The GNR crossroad

[Mutherfunker]

A post in another thread made me think something

92 was the first year without IZZY, it was a downhill slump from beginning to end

At the beginning of the year they were 'the most dangerous band in the world', by the end they were regarded by most (I am not saying its true) as a faultering self parody of their once great selves.


This is the image of GNR that still sticks in the minds of many people, its an incorrect image and one that Axl should finnally get to bury for good with his awesome new band.

I don't know if it's been said this way before but maybe this exact reason is why Axl realised that the musical direction of the band needed to change.

Maybe he saw what was happening in 93, 94 and realised this. For an artist that wants to be taken seriously as a songwriting/performing talent (which I think Axl does), the idea of this happening would have been terrible.

Having said that, the way to deal with it as a band may not have been to try and evolve but rather go back to the original raw, stripped down version of Guns. No horns/backing singers/big videos/etc.

Does anyone think they'd still be together and big if this had happened?

Axl may have been evolving creatively, and that may be the better thing for him, but he may well have been pushing the band in the wrong direction.

The question of whether he was right or wrong may already have been answered: Guns N' Roses were a band that attracted people to their energy and danger, the splitting of the band has already robbed fans of at least 8 years of this, even if Axl can pull this thing off.


@#$%Muther

[kockstar99]

I do think they would still be together if Izzy had stuck with the band.  

Izzy and Axl together as song writers were unbeatable.. IMO none of the new songs we have heard from GnR or VR compare to the song 14 years or Dust n Bones. added with Slashs amazing guitar and Duff's solid Train sounding Bass made this band great.

For me the drummers in GnR have never been that solid and I think Brain is the best Drummer that GnR have ever had. They were very much a guitar based band unlike say Motley Crue who were mostly Drum and Bass(Tommy and Sixx)

The 976 horns and Teddy Zig Zag made it more of a show or circus and after Izzy left i think Axl looked well a little lost out there with the other guys and no Izzy.
We know how withdrawn he became after Izzy left.  He had his own dressing room, didnt party as much, and as you pointed out the musical direction shifted..  

One Thing i noticed about a year ago in the Lies Era CD book is if you look at ALL the old pictures in the booklet Axl is ALWAYS standing next to Izzy Stradlin.  Those two looked like the were siamese twins in that booklet.

I think he tried his best to bring people he enjoyed around him like Shannon Hoon, Sebastian, Stuart Bailey etc..  

While we only know what the old members will say about what happened none of us were there but I do belive that Izzy was more to the band than a Rythym Guitar player.  He was a leader off stage.  

I think that if Izzy would have stayed we would have one band still today instead of two.

[matt88]

Well i think if Izzy had stayed they would have done another album, but the breakup was bound to happen one day.

If Axl hadnt brought in Paul Huge for SFTD, Slash wouldnt have got pissed off and we woulda had 2 more albums, but it was still a matter of when they'd split.


Also about that 92 thing that they were good at the start and bad by the end, thats complete bullshit, i was only about six at the time but in 93 which was my first year in school GN'R was everywhere, all my friends brothers had T-shirts of them and they played GN'R when they drove us all home from school, and i remember on the news they were on all the time, and in the articles section of HTGTH. It paints a very different outlook of GN'R being parodies of themselves.

[kockstar99]

If Axl hadnt brought in Paul Huge for SFTD, Slash wouldnt have got pissed off and we woulda had 2 more albums, but it was still a matter of when they'd split.

If Izzy had not quit Paul would never have had to fill in for that song....

If the 2 more albums your refering to would have been the material on the 1st snakepit disk im happy they havent released shit...

[matt88]

If Izzy had not quit Paul would never have had to fill in for that song....

If the 2 more albums your refering to would have been the material on the 1st snakepit disk im happy they havent released shit...

Well if axl had told slash he was using someone else that problem wouldnt have happened i dont think, and i doubt that material on It's 5 o clock somehwere was meant for a GN'R album, i repeat i doubt but i could be wrong

[Surge]

If Izzy had not quit Paul would never have had to fill in for that song....

If the 2 more albums your refering to would have been the material on the 1st snakepit disk im happy they havent released shit...

Well if axl had told slash he was using someone else that problem wouldnt have happened i dont think, and i doubt that material on It's 5 o clock somehwere was meant for a GN'R album, i repeat i doubt but i could be wrong

To answer this post generally: If Izzy had not quit, Izzy had quit. Izzy wasn't into how Illusions turned out and he was clean and sober while Slash and Duff were drinking like hell. Axl stayed more on his own. Izzy also hated that Slash had re-recorded many of his guitar parts for the Illusions and Izzy's volume was turned down on the live shows. To top that, Izzy also hated the long breaks with solos etc. He rather wanted to learn covers, but according to him Slash and Duff had no interest in that as partying was cooler. The contract Axl offered Izzy (which might've been fair because Izzy worked 2 weeks on UYI while the rest worked a year) was the final thing. That made Izzy leave.

