by Mick Wall
The comedian Chris Rock, who inducted the Red Hot Chili Peppers later that evening, could not pass up the opportunity to lob a dig at Axl, too, saying, ‘A lot of people are disappointed that Axl Rose isn’t here. But let’s face it, even if he was going to be here, he still wouldn’t be here yet.’ The reunited line-up stormed through ‘Mr Brownstone’, ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ and ‘Paradise City’ for their celebratory jam, with Myles Kennedy, from Slash’s band, Slash and the Conspirators, handling the vocals. But it was only a matter of time before Axl – the Hall of Fame’s newest and most reluctant member – weighed in, which he did via another open letter five days later. ‘I still don’t know exactly or understand what the Hall is or how or why it makes money, where the money goes, who chooses the voters and why anyone on this board decides who, out of all the artists in the world that have contributed to this genre, officially “rock” enough to be in the Hall?’ The letter then lapsed into more punch-drunk defensiveness, as he groused, ‘Now that the smoke’s cleared a little, any desperate, misguided attacks have been just that, a pathetic stab at gossip, some lame vindictiveness, the usual entitlement crap, he’s obsessed, crazy, volatile, a hater. I once bought a homeless woman a slice of pizza who yelled at me she wanted soup. We got her the soup. You can get your own.’
As if to emphasise how much better they really were than the originals, over the next couple of years members of the ‘new’ Guns N’ Roses would go out of their way to suggest they all still had a big future together. DJ Ashba had said as far back as 2009 that they were already working on new songs for their next album and Dizzy Reed now confirmed that there was a wealth of unreleased material from the Chinese Democracy sessions, estimating that at some point the band would release new material. In June 2012, while touring with his side project, The Compulsions, Richard Fortus dropped something of a bombshell, when he reportedly told a French website that the band had been working on new material in the hope of finishing the Chinese Democracy follow-up by the end of the year. Indeed, he stated that the band would not play further dates on that year’s Up Close and Personal tour so that they could funnel their energies into the studio.
Only Earth’s newest residents would have placed any stock in such promises, which Fortus nevertheless continued to reiterate in the ensuing years. Later that summer, the band announced a November residency at The Joint – a 4000-seat room in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, which they would film for an upcoming concert DVD. The 12-show, three-week residency was officially titled the Appetite for Democracy tour, in celebration of 25 years of GNR’s debut and four years of Chinese Democracy, and would serve as a warm-up to the band’s 2013 campaign through Japan, Australia and back through North America. The only other remarkable development in 2013 was the leak of a new song, called ‘Going Down’, which featured Tommy Stinson on lead vocals with Axl singing backup. Though Axl’s camp would not officially confirm that it was a new Guns N’ Roses track, Spin magazine seized on the story, citing not just cease-and-desist actions as adding credence to the rumour, but a tweet from the guitarist Bumblefoot that August which read: ‘If you’re in Corfu, you Better be Going Down to ‘One for the Road’ bar in Sidari for the big jam tonight …! @gnr.’ The general response to the track fell somewhere between a shrug and a sigh when the ‘jam’ never happened.
There was another successful residency at The Joint, in Las Vegas, plus a high-profile headlining performance at Revolver magazine’s 2014 awards ceremony in LA. But the circus coming to town no longer seemed to be the big event it once was, the sheer novelty of seeing Axl Rose alive onstage, surrounded by who cared what other band members, having long since worn off.
Slash released a star-studded solo album and later two more extremely well-received outings with his new band, Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. In addition to constant collaborations with other artists, he launched his own horror movie production company, Slasher Films, in 2011. Duff also stayed active releasing material with Loaded and, more recently, Walking Papers. He also released a bestselling autobiography – as have Slash and Steven Adler – and became a popular blogger and columnist for Seattle Weekly and ESPN. He even, like Izzy before him, would show up occasionally on stage with Axl and his Guns N’ Roses.
