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The
interview:
Loder :
What have you been doing for the last six and a half years, since
the last tour ended?
Rose :
Trying to figure out how to make a record.
Loder :
Ah, you already knew how to do that, right?
Rose :
I originally wanted to make a traditional record or try to get back
to an "Appetite [For Destruction]" thing or something, because that
would have been a lot easier for me to do. I was involved in a lot
of lawsuits for Guns N' Roses and in my own personal life, so I
didn't have a lot of time to try and develop a new style or
re-invent myself, so I was hoping to write a traditional thing, but
I was not really allowed to do that.
Loder :
What prevented you from doing, like, a traditional rock record?
Rose :
Slash.
Loder :
[Laughs] But you could have found another guitar player or
something, right?
Rose :
Well, not really.... Not to make a true Guns record. It's kind
of like, I don't know, if you know somebody has a relationship, and
there's difficulties in that, and Mr. or Mrs. Right doesn't kind of
just stumble into their path, or they don't stumble across that
person, they can't really get on with things. Somebody didn't come
into my radar that would have really replaced Slash in a proper way.
Loder :
Yeah.
Rose :
And it really wasn't something we were trying to do. We were trying
to make things work with Slash for a very, very long time... about
three and a half years.
Loder :
Wow. Jeez. That's a shame, because it seemed like such a tight
unit. This live album seems like a farewell to that era.
Rose :
It is exactly that. It's a farewell to that.... It was something
we wanted to give to the public in a way of saying farewell. It was
a very difficult thing to do, as listening to it and the people
involved... [it] wasn't the most emotionally pleasant thing to do.
Loder :
Is it fair to say that we may never be hearing this stuff ever
again? This old material?
Rose :
No, no, that's not true at all. In fact, actually, I have
re-recorded "Appetite" and--
Loder :
You re-recorded "Appetite For Destruction?"
Rose :
Yes, I have.
Loder :
The whole album?
Rose :
Yes.
Loder :
Whoa.
Rose :
Well, with the exception of two songs, because we replaced those
with "You Could Be Mine," and "Patience," and why do that? Well, we
had to rehearse them anyway to be able to perform them live again,
and there were a lot of recording techniques and certain subtle
styles and drum fills and things like that that are kind of '80s
signatures that subtly could use a little sprucing up... a little
less reverb and a little less double bass and things like that.
Loder :
Who are the musicians who have re-recorded "Appetite?"
Rose :
Josh Freese on drums, Tommy Stinson on bass, Paul Tobias on guitar
-- you guys know him as Paul Huge, that's how it's been written
everywhere. It's Paul Tobias on guitar, and Robin Finck was on lead
guitar, but that... that will stay on some of it. Robin's guitar
will stay on some, but not all. I don't know what I'm going to do
with it, exactly, when I would be putting that out. But you know, it
has a lot of energy. Learning the old Guns songs and getting them
up, you know, putting them on tape, really forced everybody to get
them up to the quality that they needed to be at. Once the energy
was figured out by the new guys, how much energy was needed to get
the songs right, then it really helped in the writing and recording
process of the new record.
Loder :
At any time, were you thinking of keeping Duff [McKagan] or Matt
Sorum or anybody on board too? Or was that all over from the
beginning?
Rose :
That was their choice to leave. Everybody that's gone did it by
choice. Matt was fired, but Matt came in attempting to get fired and
told many people so that night. So it's kind of like everybody left
by choice. They really didn't think I was going to figure out a way
to make a record, [and they] didn't want to help really make a
record. Everybody kind of wanted what they wanted individually
rather than what's in the best interest of the whole.
Loder :
This "End of Days" track, "Oh My God," is real, real different. Have
you been listening to [or] working with samples and stuff a lot? Has
your whole musical approach changed?
Rose :
No, not a lot, no. Basically, [I'm] listening to everything that's
out there as far as music goes. That was a big difference between
myself and Slash and Duff, is that I didn't hate everything new that
came out. I really liked the Seattle movement. I like White Zombie.
I like Nine Inch Nails, and I like hip-hop. I don't hate everything.
I don't think everybody should be worshiping me 'cause I was around
before them.
