Slash leaves

"Slash came back for some writing down at the studio, totally negative and belligerent, quits the fucking band and then publicly spins it into somehow he got pushed out." (Del James, Mudkiss, 2008)

"One of the few times I actually spoke with Axl about how it was going, it was pretty clear that we were coming from very different places. I was trying to get through to him once again about how working with Huge was a chore and a creative dead end in my opinion.

"You don't have to be friends to make a record," Axl said.
"Maybe not," I said, "but you do need to have some kind of mutual respect, you know."

We might as well have been talking about the two of us." (Slash, autobiography)

"The Stones were in town during this period; they were staying at the Sunset Marquis and recording at Don Wass' house, working on Bridges to Babylon." (Slash, autobiography)

"Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began devising new numbers together in the summer of 1996 with demos to follow at the end of the year." (Wikipedia)

"One particular evening, after they were done for the day, I went [...] to dinner at Chasen's [with Keith Richards.] [...] I'd been at the studio rehearsing all day, so when the conversation swung around to my band, I let it all out. Keith took it all in, and then looked me deep in the eye. 'Listen,' he said. 'There's one thing you never do - you never leave.' [...] Keith inspired me; I felt like I had to try harder. The next day I tried to refocus my outlook and I showed up at The Complex ready to make it work at all costs. [...] Axl never showed up to rehearse and the attorneys' negotiation of our 'employment contracts' had taken a really insulting turn." (Slash, autobiography)

"The original intentions between Paul and myself were that Paul was going to help me for as long as it took to get this thing together in whatever capacity that he could help me in. So when he first was brought into this, he was brought in as a writer to work with Slash." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

"Imagine you and I grow up together and you're my best friend. OK, I'm in Guns N' Roses and I tell the rest you're going to join the band. "OK, Slash, Axl, Matt, guys, this guy is in the band". "Duff, you got a minute?" "No, he's in the band" "Well, no. Everyone in the band has to vote it, Duff, so no way!" "Fuck you, this guy is in the band! I'm not doing anything unless this guy is in the band" "OK, you know what? We'll try and play with him, since you're that much interested in it. Hey Duff, the guy can't play" "I don't care" "Well that's not very reasonable." (Duff, Popular 1, 07/00)

"I tried to stick with it, but I wasn't alone in feeling like we were being force-fed some guy with no innate qualities who didn't deserve and couldn't handle the gig. But it was hopeless, we couldn't talk Axl out of it at all. I did what I could: I tried several times to have a one-on-one with Huge to see if I was missing some deeper spark in his character that Axl had seen..." (Slash, autobiography)

"Paul was one of the best people we knew who was both available and capable of complimenting Slash's style. You could bring in a better guitar player than Paul. You could bring in a monster. [...] Paul was a friend trying to help us and he had a huge respect for Slash." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

"It was like talking to a wall, a wall with a bad attitude. He was totally arrogant and gave off the vibe that he was Axl's boy, that he was in, and that everyone else had to deal with it. In a word, his vibe was "I'm great, fuck you!" And my response was "Yeah? Whatever!" (Slash, autobiography)

"Paul was only interested in complimenting Slash, laying down a foundation of a riff or something. That would accent or encourage Slash's lead playing." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

"By September 1996, Slash was so miserable that he swore, 'I'm going to confront it. Either Paul goes, or...' (Q Magazine, 05/01)

On 09/16/96, Slash shared the stage with Neurotic Outsiders in Phoenix, Arizona. Three days prior, Duff and Matt had returned to the road after a few days of in-between jamming with GNR. Slash's appearance might've marked the end of the Axl/Slash/Paul Huge/Duff/Matt/Dizzy -lineup.

"Right now, Axl and I are deliberating over the future of our relationship. [...] I have only been back in the band for three weeks and my relationship with Axl right now is sort of at a stand still." (Slash chat, 10/16/96)

"I called our management office, BFD, and told Doug that I wouldn't be coming back. [...] Later that night, I called Duff, Matt, and Adam Day and let them know." (Slash, autobiography)

"I worked with Slash quite a few months before [my time with Axl in '98] for a few days (when he was still in the band, he mentioned he was quitting, I saw the announcement on MTV two weeks later)." (Dave Dominguez, 2004)