Izzy continued to release solo albums – 11 since leaving GN’R, many of these featuring members of the Appetite line-up, with his latest due later in 2016. He also appeared on Slash’s first solo album. Steven Adler continued to struggle with addiction in his post-GN’R career, though still managing to play regularly, first with his own outfit, Adler’s Appetite, and later releasing an album and touring with his band, Adler. He appeared on the television show Celebrity Rehab for two seasons and in 2013 he put Adler on hiatus to continue focusing on his sobriety. While it would have been naive to say that these men had all transcended the thrill or sentimentality of playing with Guns N’ Roses and would never consider a reunion, they remained for the time being largely and happily focused on their respective projects, squarely looking to the future – right up until word first began to spread across the internet again, in 2015, about that possible, longed-for reunion.
In the spring of 2014, with Stinson committed to a reunion tour with his original band, The Replacements, official GN’R sources announced the return of an old friend – Duff McKagen. Duff would temporarily fill in for Tommy on five dates of their South American tour. A gracious Stinson explained to Billboard, ‘I didn’t want to fuck anyone up in Guns by saying, “Hey, I can’t do this tour” or anything like that. Luckily someone was able to reach out to Duff and he was amenable to the idea and was into doing it. It’s Duff being the kind of good sport he is, trying to help Axl out. So I’m like, “Thanks dude, for covering my ass on this one.” I think people are gonna be really stoked about it. It’s gonna be fun for everyone.’ Not that Stinson actually had much say in the matter.
Later that spring, with the current line-up restored, Axl took the band back to The Joint for a second residency, stretching into June, this time called ‘No Trickery! An Evening of Destruction’. With this move, Axl had almost certainly – unwittingly – revealed his hand regarding the band’s near future. While the other musicians had all discussed the writing of new material and the existence of several unused Chinese Democracy tracks, the choice to spend two weeks on another Vegas residency, rather than put the finishing touches to a new record, spoke volumes. Guns N’ Roses were not about new music any more; they were a touring band stacked with hired guns, making their living off the fumes of its classic older albums, and a few of the strongest tracks from their latest album – not unlike a Thin Lizzy or Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Meanwhile, the latter half of 2014 saw the release of the band’s first video in 22 years – Appetite for Democracy: Live at the Hard Rock Casino, Las Vegas, which captured the band’s first residency, two years previously. Filmed in both 3D and 2D, and mixed in 5.1 Surround Sound, Appetite for Democracy 3D is a technological tour-de-force, showcasing crystalline graphics, brawny production and quick-cut edits that create a sense of speed and action, pacing the film far more effectively than the underlying material. Coming in at just under three hours, the 25-song set list includes seven tracks from Appetite for Destruction, five from Chinese Democracy and the rest a smattering of UYI and Lies tracks and even a pair of originals from Stinson and Bumblefoot. Giving it the feel of an old-school Vegas cabaret, there are scantily clad dancing girls and a bewildering Liberace-esque interlude where Axl plays piano from a platform floating above the audience. The musicians empty the drawer of live concert tropes – strutting, mugging and pouting for the cameras, and while their respective performances are polished to a man, entirely absent is any sense of chemistry, let alone the danger or unpredictability that once shrouded the very idea of a Guns N’ Roses concert.
Critically, while the consensus was overwhelmingly favourable regarding the film’s special effects and all-around razzle-dazzle, far more muted was the reception for Axl’s
vocals. Even with the inevitable post-production overdubs that would accompany any modern DVD release, tracks like ‘It’s So Easy’, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and the whinnying of ‘You Could be Mine’ spoke of the singer’s increasingly limited range. While heritage acts like the Rolling Stones rework certain songs to accommodate the inexorable deterioration of their frontman’s vocal cords, new GN’R play the material as it was originally recorded, exposing the singer’s struggles in reaching those edges that he once so confidently owned.
