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I woke up this morning to a seemingly endless number of headlines announcing that Guns N’ Roses have, indeed, been voted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, and I’m as baffled by all the excitement now as I was when the band first became eligible for induction.
I have honestly never seen That Metal Show, but you’re goddamn right I set my DVR to record it tonight. ‘Cause tonight they’re gonna air the interview they conducted with Axl Rose a couple of weeks ago, and if I’m not mistaken, this is Rose’s first on-camera interview since 2002, and his first in-depth non-email interview since the release of Chinese Democracy three years ago.
“But what do you expect to see, dude?” you’re asking. “Axl is nuts. This won’t be good.”
I agree that Axl is nuts, but that’s precisely WHY I think this will be fun to watch. If the preview clips of the interview which have already been released (below) are any indication, Axl is a) in a good mood, b) paradoxically really upfront (he admits that he felt the pressure to finish Chinese Democracy and make it great, and he seems aware that a portion of his “fans” actually hate him) and not really upfront at all (he still refuses to take the blame for his tardiness), and c) completely paranoid and delusional in the most entertaining way possible (he thinks people see him as a dictator because of a joke Izzy made in an interview back in the 80s, and says he was pressured into touring behind Use Your Illusion). I mean, regardless of what actual, concrete info we actually take away from this interview, there’s no way it’s not gonna be good television.
The interview premieres tonight at 11 PM ET/PT on VH1 Classic, although if you don’t have cable, I assume it will be all over the internet in due time. Meanwhile, like I was sayin’ a second ago, you can check out a bunch of preview clips below and after the jump.
Get More: That Metal Show
Here’s a fun quote from a recent Sammy Hagar interview with Attention Deficit Delirium. Discussing the possibility of a reunion of the original Guns N’ Roses, Hagar says:
“They’ve proved it again and again and again that it ain’t [about] the money. They just don’t get along because Axl goes out for a lot less money with his version of Guns N’ Roses, and Slash goes out for a lot less money with Velvet Revolver or by himself. The amount of money they could make if they got it all back together, made a great record and toured the world would probably be as much as the Rolling Stones [get], and for them not to do it, it obviously ain’t about the money. Because they could do it. I would manage them. I’d be their manager and make sure they got the right deal from all the promoters. They could be the biggest band in the world if they wanted to.”
There’s three things I find funny about this statement:
So long as Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, and Duff McKagan are all involved, no one would be more excited about a reunion of the original Guns N’ Roses than me. Yeah, I’d prefer if Steven Adler were the drummer instead of Matt Sorum, but that seems unlikely, and I’d be willing to settle. I’d be severely depressed about it, but I’d probably even be willing to settle for Gilby Clarke instead of Izzy if it came down to it. And I know there’s really no chance that the reunion would be great; Axl has turned into Yosemite Sam and Slash has a pacemaker and can’t run around the way he used to, so, at best, it would be a total nostalgia trip. But it would be a lot of fun, and given that Rose has completely failed to maintain a stable line-up of G&R (a.k.a. “Guns N’ Roses 2.0,” a.k.a. “Nu-GN’R”) anyway, might as well, right?
And now Guns N’ Roses are one of the fifteen finalist nominees for induction into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. And it seems like they have a pretty decent chance of being one of the five artists who will actually get in, despite the fact that they only made four albums of original material in four years and only toured for an additional two, because, well, those albums sold a gajillion copies, and inducting them would, frankly, be good for business. And so, of course, people are starting to get really excited, because if they get inducted, maybe that reunion we’ve all been dreaming about for almost twenty freakin’ years will finally happen, right?
Only here’s the thing: There is absolutely no chance in hell that the original band will reunite, even if they are inducted into a meaningless museum.
Tomorrow marks the twentieth anniversary of the release of Guns N’ Roses’ double-disc opus, Use Your Illuision. It seems like public perception has soured on these albums over the years — even Axl Rose and Slash have accused them of being bloated and over-produced — but I still love ‘em to death. For one thing, seeing as they ended up being the last proper studio albums of original material from the actual Guns N’ Roses (not Axl Rose’s solo group or whatever), I’m glad that the band basically included every song they had written up ’til that point here. And for another thing, I love the diversity of the records — that they didn’t just end up being Appetite for More Destruction. Maybe the Illusion albums ended up being a failed experiment, but I still, to this day, find them to be a pretty exciting experiment*.
