Guns N Roses Guitarist Confirms Chinese Democracy is 'Almost Finished'

Motley Crue

Over the past couple of days Guns N Roses Guitarist Ron Thal has made several statements confirming that the bands long awaited album 'Chinese Democracy' may actually be near completion.

Thal told DJ Eddie Trunk that the band was nearly finished the albums mixing when he drove him from the bands rehersal to his hotel room. Trunk watched the band play and mentioned "...What really sounded great were the many new songs they played..."

Bumblefoot was also interviewed on the show Maximum Threshold, in which he said that he was so excitied about hearing the album 'finally mixed' and when asked if he played on all the tracks, he responded that he didnt play on them all (meaning that there could still perhaps be some material from both Buckethead and Paul Huge as well as Brian May)

Sabre0001

Thread misplaced from Humour section perhaps

Ph3n0m

Sorry but yawwwwwwwwwwn - heard this sooo many times "its nearly done", " so close to being finished", blah blah blah.

Until its actually in the shops - then for all I care, they can go jump - great rock band years ago, and I was lucky to see them at Slane - but jesus this merry-go-round is now just pointless

Patricide

in all fairness one of the songs i heard off chinese democracy sounded pretty class, its not really what id call guns and roses but still....

As for it being nearly done, wasnt the whole album leaked there before crimbo? therefore doesnt it have to be done?

JC 2K3

^There's been rumours of all of it leaking etc. but we don't know if what leaks is final and there've only been 5 confirmed/widespread full leaks of studio demos. AFAIK right now there's rumours going around that someone has a CD with demos of Chinese Democracy, Madagascar and The Blues from 2002, the intro to Chinese Democracy and all of Madagascar have been leaked recently.

Bumblefoot says a lot of things, but it's clear he's actually quite naive as to the actual status of Chinese Democracy.

It was supposed to have been finished a few months back when Sebastian Bach said he'd heard all of it, yet later on either Fortus or Thal said they were still mixing it....

I dunno if it'll ever come out, however, if There Was a Time is the only good thing to come out of New GNR I'll still be happy.

A Primal Nut

The best I'm hoping for is the album to be handed over to the record company and an announcement before April 14th, when the next tour starts. Then eight weeks (like Axl said in December) and its released in June. With twelve days to go before April 14th, and with mixing and mastering yet to be completed, and with lots of rehearsing for the gigs going on in that time, it all seems unlikely. Maybe the touring schedule between South Africa and Australia will be left empty to finish all that.

Of course with any other band, if mixing started in February as Del James stated, it would be well finished by now, but bare in mind Bumblefoot said he layed down about 100 different tracks for each solo.:eek: And he doesn't even know for sure if he'll make the final version. Throw in all the tracks Buckethead recorded and that's a lot of options. And that's just lead guitar. So there's a lot of decisions for Axl and whoever else is doing the mixing to make, with regard to what makes the album and what doesn't. Plus Axl has taken his time with everything else with this album, so I doubt mixing will be any different.

They cancelled concerts in January specifically to complete the album so presumably, Axl planned to have it recorded before touring again. If its not finished and handed over to the record company by the start of this tour, or at the very latest, the Australian one in June, I think I'll give up hope of it ever coming out, although I've said that many times before.

Galvasean

How long have they been working on it now, 12 years?

JC 2K3

Nah, about 9/10.

The first mention of the title "Chinese Democracy" was in 1997, earliest leaked demos were from sessions in 1999.

Patricide

just listened to a version of the song "better" there. Its different to the version i heard a few months back...and not for the better. Some very stupid changes have been made to throw the entire feel of the song.

JC 2K3

In fairness Better was never that good in the first place. It's got that cool "industrial" part in the middle with some intense vocals from Axl and a crazy Buckethead solo, but apart from that it's really average.

Patricide

I liked it thought it was really catchy....albeit not very guns and roses.

JC 2K3

Not what you'd expect from an album that has been worked on for so long though.

AFAIK Robin Finck wrote it all....

buck65

God bless ye're patience lads. Fair play to ye, ye must really love them.

Motley Crue

buck65 wrote:

God bless ye're patience lads. Fair play to ye, ye must really love them.

That, and most of the Rock Stars have been replaced by those self loathing prats who dress in black and sing about the time your girlfriend dumped you in the rain

Galvasean

Motley Crue wrote:

the time your girlfriend dumped you in the rain

I hate it when they do that. :P

edit: I hate it even more when they sing about it.

JC 2K3

Motley Crue wrote:

That, and most of the Rock Stars have been replaced by those self loathing prats who dress in black and sing about the time your girlfriend dumped you in the rain

In fairness, the glam rockers of the 80s who wore makeup and feminine clothing and sang about how big their balls were weren't much better.

A Primal Nut

JC 2K3 wrote:

In fairness Better was never that good in the first place. It's got that cool "industrial" part in the middle with some intense vocals from Axl and a crazy Buckethead solo, but apart from that it's really average.

Better is my favourite of the new songs, its a proper ****in' rock song, which is what GnR were all about. Better, There Was A Time and Madagascar are the only new songs I really consider worthy of GnR. The Blues is alright but a bit too safe. Chinese Democracy sounded cool in that short leak, never really liked it when played live.

A Primal Nut

Motley Crue wrote:

That, and most of the Rock Stars have been replaced by those self loathing prats who dress in black and sing about the time your girlfriend dumped you in the rain

The cold November Rain?:p

Maybe Axl inspired them.

JC 2K3

A Primal Nut wrote:

Better is my favourite of the new songs, its a proper ****in' rock song, which is what GnR were all about.

Not really. '87 GNR were like that but the Illusions were much different. Better sounds more like a rocker you'd find on an Illusions album than AFD tbh. The riff and intro to Better are shít IMO.

I'm hoping Chinese Democracy will be more along the lines of "Use Your Illusion 3" if you get what I mean, and that's the way the leaks are sounding to me. Best songs are TWAT and The Blues(2002 version with more guitar is best). I have to say I can see Rhiad and the Beduoins being a class studio song too.

A Primal Nut

JC 2K3 wrote:

Not really. '87 GNR were like that but the Illusions were much different. Better sounds more like a rocker you'd find on an Illusions album than AFD tbh. The riff and intro to Better are shít IMO.

I'm hoping Chinese Democracy will be more along the lines of "Use Your Illusion 3" if you get what I mean, and that's the way the leaks are sounding to me. Best songs are TWAT and The Blues(2002 version with more guitar is best). I have to say I can see Rhiad and the Beduoins being a class studio song too.

Well music is subjective so I'm not gonna argue about how good Better is, but remember that UYIs, although experimental, was still mostly hard rock songs. Similiar vibe to Better, although Ron Thal recently said he rerecorded a lot of the rhythm parts on the album because they originally sounded too mechanical and none of the sleaziness GnR were known for. Sounds cool. Thal is probably the one current member who knows what being in GnR really means.

I prefer UYI to Appetite personally, so yeah I'd be happy with a UYI3 too, but I hope its as much "Guns" as it is "Roses" if ya know what I mean.

Shame the Japanese tour was postponed. Seems like everytime they get going and take two steps forward, something happens and they go one step back again!

Rockee

[QUOTE=A
Shame the Japanese tour was postponed. Seems like everytime they get going and take two steps forward, something happens and they go one step back again![/QUOTE]

Yep, Axl throwing hissy fits is usually the problem!

Mental Mickey

Rockee wrote:

Yep, Axl throwing hissy fits is usually the problem!

To be fair, I don't think Axl's penchant for hissy fits had anything to do with it this time.....I think the bass player f**ked his wrist up or something???