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#781 Re: Guns N' Roses » Ron leaving the band after Vegas? » 590 weeks ago
As Fortus said in November,
DJ and I've worked on stuff, nobody's worked on stuff with Ron, but yeah... Really, what the focus has been lately is just been writing and stuff like that.
Gilby was let go the same way, actually. He confirmed in a recent interview that he was still in Guns when Sympathy was recorded.
#782 Re: Guns N' Roses » Ron leaving the band after Vegas? » 590 weeks ago
Was Ron ever more than just a touring guitarist though? When you think about it. DJ seems to be the guy post Bucket/Robin he is willing or wanting to write with. I never got that feeling with Ron when he came in or ever. He may have wanted that but I don't think it was ever in the cards.
Ron's history with Guns is checkered and full of revisionist history as it oft is with this band.
He was approached and nearly hired in 2004, about six months after Bucket issued his walking papers. There were talks about Ron coming in and doing some additional guitar parts, etc. It all went as well as it could until - Ron confirmed the rumors that he was courted for Guns. That killed the mood. Merck Mercuriadis canceled all talks with him, possibly because Axl had flipped a gasket. Ron was a bit dumbfounded, but he was on a long, winding road in learning how Guns do business.
Cue 2006. World tour starting. Comeback shows booked, album being readied. The incentive was to accumulate funds to continue with the band. As the record label support had dried up a few years earlier, Guns were semi-independent. Money was needed to complete the album, the album was needed to rebuild bridges with Universal. Most importantly, Axl needed to show he was for real.
Ron plays his first show in the Hammerstein, NYC, after two weeks' worth of rehearsals. The new songs he'd had to learn by playing next to a laptop. The band had real issues with him. They'd worked out everything to go smoothly with two guitars. They were ready to tour in that configuration. Two weeks before the tour, Merck and Axl step in, saying, 'Hold your horses! Here's our next Buckethead!'
Axl had been wanting for Bucket to come back all the way to the end. Some other guys were auditioned leading up to Hammerstein, but none panned out. The band felt they could work around the absence of Bucket - Axl had a differing view. Their backs agains the wall, they caved in and called Ron. 'We're sorry, man. Do you want to come in and audition?' Ron walked into a minefield and worked hard to prove his worth. He even carried his own amps to the stage and back again, brushing shoulders with the road crew.
Axl was pleased with him. Ron had the chops to churn out guitar solos and he was also a producer - a guitar producer. For Axl, he was a godsend. Ron dug deep into what was CD, found the Paul Huge/Fortus rhythm tracks lacking oftentimes, and redid them. He went through a slew of guitar solos Robin, Bucket and himself had committed to tape and handpicked what he felt were the best takes for any given song. He did a lot more than the fretless on CD, but most of it was that kind of 'silent' work.
Ron's undoing within the Guns camp was primarily his outspoken nature. He felt alien to the rest of the outfit. Early on, he decidedly skipped band meetings, because he felt he was treated like an underling. There was a lot of tension there. At the same time, Ron knew his only chance was to endear himself to the fanbase. He did a lot of press and gave out the impression that Guns are a band and they're having fun.
Then, along came DJ. Darren Jay was a Hoosier like Axl. Robin had walked, again, and Axl was lacking his Randy Rhodes. Ron was beginning to realize that he was out of that competition. Ron's alluded that DJ snuck up to Axl's good graces by telling the man what the man wanted to hear - a game Ron found hard to play. Ron touted that the band needs to get into a room and start hashing out songs. DJ was telling what a genius Axl is and how he's sent another batch of guitar tracks to him.
Ron reached out to Guns above and beyond the call of duty. One the biggest moments was his automobile crash in the summer of 2011. He got chronic back pain and was on medication for a long time, also enduring heavy-duty emotional strain. Then Guns told him a tour would begin in October at the Rock in Rio festival. And it would go on for a long while. Ron was between a rock and a hard place. Look at Axl - the shape of the performers was hardly a priority at the time. The tour was mainly for the money, again.
Ron persevered, but he was beginning to unravel. He was realizing this is what Guns do. They set up a big tour behind your back - without as much as a notice of these intentions - and then, they 'surprise' you by asking you to drop all other plans and head to the rehearsal. The flight's booked and it's leaving in a few months. Screw your personal life. Slowly, Ron was ostracized from the process which continues to be CD2. The likely outcome is that he was decided to be 'let go' after the Vegas shows last summer, if only the news trickeled down slowly.
