Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Perhaps not in the right topic but move if feel like...

Brain on democracy.. (josh freese wrote the drums for Twat)

http://eqmag.tv/index.html?req=1&station=eqtvbrain&video=eqtv/inthestudio/eqtv_l07_braincd
That's a source!!!

Brain states Freese wrote all the drum parts, he just came in and had to learn 30 something songs note for note. Pretty interesting little story.  :hihi: :smoking:

Brilliant, thanks!

I thought brain had more of a creative input than that, but this have happened before 2001 so he could have worked on other songs after those 30 he mentioned.

Great story, but when was i posted?

Wow.

Great story! This sounds totally insane though.  :hihi:

And it took him 8 months. No wonder this album took forever and a day to me completed.

Thats exactly what we need to hear more of, inside info about how the current members contributed to the band !!!!

Yeah....interesting....hopefully more information like this will come out once the album drops....it will be a blast to hear about the creation of the album

cool thanks for post!!!

Recording the drums in an auditorium that used to be a Masonic temple; now there's someone who appreciates the importance of creating the right atmosphere.   : ok:

And when you think about how the drums are only one small part of the whole album and yet took so long to do, it really gives you an idea of just what a mammoth undertaking this whole project must have been for the band, and the pressure Axl must have been under.  Hearing Brain's story makes it seem even more miraculous that the album ever got finished.  I hope we get to hear more tales about the recording process, it sounds fascinating.  :D

crazy.

I wonder if Frank had to do the same with Brains parts :nervous:

Freese can nail 30 songs in a week. He's the man!!!!!!

really cool story there about the whole process

So how exactly does Brain recreating Josh's work note for note allow him to add his "feel"? I dont get it.

Thanks gnrjanus  :)

Really great story !

yeah remember this happened in 2001-2002
a lot of songs have been written after that

Well, he interpreted Freese's parts, as read on paper, just as thousands of pianists have been playing Mozart's music for two centuries. The music and the rhythm remain the same but each player brings his own style, his own touch to his interpretation. Makes sense.

Not being a drummer or musician myself, I assume it's about how you play it.


Kinda like different painters can paint the same painting, but the paint strokes are different?



/jarmo

Different strokes for differents folks? Cool.

Technically if he was doing each part exactly the same, and since drums are rhythm, it'd pretty much sound the exact same, unless he just liked the sound of Brain's kit more lol.

So is Axl saying Josh Freese is great technically but has no feel?

It seems so.

Make no mistake about it. Drummers have different sounds and feels when playing the same thing.

Its just that he emphasised that they wanted it to be "exactly" like Josh.

I dunno, the more I think about that story, the more it sounds like they played a horrible practical joke on Brain. :hihi:

They're even downstairs watching TV while he is going through all that.

thats a great story....explains alot of stuff. I bet we'll start to hear more and more about the making of this album in the comming months/years.

No, you're accusing Axl of saying that.





/jarmo

I wonder if Frank had to re-do some of Brain's drums

Yeah i guess I am but it could be kind of looked at like that. I mean why not just leave the parts on there or let Brain stray from what's written?

HAHA poor Frank if he had to learn Josh's parts mixed with Brain's additions.

You're a musician aren't you?

A song sounds just like you want it to, what do you do?





/jarmo

So... Axl rented a studio for 7 months at $2,000/day to re-record note-for-note perfectly fine drumming? There is where $420,000 of that 13 million went!  :rofl:

I think Brian is awesome, but there had to have been a more cost effective way! (Or they could have just left Josh on the album...)

Josh is one the most in-demand drummers around. He's perhaps the most preficient studio drummer of all time. His credits are outstanding. He has feel. Josh left the band in 1999. He is still hired by many many artists to just write parts. He commands a nice big check per session.

It may be that as Brain joining the band... that Axl wanted his drumming on the record.

i really hope he added his thingie on IRS  :D

Maybe getting the sound is the number one priority and not the cost?

Did you ever consider the possibility that there are true artists out there that put their art before the cost?






/jarmo

Just speculation, but Josh has quite NIN effective end of December, could he be coming back to GN'R?

a.

Well he better start learning Brain's feel then!

It's possible, but doubtful. Brain has stated he may be back when the cd comes out. I find it hard to believe that the band would tour on "Chinese" with Frank. No disrespect, but he just isn't good enough. GNR needs the best guy for the new stuff and it's Brain.....

JOSH & BRIANIC = Genius !!!

thankz

 :beer:

HBK *

I wonder how many members want back in the fold now that a release is coming? BH? JF? Brain? Finck? If he's even gone?

that's pretty fucking cool. the bit about the masonic temple.. eerie. i love it  :beer:

I don't think Axl implied that.  It sounds like he just prefers Brains spin on it.

