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Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
I was thinking, what's in the vault aside CD2?
"The songs composed by the boys [the Old Guns] for another album many years ago..." (Axl, Rock & Pop FM, 01/22/01)"
The '96 album.
They had songs, or ideas thereof.
And they liked them.
"We already did 7 songs... Rock songs that last only 4 minutes (laughs)." (Matt, 09/23/96)"
"The record will be all up-tempo rock songs ("No ballads," McKagan said firmly)." (Duff, Addicted to Noise, 08/30/96)
"I think that some of the riffs that were coming out of [Slash] were the meanest, most contemporary, bluesiest, rocking thing since Aerosmith's Rocks." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)
"The songs are really good, and I have a good vibe about it." (Slash, Kerrang, 09/21/96)
Axl was playing rhythm guitar. However, Paul Huge has later been confirmed by Slash to have been in the sessions. Either way, both Axl and Paul could've played on the tracks.
"Axl is rhythym guitar on his own songs for the time being." (Slash chat, 07/30/96)
"Rose's sound is a lot more synthetic than anything I would get anywhere close to." (Slash, Total Guitar, 01/97)
"The first batch of material I heard definitely had an industrial thing about it." (Slash, Kerrang, 12/00)
"Of Axl's guitar setup, [Dave] Abbruzzese recalls, "You could hunt buffalo with his rig. It had a lot of lights, a lot of blinking lights, a lot of things that you stepped on. It sounded like a freight train that was somehow playable." (Rolling Stone, 05/11/00)
By that, Axl's style sounds like a heavily processed guitar sound, with effect pedals and such. It evokes more of an idea of a landscape sound or an incidental note than a traditional blues-based rhythm. 'Effect guitar' might be an apt description. This could go a long way to explain Axl's later affections towards Robin and Bucket.
A sticking point is how ready the songs were. Sometimes, Slash felt Axl's notion of a good song was simply a guitar riff being played out.
"When [Axl] did show up at rehearsal, he never sang." (Slash, autobiography)
Axl recorded the UYI vocals by living in a tent in the studio. He decidedly came in a week after the others to sing on Sympathy for the Devil. Slash might well be oblivious about the existence of any vocal tracks.
"We have song titles, but no album title." (Duff chat, 12/17/96)
Duff sounds like the song titles are 'serious', instead of simply Cornchucker or Instrumental 34. Serious song titles suggest Axl's been involved.
As it turns out, Axl did, possibly, record some vocals in around August '96. This can be derived from a remark by Youth (Killing Joke), who was attached as a producer in around April '98.
"He hadn't been singing for around 18 months." (Youth, The Times, 03/18/05)
This was also pre-Live Era or the re-recorded AFD.
Suddenly, a possibility emerges that some '96 tracks might feature lead vocals.
As for the 'Slash seed' of a song / Jackie Chan conspiracy theory...
"Today I was going to have to fly back right after this. We were going to start recording for this Jackie Chan movie, the next one." (Duff, Howard Stern Show, 07/25/96)"
Guess stranger things have happened than Checkmate being based on a '96 track.
"I honestly believe that everyone wants to make a new Guns N' Roses album now, and I think that everyone knows that if we don't do it now we may not get the chance." (Duff, Hit Parader, October 1996)"
"[The 1996 tracks are] not something I would want to approach (without Slash), because, at the time, there was only one person that I knew who could do certain riffs that way. [...] That's the reason why that material got scrapped." (Axl, press release, 08/14/02)
Now, Axl, here's an idea. Van Halen's A Different Kind of Truth.
Your reunion album is halfway done already. 
- Mama's Good Boy
- Rep: 25
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
This is the iTunes age, they could get away with just a song or two.
This fanbase would be tickled to get a new song, from any incarnation past or present.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
Either The Smile Sessions route for the CD2 vault material or doing A Different Kind of Truth with original members Slash, Duff, Izzy and such are the options that make sense right now. Again...if Steven wants to ever tour or record with these guys, he needs to keep his mouth shut.
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
If there's a genuine lost album it is it that album Izzy, Slash, Duff, and Matt worked on before 'The Project' morphed into VR. One of them said it was the best GNR album ever made and since we've heard no word on it since, maybe its being saved for a rainy day.
Like ID, I question how much is really there. Slash bailing with Snakepit demos killed the band so how much was really there to begin with? In a world where you ruin your band cuz Slash steals Beggars and Soma City Ward you aint sitting pretty in the song department. The fact that going into the first CD years Axl still hadn't done any vocals calls into question ANY kind of ADKOT old demo situation.