So. Since we didn’t do a “Question of the Week” this week, and I wanted to do something to commemorate this anniversary, I thought we’d play a fun game that Vince and I (and a lot of our other friends) used to play in the past: whittling these two mammoth albums down to one collection. Geffen Records actually did that themselves in 1998, releasing a twelve-song single volume version of UYI that, if you ask me, had a pretty strange selection of songs on it… but it’s an entertaining time waster to see if you can do better.
There are no rules to the game, other than a) all the songs on your track list have to come from the Illusions albums (duh), and b) it all has to fit on one CD (roughly 80 minutes), despite the fact that CDs are now obsolete. I’ve included my own personal version after the jump… I’ll be more than a little excited to see all of yours as well.
Even if I haven’t exactly been thrilled with Slash’s post-Guns N’ Roses output, I never thought his guitar playing got bad; listening to No More Tears over the weekend, I was struck (again) by the fact that Zakk Wylde’s playing has become a parody of itself, but Slash still seems to have an endless arsenal of killer guitar solos left in him. If the dude could just get Izzy Stradlin to write him some decent songs, I have little doubt that the man would be able to turn me back into a fanboy faster than you can say “Saul Hudson.”
Case in point: “Kick it Up a Notch,” a new song Slash has recorded with a couple of cartoon characters. And, no, I don’t mean Axl Rose and Scott Weiland.
It’s barely been more than a month since DevilDriver released their fifth studio album, Beast, but bassist Jon Miller has now announced his departure from the band.
His statement doesn’t really tell us anything and makes the split sound perfectly amiable (it’s so vanilla I’m not even gonna print it here, but you can read it at Metal Underground if you’re really curious), but Miller had entered rehab in January of this year, so it’s hard not to speculate that his new-found sobriety had something to do with his decision to leave the group. In case it isn’t obvious, being in a band out on tour isn’t necessarily the environment most conducive to just saying “no” — you will constantly be surrounded by people who are partying, and sitting on the bus by yourself is not a lot of fun.
The band hasn’t announced an official replacement, but apparently some dude named Bubbles, who used to be Bury Your Dead and is now DevilDriver’s tour manager, has been filling in for Miller these past few months, so that should pretty much take care of that.
Yep, DevilDriver now has members named “Dez” and “Bubbles.” Not since the “Izzy/Dizzy” era of Guns N’ Roses has anything been so silly.
-AR
Here’s the latest round of idiotic news revolving around the band you can pretty much blame for this website’s existence.
First of all, Corey Taylor has been heavily rumored to be the new vocalist for Velvet Revolver, and then a couple of weeks ago, he refused to contradict that rumor, thereby pretty much confirming it. Now Metal Insider tells me that Duff McKagan thinks he’s being cute by pretty much doing the same thing, telling fans during a recent online chat that “I can neither confirm nor deny” that Taylor is the group’s new singer before apparently mistaking Taylor for a can of Pepsi: “He’s the voice of a whole new generation.”
Slipknot’s been around for over a decade now, so I guess McKagan doesn’t actually know what the phrase “new generation” means, but whatever. Like I said last month, there’s absolutely no reason to say shit like this in the press unless Taylor got the job. And at this point, VR absolutely needs to start denying the rumor, or just announce Taylor as the new singer. Because now if he’s not the new singer, whomever the new singer is is gonna hafta be pretty frickin’ awesome and/or famous, or the whole thing is just gonna seem anticlimactic. In fact, if Taylor isn’t the new singer, I’d say they either need to get Robert Plant, or just announce a reunion of the original Guns N’ Roses.
Which, incidentally, some morons think is what’s gonna happen. From Classic Rock:
video courtesy MissPinksMusic
So Duff McKagan joined Axl Rose and his new Guns N’ Roses on-stage at the 02 Arena in London last night, playing bass for “You Could Be Mine” (video above) and rhythm guitars for “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “Nice Boys.” (You can also see photos here.) Inevitably, this is going to make people ask the question: “Is the original line-up (or something closely resembling the original line-up) of Guns N’ Roses getting back together?” As MetalSucks’ resident GN’R geek, I hereby take it upon myself to provide reckless analysis regarding this blessed event. After the jump, get both sides of the argument, as provided by my drug-addled fanboy brain.
