Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Dizzy Reed Interview Jakarta Post

December 02 2012

At the height of rock music popularity in the 1990s, there was Guns N? Roses (GN?R), a virtuoso band that attracted leagues of music fans across the genres.

With the banshee shrieks of Axl Rose and rough melancholic tunes, the group united the heart-wringing heavy metal fans with the blues boys. Its first work Appetite for Destruction in 1987 was the largest-selling debut album in rock history.

Scheduled to perform in Senayan Sports Stadium, Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Dec. 15, the legendary band promised to give their best in a three-hour show, delivering all hits, including ?November Rain? and ?Sweet Child O? Mine?.

?Our goal is just to get our music out to everybody. Yes, it?s long overdue [the concert in Indonesia], but we?re going to come down there, and we?ll do our best to not disappoint you guys,? Dizzy Reed, currently responsible for keyboard, piano, percussion and backing vocals in the band, told The Jakarta Post during a recent phone interview.

Reed joined the band in February 1990 as pianist as well as backing vocals and produced the single Civil War in May 1993.

?I loved Appetite for Destruction when it came out. That was one of the best ever rock records. So, I was there, starting as the fan of the band and then joining the band. It means everything for me to be in Guns N? Roses, and I feel really lucky to still be able to do this for a living, and it?s still a lot of fun,? said the 49-year-old musician.

The current lineup consists of Rose, Reed, bassist Thomas ?Tommy? Eugene Stinson, another keyboardist Chris Pitman, guitarists Richard Fortus, Ron ?Bumblefoot? Blumenthal, Daren Jay ?DJ? Ashba and drummer Frank Ferrer.

Over a possible new record, Reed said that the band was in the early stages with each member sharing his ideas.

?We had a lot of stuff that we haven?t finished from the past, some great songs? I just hope it won?t take us to another 10 years,? he said.

Despite numerous changes in lineup as well as drug abuse along the way, Reed said that the band had grown into a better form, although he was not sure whether the band would survive another 20 years.

?Sometimes you just have to take things one step at a time. It?s good to have a plan and place, and so I hope we?re still rocking 20 years from now. I hope that we don?t look bad doing it.?

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/12/02/guns-n-roses-reliving-past-glory.html

Sounds promising, just keep the (past their prime & overpriced) producers out of it.

Hopefully Jarmo "leaks" some studio pics in coming months. We all know the music's going to be guarded like Ft Knox this time around, but photos/video of GNR in the studio are very rare.

Thanks FM

 :smoking:

This is good news as it implies that some of the material on the next record will be from the Finck/Bucket era. It also implies that they are also writing as a band which is always good news. The prospect of a new album is something that excites me extremely, I just know its going to be amazing like Chinese Democracy. :)

At the height of rock music popularity in the 1990s ?
...a virtuoso band ?
...and produced the single Civil War in May 1993 ?
Now you can tell why nobody plays India  :P A world of their own...

- GN'R played some of the biggest shows of their career on the UYI tour from 1991-93, so yeah, I'd agree.

- With the likes of Slash (then) and Bumblefoot now in the band, who can pretty much play anything, yeah, I'd call them virtuosos

- Pretty sure Civil War was released as one of the last singles off UYI in 1993 as well.


So yeah, they did get their facts right   : ok:

Also, Jakarta is in Indonesia. ;)

Allright,allright  :P
anyway india,indonesia,phillipines,thailand...who cares ?
But Dizzy never produced any song and you couldn't call Slash a virtuoso.Bumblefoot and Buckethead yes.

What an awful opinion you have!

Why is that mate ? Opinions are like a@@holes,as Axl has said in the past.some might be awful.Is this a Totenham icon ? remeber this :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9xuwqTwx3E
 :beer:

I think that Indians, Indonesians, Phillipinos and Thais might. ::)

A lot of people say the same about Greece.....

You should be careful about making your close minded statements on an international web site.


/jarmo

In the US Civil War was the first single released off of UYI before the records were released.  I remember it vividly...  I was listening to the radio when it hit the airwaves on 107.3 WAAF...

-Larry

Civil War was originally released in the summer of 1990, on the Nobody's Child compilation. Then in May 1993 it was released as the Civil War EP in Europe.






/jarmo

So we can agree on that... :peace: Also, at the time people were craving more GN'R so they started airing bootlegs on the radio most notably was the MTV recording of Knockin' On Heavens Door and the studio recording version with the release of Days of Thunder.  Not to mention the release of You Could Be Mine with the Terminator 2 movie....  It was an exciting time...

Jumpin' Jack Flash was played on the radio as a "new GNR song" in 1989.

If you ever heard the Uniondale 1991 concert, Axl made a comment about bootlegs after November Rain. I think the entire audience had heard it and UYI hadn't been out yet, but a LOT of tapes were made and passed around.

I don't count the MTV Ritz concert as a bootleg, but there was a live version issued on different singles, EPs, etc.

I'm sure GNR not putting Civil War out as a single at the time helped boost sales of Nobody's Child significantly. In case you didn't know what the benefit was for, because it was so long ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/25/arts/album-is-to-help-children-in-romania-with-aids.html?ref=romania

I remember buying You Could be Mine single and had Civil War as a B side on July 91  :smoking:

Yes!!! Another 10 more days to possibly the greatest night of my life!!! Are you coming Jarmo?

Yeah cant argue with you there.  To me as a 16 year old at the time of the release it sounded like a bootleg to me.  We were never informed it was from the MTV concert until years later when I saw the full concert. 

New music, yes please.


New music for all that is good in the world, new god damn music!

Dizzy fucking ROCKS!

An idea is worth nothing until you make it happen. Ashba's been feeding axl with ideas for some time now.

Hopefully 2013 there will be concrete plans to record and write music as a band.

so they haven't finished any of these "old" songs yet? I'm kinda disappointed

You guys might be getting ahead of yourselves with all this talk about new music. It seems as if the band is just focusing on the shows while on tour (or a residency) and the time off tour just seems to be long periods with no activity. I don't know what changes this cycle.

Personally I can see another impending pissing match between Axl's expectations of the record company versus the record company's unwillingness to finance any new recording. This could already be going on behind the scenes. Hate to be a naysayer but let's not act like we're all disappointed when we don't see new music real soon.

GNR doesn't need a record company except to spread the word to music shops. GNR already have social media at their disposal, which costs nothing. Once they have banner ads up and putting the new music out on download sites and streaming radio, they're done. 

I don't see the point of a major label spreading the word, except to slap an announcement on billboards overlooking Times Square and Sunset Blvd. Facebook, Twitter, the band's official site is plenty.

Axl's not going to say new music's "coming soon" until they're actually finished with it.

I was speaking more about the label financing recording of new music rather than promotion. If past experience means anything, GNR doesn't exactly record on the cheap.

I don't think it's a matter of if the old "CD era" songs are finished, they most probably have been finished for years. But, seeing as some of this line-up had no input in those songs, the decision might be to have them add to them or change them slightly..... much like Ron and Frank did to Chinese Democracy.

you talk about demos here. I'm talking about finished songs, including the members of the current line up.
seems they didn't work on them yet.

You're arguing semantics.  There could in theory be songs that are at the recording and/or mixing stage where they could be released.  But, they may not feature some of the new members like DJ and Frank.  Therefore, like on Chinese Democracy, the desire may be to have add their inputs to the songs and re-record rhythm and/or lead guitar tracks and drum tracks before putting those songs out.

Ali

that's what I said. Axl said in the past that he always wants to capture the vibe of the current band on the record.
so it means adding DJ & Frank on the mix. it appears it's not the case yet, so there's no final product here at the moment.