So once it was
really understood by me that I'm really not going to be able to make
the right old-style Guns N' Roses record, and if I try to take into
consideration what Guns did on "Appetite," which was to kind of be a
melting pot of a lot things that were going on, plus use past
influences, I could make the right record if I used my influences
from what I've been listening to that everybody else is listening to
out there. So in that sense, I think it is like old Guns N' Roses as
far as, like, the spirit and the attempt to throw all kinds of
different styles together. If you get to the second guitar solo in
"Oh My God," Paul's doing a very Izzy Stradlin-Aerosmith-type riff
in the middle of the song, which is a completely different thing
than everything else that's going on in the music, but yet it
blends. There's a disco drum beat in the post-chorus, in the
heaviest section of the song. We blended a lot of things.
Loder :
How much stuff have you got for this new album? You've been working
on this for a long time. Is there just tons of material?
Rose :
We've been working on, I don't know, 70 songs.
Loder :
Oh!
Rose :
The record will be about, anywhere from 16 to 18 songs, but we
recorded at least two albums' worth of material that is solidly
recorded. But we are working on a lot more songs than that at the
same time... in that way, what we're doing is exploring so, you
know, you get a good idea, you save it, and then maybe you come back
to it later, or maybe you get a good idea and you go, "That's really
cool, but that's not what we're looking for. Okay, let's try
something new." You know, basically taking the advance money for the
record and actually spending it on the record.
Loder :
[Laughs] Not always the case, obviously.
Rose :
No, and I don't want to be in a situation again where I have to
depend on other people and have [to] start all over. So we have
material that we think is too advanced for old Guns fans to hear
right now and they would completely hate, because we were exploring
the use of computers [along with] everybody really playing their ass
off and combining that, but trying to push the envelope a bit. It's
like, "Hmm, I have to push the envelope a little too far. We'll wait
on that." So we got a list of things.
Loder :
Are you involved in computer music yourself? Are you playing guitar
now?
Rose :
A little of both, a little of both.
Loder :
How's your guitar playing coming along now?
Rose :
It's all right. I just wanted to be good enough to be able to
contribute what was needed to this main album. It took working on
the majority of these things and at least the couple albums' [worth]
of material to figure out what should be on the first official Guns
album. I wouldn't say it's like, you know, that we recorded a double
album, or that we have all of our scraps to be the second one. There
is a distinct difference in sound. The second leans probably a
little more to aggressive electronica with full guitars, where the
first one is definitely more guitar-based.
Loder :
Do you find it difficult to capture with a new group of musicians
that same sort of group feeling that the original Guns had?
Rose :
No. No, not with the particular people involved. To be honest, it
was a long time for me since Guns N' Roses as the old lineup had
been fun, and the new guys have been a breath of fresh air. People
are really excited about what we got. They're really proud of it,
and it was, again, it was just time. I'm not trying to put the other
guys down. It's like, I think people really wanted to do different
things other than try to figure out the right record here for Guns
N' Roses. But at the same time, Guns N' Roses was a big thing. How
do you walk away from that? It's a very complicated thing, I think,
for everybody involved.
Loder :
I gather that on the record there's going to be a piano version of a
Black Sabbath song? How did that work out?
Rose :
Oh, that's on the live [album]. I just like the piano song ["It's
Alright"] and the words, and when you play it for people, they had
no idea it was a Black Sabbath song.
Loder :
[Laughs]
Rose :
So it was just kind of fun, and then it worked out as a intro to
"November Rain" live, and it just so happened that [it] came out
well on tape, so we were able to use it. Del James worked for a
couple of years off and on going though every single show we did on
DAT tape from the "Use Your Illusion" tour and then every available
tape, and finding tapes, and finding people that have recorded
things, so he could have in his mind what was recorded best from the
entire time Guns N' Roses was together. There were a lot of
difficulties where things weren't... when they were recorded, when
they were fully recorded to 24, 48 tracks, it wasn't recorded that
well at times, and so it took a long time to find what tracks were
available to use, because we had never officially recorded a show to
make a live album.
Loder :
When you listen to that stuff back now, do you think, "Wow, that was
a great band, that was a great time," or are your feelings clouded?
Rose :
For me, when I hear certain things on the "Use Your Illusion" tour,
I... on that record, it's... since I'm in it, I can hear a band
dying. I can hear when Izzy was unconsciously over it. I can hear
where the band was leaning away from what Guns N' Roses [had]
originally been about.
People may
have their favorite songs, and it may be on "Use Your Illusion," but
most people do tend to lean towards "Appetite" as being the defining
Guns N' Roses record, and I can hear how, in the sound, it was
moving away from that there. There's just so much I was able to do
in keeping that aspect together.
