Frank Ferrer Discusses Ashba Departure on Podcast

[Tongue-like-a-razor]

Axl NEVER replies to any tweets...

[Ginger King]

Did it seem odd to anyone else that Frank didn?t really have any interaction with Axl prior to joining the band?  I thought Axl was hands on in the management of the band, yet left the decision to hire a band member to others?  I was surprised by that.

[D-GenerationX]

Did it seem odd to anyone else that Frank didn?t really have any interaction with Axl prior to joining the band?  I thought Axl was hands on in the management of the band, yet left the decision to hire a band member to others?  I was surprised by that.

I'm surprised, but not as surprised as I would have been once upon a time.

Perhaps its all the times their either he or someone in his camp pleads total ignorance to something that comes down, but my once firmly held belief Axl was a control freak with his hands in every piece of the GNR pie has gone by the wayside.

[Ginger King]

Did it seem odd to anyone else that Frank didn?t really have any interaction with Axl prior to joining the band?  I thought Axl was hands on in the management of the band, yet left the decision to hire a band member to others?  I was surprised by that.

I'm surprised, but not as surprised as I would have been once upon a time.

Perhaps its all the times their either he or someone in his camp pleads total ignorance to something that comes down, but my once firmly held belief Axl was a control freak with his hands in every piece of the GNR pie has gone by the wayside.

To me, it shows he has zero interest in creating anything new with these guys, and views them more as replaceable widgets to help keep the boat afloat. 

[GeorgeSteele]

Did it seem odd to anyone else that Frank didn?t really have any interaction with Axl prior to joining the band?  I thought Axl was hands on in the management of the band, yet left the decision to hire a band member to others?  I was surprised by that.

Slash brought in Sorum... Buckethead brought in Brain... maybe Axl just doesn't get too invested with drummers.  A lot of people consider Freese, the one guy Axl did hand-pick, the most talented of the bunch. 

[Ginger King]

Did it seem odd to anyone else that Frank didn?t really have any interaction with Axl prior to joining the band?  I thought Axl was hands on in the management of the band, yet left the decision to hire a band member to others?  I was surprised by that.

Slash brought in Sorum... Buckethead brought in Brain... maybe Axl just doesn't get too invested with drummers.  A lot of people consider Freese, the one guy Axl did hand-pick, the most talented of the bunch. 

Exactly.  Axl was directly involved in picking Josh...perhaps because he wanted to create music with him.  But, as we got further and further down the line with changes, it shows, IMO, a level of indifference.

[D-GenerationX]

When it was all going down, I assumed (as I think many did) that Axl broke away from the other guys so he could have total control over every aspect.

I no longer think this.

I think what the past 15 years have shown us is that Axl broke with the other guys so there would be no one left to really challenge him in any meaningful way.  No one to answer to, and no one to kick him in the ass.

He wrested away total control, not to take over the world, but rather to be left alone.  

[GeorgeSteele]

Did it seem odd to anyone else that Frank didn?t really have any interaction with Axl prior to joining the band?  I thought Axl was hands on in the management of the band, yet left the decision to hire a band member to others?  I was surprised by that.

Slash brought in Sorum... Buckethead brought in Brain... maybe Axl just doesn't get too invested with drummers.  A lot of people consider Freese, the one guy Axl did hand-pick, the most talented of the bunch. 

Exactly.  Axl was directly involved in picking Josh...perhaps because he wanted to create music with him.  But, as we got further and further down the line with changes, it shows, IMO, a level of indifference.

I think he has a different standard on who he'll record with and who he'll perform with.  For example, when Gilby was brought on board for the UYI tour, Axl went along no problem, but when it came to recording a new album, he was clear that Gilby wouldn't do.  When and if he'll create new music in the future, I think you would see that same hands-on approach. 

[D-GenerationX]

I think he has a different standard on who he'll record with and who he'll perform with.  For example, when Gilby was brought on board for the UYI tour, Axl went along no problem, but when it came to recording a new album, he was clear that Gilby wouldn't do.  When and if he'll create new music in the future, I think you would see that same hands-on approach. 

I think you are on the right track.

Look how excited he was to record with the original new band he put together.  We've heard talks of 30 plus tracks and several albums of stuff.  All done in a few years.  He was clearly energized to work with that group of people.

Compare that to the people he wound up getting as their replacements.  Not one new song or any substantive studio work in 10 years.

The difference in his approach seems fairly obvious.

[JAEBALL]

But for years we heard Dj is known for his songwriting chops...Maybe Axl didn't see it the same way.