"The reality was that I was basically going to do most of Slash's songs in particular, and work on those with him, but basically, anytime we got anything that would be halfway near something that was gonna be either successful because it completely kicked ass or was just strong in any way, then it was backed away from, and I believe that this has a lot to do with trying to keep the material down." (Axl, WRIF, 11/21/02)

"Had Slash stepped up and written what we captured glimpses of, it would have created an environment that was beyond Slash's ability to control. He did not want to do that or put himself through the rigors of taking the band to that level even if he was capable of writing it. Was he capable of doing it? Absolutely 100%. [...] Slash and his ex-wife Renee and his security guy and closest confidant at the time, Ronnie Stalnacker, could not live with that." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

"Axl contacted those closest to me, telling them I should change my mind. He called my dad, my security guard, my wife, Renee, and told each of them that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. He said that I was pissing away so much money because of my decision." (Slash, autobiography)

"Last time I talked to [Axl] was on the phone. I think he was going to sue me at the time." (Slash, KNAC.com, 10/00)

"I think the last words, basically, it was just, 'I'm done'... And it wasn’t even me necessarily leaving the band, it was not continuing on with the new band that Axl put together that he was now at the helm of, which was the new Guns N’ Roses. I was given a contract to basically join his new band, and it took about 24 hours before I decided, 'I think this is the end of the line.'" (Slash, Piers Morgan Tonight, 05/24/12)

On 10/30/96, Axl sent a fax to MTV, announcing that there will be a new GNR studio album, yet Slash is no longer in the band.

"Duff accepted my decision without any question, and Matt wasn't surprised either." (Slash, autobiography)

"It barely registered with me - I had long since come to grips with the fact that [Slash] was done. And anyway, it wasn’t as if Guns was active. He left behind an empty studio being paid for by an entity that itself barely existed." (Duff, Autobiography)

And as for the day after...

"Axl throws a costume party every Halloween for friends and their families. Enormous pumpkins ring the swimming pool, and spider webs hang in the trees. Specially built mazes and forts rattle with squealing children. Almost as excited as a child, Axl himself has been known to dash around and toy with every attraction. One past guest gets the impression that Axl is trying to re-create his own childhood, albeit one better than his actually was. The Halloween scene in the past few years hasn't been what it once was. 'His parties have been getting smaller and smaller,' recalls one recent guest. 'The ever-shrinking universe.'" (Rolling Stone, 05/11/00)

New Direction

"The songs are really good, and I have a good vibe about it. I wouldn't want to go out and do a bad Guns N' Roses record." (Slash, Kerrang, 09/21/96)

"We have been doing mostly Axl's material." (Slash chat, 10/16/96)

"Even if we don't sell any copy of the next album, I will be very proud of what we did. But I don't worry about it, I know that what we are doing right now is great. [...] We are working on rock songs that last only 4 minutes (laughs). We already did 7 songs and we will write 7 others. [...] It will be a single album with 10 or 12 songs." (Matt, 09/23/96)

"There will be a new Guns N' Roses 12 song minimum recording with three original "B" sides." (Axl, MTV fax, 10/30/96)

"The record will be all up-tempo rock songs ("No ballads," McKagan said firmly) and it will be just 12 songs, with a release planned for next spring." (Duff, Addicted to Noise, 08/30/96)

"So far, Slash and McKagan say the band has worked up about 16 songs, and the bassist reports that: 'the material is really strong...This record is going to fuckin' rock. There's nothing like the chemistry of Guns when we're in the same room.'" (Total Guitar, 01/97)

"It's gonna be an angry record, but that's what we were built on." (Slash, Kerrang, 09/21/96)

"This is not as sophisticated as Illusion, but not as wild as Appetite. It's in the middle. Maybe more groovy. Musically, we are all better. I never heard Duff play like that."  (Matt, 09/23/96)

"I would like it to be hard-edged like Appetite, but at this moment in time I have no idea what direction it's going in." (Slash chat, 10/16/96)

"The first batch of material I heard definitely had an industrial thing about it, but the direction could well have taken another swing since then. Axl could go anywhere with this album." (Slash, Kerrang, 12/00)

"I originally wanted to make a traditional record or try to get back to an "Appetite [For Destruction]" thing or something, because that would have been a lot easier for me to do. I was involved in a lot of lawsuits for Guns N' Roses and in my own personal life, so I didn't have a lot of time to try and develop a new style or re-invent myself, so I was hoping to write a traditional thing, but I was not really allowed to do that." (Axl, MTV interview, 11/08/99)