If you're reading this, Ron, thanks for your time in Guns.
#783 Guns N' Roses » The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00) » 591 weeks ago
- apex-twin
- Replies: 40
I started picking up and picking apart what Axl had said about CD during the Sean Beavan era, and beyond, if relevant. Below is a speculated track listing, which replaces all post-Beavan songs with earlier counterparts. To begin with, after all these years we lack confirmed song titles to round up the original album.
"The record will be about, anywhere from 16 to 18 songs."
01. Chinese Democracy
02. Ides Of March ('98)
03. Berlin (Oklahoma) ('98)
04. Street Of Dreams
05. If The World
06. There Was A Time
07. Catcher In The Rye
08. Oh My God ('99)
09. Riad N' The Bedouins
10. Silkworms ('00)
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute
15. Atlas Shrugged ('99)
"We recorded at least two albums' worth of material that is solidly recorded. But we are working on a lot more songs than that at the same time."
"We've been working on, I don't know, 70 songs."
"It took working on the majority of these things and at least the couple albums' [worth] of material to figure out what should be on the first official Guns album."
"It's not an Axl Rose album, even if it's what I wanted it to be. Everybody is putting everything they've got into singing and building. Maybe I'm helping steer it to what it should be built like."
"I am building something slowly, and it doesn't seem to be much out there as in here, in the studio and in my home."
CD
"It's a lot of different sounds. There's some other really heavy songs, there's a lot of aggressive songs, but they're all in different styles and different sounds. It is truly a melting pot."
"Imagine Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti remixed by Beck and Trent Reznor, and you'll have some sense of Axl's new sound." (David Wild, RS 01/00)
"There will be elements of blues-based things on the new Guns record. It's a very diverse record. There's a lot of hip-hop beats, there's straight-ahead rock."
"Song after song combines the edgy hard-rock force and pop smarts of vintage Guns n' Roses with surprisingly modern and ambitious musical textures." (David Wild, RS 01/00)
"I just wanted to be good enough [on guitar] to be able to contribute what was needed to this main album."
"The first one is definitely more guitar-based."
"We're still recording. I'm doing the vocals."
"I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it."
"Why I chose to do it that way is that, you know, I can sit and write poetry 'til hell freezes over, and getting attached to any particular set of words... I felt that I would write to those words in a dated fashion, and we really wouldn't get the best music."
"I'm about three-quarters of the way through [with the vocals], and it's a very difficult process for me.
"There's not a whole lot for [the rest of the band] to do at this time in regards to recording, as we've recorded [a] majority of material."
"Maybe if it were to get closer to, say, mastering or mixing, maybe there could be something someone else could add to it."
"You know, basically taking the advance money for the record and actually spending it on the record."
CD2
"I wouldn't say it's like, you know, that we recorded a double album, or that we have all of our scraps to be the second one. There is a distinct difference in sound."
"We have material that we think is too advanced for old Guns fans to hear right now and they would completely hate."
"The second [album] leans probably a little more to aggressive electronica with full guitars."
"We were exploring the use of computers [along with] everybody really playing their ass off and combining that, but trying to push the envelope a bit."
"It's like from scratch, learning how to work with something and not wanting it just to be something you did on a computer."
"What we're doing is exploring so, you know, you get a good idea, you save it, and then maybe you come back to it later."
"Maybe you get a good idea and you go, "That's really cool, but that's not what we're looking for. Okay, let's try something new.""
"It's like, "Hmm, I have to push the envelope a little too far. We'll wait on that." So we got a list of things."
Lyrics
If Axl wrote lyrics for a song, that song was considered an A-lister. That song likely had a name, unlike Instrumental #34.
"If you are working with issues that depressed the crap out of you, how do you know you can express it? At the time, you are just like, 'Life sucks.' Then you come down and you express 'Life Sucks,' but in this really beautiful way."
"'I hope [Stephanie Seymour's son, Dylan]'ll hear it when he grows up, if he ever wants to know the story, to hear the truth,' Rose says a little quietly."
And what is that story? 'How I met (and parted with) your mother'?
