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Re: MSL's GnRSource interview transcript
Credit goes to don_vercetti at www.gnrsource.com
Here is the transcript of the interview our forum did with MisterSaintLaurent. All credits for doing the interview go to the Source member Claude, and a big thank you goes to don_vercetti for making the transcript. In case you missed to download it, it's still available here:
http://www.gnrsource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4327
Part one of the GN'R Source interview with MSL:
GNRS; First off, on behalf of everybody, thank you. [laughs]. Just to get some background, when did you really start getting interested
in chinese democracy? Was there a particular spark that made you really think about this, and focus
MSL; I can tell you the exact moment I became absolutely fascinated with Chinese Democracy. I grew up a fan of guns n' roses, of course, and
for me I'm younger than a lot of the fans. I'm 25.
GnrS; Ok, I'm 38.
MSL; So when UYI came out, I was eight years old, just as excited as I will be when Chinese Democracy comes out, going to the record store when it came out and I was actually not allowed to buy the album straight away, because of the explicit lyrics sticker, so I had to pick up the cassette single for Don't Cry.
GnrS; Wow. That's awesome.
MSL; But you know, I grew up a huge huge fan. So I can still remember sitting in English class, in high school, reading either Rolling Stone or Spin
Magazine reading a feature on Chinese Democracy that people still talk about {Ed: It was Rolling Stone}, with a lot of the different song titles listed. And just wanted to know why the fuck is it taking so long for there to be a new album. I still remember going to blockbuster music, I dunno if people remember that, blockbuster videos still around but blockbuster music is long out of business. I rememer going there the day the spaghetti incident came out, and giving my $7.99 for the cassette, and really just wanting a new album. I still remember what it was the first time I heard OMG. I was in a burger king drive thru, listening to the radio, and I heard OMG and i was like "finally, finally we're gonna get the album, and never in a million years did I think we'd be sitting here, nine years later, having paid for tickets for a tour that got cancelled, and another that actually happened, and we still don't have the album.
So I'd say this is a fascination, obsession that goes back to high school for me, of reading that article in english class, of hearing about this album
and thinking "well when the fuck can I buy it?"
GnrS; Why don't you think it's out? My own opinion would be that Axl is searching for a perfect sound he's got in his head that, for whatever reason, isn't out there, on the songs we've heard, demos on youtube, they're pretty much everywhere at this time. What do you think is holding it up?
MSL; I think there's many different factors, I don't know if its a question of searching for the perfect sound, I think if people wanna analyse the delay,
they have to look at it year by year. Because yes, cumulatively, it's been an extraordinary amount of time, but cumulatively, there's been a different
reason for each delay. So if he began working on it in the mid to late nineties, and he has various members quit, 98-99 he's essentially starting from
scratch and if he second guessed going so far into an industrial direction, that would explain a year or two delay, then debuting in vegas with the new band, and buckethead coming in, I don't think you can pin point it to one thing,so it's taken six or seven years. The dude can't keep a line up, and i don't think the record label is gonna wanna put out an album if they don't have a line up that can tour, and every time the line up changes, he wants the new musician to have their fingerprints on the albm in some form, and the old musicians not to have so many fingerprints on the album, so eventually you get to the point where it's like "fuck, you're not gonna be able to keep a line up together, so just get over it.
GnrS; Do you think, as so many people said, it's the record company trying to figure out how to market this thing?
MSL; I think that's a big part of it, cos in this day and age, you would never invest that amount of money into an album, because albums don't sell nearly
the amount they used to back when record labels were used to spending a lot of money on an album. But that money's already spent. Put yourselves in the shoes of an executive in the music industry, you can keep talking about how you have chinese democracy coming when you talk about big releases that'll sell well, it probably won't sell that well compared to what expectations have been, just because that would be impossible. So, as long as it doesn't come out it's not a failure, it can't fail until it's out, so whether it's axl, his camp or the label, that are just very frightened, and as long as they don't put
the record out, you can't say it's failed yet, they can keep pretending it'll move these big numbers, that really, wouldn't be fair to expect of any album
let alone an album that's been delayed so long that a lot of the fanbase has eroded away.
GnrS; Do you think, as a some people have speculated, that some of the leaks have come out as an attempt to engender that kind of enthusiasm, and allow it to be a massive seller?
