It's frustrating, 'cause I think Navarro would've been the perfect complement to Slash and Axl at the time. Listen to his solo album, and it's full of the experimental NIN-style muso noodlings that Axl was in love with. Listen to the Chilis and Jane's Addiction, and he's nailed the sleaze-rock vibe. He's humble enough to take a back seat to Slash playing classic rock rhythm for the Camp Freddy gigs, but he's musically skilled enough to do the crazy technical Buckethead/Zakk Wylde stuff Axl clearly wanted to bring to the table. And he's just, well... cool.

Of course, there was the small issue of all the heroin...

Like I say, I find Slash's beef with Huge really hard to fathom. He claims that Huge was just some old school friend of Axl's, and "not exactly Izzy". Well, the facts don't bear that out; Huge co-wrote I.R.S., TWAT and Catcher, three of the best tracks off Chinese Democracy (okay, he also co-wrote Back Off Bitch, but even Izzy had his off days).

It seems to boil down to Huge doubling up on the solo in Sympathy for the Devil - which, as I've said, benefited the song. Slash clearly has a bit of an ego on him - God forbid that anyone should attempt to share the limelight with him, even if they're a more talented/technically skilled guitarist. Witness the big spat with Axl over sharing lead duties with Zakk Wylde ("like a giant snake fighting a T-Rex"). Or the Slash and Friends gig, where John 5, for Christ's sake, was stuck on rhythm. Slash seems to get on well with Navarro - probably because Navarro knows to suck it and sit back on rhythm duties during all the Camp Freddy gigs.

Be interesting to speculate on what Axl would've done with Fall To Pieces. It'd certainly be completely different lyrically, it's a very personal Scott song.

'Course, we're also overlooking things like: the versions of TWAT and IRS that would've appeared on this album would be extrapolated from the pre-Buckethead versions; so no gigantic solo at the end of TWAT (unless Slash had the same brainwave). Indeed, it wouldn't even have the killer Finck solo or his licks over Axl screaming "I would do anything for you." Which kinda make that song.

It's a pretty solid album, but the other thing we've got to remember is that in 1996, it would've been "just another GN'R album". The mythology of Chinese Democracy hadn't built up, GN'R-style rock had yet to be rehabilitated in the wake of the grunge explosion... I don't think it would've made that much of an impact. Certainly not as much as Chinese Democracy would've done had it been released in 2002.