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Re: McKagan: I Don't Think Izzy Stradlin Is an Unsung Hero of GN'R
"I don't think he's unsung. I think he's sung pretty well.
"He was a big part of that band, but everybody was. Steven [Adler], some of the beats that he would start would inspire a riff. And how do you give that credit to a drummer who doesn't have a guitar?
"You gotta credit Axl to pushing us to get the riff for 'Michelle.' Because it was a double time and the original riff for 'Michelle' wasn't the riff it was. It was this fast kind of goofy... I forgot what it was.
"Izzy had like these cool riffs, but the rest of the band would take it and make it like this whole other thing. It's hard to say.
"If you wanna say that anybody was unsung, then everybody was unsung. Izzy rolled, he was a super cool guy for sure.
"We all had our demons and we faced them at different times. And he had his kind of in the midst of all of that. We all had them, make no mistake about it. [Laughs] But that's a whole another story."
"It's so hard to say because everybody has a piece of every song. Like 'It's So Easy' is a song I recorded on 4-track, a version of it.
"I learned how to play open E tuning on guitar from Wes, my neighbor. And when you are learning new tuning on the guitar you write like 19 songs in 25 minutes. This new tuning just opens up a whole new world.
"So 'It's So Easy' was a thing I recorded and Axl loved it. 'Paradise City,' I had like a lyric for that with three chords. 'Welcome to the Jungle,' the first riff is from this old punk rock band.
"So there are so many riffs, and I hate to even say they're mine because it was such a band thing. I think maybe back then because you're young, you're not like 'That part's mine!' You learn to really shake that. Those were just really band songs.
"We just played a lot, rehearsed a lot. Axl would come in and start singing on something. And he's like, 'That part's wrong, you gotta change it. It doesn't work.'
"OK, what does that mean? 'It's gotta be more angry!' And you learn. He has such amazing instincts. At first, you're like 'He doesn't even play guitar, what does he know?'
"But after being frustrated, Slash would finally play some riff, like just being pissed off. Like 'Oh, there it is!' And you'd learn whatever Axl's instinct was. You'd fight through it, and finally, land on something.
"And like 'Where do we go' at the end of 'Sweet Child O' Mine' was 'Okay, where do we go in the song now?' So that was like a place setter in lyric. But it ended up [in the song]. 'Oh, that actually works for the song.'"
- dalethirsty
- Rep: 20
Re: McKagan: I Don't Think Izzy Stradlin Is an Unsung Hero of GN'R
the true magic of guns n roses came from axl, slash, duff and izzy sitting in a room together with acoustic guitars. none of them, including axl, were ever able to come close to re-creating that magic outside of the band. creatively, steven and matt are interchangeable.
by himself, izzy is just a really laid back songwriter who writes cool, mellow tunes -- nothing more, nothing less.
by himself, slash can craft good riffs and solo his ass off, but never took his sound anywhere interesting or challenging.
by himself, duff is just a punk rocker with an average song-writing ability.
by himself, axl is a man of a thousand ideas who can only execute on one and needs people around him to elevate and inspire him.
at some point during this tour, i hope the band found themselves backstage strumming guitars and piecing together ideas. it's the only way this band works... the cut & paste/pro-tools style is for the birds.
Re: McKagan: I Don't Think Izzy Stradlin Is an Unsung Hero of GN'R
"Izzy had like these cool riffs, but the rest of the band would take it and make it like this whole other thing. It's hard to say.
Anyone listening to Izzy's solo material can see what he means. You listen to some of those songs and you realize its missing something. Basic structures of GNR songs that are just waiting to go up a level or two.
- elevendayempire
- Rep: 96
Re: McKagan: I Don't Think Izzy Stradlin Is an Unsung Hero of GN'R
Yeah, GN'R had a kind of alchemy. You had Slash, who wanted to be in Aerosmith, Izzy, who wanted to be Keith Richards, Duff, who was a Seattle punk/proto-grunge character, Steven, who was the classic good-time Van Halen rocker, and Axl, who wanted to be Freddie Mercury or Elton John. Put all those elements into the mix and they elevate each other. You can listen to a Slash or an Izzy solo song and hear the gaps where Axl would've come in and said, "fix that, make it angrier, it's not good enough" or whatever. You can listen to a Chinese Democracy track and imagine where Slash would've added some of that classic sleaze-rock feel (well, you don't have to imagine anymore, you can just go and listen to the live tracks).
I've always been fascinated by how the component parts of bands fit together and bring their own influences to bear on the sound – and I gotta say, I'm really excited by the mix of different elements in the current GN'R line-up – like the original line-up, I can see how they'll come together to form a greater whole. If they could just get their arses in the studio and, y'know, record something.