MSL; I don't believe that at all, and I've encountered that with a lot of people who, everytime there's a leak, think that somehow, secretly, the band is behind it, and having dealt with their lawyers, and, ya know. The main thing is, I've dealt with Beta a lot cos she kept calling me a lot, and ranting, and I wouldn't say anything, cos as long as she kept talking and revealing inside info, why would I try to shut her up? I don't think there's anyway the band are purposely leaking stuff to try to restore faith with the fan base, cos from my conversation with beta, it's very clear they consider the hard core fan's the enemy. The disdain in Beta's voice in our phone calls last year, when she would talk about the fans, and "axl doesn't owe you anything, leave him alone, this is his life's work, if it comes out it comes out if it doesn't, it doesn't, you guys need to leave him alone, you're driving him crazy, and basically blaming the hard core fans for everything, and the same hardcore fans that made the band what they were, and still buy tickets for these tours even though there's no record yet. Whether they're right or wrong, it's an absolute fact, indisputable, the GnR camp consider guys like us "the enemy", people that actually post on the message board, people that actually still give a shit about this record day in and day out are the enemy to them, so when people say to me "how could you do this to the band", this and that. It's not that i'm doing it to the band! The band has created a situation where it's us versus them, it's the band versus the fans, and the fans need to stick together, and I don't think it's right for some fans to be, like, 'elite fans' that are better than others, that get to hear these songs and the regular fans don't get to. I think that's bullshit! So, I don't think I'm better than anybody else, if i get a song, i'm gonna try to trade for more songs, and when i've exhausted all those possibilites, it's time for everybody to have those songs, period.
GnrS; Well despite what the band thinks, in your opinion, what do you think the leaks have done to feed the myth of chinese democracy, I think it's kept it alive myself
MSL; Yeah, it's definetely kept the myth alive, and I think there's a lot of hardcore fans that would have given up by now, if they hadn't gotten a taste, and it's getting that taste that restores the faith, cos let's face it, when Better hits, and IRS hits, and TWAT hits if the songs weren't good, the intrigue ends the next day, but the bottom line is, the songs are fuckin' awesome, so all these people that have been waiting fifteen years, they said "shit, these
songs are good, I want more".
GnrS; Personal opinion on your part, since we've heard a couple of different version of various tracks; What do you think as the demos have evolved and
progressed? A lot of people think the first version of better is the best.
MSL; I'll hear people say stuff like tat, or I'll read threads sometimes of "I think this guitar player was playing at this particular point, and I think
this solo was someone, and so on. Honestly, I don't micro analyse things to that extent, before I got involved in all this leaking business, I was would
maybe go to HTGTH.com once every few months to look at their discography, say if I wanna pick up and old import single or something. It wasn't like an everyday thing, the only bands i've followed closely to that extent were Marilyn Manson and NIN and so, as much as i love Gnr, and grew up with Gnr, we haven't had new Gnr songs in seventeen years, so I don't analyse nearly as closely as maybe some other people do, and I wouldn't be nearly as involved as I am in the community if i just hadn't happened to be some silly pro wrestler pulling a publicity stunt that happened to end up turning into songs.
GnRS; Well, you raised the name of NIN, a band that's done very well by using the internet to great effect, and really has embraced the fan base, that Beta (as axl's proxy) is saying the band doesn't. What did she tell you about his attitude towards the leaks in particular, insofar as you feel comfortable
talking about that.
MSL; Well, when I spoke to Beta, I was dealing with a very irrational woman.
GnRS; How many times did you talk to her?
