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- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
Slash thought he could boss Axl around. When it backfired, he tucked his tail between his legs and ran away.
Axl should have listened to Slash
- dalethirsty
- Rep: 20
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
the band really should have released something during that period. axl and slash's vengeance towards each other should have been channeled into the rawest, most aggressive guns album of all time. instead, axl sat around with his thumb up his ass fucking around w/ pro tools, while slash was being a diva about who his rhythm guitar player was going to be.
how hasn't any of the stuff they worked on made its way into circulation? there's demos and leaks from every era of gnr, except this one.
- A Private Eye
- Rep: 77
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
I think some of it has in various forms.
Some of VR stuff has definitely been confirmed as coming from the GNR days. I think Axl himself said FTP was being kicked around in the post UYI fog.
The problem I always felt was they stopped writing songs together after AFD. It all became individual efforts, an Axl song with a Slash solo in the gaps or visa versa. The days of all being in a room together and writing songs about drinking and fucking ended when the royalites from those very same songs started coming through.
By the time UYI came round it was partly stuff from the AFD days that hadn't worked on that album or wasn't finished and partly individual efforts that they all brought to the table. I think the only track credited as being co-written by the four of them on UYI is Bad Apples. A solid track but hardly anything of note when held up against what had come before.
By 94/95 they were all out of music in the vault and very different people from the ones who'd written AFD the best part of a decade earlier. They had to start a fresh album with no direction and without their previous engine room song writer. The lead singer was usually MIA, the lead guitarist was still strung out on heroin and the bassist was sober for the first time in 15 years. Meanwhile the hangers on chose a side and waited to see who'd win.
As you say it's a shame that energy couldn't have been channeled into something more but who knows, maybe we'd have just ended up with an album of Bad Apples.
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
axl and slash's vengeance towards each other should have been channeled into the rawest, most aggressive guns album of all time.
It nearly did, funny enough. Everybody was describing the new material as angry, balls-out rock. Where they got cagey is how complete the songs were. They were, in all likelihood, instrumentals. They had an industrial vibe to them. It was like Appetite in the sense that they pooled a lot of pre-existing songs; think ISE. Paul was there to write Axl's share of the songs, because Axl's good at composing piano ballads - he's less than stellar in trying to come up with a rock song on his own.
The Phoenix show is strange. The crux of the story is Slash - he had little business to be there on a Monday night.
"The plan," announces Slash, "is for Duff (McKagan, bass) and Matt (Sorum, drums) to take off their band, Neurotic Outsiders, for a while [to a tour that would span from 09/05/96 to 09/28/96], leaving me and Axl to write stuff. If that spark gets rolling, then great. If it doesn't and we get into a fight, I'll just carry on playing gigs and jamming - with Snakepit or whatever. It's not complicated. At least, I don't see it that way." (Slash, Kerrang, 09/21/96)
The broad strokes of the plan had been carried out thus far. Slash gave that interview in early August, before Guns began rehearsing. There was one telling bit; "the small matter of one Paul Huge, Rose's choice to replace Gilby Clarke and a guitarist who Slash insists he cannot, and will not, work with."
"When Axl heard that me and Duff had gone out and gotten this multi-million-dollar record deal and we're going to go out on the road, he started getting a little nervous." (Matt, Toronto Sun, 09/04/96)
Then again, Axl might've seen shades of the Snakepit conundrum. It was a matter of completely cocked-up timing. Rehearsals started in August. Duff and Matt were dividing their time between Guns and NO. Then, they went on tour.
"Me and Duff are flying back to LA 'cause we're rehearsing with GN'R every night." (Matt, Rockline, 09/09/96)
I'd take that comment with a pinch of salt. Surely, I can imagine Matt and Duff stopping by in LA after that radio show; they had a few days before their next gig. Having said that, during the Arizona show, they'd been on the road for mere two weeks. They were looking at another minor break, followed by a European tour leg; another two weeks. Come October, Steve Jones would resume the Sex Pistols reunion tour. It was hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. They had a record coming out and were obliged to do a minor promotional tour. Any self-respecting musician would've said yes.
Yet, roughly a month after Guns rehearsals started, they were all here. Slash had been left to work with Axl (read: Paul), without the benefit of having Duff and Matt in the room.