Compared to videos of Eighties-era performances by the original line-up storming through the belly of Appetite, or unleashing the gritty acoustic punch of the semi-acoustic ‘You’re Crazy’, it became apparent that precisely what the new line-up delivered in showmanship, they lacked in soul. And how could they ever truly own these songs that were written years before they joined the band? Setting aside the potent production, Appetite for Democracy 3D plays more like a Broadway show – regardless of how flawlessly or passionately the cast onstage deliver their lines, every single person in the audience sees them as actors telling somebody else’s story. Fun without the funk. Entertainment without the edge. Rock without the roll.
Earlier that year, the band headlined Revolver magazine’s annual Golden Gods awards, at which Richard Fortus renewed his perennial proclamation regarding new material, telling the Associated Press, ‘We are working on stuff and hopefully very soon we’re going to have new stuff out. Well, in the next year.’ Later that June, Axl would provide a bit more clarity on his plans, telling Revolver, ‘We recorded a lot of things before Chinese was out. We’ve worked more on some of those things and we’ve written a few new things. But basically, we have what I call kind of the second half of Chinese. That’s already recorded. And then we have a remix album made of the songs from Chinese. That’s been done for a while, too. But after Vegas, we’re going to start looking very seriously at what we’re doing in that regard.’ The release date for either of these albums was not provided.
Ultimately, the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show (or no-show) would encapsulate the Guns N’ Roses story better than any other event in the preceding 20 years, bristling with drama, ego and wild unpredictability. In the wake of their induction, one got the overwhelming sense that the band’s first two acts had finally closed. On the neutral ground of the Hall’s glassy edifice on the shores of Lake Erie, four modern rock legends gathered for one final time beneath the Guns N’ Roses banner to take one last bow together. There was nothing left to say.
And yet, if anybody could shock the world, it would be W. Axl Rose. Reunion chatter would continue to fester on barstools and bulletin boards. Axl remained insistent that a reunion would never occur and with the eyes of the world on the 2012 Hall of Fame ceremony, he might have missed his best opportunity for not simply giving the fans what they so desperately craved, but the opportunity to recast his own embattled image through one single action. That one gesture – standing alongside his former bandmates for a few more hours in history – would have eclipsed all of the open letters, accusations and innuendo and might have been his own crowning moment.
But then anyone who still thought they could second-guess Axl Rose … well, they were fucking crazy.
17
IN THIS LIFETIME
The signs were there for all to see but after so many detours down the dark alleys of the Guns N’ Roses story, no one was foolish enough to actually come out and say it. There was also the fear that the merest mention of – shhh – a reunion would send Axl Rose running off again into denial. The presence of Duff McKagan onstage with Axl in South America had re-stoked the fires. But even when Duff was also present as the band played an hour-long set at the US rock magazine Revolver’s high-profile Golden Gods awards ceremony, in April 2014, the rumours were still only smouldering, not blazing. Axl was there to pick up the Ronnie James Dio lifetime achievement award, named after the late Dio/Rainbow/Black Sabbath singer. For once, Axl was on his best behaviour – no tantrums, minimal tardiness and an uncharacteristic humility on the part of the frontman.
‘It was actually kind of a surprise to me,’ he told the magazine in a brief interview on the night. ‘And I appreciate it and stuff, but, personally, I don’t feel like I’ve done enough of anything to have a lifetime achievement award. But that’s just me. I know other people were really happy for me about it so that was a good thing. I just feel like, you know, it’s been a long, slow process beyond comprehension with Chinese Democracy, but it’s still moving forward and there’s a lot more that we hope to do.’ Asked about the presence of GN’R’s original bassist, Axl was effusive in his praise and seemingly happy at the resurrection of an old friendship. ‘It went really well,’ he said. ‘He worked really hard on the parts and he liked playing the newer songs from Chinese Democracy. And, you know, it’s pretty funny because we’d go to talk about certain things from Illusions, and there’s things he doesn’t remember, there’s things I don’t remember. We kind of finish some of each other’s memories sometimes. And the Duff that played these shows with us isn’t really the Duff that I knew from what I’d call “Old Guns”, or the Appetite or Illusion line-up.’