I think its a good bet that Axl is done creating brand new music in a group setting.

[D-GenerationX]

But for years we heard Dj is know for his songwriting chops...Maybe Axl didn't see it the same way.

Sure seems it.

I mean, could the guy have seemed more excited about being in band, and working with Axl? 

[rebelhipi]

Can't listen to that bullshit for more than 30 secs. So, it'd be greatly appreciated if someone was able to tell at what time is Frank on.

Around 24 mins in

[sky dog]

OK D-Gen and all the parrots...read up....Brain gives you first hand details of how he got the gig...don't read this...too much reality and not enough speculation...and by the way, Tommy obviously has and had alot of pull.

So, they gave me a first-class [plane] ticket from San Francisco to LA. A ridiculous 550SL-something black Mercedes, all tinted windows, comes and gets me. They drive me to the studio.

I met Axl, and they were like, 'Well, you have to learn these songs. We wanna jam. You have to learn Sweet Child O'Mine and this, this and this.' I was like, 'I don't really know those songs and I don't really want to learn them, 'cause I don't really care.'

I'm not saying like I'm a heavy, I'm just saying that through my attitude of 'Oh, whatever', it was like, 'No-one says whatever! This is Guns!' I went down and met everybody. Everybody seemed cool. Axl actually showed up - he was supercool. I go home and three months go by.

Tommy Stinson, the bass player, calls and says, 'Hey man, we need a drummer, so what's going on? You wanna do this or what?' I remember sitting in caf? in San Francisco when I picked up the phone, and I was like, 'Yeah, well, it sounds kinda cool.' And he's like, 'You should come down and jam. Learn some songs and do, whatever.'

So, it finally hit me then, because they flew me out, we went to a ridiculous rehearsal studio, I think it was at CenterStaging or something, and it was the biggest room and my drums are on a six-foot riser... I'm just thinking, 'Whoa, wait. This is kinda cool. This is like when you go to the tenth floor, this is eleven. This is - IT! Shit, man! Maybe I've made it if I take this gig! This is getting serious now!'



So, I go in and Tommy Stinson shows up with his Replacements punk-rock attitude. I had a boom stand, he fuckin' takes his jacket off and sets it on my boom stand. I'm thinking like, 'This motherfucker. Oh, OK. They wanna play here, so OK.'

We're playing the songs and I am sucking cock, 'cause I didn't know any of them. And Tommy's going like, 'I thought you were a good drummer, what the fuck's going on?' I'm like, 'Dude, I didn't learn any of the songs, I don't know any of them.' And he's going, 'Dude...' and then the phone rings - and I hear him talking to Axl.

'So, how's Brain working out?' I can just know what they're saying. And he's going, 'Well, it's kinda cool, but he doesn't know any of the songs.' I hear Tommy and him kind of going back and forth, and at that point, I thought, 'Uh oh. Now I'm turning out to look like a fuckin' douche.'

So I said, 'Tommy, give me a day. Just give me a fuckin' day and we'll come back.' Came back, I re-set my drums totally different, at that point, I had a kind of Primus' fusion set, so it didn't really work with Guns, anyway. Just having all these small toms and fuckin' splash symbals and shit.

Told the drum tech, 'Dude, set up a bottom kit. 26" kick drum, 13, 16, 18, fuck it, I'm going in with just power.' Sat up all night, learned the five or six songs, and when fuckin' Tommy comes in one more time and puts his fuckin' jacket [on my boom stand]... I went in and just played so hard that four of five drums fell off the risers and Tommy was like, 'Yep, he's our guy, that's it. Let's just do this.' 

[D-GenerationX]

OK D-Gen and all the parrots...read up....Brain gives you first hand details of how he got the gig...don't read this...too much reality and not enough speculation...and by the way, Tommy obviously has and had alot of pull.

Who said anything about Brain?

Seriously, was he mentioned in any of this?

[Ginger King]

OK D-Gen and all the parrots...read up....Brain gives you first hand details of how he got the gig...don't read this...too much reality and not enough speculation...and by the way, Tommy obviously has and had alot of pull.

Who said anything about Brain?

Seriously, was he mentioned in any of this?

Exactly.  What does this have anything to do with Frank???  Cool story, btw.

[sky dog]

"I'm surprised, but not as surprised as I would have been once upon a time.

