It would appear that Guns N’ Roses fans may not have to wait over a decade and a half to hear new material from the veteran rockers.
Latest reports suggest that the band have a large portion of new material written and recorded. This would surely come as a relief to fans that endured the 17 year wait for GnR’s previous 2008 effort Chinese Democracy, which was their first new release since 1993’s The Spaghetti Incident.
According to Rolling Stone, the band’s guitarist DJ Ashba is very keen to get cracking on the new material, which GnR frontman and megalomaniac Axl Rose has been working on.
“[Axl Rose] has tons of stuff done [and] recorded that he’s played for me and wants my input on… I think it’s just a matter of sitting down and working together as a band, putting together what we feel is gonna be the next best Guns N’ Roses record,” Ashba said.
The band is set for a busy month with appearances alongside Neil Young, Jack White, The Flaming Lips and others at the Bridge School Benefit concert in California on October 21st and 22nd. They’ll follow on with a 12-date stint at Hard Rock’s Joint club in Las Vegas. It is the first time the current members will be in the same place for a solid month and DJ Ashba predicts that the extra time spent together will promote a very productive workspace.
“This is the first time we’re all gonna be in the same place… that will be our main focus. So I think we’re gonna get a lot done,” said the guitarist.
Ashba’s optimism is surely a sign that this record won’t be anywhere near as laborious as Chinese Democracy, which reportedly went through four producers, countless band member change-ups and ended up costing in excess of $13 million. With a track record like that, we suggest you hold out on getting too excited about the band’s next release just yet.
It’s good to see that Axl Rose may have managed to distract himself from his long-running feud with his former GnR bandmates long enough to focus on new material.
In the same year that the band celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their influential debut, Appetite For Destruction, and even though it’s approaching two decades since the classic lineup’s acrimonious split; the bitter feud between frontman Axl Rose and particularly former guitarist Slash, remains one of the most verdant rivalries in modern music.
As recently as June, Rose was banning fans from wearing Slash t-shirts to his concerts, while in August he was chasing up the makers of the popular Guitar Hero videogame franchise for a $US 200 million lawsuit over the use of Slash’s visage being plastered all over music that Rose believed to be his.
The absurdity of Rose’s behaviour issues little confidence that the band are on track to produce something soon. The frontman’s erratic behaviour may be a further hindrance on the recording process and it’s never clear what the troubled musician might get up to next. We’re just hoping we don’t have to wait another 15 years to find out…
