The members of the core line-up haven’t recorded anything together in the studio since 1993 and the poorly received “The Spaghetti Incident”, so the release of a new track is theoretically intriguing news. Especially since the singles “Hard Skool” and “ABSURD” released in 2021 are reworked versions of archival demo recordings, with which the guitarist and drummer did not have much to say. “Perhaps”, meanwhile, is a joint composition by Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan, and it sounds as if someone dug it out of a recording studio buried in ashes in the early 1990s. It’s not instantly memorable, but it’s more or less OK.
Guns N’ Roses sounds like Guns N’ Roses for the first time in 30 years
It’s the kind of song that sounds like all the other songs from this band – we have Slash’s surprisingly spare solos and the chorus sung with Axl’s signature goat chant. Only the same energy is missing, the whole thing is too smooth. Also the music video looks like a generic rock clip shot on tour – this one is different in that we have members of Guns N’ Roses in it. But fans are still probably mostly shocked that the musicians managed to record something resembling their early repertoire after so many years. But what’s particularly captivating is this diplomatic YouTube comment that pretty much gets the point across: “Maybe it’s not the catchiest or iconic song they’ve ever written, but it’s the first time in decades that they sound like Guns N’ Roses. It’s all fun. and for that I am very grateful.”
Gentlemen from the band have been planning to release this composition for several years – “Perhaps” is not so completely new. Fans of the group have intercepted early versions of the song that have been circulating between them for quite some time. This year, the musicians also played this number before the June concert in Israel during the sound check, which of course the vigilant listeners picked up. Universal Records announces that the band will probably play the premiere material live for the first time during their North American tour, which is expected to last until mid-October.
What’s more, the guys have more cutlets waiting to be reheated. Slash, during an interview with “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, remarked: “There are some older songs that we completely reworked during the lockdown. These songs are waiting for their release. I will add that they are very good, so I’m looking forward to their release.”
Guns N’ Roses. Quarrels, partings and returns
Guns N’ Roses is a band that you actually either love or hate. On the one hand, the band has released a lot of cult songs today, on the other – many people are allergic to Axl Rose’s mannered vocals and do not fully believe that Slash is as great a guitarist as it is commonly said. Undoubtedly, however, it was the band that defined pop culture in the late 80s and early 90s – it was not necessarily always a positive influence.
However, the statistics don’t lie. The debut album of the rock band, released in 1987, “Appetite For Destruction”, remains to date the best-selling debut in the history of the music industry in the US. Even more commercially successful were the seven-time platinum albums “Use Your Illusion” and “Use Your Illusion II” from 1991. Already at the premiere, they hit the top two places on the Billboard 200 list, but later the band fell from high. The cover album “The Spaghetti Incident” did not meet with such an enthusiastic reception, and the greatest hits compilation was just something that postponed the upcoming disaster.
In 1996, Slash left the band, and there were long rumors about the reasons for the violent split. In his autobiography, published 10 years later, Slash maintained that he could not stand Axl’s dictatorial tendencies, who wanted full ownership of the band’s name and was pitching the band members around. Years later, the guitarist in an interview with his death said:
It wasn’t even necessarily that I left the band. I just didn’t continue with the new team that Axl had formed and led. It was the new Guns N’ Roses and I was offered a contract to join this new group. Within 24 hours I decided it was time to end it.
Axl Rose, in turn, in an interview with the Spinner portal, accused Slash and Duff McKagan, by contrast, of killing creativity in him. He compared the guitarist to “a cancer that needs to be cut out” and emphasized:
They hurt me as a creator. During the Use Your Illusion tour, Slash and Duff told me I was an idiot and a loser. I haven’t written in years. I was blocked for a very long time.
Specifically, for 15 years, because after such a period the album “Chinese Democracy” appeared. Back in 2009, Rose claimed that one of them had to die first before the band could be reassembled. However, he slowly began to change his mind and in 2015 there was something that could be called a ceasefire.
In 2016, the band embarked on the “Not In This Lifetime… Tour”, which lasted three years. The box office receipts made it the fourth highest-grossing tour of all time. And the band stirs up controversy all the time. Suffice it to say briefly that after this year’s performance of Guns at the iconic festival in Glastonbury, an account appeared, the author of which Mark Beaumont claims that it was the worst concert in the really long history of the festival and it is not at all surprising that people ran away to listen to the on another stage by Lana Del Rey.
The Telegraph’s Neil didn’t hold back either: “Slash and bassist Duff McKagan still look like grey-haired rockers, mostly night-feeding, but Axl Rose is just weird. He’s like an aging small-town hairdresser who works out too much at the gym. the problem is his voice, it used to be powerful and had the punch of a Banshee, and now it’s colorless and has a kind of female falsetto that sometimes switches to a low-pitched honking – there’s no logic between those transitions.” The band, meanwhile, released a statement claiming that Rose was in great shape, but that the technology had failed that night. Whatever you say about Guns N’ Roses, there’s always something going on with them.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