MSL; It was probably three of four phone calls, the average length of each call would maybe be two and a half hours, of which maybe i'd get in three words per conversation, of her ranting about so many varous topics that there would be so much stuff to cover, ya know. And a lot of times gone by. But sometimes I think back and think "man, that was weird that she said that" or "i can't believe she mentioned this or that to me" cos who the fuck am I, why would you air ten years of the bands dirty laundry to me, especially when clearly I'm an internet troll. [Laughs]
GnRS; Were there any things that really were insights that made you think about -
MSL; [interrupts]It was fascinating for me, cos there were one or two conversations where I would hear a male voice in the background, whispering things for her that they wanted to ask me, and sometimes I wonder, "Was that Axl Rose in the background telling her what to say to me?". I was just fascinated how hung up they still were on Slash. Every other word out of her mouth was blaming things on Slash, "slash is an asshole", "if the fans only knew what Slash is like", "his public persona is all fake", secretly he's trying to get back in the band, you can't believe anything Slash says, he's a piece of shit. So much of what she was talking about was about Slash, and it had nothing to do with the fact I was leaking songs. I don't even know why she called me, cos it's not like she really was seeking any information other than just to yell at someone. So, that was really suprising that all these years later, they're still so hung up on slash, they're absolutely obsessed with Velvet Revolver, that really dominated a lot of her thought process.
GnRS; How did things leave, did she at any point keep the door open for you to contact her, did she jut stop calling?
MSL; I called her a couple of times, because the first time she called me, I was at the grocery store, and it was the first time i'd had the chance to go
food shopping after a week of not sleeping and whatever. While I was still trying to get the songs, the furthest I would leave the house would be to go to a [unintelligible] cos it was the closest thing to my house, I'd only let myself leave the house for five minutes. So once i finally got the songs, I thought "finally, I can get some groceries, and I random internet searched the phone number, and I found an ad for someone selling a Lamborgini, or some kind of expensive car, and the phone number was tied to Beta, so that's how I knew it was Beta, based on some ad she had posted trying to sell an automobile.
So the first time I spoke to her it was me calling her, but after that it was always her calling me.
GnrS; Did she say anything in particular about the leaks, did she enquire as to where they came from? The first batch, obviously.
MSL; I figured she was gonna be calling me to try to get info out of me, but no, she didn't really ask me any questions, it was her just yelling about Slash
and yelling about the fans, and me being so fascinated that I just let her keep talking.
GnRS; Any other feedback from the GnR camp at all?
MSL; Well, I dealt with Del James originally last year, before I dealt with Beta, and I talked to him on AIM a little bit, and I was like "well listen dude,
what do you guys want me to do at this point, I already did what I did" and if they could have nailed me they would have, and they can't, cos, well, what are you gonna get me for? Ok, i've never hosted any sort of files in my life, I'm not distributing anything. For all they know, I'm just some crazy guy that
takes credit for things I didn't do, I could be like the guy that says he killed John Bernay Ramsay, so obviously this time around I wanted to make it clear
by saying the exact time things were gonna leak, and then it leaked on the dot, obviously you put two and two together, but you I've never done anything to leave myself open legally, but I did have to deal with their lawyers for months and months and months.
GnRS; How so? What were they saying to you?
MSL; Well the first thing was this guy Steve out of New York, and having dealt with Incognito at recent times, I'm pretty sure they've changed law firms, cos that's not the guy he dealt with. But they really wanted to know about the guys in portugal I had gotten the songs from, and I said "listen, my only trump card here is that I have these guys phone numbers and emails and real names, do you want them? So give me in writing that you guys won't come after me, and I'll give up the names, no problem". That was my parachute, my escape plan. And it took a long time to get them to agree to that, cos they were like "look, the band doesn't wanna come after you, but universal does". And they were saying "you gotta give us time to calm down universal", and so finally they said "ok, here's the agreement", and they sent me the email and said "this is what you're agreeing to, and send us the names and tomorrow we'll mail you the agreement in writing". So I sent them the names in good faith, and they never sent the agreement, they never talked to me again after I gave them the names of the guys in portugal.
Part 2/3 to follow shortly guys, hopefully this should keep ya busy.
Part 2;
GnrS; Do you know if anything came of that?
MSL; No, I've had no contact with anyone in the Gnr camp ever since they started to go after Jayer Marrera or whoever the ringleader was over in Portugal. So at that point, personally, they figured "we've got what we want, fuck this kid, we don't need to send him this agreement", I was like "Alright, if that's how you guys wanna play, if the opportunity ever came again, cos it said in the agreement that I should never participate in trying to aquire leaks, or this or that, so i'd basically have to sit on the sidelines until the end of time. And I would have signed it, you know, but they never sent it, so I was like "fuck you guys", if i can ever get these damn songs again I will, and if people wanna consider me the Robin Hood of Guns N' Roses, that's a label that I'm happy with, ya know. Because there's a lot of guys out there who get these songs, and try to make a lot of money off these songs, instead of sharing. It shouldn't be about money, nobody should be making money off this band except the band so if you get something, share it!