Perhaps its all the times their either he or someone in his camp pleads total ignorance to something that comes down, but my once firmly held belief Axl was a control freak with his hands in every piece of the GNR pie has gone by the wayside."

my only point to the parrots was that apparently Axl always let other people make decisions on who other band members were going to be. So, he is not a complete control freak. And for the record, my only issue with the parrots is the incessantly never ending speculation on what really happened. You guys speculate negative, I speculate neutral or independent, and others speculate always positive. Two sides to every coin.

[sky dog]

Ginger....the whole thing is classic...

That's one thing about Axl, too. He knows his shit, dude. I'll never forget, we were working on a track... I forget the name of the track, I don't know if it even made to Chinese Democracy, but we were working on it for two weeks, maybe even longer.

We would work at Village, which is a studio in Santa Monica. Everything would be dropped off to him. At that point it was, like, giving him CD's. So, there'd be a runner ready to go right when we were done at midnight, to bring it to his house in Malibu, and we'd wait about 35-40 minutes until it got there and get the call. 'Yeah, this is cool', or, 'No, we gotta change something or whatever.'   

We'd been doing that for about 2,5 weeks on this song, let's say. Finally, he loved what we were doing, but we had to change something with the drums. So, I remember replaying the part, but, on the beginning of the second half of the intro, there's a kick drum that I had missed on the final take. We had already figured out all the parts and everything was going great, and producer Roy Thomas Baker was like, 'That was the take.'

But I had noticed that I'd missed one kick drum. One kick drum on the one, on the second half of the intro, OK? We send it there, and I'm not shitting you, he says, 'Everything sounds great, except I think Brain missed a kick drum on the one.' 

So, he's fuckin' listening. We thought we were sending this shit and he's literally sitting there like King Arthur with seven chicks on his pipe. He's listening, he's working. After that, I respected... I was like, 'Holy shit! He caught that?!' Yeah, he's listening to every little thing. It was my time on getting the drums right, so he was focusing on that... It's pretty amazing. You'd think someone like that, does he need to care? That one got me. I was like, 'Wow. He caught that.'     

[D-GenerationX]

"I'm surprised, but not as surprised as I would have been once upon a time.

Perhaps its all the times their either he or someone in his camp pleads total ignorance to something that comes down, but my once firmly held belief Axl was a control freak with his hands in every piece of the GNR pie has gone by the wayside."

Oh that?  Yeah, that, I believe.

Which is it, you know?  He's super involved and all over every aspect...or he doesn't know when tours are booked and DVDs are coming out?  

You have to see the inconsistency there.

I didn't mean it as a dis.  It was more an admission I appeared to read the whole thing wrong, initially.

[D-GenerationX]

Ginger....the whole thing is classic...

That's one thing about Axl, too. He knows his shit, dude. I'll never forget, we were working on a track... I forget the name of the track, I don't know if it even made to Chinese Democracy, but we were working on it for two weeks, maybe even longer.

We would work at Village, which is a studio in Santa Monica. Everything would be dropped off to him. At that point it was, like, giving him CD's. So, there'd be a runner ready to go right when we were done at midnight, to bring it to his house in Malibu, and we'd wait about 35-40 minutes until it got there and get the call. 'Yeah, this is cool', or, 'No, we gotta change something or whatever.'   

We'd been doing that for about 2,5 weeks on this song, let's say. Finally, he loved what we were doing, but we had to change something with the drums. So, I remember replaying the part, but, on the beginning of the second half of the intro, there's a kick drum that I had missed on the final take. We had already figured out all the parts and everything was going great, and producer Roy Thomas Baker was like, 'That was the take.'

But I had noticed that I'd missed one kick drum. One kick drum on the one, on the second half of the intro, OK? We send it there, and I'm not shitting you, he says, 'Everything sounds great, except I think Brain missed a kick drum on the one.' 

So, he's fuckin' listening. We thought we were sending this shit and he's literally sitting there like King Arthur with seven chicks on his pipe. He's listening, he's working. After that, I respected... I was like, 'Holy shit! He caught that?!' Yeah, he's listening to every little thing. It was my time on getting the drums right, so he was focusing on that... It's pretty amazing. You'd think someone like that, does he need to care? That one got me. I was like, 'Wow. He caught that.'     

Haha, that's awesome.

[sky dog]

http://www.gnrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?id=13342&p=1

the whole interview shows you how insane the whole process has been. Note, Roy Thomas Baker....means tons of shit was done 13 years ago...you can't make this shit up....that is why I follow the saga....it is classic. Also, why I don't get pissed. It is what it is. That is a fairly recent interview...on Gnr time that is.