More surprisingly, Axl also obliquely referenced ‘Old Guns’ in the short acceptance speech he gave when picking up the award, thanking ‘our line-up right now … all of our line-ups’. It was hardly earthshattering – he studiously avoided mentioning any of his colleagues by name. But given the vitriol that he had heaped upon Slash in recent years – infamously describing him as a ‘cancer’ in an interview with the AOL website Spinner in 2009, a remark that was reported around the world, adding that there was ‘zero possibility’ of a reunion with him – it hinted at something approaching a détente on the singer’s part. Few paid much attention to the reference, and why would they, but hardened Guns N’ Roses watchers couldn’t help but wonder if something was unfolding behind the scenes.
If there was, no one was letting on – not least the members of Guns N’ Roses themselves. Despite sitting out recent dates, their bassist, Tommy Stinson, was still following the party line, suggesting that wheels might be grinding back into motion on the long-gestating follow-up to Chinese Democracy, even if it was said more in hope than with authority. ‘There’s rumblings of other things to come,’ Stinson insisted, ‘but I’m not sure what those would be at this point. I hope we would fucking throw ourselves in the studio and make another record. A bunch of us have been writing stuff, so hopefully we’ll get something going.’
Those ‘rumblings’ turned out to be something less explosive than a new Guns N’ Roses album. Instead, their second Las Vegas residency at The Joint, the ‘No Trickery! An Evening Of Destruction’, had promised to strip away the hi-tech, metaphorical crash-bang-wallop of recent GN’R shows and focus instead on the things on which the band had originally built their name way back when: music and attitude. While a cynic might suggest this streamlined approach was mainly to save money, the shows themselves were a success, even if the 4000-capacity venue was a step down from the arenas they’d played on their last few runs. With Stinson back on duty, they stretched their set out to three hours and 30-plus songs to make up for the lack of onstage explosions, throwing in covers of The Who’s ‘The Seeker’ and an instrumental version of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ for good measure.
During the last show, Izzy Stradlin’ made a semi-traditional cameo, dropping by halfway through for a loose-limbed version of the classic Use Your Illusion number ‘14 Years’. But the Vegas shows were also surrounded by a strange uncertainty. As the residency kicked off, the website RadarOnline.com reported that Guns N’ Roses were ‘set to split’. According to what the website described as ‘a source close to the band’, ‘Band members have been told their calendars are free following Vegas. Axl is considering retiring and it’s done. Band members and support staff were surprised when told the news and are actively looking for work.’ While according to another source, ‘Axl has made enough
money and wants to stop touring … He is considering retiring.’
The rumours were quickly shot down by Axl himself. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he wrote on Facebook. ‘GN’R fans sure have a Radar for BS! Love you all!’ But not everyone was on the same page. A source close to the band described the rumours of retirement as ‘bullshit’ but admitted that the members of the current line-up had been told that the calendar was empty for the foreseeable future, and that they were free to pursue other things. If that was true, then it looked like Axl could have been winding down the Chinese Democracy line-up. But if he was, nobody had told Slash. The guitarist’s solo career was stronger than it had ever been. When the inevitable question of a Guns N’ Roses reunion came up in interviews, Slash treated them with a polite weariness. His standard answer was that, no, he didn’t know what Axl’s problem with him was, but there was too much water under the bridge for it to happen anyway. Though that didn’t stop him taking the odd sly dig at the current line-up. Asked what he thought about Duff standing in for Tommy Stinson earlier in 2014, he replied, ‘It really isn’t that big a deal. Duff told me he was going to fill in for what’s his name.’ Whatsisname being a man who had been part of the GN’R line-up for 16 years – five years longer than the guitarist himself.
