Guns N’ Roses Working on “Killer New Stuff”
Y’know what Guns N’ Roses should try to do when their big summer stadium tour is inevitably cancelled? Shore up their new music plans. They’ve taken their reunion tour around the world multiple times over the course of the past four years, and while it continues to rake in dough and they’ve still got plenty of deep cuts they can throw into the setlist to keep things at least kinda-sorta fresh, I have to imagine that new record would only help to keep them in the spotlight and selling tickets. And even if that’s not true, they should make a new album because I WANT THEM TO, GOD-FUCKING-DAMNIT.
This currently-hypothetical album would be their first new release since the fabled Chinese Democracy in 2008, and their first new release to feature original holy trinity Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan altogether since Use Your Illusion I & II in 1991 (not counting 1993’s The Spaghetti Incident? because nobody cares about The Spaghetti Incident?). But despite two separate reports of the band spending time in the studio last year (#1, #2), the closest we’ve actually come to hearing new GN’R music is that cameo Axl made on Looney Tunes in 2018.
Still, there’s hope, ’cause we know the band has been working on new material almost as long as Slash and Duff have been back in the fold. Axl has said so, Slash has said so, Duff has said so, guitarist Richard Fortus has said so (although he’s probably not the guy to ask because he’s likely not in charge of these kinds of decisions)… and now Duff’s wife, Susan Holmes, has said so. In a new interview with the Appetite For Distortion podcast, Ms. Holmes teased:
“I will say Guns N’ Roses have been working fastidiously on some killer new stuff.
“I can’t say much, but I’ve heard bits and bobs and it’s pretty epic. I do want to spread good news, but not detailed news, I guess. Hopefully that’ll put a spring in your step!”
With all due respect, Susan, it does not put a spring in my step. It gives me PTSD from the pre-Chinese Democracy era, when any little scrap of news got Guns fans drooling, and it felt like we’d never hear new music from any iteration of the band ever again. Now that Tool have actually released a new record, GN’R have reclaimed the title of Band Everyone Wants to Make a New Album Already, and it’s honestly kind of maddening.
Slash has previously blamed “the nature of the [music] industry right now” for the lack of progress. But if I may be so bold, I’d like to suggest that the coronavirus almost solves that issue for them. It’s like, fine, you can’t manufacture physical media right now and no one can get out to purchase that shit anyway, so don’t release a new album… but even if they just stream a new single, they’d literally have a captive audience (as though everyone, even the haters, isn’t gonna listen to the song at least once anyway). As a wise man once said: DO IT FOR THE KIDS!
