I have a question. Do you think maybe Axl was/is in debt ? and had to pay up?
Either for the lawsuit with with Irvin Assoff, or for something else?
5 more tours seems like a lot, considering he had toured so much before that..
If he had invested that time and effort he had for touring, into .. I don't know? releasing an album, maybe it would've been released by now..
So, when Tommy says that...I don't think it was like...5 distinctive tours. I think it was iterative proposals for a tour or two. In other words, he was pitched one set of dates, refused, was pitched another, refused, etc.
I also think that maybe, possibly, those refusals (and BBFs departure) moved Axl from "seriously considering what to do in that regards" for a new album to "I gotta put a band back together before I can even think about releasing new stuff". None of that's in the interview, obviously...no indication of it from any sort of official source..but that's my working theory.
I like and appreciate that you designate your theories as such and don't attempt to pass them off as fact, or invent imaginary conversations to support your favorite fantasy narrative.
The different tour offers and dates seem like a plausible situation as well.