Wow, that is incredible

llllllllllllllol. That was the kind of story I wanted to hear about an album as mythical as this one. Too funny. Brian is a good story teller.

Of course Brain came up with his parts on every song written from 2000 to 2006 - Shackler's, Better, The General, etc. : ok:

the general???????

you know/ heard something we haven't??

Baz mentioned it in an interview and specifically commented on Brains' drum work on the song.

No, but Brain (or Baz?) mentioned that he wrote the song.

As far as the different "feel" musicians' have, just think about the new GN'R's playing the old material as the have been on the recent tours. They are playing the same songs, same chords, but you can tell when it's the old band and when it's the new band playing them.

Does anyone else see this as the "gag order" being letup because the release is upcoming?

I really enjoyed that, and I hope other band members and contributors would give a candid insight into their work on the album.

The thing I don't understand is how Axl and Roy expect Brain to add his own "feel" to the music when they want him to copy Josh Freese note for note to such an extent. I believe Brain and Josh are both in a similar class, they are both very versatile, solid, proficient drummers. A drummers adds their own "feel" by being given the absolute 'basis' of a song and developing on it in their own way. Think about how Robin covers Slash's solos for instance. Robin has the basis of the melody, but then he plays it with his own feel, he doesn't copy Slash note for note, and even if you don't have musical proficiency, you can hear a clear difference between the two guitarists.

Perhaps Axl and Roy only had good intentions wanting Brain to have his presence on the album also. But if they were so happy with Josh's parts they should have left them be, and allow Brain to contribute to newer songs, just like how some of Buckethead's  parts remained intact after Bumblefoot joined.

like it was said before, every musician plays with his own sensibility, so it's not a problem.

BUT the real question I'm asking to myself here, is Brain didn't feel artistically frustrated or even a bit insulted to redone a work already made instead of doing himself the job ?

Yeah, compared to his own work that he does with Buckethead for instance, I'd expect that he treated that as more of a 'session' job. I really do hope there is some new music that Brain had creative input in because he is an amazing drummer.

Cool video! I really hope Brain is back in the fold for future tours, videos, etc. In addition to being an incredible drummer, he, along with Stinson (complimentary re: Duff in the past) Fortus (complimentary re: Izzy and the past) and Thal (complimentary re: Slash in the past), seem to have a pretty good sense of the GN'R "history" and "tradition" (I could see Slash and Duff getting a chuckle out of the Masonic Temple aspect of the story) IMHO. I think it's cool whenever the new guys embrace the band's rich legacy and not run away from it.

Also... "Play it EXACTLY as Josh played it... but with your feel". CLASSIC AXL! :peace: 8)

All that matters is that it meant something to Axl... and he no doubt knew what he was looking for once he heard it from Brain. :smoking:

Lol, Brain is the modern-day Sorum. (Except he's nowhere near as big as an asshole  :yes:)

Good to see what Brain has to say...

A few unsettling things, "i'm not getting paid enough for this", and the fact he's not even sure who the producer is



But some cool things: "epic, now this is led zeppelin", "this is GNR, we cant do this in the same studio as everyone else"

Thanks I really enjoyed that!   : ok:

As for adding 'feel', to me this means how hard the notes are played, accenting notes, and of course the drum set up and sound. I do believe two drummers can play the same rhythm and make it sound completely diffrent. Listen to the way John Bonham played the simplest of beats, he made them sound so sweet

I really enjoyed Freese's drumming on OMG and CITR, and I would be happy to see Brain or Josh in the band. They're in a class of their own

Well I think he was just joking around about how LONG that would take him.

That's a crazy story.  Can't believe RTB wanted him to do every song in one take  :o

But as far as Brain having no creative input, he said a while ago that The General was a song he had helped write and we know he has a writing credit on Shackler's.  So seems as though he just re-did the previously written stuff like IRS, CD, TWAT, Blues and did his own thing on the post-2000 songs like Better, Shackler's and so on. 

im almost sure that all of that was re-recorded by axl as a producer
nothing that was recorded by RTB or Sean Beavan will be heard in CD

Brain also has a writing credit on an officially released GnR song : ok:

I don't think so. Did he tell you that?

Axl recorded things and had things Re-Recorded and Re-Recorded over and over again with different musicans.
I think we all knew that, But WOW.... to hear it from the source is fantastic!

It's all coming together now.

Fucking incredible story!

Thanks BRAIN for sharing!!

Gives us a small glimpse of how particular Axl was in recording this material and why it took so long.

That was great!! What a process :P, and I thought I wanted to be in a rock n roll band, ;D sounds like a great deal of hard work, but in the end it must be so rewarding. ;)

One of the best interviews we've seen so far on the album..