"By September 1996, Slash was so miserable that he swore, 'I'm going to confront it. Either Paul goes, or...' (Q Magazine, 05/01)
Bad energy. An emergency band meeting could've been orchestrated in Arizona to deal with the issues. Slash could've went along with it, as it would've enabled him to play a show with Neurotic. Fun times. Meanwhile, Axl went out to Yoda, to pour out his frustrations, to sample photographs of his band members. Was Slash right, or was Paul a crucial part of Axl's plan? After the show, Axl could've met up with them and said, 'You know, guys... Paul stays.'
[The new rhythm guitarist, Paul Huge,] he's unknown. But I can't tell you his name because I don't know if he will tour with us. There will probably be several guitarists on this album, a lot of guests. (Matt, 09/23/96)
A week after the Arizona show, Matt was downplaying the overall presence of Paul. There'd be guests; Brian May's name was tossed around at some point. Axl's subsequent comments corroborated with the general intent to keep Paul in the sidelines.
"Now whether or not Paul was going to be officially on the album or on the tour that really wasn't an actual consideration at the time. It was in the air as a possibility." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)
If it was all on Paul, it's a bit of a stretch. Everybody agreed Paul was to a have a complimenting, behind-the-scenes role to play.
What exactly led to Slash quitting is unknown. He's mentioned the contract negotiations as a factor, as well. Axl was keeping him on a short leash. But it's certainly possible that this Arizona appearance was a tipping point. When the NO tour wrapped, Slash was already moving on. Paul was still there, so that may have been a factor.
Yet Slash had already bashed Paul in the press due to his inclusion to Sympathy. Imagine how Paul would've felt like. His buddy asks him to work with Guns. The lead guitarist, due to communication breakdown with the said friend, badmouths Paul in worldwide media. The modest Paul gets his fifteen minutes of shame for simply doing a favour. Had Slash said, 'Screw Axl's way of recruiting players without my consent', his argument would've been valid and understandable. "Hating" Paul is just barking at the wrong bush.
Then, Axl and Slash had a meeting of minds - on all things aside Paul. Slash insisted Paul was baggage, and yet, come rehearsals in August, he flipped and started saying how good the material was. Ditto Duff, who singled Paul out years after leaving the band. "Dude can't play" is a bit harsh. More likely, Paul was a scapegoat, a convenient opportunity to take potshots at Axl. Had they sat down with Paul and explained to him that this isn't working out, Paul would've likely relocated to Axl's kitchen with a DAT recorder. They really did try to work with him and it's a bit hard to believe Paul would've been in a room with them, without Axl, all smug, as Slash has suggested.
If he had any attitude, it was quite possibly because Slash, a person he'd never had much traffic with prior, had singled him out as a bad person in the press. The best solution would've been to separate them and to get auditions going for a real rhythm player. Slash had to have been extremely demoralized by the August/September rehearsals to quit the band by the time the NO tour wrapped. He tried out the Axl's approach and left the minute they seemingly had an opening to get to work in earnest.
Had Axl caved in and taken Paul out of the room, things might've gone down differently. But the Arizona trip might've been what sealed the deal for Slash.
- dalethirsty
- Rep: 20
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
sympathy for the devil is a weird cover for guns from just about every angle.
what was axl thinking with that one?
of all stones to cover, they pick that. why not stray cat blues or something?
- A Private Eye
- Rep: 77
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
I love the GNR cover of SFTD, much prefer it to the original.
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
I love the GNR cover of SFTD, much prefer it to the original.
Same, I like it. It`s a great cover. Paul complimented Slash very well. What boggles my mnd is how can anyone prefer Jane`s Addiction`s version. Perry Farrell sounds like a constipated goat.
Re: Curtain Call for the Old Guns '96
sympathy for the devil is a weird cover for guns from just about every angle.
Blame Tom Zutaut. Interview with a Vampire was going to be a big studio hit and Zoot hit upon the idea of including Guns. You know, all eggs, one basket. They initially used the Stones version.
what was axl thinking with that one?
The way Slash told it, Axl got a kick out of the movie and given Zoot had already ingrained him with the idea of doing the cover, he was already considering means to an end.
As for Paul on Sympathy...
"I will probably never forgive Axl for that. But we talked about it... We made a deal that if Paul ever plays on anything, then I should at least be told first." (Slash, Kerrang, 01/95)
Slash used some harsh words, there. Imagine getting back into the band, now as an employee, and dealing with that same person. Only in '96, it was worse in the sense that Axl would've been able to take similar liberties with Paul on subsequent material as the boss of it all. Slash had lost control over his own solos.