There are such songs (Street of Dreams, TWAT, Prostitute...), but Uncle Axl also has more global concerns.
Riad and the Bedouins.
Lyrically, Riad's something else. It's actually a camouflaged hotspot on the album.
"This album wasn't made so much for myself, money, ego or fame. It was made because people like Riad and those like him exist, no-one seems to care or have any idea how to approach such a complex reality and, unfortunately, we all suffer."
"Riad is the name of my one-time momentary brother-in-law. The former brother-in-law of Erin Everly, he went by when I knew him. Of part Lebanese descent and a former student of the Pepperdine University, he claims to be an international arms dealer, billionaire with ambitions of being 'King of the World'.
...He claims his most prized asset is his anonymity. He also claims to be an expert in military strategy and was the inspiration for the Guns song Civil War, which was written per his request for a song how 'people were stupid and he could sell them anything because men love to kill each other.'"
With the backstory, the lyrics of Riad actually become sensible. It's about becoming aware of the arms smuggler's plan to take over, getting fed up and foiling their plane. In the end, they "crossed the line and lost again."
"[Riad] also claims to be an expert in global finance and money laundering, living tax free in Bel Air the last I was aware of, and claiming to launder monies for wealthy individuals in several countries, predominantly Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, with ties to the Bush/Reagan administrations and wherever there's a war in the world at any given moment."
IRS arguably follows along the same lines actually, juxtaposing tax evasion with a past relationship.
Chinese Democracy.
"The use of the two words, 'Chinese' and 'Democracy', was intentional, though perhaps not in the way many may think."
"There's a lot of Chinese Democracy movements, and it's something that there's a lot of talk about, and it's something that will be nice to see. It could also just be like an ironic statement. I don't know, I just like the sound of it."
"I'd like to take some of the old Guns fans along with me gradually into the 21st century."
"I feel that the prejudice and closed-mindedness of, at least, many outspoken Guns N' Roses fans seems to warrant an awareness of the realities of a constantly evolving and ever-growing world, where China continues to play an ever-increasing role."
"The reality of life for an entire country, with the largest population in the world - and my particular focus - is that you would suffer... daily. Unless your mind and/or education could maneuver through the minefield of communist law enforcment and government bureacracy... You would see suffering and you may even choose to simply be suffering as a means to an end."
Read it sideways. There's a lot of CD movements, there's a lot to talk about, and it will be nice to see. Their band, their baby, got to rule the nation and bought Axl a whole lot of precious time in the process.
The flipside is that CD, as it is, is a paradox. The irony emphasizes the possibilty of its existence. The totalitarian government is your record company allegory. A frustrated creation process. A song downplaying and heightening the CD myth both at the same time.
Oklahoma.
"'I can't come up with any lyrics right now - they'd be about every other lawsuit I got going.'" (Zakk Wylde quotes Axl, Spin, 07/99)
One lawsuit song is enough, then?
"168 people just got killed... I'm sitting there [in litigation] with [Erin Everly], she don't care. Obliterating me is their goal."
Oklahoma would then be about obliteration, both viewed from afar and felt immediately. Like CD, it links personal issues with an ongoing, external event.
Atlas Shrugged.
"Song doesn't have all that much to do with the book other than trying to do what you believe in and a line about shoulders not being wide enough."
"I basically figured out a way to save my own ass. There was only one way out, and I found it. Otherwise, you know, I believe my career was just going down the toilet. I figured out how to save my ass and then tried to bring everybody with me."
Atlas Shrugged may be about the fall of the old band and how Axl hoisted Guns on his back, for better or for worse. Only his shoulders proved too narrow, and the others fell off.
Therefore, Axl's three main theses for the album were, supposedly, the relationship breakdowns, the global struggle - and making the album.
The Beavan album was reportedly mastered. It would be a curious thing to hear.
#784 Re: Guns N' Roses » sp1at thread » 592 weeks ago
Kaneda (a former regular to the forums who orchestrated the Dr Pepper giveaway) posted this on MyGNR:
I've heard from sources within the band that a new album is coming this year. Most of the songs are from the Chinese D era. No free dr pepper this time around
51 Tuesday's left in the year.
#785 Re: Dust N' Bones & Cyborg Slunks » Adler back in studio » 593 weeks ago
Curb some of the enthusiasm.