So in the last week, Chris and Brain have both given a little insight into the album..  Hopefully we'll learn even more as we get closer to release and after its released.

Haha, I like your thinking :hihi:

Was very intresting to watch, I sure hope Brain will still be touring with the band. :peace:

Yeah, as this in many ways advertise and promote a product I can see it.

I don't think so.
Brain is professional, he can play everything and said so in many interviews.

He think knowing the schoolwork is just as important as having your own feel as suppliments eachother.

And also because this is his work, like any other work. I think he has written a lot of his own stuff on CD tho : ok:

A transcription...

Drummer Brain Reveals How Chinese Democracy Was Made

by Paul Cashmere - October 17 2008

The long awaited Guns ?n Roses album has taken 15 years to be released. It will finally see the light of day in November.

Drummer Brain has revealed to EQTV how more than $300,000 was spent over a 7 month period on redoing the drum bits note for note after Josh Freese left the band and how he now has the record for the duration that a single drum kit had been set-up in a studio.

?I think I have the record for how long drums were set-up in a studio and I think it was five years that my drums were set-up at the Village Recorders in Los Angeles,? Brain said. ?It was five years and it went through three different producers. It went through Sean Beaven, Roy Thomas Baker and then I guess Axl is the producer now. Five years my drums were set-up.

Brain said his predecessor Josh Freese played on 30 songs and then left the band. Axl Rose liked Brain?s feel but wanted what had Josh played so he had Brain replicate exactly note for note everything Josh had done.

Brain says he spent 7 months putting down the drum pieces in a studio that was costing $2000 a day.

To learn the parts was a chore in itself. The drums pieces for 30 songs had to be transcribed. That job went to a guy at Sony who was handed two CDs of all of the songs and had to transcribe them note for note. ?It was every song written out note for note. Some were seven minute songs including Josh doing solos,? he said.

And remember this was a G ?n R project. The ordinary everyday studio was not good enough for ?Chinese Democracy?. ?It was recorded upstairs in an auditorium that used to be a Masonic temple. ?It had a huge bottomesque sound?.

?Chinese Democracy? will be released on November 22.

http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=6580

Hilarious really.

Freese is having a baby.I doubt he wants back in.I HOPE Brain is still in.

I really like Brain I think he's the best drummer for GnR.

agreed, and I like the story about how all the other band mates were watching cartoons
down stairs whilst he was slaving over the hot ovens up stairs ;)

Great clip -- gives some insight into just how time consuming this project was, partly because of all the re-recording of parts, with musicians coming and going.

I also can understand why the label would have been pulling there hair out regarding this project -- it does not sound like there was much concern for costs when it came to doing this album.

First...I'm no drummer or ANY other musician, but if I were Brain I think I'd be a little insulted about being brought in to do a note for note "remake" without any input at all.  Maybe the money was just that good?  Seems like a waste of talent...

As a drummer myself... being one for over 15 years and playing in many studios/sets for artists... it pisses me off. They sometimes as to do what has been done and I either do it or not depending on the music.

For a chance to be in GN'R... I would do it in a flash. Studio drumming and concert drumming is two different things. I hate the studio. My goal is always... IN and OUT... lol.

Josh's style is usually not that simple. The drumming on CD is rather simple. It's a straight back beat rock sound... pretty standard. Any pro-drummer could do it.

I wish Josh's style shined a bit more. If you listen to his work with APC, Evanescence, or even NIN... Josh is all over the place. I love Josh. He's my biggest influece and is my favorite drummer.
Concert is different... I enjoy it. Feeding off the other musicians and crowd... Live you have more freedom. In the studio you really don't.

I don't think he felt insulted, otherwise he wouldn't of had done it. If he did... and did it anyways, well... I prefer not to say anything.   ;D

really interesting...

the one thing i do not understand though is why did they want him to record the whole song in 1 take?

I don't think he meant he could only use one take for each song. I think he meant that he wasn't able to record one piece of the song, stop and do the next one and then piece it together afterwards. Im sure doing the whole song in one go makes it flow better. Im also sure he used more than one take on the songs.

sorry i am not a musician but thats what i meant. Why did he have to record the whole song from start to finish? I know bands that record their songs "live" in order to improvise or get a better "groove" but if u record just the drums what difference does it make if you record the whole song at once?

You mean his wife is having a baby?


Awesome video, btw

even if it's only the drums that's being recorded, Im betting it still has to do with the flow. Im sure most of us wouldn't hear the difference if it was pieces put together or played all the way through, but Axl could probably hear the difference and wanted it done this way.

