15 years in the life of W. Axl Rose
Classic Rock magazine has done the hard yards and cobbled together an account of the 15 year creation of Guns 'N Roses' Chinese Democracy album. It's an absolutely fascinating read, going through the many lineup changes as the original guys slowly exited, making way for most of Nine Inch Nails at one point, and even including Brian May who recorded some guitar parts that never made the final album. They went through multiple producers (including Moby), multiple A&R men who were all offered huge bonuses by the label if they could get the album done "within the year". At one point (around 2000) Bob Ezrin, renowned producer and album "finisher" came in at what was thought to be the final stages before release just to give his thoughts on the final mix, only to tell Axl that he only had 3 good songs. The album was scrapped. From what I can tell, the album was scrapped maybe three times. It got weird at the end where Axl was taking his unfinished album to clubs with him and playing it over the PA, making outrageous claims as to the release date and that it's going to be a triple album etc. It seems in the last few years before it came out in 2008 there was not a lot of anything done, just no release.
Our W. Axl had major hangups about the relevance of the album. Not that there were any doubts from anyone concerned with the process most of the time, with reports of utterly contemporary, relevant and engaging music emerging. His many sneak peeks at clubs etc garnered ecstatic reception for the material. Classic Rock magazine even gave the unfinished album "album of the year" in 2007 based on leaked demos. Many reports that he just didn't know how to finish it emerged, and accounts of songs that never had lyrics. One guitarist worked with Axl for 2 years and never played a song with lyrics or a proper title. The Nine Inch Nails version of the band re-recorded Appetite For Destrction when they first got together rather than write new stuff, just to "get into the right headspace". That's not a minor undertaking.
Essentially he's extra strength crazy. All his procrastination served to do was increase expectation and make his hangups all the worse. Since the album came out he's done no media at all and the album has sold comparatively poorly. In he US you can only get it from Best Buy stores apparently, which is so weird (though AC/DC just did this too with WalMart). I reckon most people wouldn't even know it's out.
Myself, I've yet to get into the album. I've tried a couple of times and got bored, I'm trying again as I write this. Seems OK maybe, stil a bit boring, has promise. It doesn't seem 15 years good though. If Axl had released it 8 years ago he could've had 3 albums out by now and put the whole sorry saga behind him.