GnrS; You did mention the guys in portugal, I have to ask, it's been about a year and a half since you shared the story about what happened with the leaks, any new insights into how they got hold of the leaks?
MSL; The ring leader over there was not the guy I got the songs from, but he was the guy trying to sell them to me for $20,000. He claimed that he had a sister that was dating a band member, I dunno if that's true or not, I just know over the course of this last year, having talked with a lot of people in Spanish speaking countries, and there's a lot of Gnr fans in mexico and Portugal, and brazil. They all say, as you try to unravel the bullshit, at the end
of the day, the leaks begin years ago with the fact that Beta's son, Fernando was friends with guys over in Brazil and was sharing stuff with them figuring
they'd never get around, and eventually the guys in portugal got the songs from the guys in brazil.
GnrS; So that would suggest there's a certain time limit as to what leaks are circulating?
MSL; Well, I think that the newer leaks now that are circulating have nothing to do with that stuff, because as I tried to get more and more leaks over this
last year, I think the South American countries, and Mexico, I don't think they really had much left. So what I started to encounter was very wealthy hoarders here in the US that had bought songs over time, so it was really a whole different ball game, what I was doing this time round as opposed to last year.
GnrS; When you say "really rich horders", do you mean folks who were buying directly from someone close to the band, or what do you think's going on?
MSL; Who knows how close it gets, or how they get the songs, because they are very very secretive, so if people don't understand them, for every song I get you guys, there's a hundred leads that I went through that turned out to be bullshit, and many many hours wasted dealing with people that turned out to be fake. But there's no way that to know who's fake and who's real. So if I have to go through a thousand emails over the course of a month, you never know which email is going to be the right one.
GnrS; Why do you think people keep contacting you? Because they're greatful?
MSL; I think the reason people keep contacting me, and it's not just me because, keep in mind before me there was DarkNeemus. And i remember three years ago, when the first leaks went down, talking with Neemus online, and people know that Neemus had Catcher In The Rye a couple of weeks before he leaked it, and I was one of the ones he sent it to, to help him try to trade it. And he for whatever reason trusted me, to try to sort through the bullshit, and see if we could find any other legitimate material. So I was always thankful to Neemus that he trusted me that early on, when I was a nobody. Ya know, I log into HTGTH one day and look at the discography, and people can talk shit about Jarmo all they want, but the discography was very useful to me, I used it for many years. I saw that shit leaked, I discovered mygnrforum.com, and somehow got hooked up with DarkNeemus, and I still talk to him all the time, and he helps a lot, but people just don't understand..Neemus and I have no contacts, we don't spend money getting songs or anything, it's just a lot of bullshit, hard work and a lot of hours, and that's all it is. You just put a lot of time into it, not knowing if you're going to get something or not. So people will criticise me after I leak something, they don't get it. This is my chance to try to calm down and reflect on why there were very stressful series of weeks or months, to finally get something after being in hyper mode for so long. So for people to criticise the way I behave, it's really unfair, because I have to get myself into a very very crazy state of mind in order to be able to do what I do.
GnrS; How long has the work been going on for this particular leak? Did this start before the Rock Band 2 announcement?
MSL; Um, yes. What I've been working on predates the nine songs that leaked from Antiquiet, which ultimately, and I don't care if people accept it or not, we wouldn't have if it weren't for Incognito's offer. That's the bottom line. If people want to trace the history of the leaks, you can thank Neemus for a bunch of stuff, obviously people thank me for stuff, and that's nice, but you gotta thank Incognito to, because those leaks came from inside the business, not inside the Gnr hoarding circle, and those leaks happened because Incognito raised such a stink that finally someone said let's throw these Gnr fans a bone, so that's the bottom line. What happened, usually when something goes down, there's a lot of chatter, it's easier to get people talking, so that's when I started working again, seeing if I could capitalise off the Antiquiet leaks, the same way when Neemus leaked madagascar, and I was like "it's time to go to work". Basically, at the end of the day there were to specific US hoarders with a lot of money that I'd been working on for a few months now, trying to play them against each other, and I came very close a few weeks ago to getting something, and in recent weeks it's been DarkNeemus helping, and it's been a guy by the name of Blitzkrieg, one of the moderators over at Chinesedemocracy.com, those two guys really stepped up the last few weeks to make sure we get something done.
