I guess if Slash had originally written the riff he would have said so in this interview instead of saying "Axl has all these songs and I wrote my own parts to what else was going on." There's also that press release that says it was written by Axl. It was probably one of the songs Axl was working on and had that studio band (the so-called "shadow band") record in the mid 90s and then Slash left before the then band did anything with them.

I can't imagine what Dizzy might have contributed to it either, but then he also has a credit on I.R.S (he shares 25% with Paul Tobias) - so, again, who knows.

I suppose that, say, 3 songs out of 12 where Paul Tobias (or Brain, or Tommy Stinson) would have a credit could be acceptable. But not the other way around.

Aside from Atlas Shrugged and Perhaps, there are songs like Oklahoma, or Nothing (if Axl finished it), or maybe even State of Grace, and probably others that potentially fit in this pattern.

As for Paul Tobias, no one knows what his current status is. I also don't know how big his input was. I always assumed that he co-wrote Hard Skool (which is probably from the batch of songs that originate either from 1995/96 or from the transitional period between "old" and "new" GnR, like Oklahoma, I.R.S., Oh My God and, possibly, State of Grace). But, although the credits for Hard Skool haven't appeared yet on ASCAP, GMR and SESAC, there are credits in the Billboard charts (which, based on other entries, seem accurate) and they are the same as on Absurd, i.e. Axl, Slash, Duff and Dizzy are listed as songwriters.

When Axl did the interview with Rolling Stone in late November 1999 (published early Feb. 2000), the title track was already called "Chinese Democracy". It's not clear from the description if any of the songs had vocals yet, but it seems at least some of them had lyrics:

Song after song combines the edgy hard rock force and pop smarts of vintage Guns N Roses with surprisingly modern and ambitious music textures. In addition to the album's almost grungy title track, tentative song titles include ''Catcher in the Rye,'' ''I.R.S,'' ''The Blues'' and ''TWAT,'' which he says stands for ''there was a time.'' Another song, called ''Oklahoma'' - heard tonight only as an instrumental - was inspired by a court date with ex-wife Erin Everly.

Josh Freese on Hard Skool, CD title track and Absurd. 16:00 minute mark:

I have transcribed the quote:

Freese: The only reason I know about the track Hard Skool at all is [that] my publishing company emailed me about it, maybe a week ago or a week-and-a-half ago, and said, “Do you know anything about the song Hard Skool? Did you have anything to do with the writing of it? Because it’s coming out” or “it just came out and we want to know what the splits are.” Because I guess it was done when I was in the studio with them. But we recorded so much material, and after I left they worked on so much stuff post me being there. And it was 20 years ago – over 20 years ago now – that I was there, that… There’s a few things that I really had a big hand in on the writing, for instance the title track, Chinese Democracy; I wrote the music to it. There was a few other songs that had working titles that never ended up on the Chinese Democracy record, but were laying around, and I know that at least when we recorded them 20 years ago, Axl liked them a lot. And once again, when I was there they didn’t have any lyrics yet, so they just had these working titles.

So when Hard Skool came out and I listened to it, I went “God, maybe that is one that I wrote that they’ve since… you know, later put lyrics to.” Like, when I was there in the studio with them, the song Chinese Democracy wasn’t called “Chinese Democracy” yet. I think the working title was “Smells like Josh Spirit,” because I wrote it and the chords were really simple – it’s just like kind of these three chords, over and over and over – and someone at one point goes, “This sounds kind of cool, like a Nirvana riff or something.” So it was titled “Smells Like Josh Spirit,” like up on the board where we had all the songs we were working on. Axl hadn’t written any lyrics to it yet, and that didn’t happen until after I left.

So, once again, when I went, “Okay, Hard Skool, let me listen to that, because maybe that’s what this song turned into or that song turned into,” I listened to it and I didn’t recognize hardly any of it, you know… That being said, maybe I did write some of it (laughs) - I mean, because, once again, it was 22 years ago. But there was two or three things that I brought in where I really wrote the majority of the music and I would definitely recognize instantly. As a matter of fact, before the track started playing, I’m like, “I wonder if it’s going to be this one, or this one, or this one,” because there were a few that were pretty cool that didn’t end up getting used, but that wasn’t one of them. Did they release more stuff or just that one track last week? [Brando mentions Absurd and that it was called Silkworms] Oh yeah. I didn’t have anything to do with that one.

Yes, they definitely weren't listed as part of the anniversary stuff, but they were among the regular shirts they were selling - at least that's what I remember.