Guns N’ Roses were another victim of the change in the rock scene by late 1994. While many people think that alternative rock and grunge were responsible for the group’s disappearance and demise, that wasn’t even remotely true. The group’s death was ultimately their own doing.
Guns N’ Roses Wrap Up Use Your Illusion Tour
Guns N’ Roses wrapped up their 2 ½ year long, 192-show, Use Your Illusion Tour in July of 1993. Following the tour, the group took some time off to rest and put out a covers album called The Spaghetti Incident.
The album found little fanfare because it was barely promoted and the band didn’t tour behind it. The Spaghetti Incident was meant to tide over fans until the band could release their next album of original material.
Guns N’ Roses Work On Material for New Album
Guns N’ Roses started working on new material in early to mid-1994. In frontman Axl Rose and guitarist Slash’s final interview together, in January of 1994 on Rock Line, Axl Rose claimed the band would release an album of new material, most likely in 1996 and looked to record a lot of ideas until then.
Slash, Axl Rose and Duff McKagan On Different Pages
Throughout 1994, Guns N’ Roses tried to assemble to write new material but Slash and Axl, as well as bassist Duff McKagan weren’t on the same page as to what the band’s next record should sound like.
Slash had written almost a dozen songs with drummer Matt Sorum and rhythm guitarist Gilby Clarke, but Axl and Duff rejected the songs, thinking they sounded too southern rock.
Axl Rose Replaces Gilby Clarke With Paul Tobias
Happening the same year, Gilby Clarke, who joined the band 3 years prior, was fired from the band by Axl Rose without consulting the rest of the members. Rose replaced Clark with his childhood friend, Paul Tobias who was from Indiana and co-wrote the Guns N’ Roses song, “Back Off Bitch”. Slash disagreed with the change as he and Tobias didn’t seem to click.
Guns N’ Roses Approached to Record Cover of “Sympathy For The Devil”
By the end of 1994, Axl and Slash were barely on speaking terms and most of their communication was done through management. The producers of the movie, Interview with the Vampire approached the band about possibly recording a cover of The Rolling Stones song, “Sympathy for the Devil”.
Slash was a huge fan of both the Rolling Stones and novelist Ann Rice, who wrote the book, Interview with the Vampire, but both Axl and Slash had to see the movie prior to agreeing to get in the studio again.
Slash wasn’t a fan of the movie and according to him, it bored him to tears while Axl personally loved it. Slash, however, saw it as an opportunity for the band to get the creative juices flowing and hopefully re-enter the studio to record new material once the cover was done.
“The only upside I saw to signing off on it was that it would accomplish what we’ve been unable to do to any degree in the past seven months. It would actually get all of us into the studio.” – Slash
Slash wrote in his memoir, “The only upside I saw to signing off on it was that it would accomplish what we’ve been unable to do to any degree in the past seven months. It would actually get all of us into the studio.”
Once the band agreed to cover the song, the recording sessions didn’t go as planned. Axl Rose never showed up, while the other members of the band were in the studio.
Duff McKagan, Slash and Matt Sorum went into the studio together at the very beginning to record the instrumental track. Axl didn’t show up until a few weeks later to record the vocals. Slash referred to the song as a very uninspired track.
“Keith’s playing is so awesome on that song that I didn’t even want to come near it, but I did and after doing so, it left me feeling even more pissed off than ever.” – Slash
Axl Rose also had some feedback for Slash about his playing on the song, telling him he wanted to redo his guitar solo to sound exactly like Keith Richards playing on the original track. Slash recalled in his book, “Keith’s playing is so awesome on that song that I didn’t even want to come near it, but I did and after doing so, it left me feeling even more pissed off than ever.”
To make matters worse, when Slash heard the finished recording of the song, he noticed that Axl had gotten Paul Tobias to put his own solo on top of Slash’s guitar solo, which further infuriated the guitarist.
The song was finally released in early 1995 and was the band’s last recording to feature Slash, Axl and Duff McKagan together. Slash didn’t leave the band until 2 years later in 1996. It proved to be another huge blow to Axl and Slash’s relationship, which wasn’t healed for almost 20 years.
“If you’ve ever wondered what the sound of a band breaking up sounds like, listen to Guns N’ Roses’ cover of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.” – Slash
Slash concluded in his book, “If you’ve ever wondered what the sound of a band breaking up sounds like, listen to Guns N’ Roses’ cover of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. If there’s one Gun’s track I’d like to never hear again, it’s that one.”
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