GnrS; The two hoarders had stuff from 1999 and 2002, is that right?
MSL; Um, yeah, and they were working on trades and stuff, and me even talking about that publicly, people started to figure out who they were, and started going to them with more offers, and a lot of this was a cat and mouse game, and the best way for me to make shit happen was to cause controversy, get people nervous, they figure "well shit, maybe my song is gonna leak next so I might as well trade it before it's not worth anything" and you just gotta make guys nervous to get them to make any sort of move, cos there's people who have been sitting on songs for close to ten years, and you gotta hope maybe you can get them to crack. Like I say, people that wanna judge me, they don't understand the game that's being played. I have to try a lot of different things, you're just kinda throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.
GnrS; In your opinion, what is gonna happen once the album comes out, what will be the market value of the demos?
MSL; Well, first things first, we have to see if this song is Shacklers revenge, because there's some people swearing up and down that it is, and people swearing up and down that it isn't, so while we've got Rock Band 2 in a few weeks, months, whatever it is, and we'll probably get a rip off the game before it's in stores, if this is not Shacklers Revenge, then we've also got another song coming. If it is, cos people are criticising me, saying "why'd you leak this song, you could have traded it", well if it's Shacklers Revenge, no-one wanted to trade for Shacklers Revenge, so we'll see soon. But if this song is not Shacklers Revenge, and a different song ends up being in the game, if that song in the game is not a lot more catchy on the first listen than the song I leaked today, if the song in the game doesn't sound like a first single and sounds like an album track, I don't think we're getting the album this year, and if we don't get the album this year, I think people are gonna be a lot more open to either leaking stuff or making trades.
GnrS; Talk me through the process of how you actually got this leak, it really was done with overseas people involved?
MSL; Yes, and that, to me, was very important, as I wrote on my website, for people who pay attention to my nonsense.
GnrS; Great timing with the olympics!
MSL; Yeah yeah, legally I felt safer with the song coming from China, cos I don't live in China, so clearly it wasn't me who leaked the song, but also,
emotionally, I thought it would be a cool thing to have someone in Beijing go to Tiannamon square, and send the song to everybody.
GnrS; And that's really what happened? Wow, that's great.
MSL; That's really what happened, if Maddison on mygnr was to track the IP or whatever, that's the way it went down. So to me, I hope for people following this, there are more people out there who have songs, and if everybody would just share, everybody out there would have everything, and we wouldn't have to play these games, and so people need to understand it should be about the music, and we all wanna hear the album, and if someone is lucky enough to get their hands on something, share it! I don't understand the point of sitting in your room listening to it by yourself, feeling like your special. It's silly. And so I think with everything that's going on, with people thinking album promotion starts soon, I know people were disappointed the Olympics started and there was no announcement. I have a friend who was working on the Olympics over there, and I said "Dude, would you mind helping out with some Chinese Democracy stuff" and his first question was "what the fuck is Chinese Democracy?" [laughs]. And the second question was whatever it is, you know, MSL, if you need my help i'll do it, so he's never gonna hear this, but stuff I've done couldn't be done without a lot of people's help.
GnrS; Sure.
MSL; And not just Blitzkrieg, not just DarkNeemus, not just my friend in China. A lot of people have to help out for anything that gets done.
GnrS; Anything you wanna say about your friend in China and how they got hold of the track, or is that best left for another conversation?
MSL; Well, obviously that's best left to anybodys imagination, obviously it's not hard to get a song to someone in China, but at the same time, I have to swear up and down that I have nothing to do with it.
GnrS; Sure, sure. Is it true that two more songs may be close to release?
MSL; You know, I do wanna point out that someone posting or talking on the chatroom at chinesedemocracy.com called "Weliveinchina", I have no idea who that is. They're not connected to me at all, the guy who posted as ILiveInChina that posted the leak, he doesn't know anything about this stuff, so whoever weliveinchina is, I have no idea who he is. Could be there are two more songs, I hope so, you know. I always hope that anytime something leaks, other people will be like "fuck it" and give in and leak too.