"So, I opted for what I thought would or should've made the band and especially Slash very happy. Basically I was interested in making a Slash record with some contributions from everybody else." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

"Axl treated the situation as if he and I were the two most important factors in the whole thing. He tried to convince me it was all good, that it was something he and I were doing as partners. He was trying to draw me into his world, to show me his version of things in his way, which is a very nice way, but I just didn't go for it." (Slash, Autobiography)

"3 years ago, I had a real role to play. Now it's between Axl and Slash. It's working well, so it's cool." (Matt, 09/23/96)

"The band managed to do a little bit of jamming and come up with some things. A couple of the ideas I had come up with Axl apparently liked and they were recorded onto Pro Tools and stored for him to work on later." (Slash, autobiography)

"I think that some of the riffs that were coming out of [Slash] were the meanest, most contemporary, bluesiest, rocking thing since Aerosmith's Rocks. The 2000 version of Aerosmith Rocks or the 1996 Aerosmith Rocks by the time we would have put it out." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

"Slash played the key bits of Fall to Pieces, but once I showed some interest that was over." (Axl, MyGNR, 12/14/08)

"I feel that some of the recordings we did in that limited amount of time had some of the best playing that Slash had done at least since Illusions. I was there. I know what I heard and it was pretty exciting." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)

Gearing up for rehearsals

In August, the full band were scheduled to return to the studio to write and record new songs.

"Duff: We're in [the studio], writing new songs...
Stern: And Axl's into it?
Duff: Yeah, totally. And, actually, today I was going to have to fly back right after this. We were going to start recording for this Jackie Chan movie, the next one." (Duff, Howard Stern Show, 07/25/96)

"We'll see where it goes. I haven't rehearsed with them, or even been in the same room with them, since before the Snakepit record came out (in ´95)." (Slash, Kerrang, 09/21/96)

Slash did share the stage on some songs with Neurotic Outsiders on 09/30/95 (The Joint, Las Vegas) and 10/20/95 (Irving Plaza, New York) before the conduction of the above interview. Slash mentions leaving for Hungary in a day or two, referring to his appearance at the Pepsi Island Festival on 08/14/96.

"I got this call from a promoter to do [Pepsi Island Festival], all expenses paid, in Budapest, headlining the jazz festival there. I agreed immediately; it was the kick in the ass I needed to go out and form a band. [...] After that, the calls rolled in for us to do more gigs, and before we knew it, we became a touring band [Slash's Blues Ball], doing whatever gigs we were offered as much for the money as for the beer." (Slash, Autobiography)

"[Slash] also enthuses about the new material Guns N' Roses have been writing. Apperently, the band members are currently trading tapes amongst themselves [before the actual recording sessions]. "It's amazing stuff," he says." (Slash, Kerrang, 09/21/96)

"The majority of things are done on the phone, until we actually get in the studio. A lot of things over the phone and sending tapes back and forth. And we've done this for years." (Axl, Rockline, 01/03/94)

"Axl is rhythym guitar on his own songs for the time being." (Slash chat, 07/30/96)

"I can't really play guitar too well, I only play the top two strings." (Axl, Rolling Stone, 08/10/89)

"For the last couple of years, [Axl] started to go, 'Okay, I'm going to play guitar and actually learn what these notes are.' It's an innocent guitar, not unlike Izzy (Stradlin, ex-GN'R guitarist) was, but Axl's got a lot more musically than Izzy ever did.'" (Duff, Addicted to Noise, 08/30/96)

"'That tripped me out when I first came back,' Slash says. 'I figured 'Okay, that's where his focus has been. I haven't really talked to him about it, to tell the truth. I guess he's just been sitting at home, figuring out chords or something. Maybe he's been taking lessons." (Slash, Total Guitar, 01/97)

"Right now, he's playing guitar and it's like he plays that instrument for ten years." (Matt, 09/23/96)

"Rose's sound is a lot more synthetic than anything I would get anywhere close to. That's about all I can say."  (Slash, Total Guitar, 01/97)

"As far as I know, Axl's intention is not to be the rhythm guitar player." (Slash, 10/18/96)

It is known that Circus of Power member Gary Sunshine has taught Axl to play guitar, although it's debatable at what point they began working together.