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- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
We're going in circles. He had plenty of time to make it right. It's amazing that Axl is detailed enough to take the name of the band and not detailed enough to make sure his comeback is done right.
He didn't do that very well either really.
Look at what happened - he got control - but did so tactlessly to such an extent that Izzy his long time best friend and a key songwriter quit - , then Slash the icon of his generation and the lead guitarist who was fundamental to the sound and success of the band is alienated to such an extent that to stay sane he has to quit the biggest band in the world and go play small clubs. Even Duff, well known as a peacemaker, pragmatist and the least problematic of the old crew couldn't stand the bullshit anymore.This pattern continues, onto Matt, Robin, Buckethead, Brain and many others.
For all his musical ability, Axl does not seem very skilled at personal relationships - his love life has always been problematic, the current band members enjoy a positive but superficial relationship with him via sms , most of the time he's kept behind the vale of team brazil, he's changed management dozens of times, it's common for people to be friends with him for a period of time only to end up blacklisted after upsetting him in some way. There's dozens of feuds, grudges, and falling outs.
So I don't see the things you've listed as contradictory at all - doing anything "right" in business, especially at a global level like the GNR brand, is all about maintaining relationships and working partnerships with the various people involved. And the history of the band shows that things are very rarely done in the right and expected way, and it's most likely all for the same reason - call him eccentric, sensitive, hard to deal with, genius whatever - call everyone else crooks - but bottom line is Axl is not very good at maintaining the relationships required to make things go down smoothly.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Izzy quit before Axl got the name. Izzy and Steven had NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING to do with the name. That was done when the partnership was just Duff-Slash-Axl.
As for making and releasing an album....10 fuckin years to get 14 songs right and some art/booklet info. It is/was a joke.
Monkey, agree on the relationship part--that is pretty obvious. Somebody in the know at the Velvet Rope indicated Tommy may not be too happy right now.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Say what you will, but Tommy has a degree of integrity. It's the thing Keef said to Slash: "One thing you never do; you never quit."
He seems to 'get' Axl, and understand how many things regarding the band are of his personal doing and how much is dictated from the outside. That has probably gotten him to stick around.
The paycheck is nice, but I doubt Tommy would hang in there solely because of it.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Izzy quit before Axl got the name - but he specifically listed one of his reasons for quitting as he didn't want to be treated like an employee in something he helped create.
He left when Axl started dictating shit, and it goes to my basic point that Axl doesn't have the people management skills to be able to get his way AND maintain relationships.
Axl always gets his way in the end it seems, but it comes at the cost of people being alienated.
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Slash played a big role in Izzy leaving as well...just for the record.
He did...?
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
and by recording over/drowning out alot of Izzy's guitar parts on UYI. There are alot of references on the subject but unfortunately I don't have them at my fingertips. If you guys don't think Slash was on a powertrip as well, then you are as much in LA-LA land as the Axlites. You should re-read Axl's side of the story sometime in the online chats. He has some very good counter punches to your arguments about the breakup and the name issue. While I think he exaggerates some, there clearly was a major major power struggle going on between him and Slash from 94-96. Slash didn't give a shit about Izzy being gone. It was more power and control for him. Gilby did whatever Slash wanted and that is why SI sucks and Snakepit sucked. But, I digress....
To continually put your Slashite blinders on in every single situation, is just as lame as what you guys criticize on a daily, hourly basis. It takes two to tango and Slash, in my eyes, is just as big a prick as Axl. He is just better at hiding his prickness. 
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
on the Slash/Axl thing....in the end, creative differences. Period.
FROM CHINESE WHISPERS...some funny shit in here: 
"But there was a point there where Axl goes: 'I'm gonna do a solo record, and I'm gonna get Trent Reznor and Dave Navarro, and the drummer from Nirvana...' and so on. And it's like, he doesn't even know half of these people. He's just pulling them out of the sky. And I was like, 'Cool! Do your thing. That way you'll get it out of your system, and when you get back we'll just be Guns N' Roses.'" (Slash, Metal Hammer, 11/95)
"At one point he said he was gonna a solo project, then he decided his solo-project he could do with Guns, which I was like, after doing all those videos and this and that and the other, I was like: "No". [laughs] No, I don't wanna get involved in any kind of Stephanie Seymour ballads or any of that shit." (Slash, Canadian Radio, 04/20/95)
"Aftonbladet: You, Duff McKagan, Gilby Clarke... The most people in the band have made records outside Guns. Isn't Axl going to do a solo-record soon?
Slash: Axl thinks that Guns is his solo-project." (Slash, Aftonbladet, 04/02/95)
Snakepit - Rejected!
In early '94, Slash met with Axl on the demo songs that would eventually surface as Snakepit songs.
"I started hanging out with Matt and recording demos of that stuff just for fun, and Mike Inez from Alice in Chains and Gilby started to come around and play with us. The three of us just got into a groove of jamming and recording every night. We didn't know what it was going to be. At some point I played it for Axl, who took a pronounced disinterest in it." (Slash, Autobiography)
"On the first Snakepit-record I used some ideas which were really planned for the next GN'R-record, but Axl and I disagreed on the future direction of the band. I played Axl a demo with some of my ideas for songs, and all he said was: "I don't feel like playing this kind of music." I answered: "But this could be a excellent Gunner-record, hundred percent in GN'R style." He didn't really care 'cause he only wanted to play industrial and Pearl Jam-sounding crap." (Slash, 'Rock Hard' Magazine, 03/00)
"The Snakepit album could have been the new GNR album, but Axl didn't think it was good enough." (Matt, 1996)
"Kerrang!: How's the next GN'R album progressing?
Gilby: "There is no 'next GN'R album'!"
K!: EVER?!
G: "I don't know about ever. For now. We started working on one, and it got canned."
K!: How come?
G: Well, it's an Axl thing. He just wasn't into what we were doing, so he's kind of rethinking what he wants to do. He just kind of threw a wrench into everything that me, Slash and Matt had worked to. And then Duff came in. Duff and Axl have an idea what the album should be, and the rest of us have another idea." (Gilby, Kerrang, 05/24/94)
"What people don't know is, the [Slash's] Snakepit album, that is the Guns N' Roses album. I just wouldn't do it. [...] Duff walked out on it, and I walked out on it, because I wasn't allowed to be any part of it. It's like, 'No, you do this, that's how it is.'" (Axl, MTV, 11/08/99)
"I didn’t walk till several months after having 3-4-hour phone conversations nearly every day with Slash, trying to reach a compromise. I was specifically told no lyrics, no melodies, no changes to anything and to sing what I was told or fuck off." (Axl, MyGNR, 12/14/08)
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Really can't stand when Slash shits on the UYI ballads. Those are some of the best songs GN'R ever created. He comes across pretty shallow when he trashes them, especially considering the mediocre cock rock he's put out over the last 15 years. I'd love to hear Slash give an interview and say with a straight face that any of the boring shit on Apocalpytic Love is anywhere near as good as November Rain or Estranged. He won't admit it, but Axl brought out the absolute best in him. Hell, the very first song GN'R ever came up with together was a fucking ballad called Don't Cry and it shits all over Slash's output from the last 15 years. Slash's guitar work on that track is more memorable than anything else he has come up with lately.
