Guns N’ Roses: Chinese Democracy Keyboardist Suing Axl Rose

Axl Rose gets hit with so many lawsuits it’s a wonder he hasn’t changed his name to Toyota Gawker. Most of those lawsuits involve former business associates. Whether that’s because Rose is mega-rich and everyone wants a piece or because he’s a shady fucker, I honestly have no idea.

In any case, Rose’s latest lawsuit comes from Chris Pitman, more commonly known amongst Guns N’ Roses fans as “Who?”. Pitman contributed a bunch of keyboards, synths, and “additional production” to Chinese Democracy, is credited as Rose’s co-writer on the tracks “Madagascar” and “If the World,” and has “arrangement” credits on “There Was a Time” and “This I Love.”  (TMZ refers to Pitman as an “engineer,” which must ruffle Pitman’s feathers — he did do some engineering on Democracy‘s title track, but he also toured with the band for years. Additionally, he recorded and toured with Tool in the mid-90s.)

ANYWAY, Pitman alleges that when Rose was hurting for money before the recent GN’R reunion tour made him rich as shit again, the singer wrote him a promissory note for $125,000 — dues for more than a year of work — which he still hasn’t paid. Pitman is seeking the money plus interest, for a total of $163,000.

That’s probably what Rose made just from beer koozie sales for one night of the reunion tour, but I’d guess he’s going to fight Pitman on this just because he always fights everyone on everything. Then again, Rose has been in such a good mood as of late that maybe he’ll just pay up and call it a day.

Earlier this year, Pitman publicly expressed anger over being fired from the band prior to the reunion. He was replaced by Melissa Reese, more commonly known to fans as “Who the hell was that woman with blue hair jumping around on the side of the stage?”.

Okay. That’s all. You can go back to not remembering who the hell Chris Pitman is now.

[via The PRP]