GnrS; You said there's been a lot of BS and close calls, any other demo's that you believe in your heart of hearts might exist, and is out there?
MSL; Here's the thing, everybody was convinced that Sorry was out there, and the big thing was, when I got this song, whatever the fuck it is, I dunno, and people helping me get the song were just calling it MSL's revenge cos they didn't know for sure what it was, but they just wanted to help me try to get us new stuff. So i did have someone lined up that had Sorry, at least supposedly, and I lined up to trade this song for Sorry, and when we played the songs for each other, we had the same song. So whoever these people are that think that Sorry is out there, this is the song that people out there are calling Sorry.
GnrS; How long has this been circulating, to the best of your knowledge?
MSL; Um, well I don't know if where I got the song ultimately traces back to Harmonix, because we still don't know if it's the song in the game, I do know that the people hoarding what they thought was Sorry, and turns out to be this song, and maybe it really is Sorry, they had the track since earlier this year.
GnrS; Earlier this year, ok. So well before Rock Band 2 being announced
MSL; Well, exactly. Which is why it never occurred to them in a million years that this was Shacklers Revenge. Now I'm not saying it is Shacklers Revenge, there's no way for anyone to know for sure because there's nothing about the lyrics that would confirm it, musically it would make sense, you know, having heard Shackler, and this sounds like Shacklers Revenge, and if I had a gun to my head I would say this is Shacklers Revenge, and that people that had it earlier this year would have never heard the title Shacklers Revenge, so they would have had to guess as to what song it was, and with the song being more agressive, I think they assumed it was Sorry.
Here is part 3:
-------------------------
Hey guys! Part 3.
MSL Interview P3
GnrS; That makes sense. Any other ones, you did mention Better with acoustic guitar.
MSL; I never heard that, that was just something the people of Portugal had. What people gotta understand, there's dozens of mixes of some of these songs that get hoarded, cos everybody gets a different disk, and every disk has different versions. So just like with Antiquiet, when we got those nine songs and it was a lot of different versions of stuff we already had, well the guys in portugal had their own version of Better as well which I was just never able to get because the stuff I had leaked before I could get everything out of them. I don't wanna rehash a bunch of stuff, if people wanna look the story up, it's out there. But, yeah, there is another version of Better but I never heard it, even the people in Portugal didn't think it was that big a deal, they just said it was slightly different.
GnrS; I have to ask, if you did get Axl instead of Beta on the line, what would you say to him?
MSL; Honestly, if Axl was willing to talk rationally, I dunno what I'd say, because I think my main objective would be to get him to look at the hardcore fanbase in a different light, certainly I understand his perspective, one of the things the Gnr camp was adamant about, and Beta especially, was Axl wrote that open letter, in late '06 where he wrote that open letter to everybody [The one talking about the tour, and how he was upset about it] the one where he talked about the tentative release date and really the only thing he's ever given to us in recent time. That took a lot for Axl to do that, because he's a very sensitive guy, and obviously overly sensitive when it comes to criticism. And he obviously thought he would for the fanbase and wrote something like that, and get nothing but praise. And the thing he's gotta understand is, there's nobody in this world that can do anything that's gonna get universal praise on the internet, the internet is a breeding ground for negativity, it's where people can anonymously go and burn off some steam, and criticise anything they want. So when he wrote that letter, and a lot of people were critical of it, that was his one attempt at reaching out to the fans, sticking his hand out, and he feels like that hand was slapped away, so all I could say to him is "you gotta understand, that a large percentage of the fan base really appreciated him trying to be honest with us, and you can't allow those 20 or 30 percent who are gonna shit on anything deter you from really trying to restore some sort of good will with the fans. The same way those 20 or 30 percent of the people are gonna shit on anything I do, they'll listen to this interview and say "MSL's an attention whore and this and that", "fuck msl". There's nothing I can do to stop that, so all I can do is not let it phase me. I do what I do for the fans that wanna hear new music and appreciate they get to hear new stuff, and the guys that don't appreciate that; more power to them.
GnrS; As far as those deserving appreciation, any other people behind the scenes who can't be acknowledge that you'd want to acknowledge?