Apex you're right though.....the reunion album is 99% ready to go. Its what fans like to call CD II and only needs that guy wearing the top hat to lay down some solos, throw Duff and Izzy on there maybe, then its time to get the train wreck a rollin'...
For the record, I'd rather have CD II in its most original state but if he cant release it before a reunion I am on board with letting Slash, Izzy, Duff, and Sorum have a listen and see if it passes their smell test.
One other thing...I've read CD Whispers a couple times since coming back and Matt's comments about the progress in 96-97 really gets on my nerves. Something about it screams fake. I think at that point he was the Fortus of the band.
Also, some of those quotes point to that 4 member lineup I'll swear on a stack of bibles I read about then. Always wanted to find it for sic for CD Whispers but could never remember which mag it was. I might have even heard it on that lame 1-900 number you could call for GNR news in 1995. It was Axl lead vocals/ rhythm guitar, Slash, Duff, and Matt. Tobias and Reed weren't mentioned. I highly doubt Dizzy was ever fired but they may have attempted a session or two just the four of them and that's how the minor blurb surfaced. Either way we'll never know. Cant believe he wasn't asked about this during those chats. Had he posted here, the line of questioning would have been intense. I don't mean that in a whining hater kind of way. There was tons of shit passed over so trolls could ask him about TV shows and other assorted shit. No one would have asked that garbage here.
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
There's a youtube video of the last interview Slash and Axl made together for rockline radio, and I want to say it's 94, and they talk about Slash giving Axl some DATS for the next album that Axl has been anxiously awaiting. I really think that was as far as things got. We know Fall a to Pieces was there in its infancy in the 95-96 range, and Axl liked whatever he heard, and Slash buried it. It was later used for VR, which is telling for a lot of reasons. He didn't want to give it to Axl, he didn't want to do a ballad, but he kept it around and it becomes a hit. That says to me he really was either trying to hurt Axl or sabotage the band at that point. Fortus mentioned using songs started by Slash, maybe those dats? And the Izzy song Down By The Ocean.
There could be all kinds of DATS floating around, but I sincerely doubt there are any fully developed instrumental or vocal demos of the old band from that period floating around. Axl was at that point where he is now: just send me some dats so I can see what I like and we'll develop it from there.
- Mama's Good Boy
- Rep: 25
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
No doubt there is plenty of material from all parties that are in or ever were in GnR, and I'm sure they come up with more all the time.. its what they do.
But would Axl release any of it ?
Like I said, even one or two songs released on iTunes for a tour would have most of us bouncing off the walls.
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
ID when you have the time you should read the 94-96 sections of Cd Whispers. Its bizarre and the CD era actually kicks off then instead of late 90s like many believe. Those strange Chinese seeds were growing...
I agree on an Itunes release of some sort. Hell, even when the leaks happened they should have put something on there.
- jimmythegent
- Rep: 30
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
Fascinating era indeed. I do wonder how many seeds germinated into fully blown songs. Seemingly, Axl was taking the approach of recording with a ProTools rig anything and everything, storing it away and going through it with a finetoothed comb.
Slashs comments at the time (and to an extent Duffs) seemed to think it was aimless jamming but it's clear to Axl, in a world without Izzy, this is how an album would be written - fragments of riffs to be pieced together with technology as he saw fit (pretty much the way CD was written).
So to that end, it's quite possible there is a lot of material that Axl either worked on/or could be working on from that era. It's not a stretch to think that he would come back to this stuff, throw in a few CD2 pipedreams with a Slash solo on em and bobs your uncle you have a new Guns album. Get Izzy involved with Down by the Ocean and even a newer couple could emerge.
I want new music - the reunion tour would be amazing and a spectacle/soap opera that would be hugely exciting/entertaining (I've been on record for the last decade saying any semblance of a reunion happens and i'm there ticking it off my bucket list irrespective of location/geography) - by and large though, im a music fan through and through and that is ultimately what would be most satisfying.
- jimmythegent
- Rep: 30
Re: '96 Album - The Original Leftovers
If there's a genuine lost album it is it that album Izzy, Slash, Duff, and Matt worked on before 'The Project' morphed into VR. One of them said it was the best GNR album ever made and since we've heard no word on it since, maybe its being saved for a rainy day.
.
Wow had totally forgotten that rumoured album. Very interesting concept. I guess theres not guarantee that Axl did/would consider it worthy but surely there is something workable. So we now have quite a few threads of different source material that could potentially make up any new record if it ever happens. CD2, 95-96 jams and this pre- VR stuff.
Have we all landed on who we think will be playing rhytym should this happen? Of course I want Izzy. But if not him who? I expressed a few weeks back how Richard Fortus may be in a strong position here given his versatility. No ones mentioned Huge? A bridge too far?