Helming the sessions once again is producer Jeff Pilson (FOREIGNER, DOKKEN), who told "The Double Stop" podcast earlier this month, "Steven started recording today [at my Southern California studio]; we recorded the first tune today. I don't know if we're gonna do a whole record. I think we're gonna just do a couple of songs, because it's kind of, like, why bother doing a whole record these days?"
Having said that, it's nice that Adler's been (apparently) sober and back in the studio. Seems like a good plan to make a roundtrip to the studio; hopefully, he'll take the band on the road soon after.
It was rather anticlimatic to hear he fell apart (again) right after finally putting the album together some years back. Just reminded me how things had been all the way since the Jizzy Pearl/Keri Kelli/Brent Muscat/Robbie Crane configuration of Adler's Appetite; a seasoned group of rockers hailing from the AFD era, a totally groovy unit which was sabotaged from the get-go by, largely, Adler's personal issues. The biggest difference between then and now is the existence of the studio album, which at least stands the test of time to prove Adler still feels compelled to create new things, at least when he's got it together. It's been much like as it has been with Axl, fearing for the moment he'll eventually shoot himself on the foot, letting his band and his fans down - again.
Good luck to Adler, hope he stays on the straight n' narrow.
#786 Re: The Garden » The Rant Thread » 593 weeks ago
Windows 2000 was the shitz! The stability of the NT line along with the multimedia compatibility that came from 95/98. It was (and possibly still is) mistaken by many for its inferior second-cousin, Millennium Edition (ME), which was, by all accounts, on the level of Vista before people even knew to shudder at the notion. Win2K actually developed into XP, most of the good stuff stayed, some was left on the roadside. But as far as the MS GUIs went, the 2K was the one for me.
#787 Guns N' Roses » Fortus reminisces on Guns and Australia » 593 weeks ago
- apex-twin
- Replies: 0
http://www.noise11.com/vinterviews/rich … -daisies-2
Transscribed the Guns bits from the above Fortus video interview, published on 12/23/14. Paul Cashmere is one of the best journalists out there to get GNR stuff on the record, and once again, he lures Fortus into talking candidly about the band, despite the focus of the interview being, nominally, the Dead Daisies.
Paul Cashmere: I remember seeing one of the gigs at the My Music programme here in Melbourne, one of the Guns N' Roses shows you did, with Angry Anderson jumping up there.
Richard Fortus: Yeah...
PC: Who's the fan? Axl is the fan, but is everybody in the band the fan of Rose Tattoo?
RF: Yeah, I think we're all pretty big fans. And then, I played with Angry, with Rose Tattoo, in Sydney at the Rock for Doc benefit, and that was a big honor to go and do that. Yet, Rose Tattoo's opened for GNR a couple of times... The last couple of times we've been here. And, it's great, we love having them. And Angry usually gets up and does Nice Boys with us.
PC: Oh, yeah.
RF: But a lot of times he'll do soundcheck with us and play, like, old Humble Pie songs and stuff. What a voice, that guy.
PC: Ever since Slash got around in the 'No Way Get Fucked Fuck off' -T-shirt, The Angels are obviously another big influence on, y'know, a lot of members of this band, particularly David Lowy from Dead Daisies, too...
RF: Absolutely.
PC: ...he was very close to Doc Neeson.
RF: Yeah. And when Doc passed, GNR was in Vegas doing a residency, and we did Marseilles, in a few shows, we did that... In honor to him.
PC: Yeah, we had John Bruce join in a few days later and we showed him that video footage up on Youtube.
RF: And he was mortified.
PC: Oh no, he was really honored.
RF: Really?
PC: Oh, yeah, yeah.
RF: Oh, that's great.
PC: If anything, Marseilles is the most Angels-sounding Angels song. That's a great song to pick!
RF: I actually, I came down, we were doing a rehearsal that day, and I just heard the news and I told Axl, and Axl... sat at the piano and thought for a second, and he said, 'You know, I was really hoping I would get to see him again.' I actually just started playing and he said, 'Let's do it.' So, we did that night... Without half the band ever hearing it before (laughs). Yeah, some of the guys had never heard it before, so...
PC: Wow. You pulled it off. It worked!
RF: Yeah, it was fun.
PC: When was your first GNR gig?
RF: 200...2, I believe. Yeah, I was just telling about the first outdoor gig. It was that tour, yeah.