We now rejoin Allyson B. Crawford (Bring Back Glam!) and Anso DF (MetalSucks) and their riveting analysis of Glam Metal’s Ten Best Must-Have Records.
Get caught up on yesterday’s action here.
***
The hits: “Poison” “Bed of Nails” “House of Fire” “Only My Heart Talkin’”
The heart: “Hell Is Living Without You” “Spark In The Dark” “I’m Your Gun”
Anso: So by 1989′s Trash, Coop had been in a booze stupor for like seven straight albums. The good news was that his successful comeback tour inspired some check-writing at Epic Records. But that support came with strict control, or at least that’s what the presence of Bon Jovi/Kiss/Aerosmith/Ratt hit-maker Desmond Child implies. So Allyson, what’s your stance on Desmond Child?
Allyson: I got to interview Alice Cooper once. One of the highlights of my life, I swear. The man rules. He was all about sobriety when we spoke and I think that’s awesome. Now, Desmond Child. Oh my. I’ve written about him before on Bring Back Glam!. I suppose he is — no, he is a genius, but damn. Aerosmith is my favorite band of all time and Child sort of took away their grit. So that hurt. But for some people he really, really helped and that’s Alice Cooper. Alice needed a hit for a new generation and Trash came along at the right time, didn’t it? Oh and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to meet and interview Desmond Child, so there you go.
Anso: Hey, same here! His stuff is mega-cheesy, but so are delicious Cheetos. Plus, Detonator rules, so it’s easy to forgive misfires like “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” Oh and of course I warmed to him after VH1 aired that hilarious footage of his collaboration with (and antagonism of) Vince Neil. You saw that right? “Hello-o! Successs!”
Allyson: Yeah, I’ve seen that. Oh, I’ve seen it.
Anso: Okay, Trash was buffed up by a full whack of celebrity guests: Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi, Kip Winger, Guy Mann-Dude, Steve Lukather, and 80% of Aerosmith. I suppose they helped pull chicks and young people to this old man record. Did these guys make Trash more attractive to you in any way?
Allyson: Because I’m a chick? Well, here’s the thing about me. I’ll agree there are some hot guys in rock, but that doesn’t mean much to me when it comes to music I like. If the song rocks, awesome. If not, okay. I like tons of music that is mocked — often right here on MetalSucks, ha! — and I always “go my own way if you will.” Trash is awesome to me because I love the songs. “Only My Heart Talkin’” is a great love song, a completely different type of power ballad. But, back to guests. I usually don’t care about guest stars on albums. I buy records because I want to hear the real band — not a slew of guests, you know?
Anso: Yeah. I’m not an Alice Cooper scholar, but I’ll wager that Trash is his sexiest record. It’s a bit uncomfortable to hear a 41-year old Coop describe passionate banging.
Allyson: As you know, my dear Anso, sexy is in the eyes of the beholder.
Anso: Hey, let’s talk about Trash‘s super-hit, “Poison.” Can you think of any single in history with such a memorably quirky riff? It’s awesome on its own and I love how they set it against different chords in the intro.
Allyson: So I’ve talked to Alice guitarist Keri Kelli a few times. Once I said I was frustrated trying to learn bass and guitar parts for some Alice songs. And Keri said something like, “Look, if you want to learn ‘Poison’ it’s just going to take awhile.” This frustrated me because I have little patience. I think I got off the phone with Keri, looked at the guitar and then sat down with a bag of chips or something. Anyway, yes, “Poison” is freaking epic. One of the best songs of the ’80s. Then again, Alice is a master. I love when the band performs “Poison” live. The crowd always goes batshit crazy.
Anso: What else makes you love this record?
Allyson: Hmm. It’s the sum of its parts I guess. I think all the songs fit well together, there’s not really a dud and the album helped push Alice to the top again. The cover photo is iconic. It was in magazines first and then Alice chose it as his cover — so I remember seeing the image of Alice everywhere as a kid. I had this instant connection to the record I suppose.
