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Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbe … nt=Twitter
Rick Landers of Guitar International recently conducted an interview with GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Guitar International: GUNS N' ROSES is gonna be on the road in February, right?
Ron: We're supposed to be and suddenly there's silence. I don't think it's gonna happen. Figuring February is weeks away and I've yet to see a single confirmed date. It's the kind of thing where you have a tour that's coming together, but it's so complicated at this level with managers and booking agents and different promoters and venues and itinerary and the production. The manager has to figure out how to get the gear from point A to point B all the time, without us going broke, and making sure all the crew is available. With everything, all it takes is just one link in the chain to get weak and everything unravels. So, I don't know what the status is of this U.S. tour that I've been impatiently waiting for. It's been five years since we've played the U.S. Last year we did some acoustic shows in New York in February, but as far as a real tour, we haven't done that. A couple of shows in May and September of 2006 and then a fall tour from October to December.
Guitar International: What does that mean for you? Does that mean you've got to keep February and March open as far as anything else you want to do?
Ron: That's always the dilemma. Things come together so quickly with GUNS N' ROSES that I just get a week's notice.
Guitar International: Jeez.
Ron: In fact, when I joined the band, I only had a week to learn all the songs and then hit the road. And to learn the "Chinese" songs, they wouldn't give me a copy because they were so worried about leaks. I had to learn all of that stuff on a pair of headphones in the rehearsal room on a laptop just listening and taking notes.
Guitar International: That's like learning guitar in the '50s and '60s with a turntable. Crazy.
Ron: Yeah, so with GUNS what'll happen is I'll get a week's notice. They'll say, "All right. It's happening. We're FedExing your tickets." The thing is, for the rest of the world, if you want to plan something, it's months in advance. What would happen is I would plan a tour for five months from now and by that point GN'R would say, "All right. It's time for us to do something," and I would have to cancel. It just becomes impossible to make plans. All I can do is make very short-term plans that don't require too much commitment and if I have to break them, it's not gonna hurt a lot of people. I've shied away from playing live and doing shows because of that, because if I have to cancel a show, it could disappoint hopefully only a few hundred people — okay, maybe 100. [Both laughing] If it's just a meet-and-greet or something like that, it could be the same, but it's not like they spent a lot of money and made a lot of plans. It's just not as big a thing to cancel. So, I've been doing more meet-and-greets and not doing any performances other than quick jams. Like I played in Sydney, Australia and jammed with FOZZY.
Read the entire interview from Guitar International.
Notice that Mirror finish on the fret-less!?!
- Intercourse
- Rep: 212
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
the whole machine seems to be hanging together with tape. Paul McGuinness has U2 booked two years in advance.
Axl must have burned so many bridges down the years in the US that he's down to working with the second division.
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
It's the kind of thing where you have a tour that's coming together, but it's so complicated at this level with managers and booking agents and different promoters and venues and itinerary and the production. The manager has to figure out how to get the gear from point A to point B all the time, without us going broke, and making sure all the crew is available. With everything, all it takes is just one link in the chain to get weak and everything unravels.
This continual crap that is sprouted from the GNR camp (I'm not referring to Ron as I'm sure he's getting fed the same shit), that everything they try and do is soooo difficult is complete horseshit! It is not that hard, take a look at all the other bands in the world that tour - how is it that they manage to do it?
I gotta say I never thought too much of the complications that the "up in the air" schedule would have on the guys like Ron. Your life would be permanently in limbo not knowing what was happening and not really being able to schedule too much outside of Guns just in case something happened and you have to axe your previous plans.
Good on Ron for calling a spade a spade and sharing his feelings.
Re the GNR camp - they seriously need to start developing an internal locus of control.
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
I guess it's hard to pull of a tour when you leave it up to friends and "family" to organize it!
I remember back in May/June 2010, they discussed Axl on Norwegian radio. The topic was "Love him or hate him?" One of the hosts (the most famous music-journalist in Norway), made a point about how fucked up it is that "this wierd Brazilian family" runs the day to day stuff involving GNR/Axl.
Sure he has Doc McGhee now, or does he? But a lot of stuff still seems to be handled by close family and friends he thinks he can trust.
It's sad to see other bandmembers suffering from their lack organizational skills...
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
Beta can't even speak proper English. It'd be like me managing Guns N' Roses. How could she arrange a tour or get things done? It's a trainwreck.
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
^Good point.
More interesting bits from same interview. Slash & BBF? Bumblefoot Vs Slash?
http://guitarinternational.com/wpmu/201 … pyromania/
http://www.gnrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?id=8859&p=11
Rick: Do you find yourself getting annoyed when people try to compare you with Slash?
Ron: You know, it’s not that it’s annoying. There are different types of mentalities in the world. There’s the ‘and’ mentality and the ‘or’ mentality and that’s how I look at it. When people think so black and white, they’re missing out on a whole gray area that they could enjoy and that’s just like a general philosophy of life.
I find that when people do that, it’s ‘You or Slash,’ it’s kind of a bummer, because I would rather people think ‘Me and Slash’. That’s the thing about music is you can have as much as you want and there’s enough room for everybody out there.
To me, I think of like 1977 when everything was big. Everything was huge. Hard rock was huge. Disco was huge. Think of all the albums from then, between bands like Zeppelin and The Who and Queen and Fleetwood Mac.
Rick: Just monsters.
Ron: Yeah. And all the good funk out there, and all the punk. Ramones, there was so much good shit and it was fantastic. It wasn’t that ‘one or the other’ mentality. There was enough music where you just felt so, what’s the word, enriched. Wherever you turned, there was something good. It was really just very gratifying and satisfying, that’s how I think.
So if somebody goes, “Who do I like better, you or Slash?” That’s personal. What do you like better, a hamburger or a hot dog? It doesn’t really mean anything. I like to think that even some of my crazy guitar geek fans from before I joined Guns, just doing my own music, a lot of them may start to appreciate things about Guns that they didn’t.
Like it opened their eyes to things and that sounds kind of silly, I guess, but I’ve seen it happen. I had people say to me, “I was really bummed when you joined Guns, but honestly after listening to you guys together, it’s really something different and it’s cool. I like it.”
Rick: And you know you can expand that to music because some people say, “I love rock, but I don’t like opera,” or jazz or something, but once they start getting into jazz or whatever, it’s like, “Oh, I like this, too.” There’s a lot of world out there. There’s a cornucopia of stuff out there to grab from in life.
Ron: Exactly. And people shouldn’t limit their thinking. But, you know what? Some people do and at the same time, people get to live however they choose to live. So if people want to live in this competitive world where everything is like a wrestling match [Both laughing], good guys and bad guys and all the characters, fine.
But, they should know that the people behind those masks, after they’re acting like good versus evil, they’re probably grabbing a beer together and hanging out and talking about the next match they’re gonna do together, going to dinner with their families and enjoying life.
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
I find that when people do that, it’s ‘You or Slash,’ it’s kind of a bummer, because I would rather people think ‘Me and Slash’. That’s the thing about music is you can have as much as you want and there’s enough room for everybody out there.
I think that is an excellent way that he puts the comparison with Slash.
Re: GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT Says He's Been 'Impatiently Waiting
Ron: Exactly. And people shouldn’t limit their thinking. But, you know what? Some people do and at the same time, people get to live however they choose to live. So if people want to live in this competitive world where everything is like a wrestling match [Both laughing], good guys and bad guys and all the characters, fine.
I like that quote....a lot of wrestling freaks here.....
