People Who Used to Work with Guns N’ Roses Claim Slash, Duff, and Izzy are Recording New Material, Will Still Play Chinese Democracy Songs on Tour
As is the case with all Guns N’ Roses rumors, I would take this with a grain of salt until there’s something resembling an official announcement.
That being said, Arlett Vereecke, who was GN’R’s publicist during their heyday, tells Classic Rock that there’s work being done on a new album:
“I know they’re doing some recording. They’re definitely doing something there in the studio. Axl hasn’t been there, but Slash is definitely in there and it’s not for anyone else.”
Ian Niven, who was the band’s manager from Appetite for Destruction until Use Your Illusion (when he was fired in favor of his protégé, Doug Goldstein), has added fuel to the rumor fire by claiming that “Duff [McKagan] and Izzy [Stradlin] were in the studio before Christmas doing stuff. At a casual glance I think they’ve got at least a couple of tracks down.” It’s worth noting that McKagan and Izzy have collaborated on non-GN’R music together in the past, so it’s entirely feasible that Niven is right about them working together, but wrong that it’s for Guns N’ Roses.
While the idea that these two people who haven’t worked with the band in decades might have any sort of inside scoop seems kinda silly, so did the idea that some bar owner knew the reunion was happening… until it actually happened. And it certainly seems like there’s money to be made from a new GN’R album. So I guess we’ll hafta wait n’ see.
Meanwhile, Vereecke also claims that the band will continue to play material from Chinese Democracy at their upcoming shows, even though Rose is the only original member of the band to have participated in that album. Which seems weird, but I could see the other dudes agreeing to it to appease Rose. And, in all fairness, there are some Democracy tracks that are enough in the vein of old GN’R to be able to imagine Slash and company jamming on them (listen below — I’d be particularly stoked to hear them play “Sorry,” since the song is about Slash). So I guess we’ll see how that pans out, too.
https://youtu.be/cmiP7mmmJ7Q
https://youtu.be/tsz3CkdaOy0
https://youtu.be/bMvT9ywlfXY