PC: Yeah, it rained for November Rain...
RF: Yeah. We were just talking about how it always rains when we play outside, for that song. But, yeah... that was my first outdoor gig, and it was pretty amazing.
PC: Well, you know, I know for a fact that it does happen, because it did happen in this city when you...
RF: I don't know what the deal is. Axl's got a direct line with God, or something. (laughs) But it seems uncanny that it happens a lot.
PC: This has been a very interesting year for you, because you've juggled both Guns N' Roses and the Dead Daisies. Is it pure luck that these two things don't collide?... He says holding his breath (laughs).
RF: Yeah, it's luck, but sometimes, there's been some conflicts, and it's difficult trying to keep them both going. Y'know, I've always dealt with this, doing Psychedelic Furs show, I did a tour with Rihanna, and went back and forth, and was able to work that out... at least, for a while. And I did Thin Lizzy, I did both bands, until I couldn't anymore.
PC: Nena was in there, as well.
RF: That's right. ... Y'know, to do pop gigs, it's fun for a little while. Then, I think it quickly becomes a job and that's when you get bored and say, 'OK, enough.' Because, it's very...
PC: You have to stick to the exact note every night, whereas with Dead Daisies you can play around a bit...
RF: Yeah, that's rock n' roll, that's different every night. Same thing with GNR, it's different every night. We don't even have a setlist. The songs are different. And it's dangerous... that's the difference between pop and real rock n' roll bands, I think. But with Nena, it was different, we had big sections where you never knew what was going to happen.
===
Other things of note include the mention that Fortus used to be a session musician in New York out of financial necessity. He couldn't had afforded to go on the road, as he would've missed out on session work, and touring in general doesn't pay as much. These were his pre-Guns days. He also misses the big-budget album making process, as nowadays, it's just usually people sending him files and he records stuff on them in his home studio. Curious little bits, when you consider where he's coming from with that.
#788 Guns N' Roses » "Like family members who were dead." » 594 weeks ago
- apex-twin
- Replies: 20
APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION
WHAT'S ON - DUBAI EDITION
December 2010
Issue 392
Better late than never, Axl Rose is finally promoting Guns N' Roses' not-so-new album, with Abu Dhabi at long last making it to his tour schedule. But why the wait?
Guns N' Roses - or as his detractors like to point out, Axl Rose and a band of replacements - are at last in the midst of touring after the anti-climatic release of the 15-years-in-the-making Chinese Democracy almost two years ago.
Gone is top-hatted icon Slash, who left acrimoniously in 1996 citing creative differences ("I think the beginning of the end was when we put a synthesizer on Paradise City", says the guitarist). Drummer Matt Sorum was fired by Axl Rose and Duff McKagan bailed soon after... Slash, McKagan and Sorum went on to form Velvet Revolver. Original drummer Steven Adler was long gone, as was co-founder Izzy Stradlin.
A revolving door of new guitarists has included Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails and solo shredder Buckethead, who entered the fray in 1997 and 1999 respectively and left their marks all over Chinese Democracy. Buckethead eventually bailed on the band (largely because he hated Finck) and later Finck, tired of waiting for Rose to move the project forward, returned to Nine Inch Nails - twice.
Still on board are Richard Fortus of Psychedelic Furs, who joined in 2002 (replacing Paul Huge who replaced Gilby Clarke who replaced Stradlin) and Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal, who signed up in time for their 2006 tour and some (supposedly) final recording sessions. The current tour is hosting the well-received debut of the newly arrived Darren Jay 'DJ' Ashba, a guitarist for Motley Crue offshoot Sixx AM.
Bass and keyboards have remained stable with former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson a rock solid member of Guns N' Roses since taking over from McKagan in 1997. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed had been around since 1991 and shadowy programmer Chris Pitman quietly appeared on the scene in 1998.
The drum stool has seen a high rotation, with Josh Freese doing extensive work on Chinese Democracy, including co-writing the title track, before handing in his notice. A hurt and angry Rose re-recorded with Primus drummer Brain. Later, session drummer Frank Ferrer helped out and it's Ferrer who's booked for the current tour.
Why the revolving door? And what took so long?