I assume Freese will still get royalties for his work though, which I dont think wouldve been the case if the drum parts were rewritten.

Is that right?

i guess u are right. even though he was replicating freese's parts note for note maybe by playing the whole song he could get a better feel and flow.
axl knows better : ok:

"Play it EXACTLY as Josh played it... but with your feel."

I think there is a scene in Mulholland Drive where the director says sth similar.

There are going to be a lot of people owed a lot of royalties on this record most likely

I think we have our answer (or a big part of it) as to why the album took such a long time to get together...a lot of legal issues, and probably some hurt feelings/ego's...

Something funny... Brain talks about how they had his drum kit set up for 5 years in the same studio (Studio C) at the Village Recorders, well, when you go to the Village Recorders Studios website and click on the link to check out their various studios, Studio C is not listed. Studio A, B, D and F are, but not C or E. Guns must have rented them out (or at least Studio C) for so long there's no point to even list them on the website.  :D

GNR stopped recording there in 2004 after the whole Axl vs Geffen thing..
they started recording in the villlage in 2000 with Roy Thomas Baker (produced the record from 2000 to 2002)
98 to 2000 they recorded in Rumbo with Sean Beavan

after the village the band have been seen recording in at least this studios
Curt Coumo Studio (2004 after BH left)
Electric Ladyland
Palms Recording Studio

# Woodland Ranch Recorders (Curt Cuomo) - 2004 -> 2005
# Electric Lady Studios (NYC) - 2006, 2007

Dude thats nuts how he did that. He he still in the band??? But recording the drums where Zepp did some work is great. Should sound sweet. But is he still in the band?

Wow!

I have now changed my mind about Brain. To me, all this time he always seemed like he really wasn't really into this band. Brain introduced Buckethead to Axl and since Bucket left so abruptly I always thought Brain was sort of in the same frame of mine, but having seen this clip I can tell he's really got involved in the making of CD.

BH introduced Brain to Axl
not the other way

BH started hanging out woth GNR in 99
Brain in 2000

I remember Brain saying that CD will be the "Led Zep II" of GNR

I think maybe some of you are overthinking this. It is very much possible to hand two musicians two identical sets of music and they can play it exactly as it is written, and they will still sound different on many fundamental levels. Every great drummer has an innate sense of the beat, and some will naturally swing a hair behind the beat, some a hair ahead of the beat, and some will land spot on the beat. I only cite this because it is from personal experience, but my last band changed drummers, and it totally changed the feel of the band. The new guy learned everything note for note off our last EP, but it just sounded....different. The old drummer was more of a 4 on the floor, straight up and down drummer while the new guy came from a jazz and funk background, and everything he played just felt more lively. I dunno....it's intangible but it makes a difference. Behind the beat vs. straight on the beat, Neil Peart vs. John Bohnam, Steven Perkins vs. Chad Smith...

Everyone touches an instrument differently. Listen to any of the live Appetite era stuff Sorum did vs. Adler. It's the same parts, but Sorum's feel is very on the beat, and Adler is a bit more reckless, and swings differently. There are so many variables in music that can't really be quantified. That's why people like Rick Rubin or Dave Jerden or Brenden O'brien are such in demand producers, not everyone has that ear for things. My impression of Axl Rose is that no matter what you think of the guy, he has an outstanding set of ears, his sense of nuance is pretty damn good.

My impression of Josh Freese is that he is more of a "rock" drummer, and Brain is a lot funkier by nature and that imparted a sound that Axl preferred. I bet if you transcribed the solo to November Rain and handing it to steve vai it wouldn't sound anything like Slash.

sry if old news but brain has a new official site.
http://www.brainbeatz.com/

and he for the first time talks about amazing chinese sessions.
http://www.brainbeatz.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=96

Thanks again :peace:

"Dude, I gotta like...practice this!" :hihi:

Man, I can't believe Brain put himself through that kind of meat grinder.  It shows me quite a bit that he swallowed his pride enough to learn all those songs note for note and didn't act like a prima donna and say "I'm Brain, I'm doing this my way."

It turned out great and I'm glad he decided to go through with it.

That's why he's one of the top drummer's in the world.

absolutely! gnr needs him back in the fold. no disrespect to frank, but brain is in another league....

 :P tehehe, it was new for me as i was absent  from the board when it was posted...

in an old interview brain talked how he'd attach weight to basic practice.  :yes:

I agree... I also would love to see Brain come back... but something tells me he won't be. That is PURE SPECULATION on my part and if he doesn't come back, that's fine too. Frank is a great drummer as well, so really either way, I'll be happy.

If I had it my way though, Josh would be Guns' drummer permanently... because he my friends, IS THE MAN.