as if the geographic location you were born, (and had zero control over in any way shape or form), somehow makes us better than any other geographical place of birth!?

"I don't get why people don't want to see live music anymore, I don't get it. Did you see the clip of Hetfield talking about how America needs to start 'wanting' music again? This is James 'Fucking' Hetfield talking, people! Didn't those words do anything to anyone? Didn't what he said make you feel a bit disgusted? I'm a METALLICA fan and those words being spoken kind of stung a bit.

"You can bitch all you want that MACHINE HEAD only does festival tours and only plays for 30 minutes, but all those bands (including us) that play festival tours, can't draw squat when were not on festival tours. And even the big metal festivals are having troubles. Maybe the days of bands touring is coming to an end? Bands didn't always tour, you know, Mozart didn't hit the road for a year or 2 back in the day. Touring is really a phenomenon of the last 60 years or so. People didn't always buy records, or CDs, or files, or streams, that's also a phenomenon of the last 60 or 70 years.

"I don't get the political fucking correctness of music anymore.

"I don't get the narrow-mindedness of the world anymore.

"I don't get people asking me every week to try and write 'more like 'Burn My Eyes', please.'

"I don't get religious nutjobs who think that when they die they're going to 72 virgins when they get to heaven. ('You're guaranteed to get some pussy in the afterlife, boys,' so obviously written by a man!)

"I don't get religious fucking nutjobs who think that Jesus is coming back soon, wearing a white, blood-stained robe (stained with the blood of his enemies…whoever those are) and will be carrying a sword, and by 'sword,' the bible meant an AR-15!

"What did Napoleon say? 'Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.'

"I don't get why we need to hear 'America The Beautiful' and 'thank a soldier' in a TV commercial, 22 and 14 times respectively during the Superbowl.

"I don't fucking get it.

"You don't care about music, and I don't care about music, and I sit here wondering if this feeling is a result of the business itself, or is the business a result of our own apathy towards music.

I feel lost.

"I feel alone.

"Something has to change.

"Someone has to stir the pot.

"Something needs to come along and wake us up out of the slumber."

Another Ron interview, where he spills some beans and speaks his mind again. I like it, more than you get from anyone else in the Guns camp.

GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal spoke to Argentina's Vorterix prior to his November 24 appearance at The Roxy Palermo in Buenos Aires. A few excerpts from the chat follow below (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On recurrecting his solo career:

Bumblefoot: "Before GUNS, I was touring all the time, doing my own stuff, putting out my own albums, doing all kinds of things. And then once GUNS got busy with all the touring, it slowly… there were too many conflicts with the schedule and everything else that I did in my life slowly sort of fell to the side until it reached a point that I just was not really putting anything into it. And in the second half of this year, GUNS kind of went into hibernation — as sometimes happens — and I was, like, 'You know what? I've gotta get back on the horse. I've gotta start doing my thing again and becoming me again.' And I started doing a lot of clinics and master classes and jamming and just going all over the world, jamming with local musicians and doing shows. And that is what brings me here this evening."

On GUNS N' ROSES' future plans:

Bumblefoot: "The future is completely unpredictable; you all should know that. It's just trying to say, 'Alright, what direction is the tornado gonna turn?' Anything can be. I'm sure that 2014… Actually, I shouldn't say 'sure,' because it's unpredictable. But I can assume, but when we assume, we make an ass out of… Probably there will be some shows in the future, and I'm hoping that there will be some completed recordings in the future. I would like to see the band write as a band from the ground up and put some music out there. I've been saying for years that we shouldn't even tackle an entire album because it's too big a bite to take. It's too much — it takes too much time, too much of an investment of life that just doesn't exist. Not in this day and age, and not where things are with the band. We'd be better off just doing a song at a time and putting that out. What I've always wanted to do was, before each time we go out and do a leg of touring, that we get together for a week in the studio, we write a song, we finish that song no matter what it takes, we finish it and we put it out and we play it on that leg, we give it to radio. Every single time we go out and play, we have a new song that we're doing. And if we did that, it would be an album worth of material done that would be done by this band right now. Yeah, if I was master of the universe, that's what would have happened. I mean, you're dealing with seven other people and everybody's gotta be on board and everyone has to agree on a strategy. And it has to coincide with any existing, or preexisting business agreements that are there as well. I mean, it's complicated."

On GUNS N' ROSES leader Axl Rose:

Bumblefoot: "I think I've been a much bigger pain in the ass to Axl than he's been to me. That's for sure.

"I am very honest and probably honest when I shouldn't be. Kind of like when you should say nothing and be silent, instead of being silent, I'll [say something] usually on the radio. And he'll get a hundred e-mails about it. Or probably just hear from everyone else.

"I think he kind of, in a weird way, probably likes that I am a pain in the ass. Because even in the beginning, when we had the big management fight, before joining the band, I remember hanging out with him and he liked the fact that I went after his team of lawyers that the manager sent after me to try to take me down, and I just came out swinging at them. And I remember he said to me, we were hanging out one time, he was, like, 'Your balls, when they touch, they go, 'Clang.''