There are many reasons, say insiders, although the buck ultimately stops with Axl Rose. The business and emotional impact of the original band's break-up ate a good part of the nineties, and then when Rose finally gathered an all new line-up in 1998, he put them to work rehearsing and then (reluctantly) re-recording all the songs from the Guns N' Roses debut, Appetite for Destruction and eating up a good part of the year. Rose himself would not show up for weeks at a time.
"He'd be 'on' for a couple of weeks and then 'off' for a couple weeks," recalls Dave Dominguez, an engineer who started the sessions with Rose in the late nineties. "He called in pretty much every day, though. He'd ask who was there, what they were doing. He'd say to tell them that, 'I'm coming in, I'll be there in a while.' I'd tell the band, 'Axl called and said he's coming in.' Then he'd never show up."
Every few months, say sources, somebody, if not everybody, would get fired - at least management could step in and resolve the issue.
"It took two days to break the room down because he fired everybody," confirms Dominguez. "(Axl) would show up at two, two-thirty, and no one would be around, he'd get upset. 'Where are they?' 'I don't know, they all left.' Then he'd call the next day. 'Who's there?' 'Just Josh.' 'OK, have everybody leave. Have them break everything down. We're done.'
When the sessions were on track and Rose was in attendance, sometimes he'd play with the band but he'd rarely sing. He would talk, however. The studio was all business in terms of never having guests, drugs or alcohol around, but many nights the sessions would give way to nights of storytelling as the entertaining front man held court.
"He was quiet, soft-spoken, very amicable and friendly, and always very 'up'," recalls drummer Chris Vrenna, who turned down an offer to join the band after a few weeks of sessions that Rose rarely attended. "'Hey, did you see the movie that opened last night?' or 'Did you see the news today?' Or, 'Check out these records today', that sort of thing. He loved to debate or discuss something."
There were long conversations about his former band mates, especially Slash. "He spoke of them fondly," says a source. "Like family members who were dead."
The new material for years on end had no lyrics. Rose had the band record and log endless 'bits' of music. "Some were three seconds long, some where three minutes long," recalls Dominguez. "Sometimes it was just a guitar lick. 'Oh, that's cool.' They were transferred to CD. Everything had an ID and a number, then the CDs were made for each member of the band. They could go, 'OK, on set four, CD three, idea 15, let's do something with that.' Then everybody would take their CD home, get the part and write something to that. It was intense."
There was no hurrying or pressuring Rose. 'Prodding' often appeared to be grounds for the dismissal of numerous producers, record reps and managers. Producer Youth was terminated; apparently after Rose learned the man had been offered a million dollar bonus if he met a deadline. Sean Beavan, responsible for the unpopular soundtrack song, Oh My God, lasted a couple of years, as did Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker and Caram Constanzo, with Andy Wallace the last one up with Rose eventually taking the project to his home studio and later declaring that he never did find a producer.
There were plenty of distractions taking Rose out of music mode, including off-the-wall therapists dishing out treatments and counselling in the new age centre of Sedona, Arizona, which apparently didn't involve successful anger management - Rose was arrested for fighting with airport staff on his way home from there in 1998. Rose was also dealing with dozens of lawsuits with band mates, the record label and other business sources over the rights to the Guns N' Roses material and other issues.
In 2002, when the album wasn't ready as expected, Rose was convinced to reinvigorate (and help finance) the project with a world tour but that ended badly. Very badly. After getting off to a good start in Asia in the summer, it disintegrated, first with a no-show for the North American tour opener in November in Vancouver, and again in Philadelphia in December, both resulting in riots. The rest of the tour was cancelled and Rose disappeared.
In 2004, the record company cut its support amid long-standing complaints that the project was out of control financially (and to a lesser extent, creatively) and that Rose was unappreciative and belligerent. "They wrote him off," says a source. "I think they finally recouped enough of their investment by releasing the live album and the greatest hits package, and weren't really interested in making any new commitments."
Subsequent bouts of touring in 2006 and 2007 were low-key with not a lot of hoopla. Rose finally agreed to release Chinese Democracy in November 2008. The resulting record, with its moments of brilliance with layers of musical genius and true emotion was ultimately too complex to be accessible to radio. And with the label support still minimal, an angry Rose refused to promote it beyond one emailed Q&A with Billboard Magazine and some posts on a few Internet fan sites. He withdrew from sight.