Ever seen Woody Allen’s Zelig? It’s a pseudo-documentary about a guy who immediately assumes the traits of whomever he’s with at the moment; put him in a room full of Chinese people and he’ll turn into a Chinese man, move him to a room full of Hasidim and he’ll suddenly appear to be Hasidic, and so on and so forth. It’s a(n obvious but still pretty funny) metaphor for a guy with no personality of his own.
Now, consider Slash. Guns N’ Roses folklore tells us that Slash is not the best judge of his own material, and often wanted to scrap some of Guns’ best songs; and, unfortunately, evidence suggests that this folklore is fact, and that Slash is a pretty ho-hum songwriter. Axl Rose has his legitimate insanity and over-sized, not entirely comprehensible artistic vision, but all Slash really seems to have is a desire to be like his heroes in Aerosmith and AC/DC, which is to say, a legacy act and purveyor of catchy but fairly middle-of-the-road rock. Consequently, a lot of the pressure on Slash-penned songs in the post-GN’R era is not just on the guitar playing of the Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson, but on the performances of whatever singer he’s working with at any given moment. Slash songs can be like underwritten roles in movies that way; you need the best character actors available to give them some personality, or they risk becoming boring.
Slash has personality (or at least persona) to burn, and it’s no shock that on Slash, his first solo record, he keeps up his up his end of the bargain in the guitar solo department. Despite the fact that he was never a revolutionary musician, Slash was always a very distinctive musician; a lot of people play the way he does, but no one sounds quite like him. But it is kind of a shock that on this, the album which is supposed to be a distinct and unique artistic statement outside the confines of his collaborations with various bands, Slash has very much allowed himself, like Zelig, to blend in with whomever was in the room at the moment.
There are now six songs* available online from Slash’s Slash, his forthcoming sort-of-but-not-really solo debut (as though Slash’s Snakepit wasn’t a solo band) that I care far too much about. If you include bonus tracks, that’s actually more than a full third of the album; if you don’t include bonus track, it’s (obviously) even more.
So I now feel pretty confident in saying this album won’t be horrible, even if it’s obviously never going to live up to GN’R, and features appearances by Kid Rock, Fergie, and the girl from Maroon 5.
So the Australian branch of iTunes has apparently uploaded thirty-second clips of all the songs from Slash’s forthcoming, self-titled solo album, and, of course, someone has uploaded all of those clips to YouTube. Gotta love the internet! So I thought we’d play one of our favorite games here at MetalSucks. It’s called “Let’s make premature judgments based on not very much actual music at all.” Listen to the clips in the video below, and then get my thoughts after the jump.
In the last few weeks, several of you have emailed the same basic question:
“How is Guns N’ Roses still around if Axl is the only one left?”
While I can’t tell you definitively, here’s how it might have happened.
MEGADETH, RUST IN PEACE
Ok, I was like, what, eleven when this shit came out? More like thirteen when I discovered it. Back then, Dave Mustaine was almost like a political figure as far as metal goes. Who knows how I’d look at his role now, but back then, he was a hero.
And then there was the songwriting. Nobody was writing music as creative as them. Listen to the guitar breaks in songs like “Five Magics” or the entire masterpiece, “Rust in Peace.” Nobody was writing stuff like that, and for the time, I felt like the lyrics actually meant something. And the solos – try playing a Marty Friedman solo when you’re thirteen. Try playing one now. The dude is/was/ and will forever be untouchable.
This band meant the world to me back then. I’m not crazy about the new directions the band has gone in, but that doesn’t diminish that they changed my life back when I was younger. I always felt like their rival bands were playing it safe, and that Megadeth was taking all the musical risks. I definitely think that this would be the musician’s choice for those of us who are and were still into real metal with real songs. Not just shred wankery.
Directly from the horse’s mouth comes the news that “guitarist n’ songwriter [emphasis added to point out mental retardation] Dj Ashba… officially replaces current NIN guitarist Robin Finck” in Guns N’ Roses. “Once Dj’s name was in the hat, the hat disappeared!!” benevolent dictator Axl Rose exclaims, doing his best impersonation of my Uncle Morty.