MSL; There's probably a lot of people that don't want their names mentioned, I will say this though; when I try to go back in time, to how I got all wrapped into this, the two guys that really stick out are DarkNemus, and then there's this guy that posts on GnrRevolution under the name BurningHills. And I don't even know how I started talking to this guy, all I know is last year, when there was a site Rosesofvelvet.com, and the only reason I found it was they were talking about my original offer, back when none of the other sites would let anyone talk about it. This burninghills guy, every step of the way, just shooting the shit with me to keep me going, keep me motivated and, you know, it's very hard to work on this stuff day in and day out, with no sleep, and this guy BurningHills is always there, just encouraging me not to stop.
GnrS; That's great
MSL; I don't know if anyone knows who he is, and I dunno if anyone cares who he is, but he's just some random dude that I met on some board and he's friends with DarkNemus, and we would not have anything if it wasn't for this guy, I would have lost my mind and given in, and he's saying "hey dude, calm down, just keep working"
GnrS; So what's next for you with regards GnR?
MSL; I think after this I'm done, because I can't imagine how anybody would ever trust me again, and that was one of the hard things from last year, how do I even negotiate with anybody or pretend I have material, or try to negotiate trades or this or that, when everybody knows I'm full of shit and I'm gonna leak, ya know. [laughs]. Am I gonna leak right away? No. Me and Nemus always try and trade for more songs, but ultimately everyone is gonna get everything that me and Nemus have, so after this one, well it was one in a million that I pulled off anything last year, so therefore it's one in a billion that I did it again when everyone was leery of dealing with me. I think i'm done, I don't think anyone will ever trust me ever again, nor should they. I've never even for a second worked under an Alias, it's not like I work under some other name, I'm always up front about who I am, i'm Saint Laurent, the crazy fucker wrestler, the AWA world tag team champion, then suddenly people think it's someone posing at Saint Laurent, that it's just being used as a cover, no, that's me, I never hide who I am.
GnrS; I should ask, I understand you've spent a lot of money on long distance phone calls making all this happen, and..
MSL; [interrupts] The phone bill does get racked up.
GnrS; So if anyone wants to send a paypal donation towards yours phone bill, your email address is;
MSL; You can say it, I don't wanna say it.
GnrS; mister@mistersaintlaurent.com. They can send a kindly donation your way if they're so inclined, correct?
MSL; Yeah, well, I can't stop someone from paypalling me money, and it'll be nice cos the phone bills end up being hundreds of dollars after this kind of stuff, but certainly I'm not comfortable soliciting money for obvious reasons, I don't do this for money, and all said and done I don't wanna lose hundreds of dollars, but if I do, I do.
GnrS; Well if you get a free Quiznose out of the deal?
MSL; It's a small price to pay.
GnrS; That's awesome. Anything else about this whole adventure you'd want to tell people about? I'm hoping and i'm guessing that you're going to be posting more on your site in the near future?
MSL; I hope so, and I think things are just beginning to unravel. I think it's gonna take a few days for the media to pick up on this, I get hundreds and hundreds of emails saying thank you. If you wanna thank me, in addition to the phone bill, the best thing they can do is talk about this anywhere they can. Other sites, if they know anyone that writes a music blog, or anything, talk about Guns N' Roses, talk about what happened. Because the more my name gets out there, the more people come to me, I don't know why peopel come to me when they know ultimately I'm gonna leak, but they do come to me. So the bigger name I get, for whatever reason these people come out of the woodwork and they come to me, and so that's the biggest thank you, would be just getting the word out. Every article written about this, every blog that mentions this, it makes it so that in the future when maybe someone does get material and they're scared of leaking or this and that, they know they can come to me cos I'm the one guy, I'll take the heat head on, and if Guns N' Roses wanna come after me, then ok, let's do it. And I think it makes some of these guys comfortable knowing I'll take the heat so they can work in the shadows.
GnrS; Right, right. Very good. Well listen I really appreciated your time here tonight, hopefully you're gonna get some sleep soon?
MSL; Yeah, I hope so. This hasn't been nearly as bad as last year, cos last year when I was dealing with the guys in portugal, it was so nutty and the time difference over there made things tough, and a whole week went by, and in that time, I got maybe two hours sleep. I was dealing with so many different people in so many different time zones, that I needed to be awake every second of the day in case someone called or someone emailed, so you know, it takes so much out of you, and i make no secret of the fact that i'm a manic depressive.
