Nobody wanted the album.<\/p>\n
This is not a story of oppressed rock star sticks it to the man, this is a tale about an insane performer who’s alienated not only his entire band, but every producer and manager he’s ever worked with.\u00c2\u00a0 By arguing over less than two million dollars, a couple of nights on the road, does Axl end up looking like he’s got balls or that he should be committed to an insane asylum?<\/p>\n
Let’s just say Irving did everything Axl alleges.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s possible.\u00c2\u00a0 You hear these stories in rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 Are people gonna side with the diminutive businessman or the corn-rowed performer who got plastic surgery to close the VMAs?<\/p>\n
Guns N’ Roses put out one of the best hard rock albums of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 "Appetite For Destruction" sold and sold, was featured in videos and still gets airplay today.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the hit was "Sweet Child O’ Mine", but come on, wasn’t that riff in "Paradise City" amazing?\u00c2\u00a0 The track built to a frenzy, driving you nuts.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you heard "Mr. Brownstone", you believed it.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not twenty first century posturing, where a fake image is manufactured to sell product to the kiddies, these guys lived it.<\/p>\n
But the band could never follow it up.\u00c2\u00a0 And ended up imploding.<\/p>\n
The drummer may have been an addict, maybe he needed to go.\u00c2\u00a0 But Izzy?\u00c2\u00a0 The guy who added melody and texture to the songs? And by time Axl got rid of Slash, it was over.\u00c2\u00a0 Saul is iconic, he was truly the other face of the band.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe if they called it Axl and…, or Bailey’s Roses, or something with the leader in the title, the act could have survived.\u00c2\u00a0 But this concoction of players was GNR in name only.<\/p>\n
Not that the concoction did anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Played a few gigs.\u00c2\u00a0 Cancelled more.\u00c2\u00a0 And supposedly worked on a new album, "Chinese Democracy".<\/p>\n
What album’s got a title YEARS before release?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t the title usually the last thing?<\/p>\n
Axl would have been better off saying he shelved that record, making it an unreleased legend like "Smile", and then cutting another (or releasing the same damn work under a different name).\u00c2\u00a0 Because by time it was finally released, people expected something in the neighborhood of "Appetite", and that was impossible.<\/p>\n
But it was impossible for any new work to have the momentum and impact of "Appetite".\u00c2\u00a0 It was twenty years later.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV, the centralizing force, was dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio was calcified.\u00c2\u00a0 And the audience…was in its forties and had jobs and kids and couldn’t stay at home all afternoon getting high to new music.<\/p>\n
Times changed, but W. Axl Rose did not change with them.<\/p>\n
And being the crybaby he is, he kept working on his album, firing people until…he ends up being managed by Irving Azoff.<\/p>\n
Who stunningly not only makes a deal with Best Buy, but gets the album in stores.<\/p>\n
Where no one wants it.<\/p>\n
Best Buy advertises to high heaven.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s even publicity about leaks, which drives sales.\u00c2\u00a0 But only if the music is good.<\/p>\n
And in this case, no one said "Chinese Democracy" was great, and few said it was good, and the shelf life of a project that does not gain legs is…very brief today.\u00c2\u00a0 Watched that remake of "We Are The World" recently?<\/p>\n
But Axl got paid.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe the label got paid.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone got paid, because Best Buy wrote a check up front.\u00c2\u00a0 And ended up losing a ton of cash.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, they got some people in the store.\u00c2\u00a0 But on a selling records basis, Best Buy got fleeced.\u00c2\u00a0 Notice the Minnesota company hasn’t done any high profile exclusives since?\u00c2\u00a0 (And hell, maybe they have, and I just haven’t heard about them, proving my point…the paradigm is DEAD!)<\/p>\n
But it’s the manager’s fault.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s always the manager’s fault.<\/p>\n
So what does the manager do?\u00c2\u00a0 What everybody in the world wants him to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Lobbies for Axl to put the original band back together and rape and pillage financially around the world.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t Irving create this paradigm, with the Eagles back in ’94?\u00c2\u00a0 Play your hits live for TV, sell an album thereof and then charge a fortune on the endless tour?<\/p>\n
Maybe Irving didn’t propose this.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, he was always eager to get Steve Perry back with Journey, so the story sounds real.<\/p>\n
Maybe Irving stopped taking Axl’s phone calls when he wouldn’t play ball.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe Irving sabotaged him.\u00c2\u00a0 You get in bed with the devil and you live with the consequences.\u00c2\u00a0 But unlike a Mike Curb deal, Axl wasn’t bound to Irving, he could leave.\u00c2\u00a0 And did!<\/p>\n
And now won’t pay commissions on a\u00c2\u00a0 South American tour.<\/p>\n
Why?\u00c2\u00a0 Did Irving not earn the money?\u00c2\u00a0 Were the gigs not set up under his aegis?\u00c2\u00a0 Axl is trying to prove a point.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is?<\/p>\n
That he’s truly mentally ill?\u00c2\u00a0 He’s mad at Irving for using his real name?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, Axl loves Elton, who eventually put out a new album entitled "Reg Strikes Back".<\/p>\n
And Axl may not ever go back to being Bill Bailey, but everybody knows he’ll eventually reform the original Guns N’ Roses and go on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what bands do.\u00c2\u00a0 The only reason the original Pink Floyd won’t reform is because David Gilmour is so fucking rich, having toured stadiums without Roger Waters as Pink Floyd.\u00c2\u00a0 Waters sued, but he lost.\u00c2\u00a0 Waters is dying to reunite the band, everybody on the inside knows this, but Gilmour won’t do it, won’t give Waters the satisfaction, he’s already got his fuck you money.\u00c2\u00a0 But Slash, Izzy and Duff don’t have fuck you money.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll go on the road giving the lion’s share of the money to Axl just like Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit take a back seat to Don Henley and Glenn Frey.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Henley can work alone.\u00c2\u00a0 But he can’t make that much coin.\u00c2\u00a0 And as time marches on, Axl’s grosses will continue to decline.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody needs money.\u00c2\u00a0 Then what?<\/p>\n
Sure, Axl’s got Henley beat, he can tour under the band’s name.\u00c2\u00a0 Still…<\/p>\n
A public figure’s got no upside in picking a fight with a business insider.\u00c2\u00a0 People have got no idea who Irving Azoff is, and they don’t really care.\u00c2\u00a0 They like GaGa, not Iovine.\u00c2\u00a0 The person out front is the attraction.\u00c2\u00a0 And by picking a fight for a paltry sum, Axl actually hurts his career.\u00c2\u00a0 People go to see the train-wreck once, but how many times will they come back around to see Axl and some nobodies?<\/p>\n
Rock and roll is a business.\u00c2\u00a0 Irving was doing his job.\u00c2\u00a0 Which he wants to get paid for.\u00c2\u00a0 He was looking out for Axl Rose’s best interests. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do?<\/p>\n
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