Showing that Rose at least has a sense of humor, the statement concludes: “Now, one step closer to the abyss, Ashba joins a band who’s all time roster is nearly as long as it’s [sic] founder Axl Rose’s rap sheet!” Oh, Axl, you scamp.
-AR
Today is Axl Rose’s 46th birthday (!), and he decided to celebrate by giving his first official interview in nine years. The interview, with Billboard, was conducted by e-mail, and Rose reveals that one of the reasons he granted the industry rag’s request was because he “liked the questions,” so apparently the only way to get in good with the guy is to give him up-front approval on everything (no real shock there). Still, there’s some entertaining nuggets in the interview, which, even from the point of view of an Axl apologist such as myself, is pretty friggin’ ridiculous. Check out the highlight reel after the jump, with our observations in italics.
After weeks of wondering why the fuck Axl Rose was doing nothing to promote Chinese Democracy (which is selling poorly, to put it mildly), early this morning “The Howard Hughes of Rock” added another bizarre chapter to his ongoing saga by answering fans’ questions on the message boards for popular GN’R fan sites Here Today… Gone to Hell! and MyGNR.com (Under the username “Dexter,” because he’s apparently a fan of the television show and has named his cat after the titular serial killer. Seriously.).
Aside from what his reputation may have led us to believe, this was not a Dubya-like pre-planned press conference, and Rose didn’t appear offended by a variety of questions actually worth asking (e.g., Why did the album take so long?, Why did the old band break-up?, etc.). That being said, his answers were typically enigmatic, strange, and, in some cases, unsatisfactory, and anyone who thinks this “promotion” will help sales of the album is kidding themselves – casual fans may hear about this unexpected happening, but it can’t possibly have the same effect as, say, a Rolling Stone cover.
That being said, I don’t think it was Rose’s intention to boost sales* so much as it was simply to communicate, in whatever capacity, with the hardcore fans that continue to hold a candle for him. And that’s actually commendable. You could argue that communicating with fans is what Rose is supposed to do and that patting him on the back for this “interview” of sorts is like rewarding someone for not breaking the law; but the GN’R faithful can give Trekkies a run for their money in the “inappropriately passionate” department, and why rain on their parade? They’ve put up with a lot of shit over the years and deserve this little ray of sunshine.
After the jump, read some of the more interesting Q&As from Rose and his fans, including info on an upcoming video, the (seemingly) already planned re-release of Chinese Democracy, the next GN’R album, and more.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT, have you guys read the liner notes for this fucking thing? “Produced by Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo. Mixed by Andy Wallace, Caram Costanzo and Axl Rose. Final Mixing: Caram Costanzo and Axl Rose.” “Additional production and preproduction by Roy Thomas Baker.” “Additional Production: Sean Beaven.” “Additional and/or initial Engineering.” Those are just the whole album credits. Each song gets its own “initial production” credit, too, and, in one instance, an “initial arrangement by” shout out. The phrase “reamped, edited and engineered” appears at least twice. Fourteen recording studios are listed, spread out over four cities on two continents. There’s no fewer than five guitarists (six if you count Rose himself), two keyboard players (three if you count Rose), two drummers, and two composer/orchestrators cited (The fact that only one bass player, Tommy Stinson consistently plays on the album seems like something of a marvel… oh, wait, that Chris Pitman dude everyone calls “Mother Goose” for some reason plays bass on “If the World.” Nevvvvvvermind.). Donatella Versace, Kid Rock, Lars Ulrich, and Mickey Rourke are all thanked, alongside guys with names like “Mookie” and “Worm.” THERE’S A CREDIT FOR “LOGIC.” I DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS. IS THERE A COMPUTER PROGRAM CALLED “LOGIC” OR ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY BEING CREDITED WITH SUPPLYING SOME LOGIC????????
I’m not making this shit up. I couldn’t make this shit up. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during the recording of Chinese Democracy! It must have made the production of Apocalypse Now seem like a long weekend on Fire Island.
But here’s the thing: as incredibly, insanely, undeniably fascinating as all that shit is, it really has nothing to with any critical analysis of the album.