Loder :
Are you thinking now about a stage show? Is it close enough to be
thinking how you're gonna present this live, or is that still pretty
much still in the future?
Rose :
In ways. What we're doing is we're rehearsing with different guitar
players, and we're still recording. I'm doing the vocals. I'm about
three-quarters of the way through, and it's a very difficult process
for me.
I write the
vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the
music to the level that I had to compete against it. That's kind of
tough. It's like you got to go in against these new guys who kicked
ass. You finally got the song musically where you wanted to, and
then you have to figure out how to go in and kick its ass and be one
person competing against this wall of sound.
Why I chose to
do it that way is that, you know, I can sit and write poetry 'til
hell freezes over, and getting attached to any particular set of
words... I felt that I would write to those words in a dated
fashion, and we really wouldn't get the best music. "Oh My God" is a
perfect example. When we finally got "Oh My God" where it needed to
be, then I got the right words to it. With "Appetite," I wrote a lot
of the words first, but in, like, "Oh My God," I wrote the words
second, but the music was written like "Appetite." We kept
developing it until it we got it right. [With] "Appetite,"
everything had been worked on, and worked on, and worked on. That
was not the case with "Use Your Illusion."
Loder :
You got Dave Navarro to play on this. Have you always been a fan of
his playing?
Rose :
I've always been a fan of Dave Navarro, to the point that when we
got signed, I had a Jane's Addiction demo tape [laughs] and was
actually trying to convince the record company, "No, no, no, no, I
suck. We suck. These guys rock!" And I was trying to get Tom Zutaut,
at the time [at Geffen], to sign Jane's Addiction, and he was
actually in negotiations to sign them at one point. I was just into
Jane's Addiction.
At the time...
when we first put out "Appetite," it didn't go over so well, and MTV
and John Cannelli there are really what broke us. I think you guys
aired "Welcome to the Jungle" three times... [dramatically] going on
your fourth now!
Loder :
[Laughs]
Rose :
That's really what finally got the public to find some interest in
Guns N' Roses, and there was a lot less [interest] for Jane's
Addiction. Where now, I think, we would consider Jane's Addiction
one of the great rock and roll bands in the last however many years.
They were a great band, they were a bit ahead of their time. I was a
very big fan of them, and Dave.
Dave's a great
guitar player. It's a different style. It's not like Guns N' Roses.
It's not blues-based, and it's not all that Guns N' Roses is, and
that was done on purpose. There will be elements of blues-based
things on the new Guns record. It's a very diverse record. There's a
lot of hip-hop beats, there's straight-ahead rock. But if someone
says, "Hip-hop beats," what do you mean by that? Well, Radiohead
uses beats that are similar to hip-hop beats. There's actual,
"official" hip-hop beats and then there's "Radiohead-style" hip-hop
beats, there's rock beats. Like I say, "Oh My God" has a disco beat
in it. I read a review where somebody caught that. That made me
laugh.
Loder :
What's been knocking you out yourself lately? Is there anything
today that you think is better than Jane's Addiction was back in the
day?
Rose :
I don't know about, like, as far as aggressive goes, but I really
like the new Fiona Apple.
Loder :
Really?
Rose :
You know, I liked the last record, I like the new one. Who do I
listen to that's aggressive? I think that the "End Of Days"
soundtrack is a lot of fun. Limp Bizkit is fun. The White Zombie
stuff is fun.
Loder :
Do you think that stuff can be done in that old sort of [GN'R]
style, that blues-based style, or do you think that's just over?
Rose :
No, no, I don't think any style of music's over. I mean, look at
[Lou Bega's] "Mambo #5."
Loder :
True.
Rose :
You could find ways to blend all kind of things. It really just
takes the right song. I don't personally believe that was the
interest of Guns or Slash, I don't believe the right song was the
interest. I mean, what people don't know is, the [Slash's] Snakepit
album, that is the Guns N' Roses album. I just wouldn't do it.
Loder :
Really?
Rose :
Oh, yeah! Duff walked out on it, and I walked out on it, because I
wasn't allowed to be any part of it. It's like, "No, you do this,
that's how it is." And I didn't believe in it. I thought that there
were riffs and parts and some ideas, I thought, that needed to be
developed. I had no problem working on it, or working with it, but
you know, as is, I think I'm with the public on that one.