"But he knows what he's gonna get with me. I'm not gonna give him lip service and be dishonest. If he asks me something, I'm gonna tell him [what I think]. And he's a human being. He's like everyone else.

"You just want the truth. Nobody wants games or anything like that. You'd rather have honest bad news than be strung along with things that aren't true. And that's one thing about him is that… He's a human being. I know him as a person. I know what my flaws are, I know what his flaws are, I know what everybody's flaws are. And we're all just human."

On the recently leaked song called "Going Down" which reportedly features GUNS N' ROSES bassist Tommy Stinson on lead vocals and Axl Rose on background vocals:

Bumblefoot: "Yeah, I'm aware that some stuff did leak.

"You know what? Here's the problem. And this is why I say that I am also a bigger pain in the ass to Axl, because when it comes to something like this, when something leaks, that is an illegal activity which could possibly, depending, lead to legal [issues], in which anything I say could be used against [us]. So when something leaks, it's very important to say nothing because it could affect legal issues, and it's better not to talk about that. But I tend to talk…

"Here's the thing: Before 'Chinese Democracy' came out, which, as we know, was exactly five years ago yesterday, I started working on an acoustic album called 'Barefoot' that I ended up releasing the following month, after 'Chinese' was released. So I have a little acoustic EP called 'Barefoot'. There was an additional song that I recorded on that album, along with everything else, where pretty much that album, it was just two guitar tracks, maybe some bass in the background and vocals; it was very raw — just acoustic guitar, acoustic lead guitar, vocals. I did it all myself. While I was at it, I kind of recorded an extra song. From what I understand… yeah… So, anyway, if you listen to the 'Barefoot' album, you might notice a similarity in tone and playing and everything to other acoustic songs that might have escaped the… Yeah. But I don't know anything about anything."

On whether he gets along with former members of GUNS N ' ROSES:

Bumblefoot: "GUNS N' ROSES, it's like a life that has different chapters. And there are different people in those chapters, and I'm in one of those chapters and those [other] guys were in a chapter, and we're all part of the big book, we're all part of the big book of GUNS. And it's cool. I'm in touch with a bunch of the guys and stuff, and everybody's cool with each other. Really, the ones that I'll reach out to and shoot an e-mail to and say 'hi' to are Duff [McKagan] and Gilby [Clarke].

"I think people want us to be these superheroes and villains and good-versus-evil and these wrestling characters of good guys and bad guys, but we're all musicians. And it's not the thing that separates us, it's the thing that we have in common. It's, like, we all played in the same band. And sometimes at the same time. Sometimes Izzy [Stradlin] joins us on stage, sometimes Duff. It's great. Then afterwards, we all go to dinner. And once in a while, our wives are talking and stuff. And it's all good. Everybody's cool."

On whether he is in touch with Slash:

Bumblefoot: "That one I steer clear of. Simply because there's such a heated relationship between Axl and Slash. I don't want Axl to feel betrayed if I'm… I think it would bother him if… [Slash and I] have a lot of mutual friends, though.

"[Slash and I] almost were in a situation when we might be on the same stage together in Las Vegas in July. I was playing with the bass player from PANTERA, Rex Brown, and Brian Tichy on drums, who had played with Slash, and we were doing a bunch of KISS covers in Vegas, just having fun. And it was the same night that Slash was doing his final show of his fun and he was in Vegas. Yeah, we were just playing not far from there, and there was talk that he was gonna come and play on stage. And I was, like, 'Hmmm….'

"Because, for me, I don't have problems with anybody… Although I do have a couple of problems with Mr. Adler. 'Cause he tends to say some nasty things about the current band, and then I say some things back, and then he apologizes, and we make nice, and I talk to him, and then he says it again, he says something bad again. Steven, stop it! But even him, if I saw him, I'd give him a big, old hug. I'd tell him what a pain in my ass he is and then I'd give him a hug.

"But there was talk leading up to that night, there were a lot of texts going back and forth between Slash and the guys I was with doing the KISS stuff about him coming and joining on stage for a song. And I'm, like, I don't wanna be rude and step down, because that's just, like, insulting. If he gets on stage, like, 'Alright, you play,' and I'm walking off. But then if I do it, it's, like, that's kind of not cool at all to Axl, 'cause I know that he would feel really… So I was, like, 'Ahhh..what to do.' So there was just a lot of inter-texting and stuff, just kind of feeling it out with the guys on my end. It turned out that [Slash] had to grab a flight to Europe early the next morning, so he wasn't coming at the last minute, it wasn't happening.

"I mean, I wasn't that worried about it, because I'm just like, 'You know what?! Whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen.' You've just gotta kind of trust your gut in situations. And honestly, no matter what, the world is not gonna crumble. It's a bunch of musicians jamming and having fun. Ultimately, that's all it's about."

Source:  http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/bumble … I1AVUSk.99

I always liked Gilby, and still do.  I think he had a cool vibe that fitted well, even if he didnt have the song writing skills of Izzy. 

I found this quite interesting, he knew that he should enjoy it while it lasted, and Axl knew he was just there to see them through the tour. Writing was on the wall already.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/gilby- … um=twitter