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- Topics: Active | Unanswered
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
Being a good song writer doesn't mean you are a good guitar player. I know Bucket and Finck didn't really care much for him either. He may be a good song writer, but why force everyone else to play with him?
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
"The public gets a different story from the other guys - Slash, Duff, Matt - who have their own agendas. 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
And I haven't heard any of Paul's stuff where he's played terrible.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
I haven't heard any of his stuff. Look it up on YouTube, it cannot be found. He is a bedroom guitar player.
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
I'm curious about the stuff he co-wrote, and how much his input actually is.
I love Back Off Bitch guitar-wise, but to me it screams Slash all over it, even if he did co-write it with Axl.
Same with TWAT, Catcher, IRS and Prostitute, how much of them were composed by Axl, considering there's not a lot going on with the guitar riffs.
- Intercourse
- Rep: 212
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
It all could have been managed so much more cleverly by Axl.
- Sit in your Malibu mansion with an eight track, your piano and Tobias and get your shit down.
- Get a flunkie to deliver it to the studio and just order Slash to go hog wild all over it.
- Get a great producer to glue the whole thing together.
Tobias didn't like touring so leave him at home with his royalties and take Gilby back out.
Gilby wrote some great riffs also, (check out Pawnshop Guitars): I bet he could have worked up a few great rockers with Slash, Duff and Matt.
They could deliver those back to Axl and let him go hog wild with his vocals and whatever the fuck else (sound effects etc - the rock n roll spine of the tunes would still be there).
You could have had the two sides of the GNR coin working as well as could be hoped for considering the size of the egos, drug problems and other massive corporate and legal distractions these twenty something boys were buried under.
The main problems with the whole thing were:
- Axl wanted to be the boss and lead the musical direction of GNR, yet dhe didn't seem to know what he wanted and nothing was good enough
- He had relegated his whole band to the status of delivery boys for his visions - completely unfair to musicians who fought their way up with Axl and were essentially megastars at that time.
A decent manager with giant testicals who could have been a father figure to the band; who could shout at them , kick their ass but love and protect them as though they were his sons was the main ingredient missing post UYI. If Axl could have been nurtured but called into line, Slash & Duff taken off from their drug and alcohol road to hell and everybody slapped about and made realise just what they had, we could have had a GNR that eclipsed U2.
GNR are just another "if only" in my life, damn them!!! 
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
Paul Tobias? His songwriting was weak, his playing was awful. Being Axl's friend does not equal with music talent. I don't even understand this Tobias cult some seem to believe in. Even Tommy admitted that Tobias' ideas sucked. I guess the hidden purpose is to bash Slash's songwriting skill once again, like he would have needed a bedroom guitarist to come up with anything worthy. FYI Paul Tobias couldn't be even a guitar tech in Slash's band. A terrible guitarist and his involvement in GN'R is one of the saddest chapters of the music history.
- Son of a Gun
- Rep: -3
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
Too bad Gilby was n`t given a chance to write with the band. Based on
" Pawnshop Guitars " , which is best post GNR implosion album after " Chinese Democracy " ( at least for me ), he would have brought very interesting ideas to the table.
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
axl needed to fill the izzy hole
a childhood freind, a fellow hick from indiana
i am a fan of gilby tooi think i made a Gibly vs Tobias thread once...all i could find tho was this
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Slash and Paul Tobias
Some interesting discussion in this thread.
But I've always thought that the well was dry between Axl and Slash, creatively.
My opinion is there's two things at play:
1. Axl seems to have lost interest in writing guitar songs.
Something happened to him after the stress of UYI and he just didn't seem to be inspired by guitar music anymore.
The others were still pumping out stuff.
There's a ton of riffage on Slash's it's 5'Oclock somewhere, there's some interesting songs on Duff's Believe in Me, and Gilby had at least a couple of strong numbers of Pawn Shop Guitars.
But in all cases Axl either outright rejected the music, or expressed interest but the others didn't trust him to ever make his changes (snakepit).
which brings me to:
2. The other guys were fed up with dealing with Axl's handlers, endlessly trying to appease him and being shown no respect.
Sure on one level maybe they should have tried harder to work with Paul....but you know...someone claims ownership of the band...fires bandmates...hires others without telling you.....rejects all your music contributions....only talks about making music in styles that ignore what yoy bring to the band....how should they react?
At the end of the day slash outputs an album every couple of years, and Axl is still unable to deliver. If the problem was Slash, why don't DJ and Paul smash out a new album for Axl this year? I guarentee you DJ would do it in a heartbeat.
I love the guy, but this band fell appart when Axl took control of every decision. He is a kickass songwriter...but he wasn't born to be a CEO.