Loder :
Yeah, apparently so. Obviously, you've been working on all this
music for the last six years. What else have you been doing? Do you
go out a lot? Do you see shows?
Rose :
You know I... I pretty much stay to myself, and that's about it.
Loder :
Just kind of hang around the house?
Rose :
[Laughs] I just, you know, I pretty much work on this record and,
and that's about it. It takes a lot of time. I'm not a
computer-savvy or technical type of person, yet I'm involved with it
everyday, so it takes me a while.
Loder :
Do you have a computer setup at home? Are you online?
Rose :
Yeah, I have a full studio, and that causes me great pain and
pleasure.
Loder :
[Laughs] What are the painful parts, when it crashes?
Rose :
Yeah. Just, you know, basically my inadequacy with modern machinery.
Loder :
You're going to call this album "Chinese Democracy." What is the
meaning of that, since there is no Chinese democracy, of course?
Rose :
Well, there's a lot of Chinese democracy movements, and it's
something that there's a lot of talk about, and it's something that
will be nice to see. It could also just be like an ironic statement.
I don't know, I just like the sound of it.
Loder :
When do you think we will actually see this album? Is it possible to
say early next year?
Rose :
We're hoping. Yes, definitely, everything seems to be going well.
Robin's departure was abrupt, sudden, you know, not expected...
Loder :
He just wanted to get back to Nine Inch Nails, right?
Rose :
[continuing] ... but at the same time, it's turned out to be a good
thing. We've been able to push some of the guitar parts a step
farther, that had he been here, it's not something that would have
been considered, and I wouldn't have been rude enough to attempt to
do that. Robin did a great job, but we've been able to up the ante a
little bit. Dave came in and did something great on "Oh My God," and
we've had a few other people come in, so that was a setback for a
while, but then it's turned out to be a good thing.
Loder :
People that hear "Oh My God," they might say that, "Gee, the new
Guns is all this sound," but I think that what you're saying is that
it's a bunch of different kinds of sounds.
Rose :
It's a lot of different sounds. There's some other really heavy
songs, there's a lot of aggressive songs, but they're all in
different styles and different sounds. It is truly a melting pot.
I go back to
listening to Queen -- you know, we're still hoping to have Brian May
come in and do some tracks, and I got a fax today that he's coming
in -- Queen had all kinds of different-style songs on their records,
and that's something that I like. 'Cause I do listen to a lot of
things, and I really don't like being pigeonholed to that degree,
and it's something that Guns N' Roses seem to share [with Queen] a
bit. With "Appetite," even though it seems to have the same sound,
if you really go back, you can pull all the little parts from
different influences. That's not really the case by the time we're
on "Use Your Illusion." People are kind of set in their ways.
["Chinese Democracy"] is coming from all over the place.
Loder :
Have you actually brought in any hip-hop guys to sort of, like,
examine the roots of the rhythm now? Has Dr. Dre stopped by or
anything?
Rose :
No, we haven't done anything like that. It's been thought of, but
it's kind of [like] we would really be wasting somebody else's time,
as we're trying to figure out how to develop this ourselves. Maybe
if it were to get closer to, say, mastering or mixing, maybe there
could be something someone else could add to it.
Loder :
Have you thought about maybe taking the boys out and playing on New
Year's Eve or something? Are we gonna see you before...
Rose :
Nah.
Loder
:
No? None of that?
Rose :
Nah!
Loder :
Why not?
Rose :
Na-nah-na-nah!
Loder :
[Laughs] It could be fun.
Rose :
[Laughs]
Loder :
Where are you going to be on New Year's Eve?
Rose :
Have no idea.
Loder :
So we'll see you some time this new year, right? You will be around?
Rose :
Yeah, we'll be around. I'm not working on all this to keep it
buried. We plan on getting out there and doing it right. The new
guys are a lot of fun, and like I say, we will be continuing to look
for and or decide who the official new guitar player will be, but
it's not that important to the band at this time, as that person's
not really needed. There's not a whole lot for them to do at this
time in regards to recording, as we've recorded [a] majority of
material.
Loder :
But you continue to audition, right?
Rose :
Yes, we do. Yes, we do, and there's some people who have done a
really great job. It's just not something we're prepared to make a
complete decision on at this time.
Loder :
Okay, well, we're dying to hear this stuff. I hope you get it out
sometime real soon.
Rose :
All right, man. Later.
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