"He's in one of his 'down' periods," revealed a source. "They can't get him to do anything."
It's taken some time, but Rose is now finally out of the doldrums and on the road, hitting the capital as a part of a fractured world tour that saw him play the UK and South America. Our advice is to see him while you can - who knows when he'll get round to the next tour...
#789 Re: Guns N' Roses » Ron leaving the band after Vegas? » 595 weeks ago
As Fortus said,
"DJ and I've worked on stuff, nobody's worked on stuff with Ron, but yeah..."
Ron's involvement with Guns since the CD release has been live only. There's a definite maybe that Ax will do one of his big gestures and ask Ron to do solos to new tracks, given new tracks are incoming at all.
But it wouldn't surprise me to see the band seeing Tommy and Ron out and having Duff back in.
#790 Re: Guns N' Roses » sp1at thread » 596 weeks ago
I would bet you anything the only producers on Better were Axl and Caram. Perhaps Sean was there at its conception, but that's probably about it. I haven't seen anything that says RTB did jack in recording any new music.
RTB handled, at first, the re-recording of the Sean Beavan '99 album. It was a different beast altogether, Axl'd recorded it at Rumbo Recorders, and i doubt it's a coincidence that one other album called Appetite was done there, too. He was after that certain AFD vibe from the get-go, with the band recording an entire cover album - quite possibly even in the same studio space!
The Beavan album was apparently mastered, btw. Sp1at alumni gigger had an email exchange with the late mastering engineer George Marino and he said he did it back in the day (99/00). To me, that's the real Chinese Democracy, all the Brain/Bucket stuff et al should've been natural progression in lieu of a follow-up.
"I think [Interscope head Jimmy] Iovine put Roy Thomas Baker in the producer seat because he didn’t think the raw sounds were good enough. Then Roy came in and would try every Marshall guitar amp in a five-state area to find just the right guitar tone. And he wanted to do that for every single part on the album." (Tommy, 04/09)
""They had recorded a bunch of stuff and Josh Freese had recorded a lot of stuff. I think he recorded 90% of the drumming on the 25-30 tunes that were floating around. When I came it was right when they got [producer] Roy Thomas Baker. He was coming from Queen, The Cars, Journey, more the rock thing. He said we had to go re-record the drums because they sounded very industrial." (Brain, 10/12)
"Roy Thomas Baker drove us around L.A. in his Rolls Royce to try to find the exact drums that we wanted for the recording. We went to every company, and it wound up being a mash-up of all the best drums we could find around L.A. We pretty much gathered the most ridiculous kit you could ever have, to re-record Josh’s parts." (Brain, 03/09)
"There was no time constraints, there was nothing. I don’t think anybody was keeping track of it. I was going, ‘I don’t know who’s paying for this, or what’s going on but I don’t really care because I get to come here and f*** off in one of the best studios in the world with some of the best drums and some of the best recording gear, everybody talks s*** about Axl and Guns N Roses but this is killer for me!’" (Brain, 10/12)
In other words, RTB had set his gaze on the sound of the band and was poised to change it by shuffling them through all that gear. The aggravated spending would've come up at this point. The Bob Ezrin / RTB period saw them move to Village Recorders, and set Brain's drumkit in the attic for the next five years. There's the story about the '59 Les Paul having been rented and forgotten in a corner for a couple of years. There was no floor-level management looking after things, as RTB was just thrilled to have the gig, just like anyone else. They could always invent new things to 'improve' the record; Axl needed to be the one to say, 'Now it's good.'
Of course, RTB's work was eventually scrapped and the album was re-recorded for the third time with Axl and Constanzo producing. There were songs added in during RTB's time (Shackler, Sorry...), but also afterwards with Better, et al.
I have serious doubts there's some big Lebeis conspiracy preventing a reunion.
I always felt the low point was Beta threatening to 'quit' (what? Her role in Axl's life) in an LA Times article should the band get professional representation after post-Azoff managers Doc McGhee and, later on, Peter Katsis were shown the door. Azoff, the record company and other parties with financial interests over Guns were more keen on the reunion idea than Axl, and based on what people like MSL and Marc Canter have said about Beta, her opinion on Slash seems aligned with that of Axl's, in that Slash's cancer. The silly part in all that is, obviously, that Axl and Slash don't need to do business together to rekindle their friendship.
