Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Uncut Magazine
April 2011

How did you get involved in the making of Guns N? Roses Chinese Democracy album?

BM: Can?t remember when I first met Axl [Rose], but we invited them to play the [1992] Freddie tribute. They did a fantastic job, and also donated a lot of money to the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

Subsequent to that, my solo band supported GN?R on tour and we got on very well. People think of Axl as difficult, but he was always very attentive to me. When they were making that album, after God-knows-how-many years, he was talking to [Queen?s old producer] Roy Thomas Baker, who was doing some production for them at the time, and they came up with the idea of contacting me to help them work out a direction. I flew out to meet him and he played me pretty much the whole album. We had a long night, talking, thinking, figuring out potential directions, and then I had a couple of days just trying things out. I think I played on two-and-a-half tracks, but they didn?t end up using my parts. They used about 10 guitarists subsequent to that! I have rough mixes of these tracks somewhere in my archive, but I?m not going to let anyone listen to them, out of loyalty to Axl! It was fun, to throw something in there to help out a friend.

http://www.brianmay.com/brian/briannews/briannews.html

Too bad he won't share the stuff he recorded, would be interesting to hear it.

Brian May is maybe the best credentials for Axl. The dude is a good energy and speaking about Axl in this way says a lot about Axl.

Wonder what other songs he played on?

Very nice. :)





/jarmo

One would have to think it was during the Tobias/Finck/Freese era, prior to Bucket and Brain's involvement.  Brian May's guitar work wouldn't seem too out of place on "There Was A Time" or maybe even "Prostitute".  Of course, there are probably dozens of different versions of Chinese Democracy songs that will likely never see the light of day....so it's anyone's guess what May's true contributions were.    

Please don't try to steer this topic into something that it's not meant to be.

Brain said some nice things about working with Axl.

Instead of focusing on what we know for sure, some of you seem to be happy to focus on guessing things we know nothing about.





/jarmo

He said he was on a few songs, why can't we discuss which ones we think are it?

I always thought it was just "Catcher" so it is awesome to hear he was involved in other tracks, not just one.

I agree with the "TWAT" guess, but it's just a personal opinion. ;)

I didn't know until now they'd donated money to the trust - I suppose you do learn something new every day

Going to see Brian in May here in the UK with Kerry Ellis on tour

love Brian, & his words echo what's been said by most if not all who've worked with Axl in the last 15 years or so.
classy as usual & it'd be cool for a collaboration down the line
- wasn't Brian supposed to join Guns onstage during a Hammersmith show back in 06?

Would love to hear those archives.

Thanks for posting HBK.  It looks like this will be part of the mystery that is Chinese Democracy. ;)

Imho, this board was built and perpetuated on the kinds of things fans like to discuss and, yes, speculate upon (for much of the late 90's and early 2000's in particular), so I have to say that I'm somewhat taken aback about a comment that suggests we should now be expected to reduce our "discussion" to things we only know "for sure".  In this case, it seems pretty harmless to speculate about what songs suit Brian May's style. 

To quote Axl, "not to be an asshole," but are you expecting every thread to consist of nothing but sycophantic banter about the band? 

In my opinion, it's more interesting to focus on actual things than to spend time guessing on something we know very little about.

I don't know what kind of interesting discussion listing song titles is...


I'm not surprised some of you would get upset over my comment.

Happens all the time.



Personally I don't really wonder what songs he played on. If we hear those tracks one day, awesome!

Until then, nice words by Brian!



/jarmo

I have no problem at all with your opinion so long as your opinion does not somehow mutate into an edict of how people should or should not participate in this forum (tho certainly I understand the need to keep a certain decorum around here and I respect that).  I just wanted to point out that I interpreted your opinion, since it was originally not spelled out explicitly as such , to carry a different kind of connotation. 

 :peace:

The proceeds from the Knockin' On Heavens Door single were donated the the Mercury Trust.

Seeing as the single got to Number 2 in the charts I would imagine it was a fair amount of ??? that was donated.  : ok:

And at a time when single sales were heavy into the 10,000's to get a number 1.  These days its at about 25% of that era to get the top spot.

On May's input, I've a view on the songs he worked on, but since I have no idea how right this view is, I'm gonna stick with keeping them to myself. Anybody who knows May's music will have a better "than a finger in the wind" guess about where any influence has been laid, and to some degree maintained, if not played.                                                       

Very nice words.

Brian May in May.

Wow!