About Slash and the Snakepit material, Slash said: "No one seemed to be interested in the material. Axl said, 'That's not the kind of music I want to do.' I said, 'OK,' and took it all back. We've had that happen too many times in Guns, when certain songs just didn't make it, and they would have been killer. I didn't want to lose any more material."

GnR was split between Duff, Axl and Dizzy and Slash, Matt and Gilby on this one. It was no one-man show. This was the real reason why Slash left.

[Mikkamakka]

As I see this thing, GN'R didn't function as a ban after about 1989. They were on their own ways, worked on their own songs and hardly ever met except Slash and Duff. For me UYI is more like a collection of solo albums than an album by a band. Axl didn't go to rehersals, neither Izzy, who was travelling across the States with his bus and didn't play guitar for 4 months! Steven was fucked up with drugs, Slash and Duff had drinking problems... Well, GN'R was a whole mess in '89-'91. They recorded UYI, but went to the studio in different times. Izzy wasn't really involved, he wrote a lot of Stones-sounding tracks, which the others (mostly Slash) rewrote to fit GN'R. Izzy's guitar parts, which he didn't play for the record in the studio, were taken for early demos, or Slash played the rhythm parts, too.

The UYI tour made the band to survive, but after the monstre tour ended, they spilt up again and never recovered.  

[kockstar99]

To answer this post generally: If Izzy had not quit, Izzy had quit. Izzy wasn't into how Illusions turned out and he was clean and sober while Slash and Duff were drinking like hell. Axl stayed more on his own. Izzy also hated that Slash had re-recorded many of his guitar parts for the Illusions and Izzy's volume was turned down on the live shows. To top that, Izzy also hated the long breaks with solos etc. He rather wanted to learn covers, but according to him Slash and Duff had no interest in that as partying was cooler. The contract Axl offered Izzy (which might've been fair because Izzy worked 2 weeks on UYI while the rest worked a year) was the final thing. That made Izzy leave.

About Slash and the Snakepit material, Slash said: "No one seemed to be interested in the material. Axl said, 'That's not the kind of music I want to do.' I said, 'OK,' and took it all back. We've had that happen too many times in Guns, when certain songs just didn't make it, and they would have been killer. I didn't want to lose any more material."

GnR was split between Duff, Axl and Dizzy and Slash, Matt and Gilby on this one. It was no one-man show. This was the real reason why Slash left.

WOW!! Thanks for the history lesson....

MotherFunker...Sorry your thread turned into an "why did Izzy leave" thread..  Thats not what intended when i posted about Izzy....

[Surge]

To answer this post generally: If Izzy had not quit, Izzy had quit. Izzy wasn't into how Illusions turned out and he was clean and sober while Slash and Duff were drinking like hell. Axl stayed more on his own. Izzy also hated that Slash had re-recorded many of his guitar parts for the Illusions and Izzy's volume was turned down on the live shows. To top that, Izzy also hated the long breaks with solos etc. He rather wanted to learn covers, but according to him Slash and Duff had no interest in that as partying was cooler. The contract Axl offered Izzy (which might've been fair because Izzy worked 2 weeks on UYI while the rest worked a year) was the final thing. That made Izzy leave.

About Slash and the Snakepit material, Slash said: "No one seemed to be interested in the material. Axl said, 'That's not the kind of music I want to do.' I said, 'OK,' and took it all back. We've had that happen too many times in Guns, when certain songs just didn't make it, and they would have been killer. I didn't want to lose any more material."

GnR was split between Duff, Axl and Dizzy and Slash, Matt and Gilby on this one. It was no one-man show. This was the real reason why Slash left.

WOW!! Thanks for the history lesson....

MotherFunker...Sorry your thread turned into an "why did Izzy leave" thread..  Thats not what intended when i posted about Izzy....

motherfucker is not a word intended to be included in a discussion. And what you intend when you post isn't always followed and doesn't interest me at all. But when people start talking crap about "If Izzy had never left, Paul had never joined and then Slash had never left" I feel like it's better to get the discussion back on track. If you don't like that, that's your problem, not mine.

And besides that, Mikkamakka put it all together the right way.

[twitcher]

motherfucker is not a word intended to be included in a discussion.

He didn't say 'motherfucker' he said 'MotherFunker' which happens to be the nickname of the person who started the thread.
 

[Surge]

motherfucker is not a word intended to be included in a discussion.

He didn't say 'motherfucker' he said 'MotherFunker' which happens to be the nickname of the person who started the thread.
 

ah, that's better. well, then I back off from that part.