GnrS; Well, hopefully you're feeling pretty good right now!
MSL; Yeah, obviously, if you're manic depressive, when your manic it feels fucking great! So who knows how many more hours i'll have this rush going on, and eventually I'll crash and i'll wake up, and the only thing I can hope is, when I wake up and i check the sites and stuff, that people don't trash me too bad. Cos i try not to let it get to me, but I think it's silly when you've got someone that's enjoying the song, and at the same time they're like "ah, MSL shouldn't leak this stuff". If you don't think I should leak it, then don't download it.
GnrS; I've gotta ask, were you completely taken aback and suprised by the Antiquiet leaks? Was that complete news to you as it was to everyone else?
MSL; Um, no. Because Incognite put so much work in, and in the same way I was inspired by DarkNemus, Incognito never hid the fact he was inspired by me. I was thankful he was calling me and allowing me to give him tips and try to help him out so he could learn from my experiences. I wasn't suprised because Incognito got his hands on some stuff, so I knew stuff was out there and I knew the guy who sent him stuff was ultimately gonna want stuff out there on a grander scale. People gotta understand, there's two types of leak; you've got the hoarders in the guns n' roses community that try to sell the songs or trade them or this and that, but sometimes you also just get guys in the music business that aren't really even fans that have aquired stuff through their unusual line of work, they've got a disc laying for six months, and once VH1 is sitting there going "there's a million dollars at stake" someone is gonna say "man, this is ridiculous, these poor guns n' roses fans". I've got friends that work in the music industry, I've got my buddy who helps out with some stuff, shit they look at the guns n' roses fans and they just feel bad for us. Sometimes, they just want to throw us a bone!
GnrS; God bless 'em! [laughs] Listen, thanks a lot, I really appreciate your time here tonight.
MSL; Not a problem. If you wanna post the mp3 that's fine, if people want a transcript, you do it if you think it's best. I'm not too familiar with GnrSource.com but I will make sure to check it out as soon as I hang up the phone.
GnrS; Sounds good, I'm just a guy who's been a reader there, but seeing how you and everyone else in the community has been trying to do something good
for all the rest of us who've been suffering, I figured this was the least I could do to pitch in. So thanks again for everything, get some rest, and
keep us all posted on your adventures.
Re: MSL's GnRSource interview transcript
The song is Shackler's Revenge. I wasn't aware people were "swearing up and down that it isn't". I'm also reasonably sure it was ripped out of the RB2 game when it was being demo'd in public last week.
There's plenty of good, obvious reasons to believe MSL but I also believe there's a good amount of BS in this story. Now whether he knows it or not is another story.
Well he said that hoarders claim to have had it since the beginning of the year, but it could be BS like you said.
Re: MSL's GnRSource interview transcript
russtcb wrote:The song is Shackler's Revenge. I wasn't aware people were "swearing up and down that it isn't".
Yeah, I lurk at other sites and quite a few are still asking, "What's the name of the song?" Amazing.
Well, I think it's understandable that there was initially doubt due to the non radio friendly sound, and level of dificulty that will likely exist in being able to play it in Rockband. Although I personally like this song much more than I do 'Better', I could see a song like 'Better' being used to get the band back in the public eye, while this particular song will probably only appeal to a certain group of individuals. Then again, what the hell should we have expected with a title like 'Shackler's Revenge'. 
Re: MSL's GnRSource interview transcript
Has anyone confirmed that Shackler's/Chicken Dinner is in fact a mastered track and not, in BBF's own words, "just an unfinished demo" like what is said about other leaks?
If the track is not well received you can bet your last dollar that Axl will say it was an 'just an unfinished demo'. He did it for Oh my God and I can't talk for others but I am not dumb enough to believe that. They had to get permission to use that track in End of Days therefore it was a finished track.
Re: MSL's GnRSource interview transcript
Technically, "Oh My God" was "just an unfinished demo," so you'll have to take that line of reasoning with a huge grain of salt. "Shackler's Revenge" sounds pretty damn mastered to me.
I wonder how many people were naive enough to buy the 'it was just an unfinished demo' for Oh my God?
