Before Buckethead joined GNR, he'd released a total of five solo albums between '92 (Bucketheadland) and '99 (Monsters and Robots). During his four years in Guns, he released eight studio albums. He also joined forces with Village studio engineer Dan Monti, a collaboration which helped him to reach a new artistic peak. In the long run, GNR was very good for Bucket, even though at times it was an extremely frustrating environment.

Tommy was living in the shadow of Paul Westerberg, as he'd gotten a short straw as The Mats collapsed and his most recent effort, Perfect, saw the record label giving a cold shoulder at the eve of an album release. Tommy wasn't working as a full-time musician anymore; he was a telemarketer. GNR's been (again) good for Tommy, as he made the contacts necessary with Sean Beavan, Axl and Sanctuary to get a solo record produced and released. Since his GNR post, he's also appeared more regularly in various soundtracks and other instances.

Robin's the kind of guy who got into the whole deal a bit ass-backwards. He's hardly a session player, he's a live musician. Be it Downward Spiral, Fragile, or Quidam @ Cirque de Soleil, Robin's forte has seemingly been the distinctive emotion with which he performs musical pieces. He's the epitome of a solid tour player; enthusiastic enough to perform someone else's songs - yet arrogant enough to withhold any unwarranted respect or sense of nostalgia. Robin's playing has always had a 'my way or the highway' attitude in it, which was sure to rile up all the Slash-a-haulics out there. Robin, he didn't care. He made sure that even if he was rocking out AFD every night, there was no top hat to be found in his repertoire.

All the people who moan about Robin's scarce discography might actually be missing the point. Robin might not be a person who measures his own merit in studio releases. His personal first love might even be the performance-side of things, playing live before an audience, doing tunes oneself can enjoy (despite whether he'd actually written them or not) and share the good vibrations with the audience. If studio work is secondary compared to the live rush, it may not be as much a wonder that Axl was the first to offer an unexperienced session player the chance to play lead in one of the biggest bands in the world. Robin didn't sought the job out; Axl must've seen something in him and decided to go for it.

(The same thing can be said about Paul Huge; although he's the polar opposite of Robin. For Paul, the fun lay in the studio work: trying out, experimenting, tinkering. He was an unexperienced live player and Axl wanted him on board as well.)

All the studio work Robin's done since has occurred on the strength of Chinese Democracy. John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars and Clint Mansell's Rain both happened in the laborious studio year of 2001, just Robin taking a break of re-recording parts already finished two years before. Taking his newly-gained studio experience and capitalizing on it a little.

Even LedZAerial, the Zeppelin tribute with some Cirque de Soleil associates was just another form of self-expression through music written by other people. Robin obviously had a knack for Jimmy Page and felt, again, that he could express himself through Page's riffs. There's no reason why you should push it trying imitate your heroes, when you can study their work hands-on and share the sensations they had when belting them out. Robin doesn't have to sound like Jimmy Page, he's probably more interested in taking something that's from Page and find out how much Robin he can inject into it.

Trent's known Robin for 14 years and has hired him on tours three times. Took him all this time to get Robin on studio, which should tell you something. For 14 years, Trent didn't see a studio musician, he saw a ripping live performer. He could've organized Robin to guest on NIN sessions in a flash, as both GNR and NIN were on Interscope roster. But Trent had to do two more albums while Axl was mixing his  - and still Trent's not calling Robin.

Finally, The Slip. It's a rather unusual recording by NIN, as it's the live band playing their respective instrumental parts rather Trent being cooped in the studio for months on end. That's one of things Trent submitted to in order to get the album out relatively fast in the heels of Ghosts I-IV (which could've featured Robin, but didn't, btw). Therefore, Robin's appearance on The Slip, while commendable and overdue, reeks heavily of convenient timing. He came in and played, so that he could tour behind it. Sounds like the work ethics of Slash's Snakepit. Nothing wrong with that, but the creative freedom may be slightly on the slim side.

CD is still Robin's album. Somehow, I get the feeling that he would prefer to be remembered as a GNR studio musician rather than as a journeyman axe-handler (Richard Fortus, please stand up).

The one person who wasted a lot of years without doing much anything else is, sadly, Axl Rose.