XX. Notes

I saw you already updated the chapter
https://www.a-4-d.com/t5018-19-december-1994-october-1996-axl-and-slash-fights-slash-quits#20207

Baratto said he played bass on demos when Duff left to do the Neurotic Outsiders, not when he left the band.

Blackstar wrote:I saw you already updated the chapter
https://www.a-4-d.com/t5018-19-december-1994-october-1996-axl-and-slash-fights-slash-quits#20207

Baratto said he played bass on demos when Duff left to do the Neurotic Outsiders, not when he left the band.

I probably worked on it while you were reading it, and most likely I corrected it before I read this comment from you.

Yes, it is always fun to add quotes with "personal communication" on them!

@troccoli has these 2002 tour itineraries on his site:

http://www.troccolitm.com/WorldItin02.html

http://www.troccolitm.com/1106010302Itin.html

I see that in the first one, which was for Hong Kong/Japan/Europe, both Doug Goldstein and Merck were listed as managers:



But in the second one, which was for the N.A. fall tour, only Merck is named as manager:

Blackstar wrote:@troccoli has these 2002 tour itineraries on his site:

http://www.troccolitm.com/WorldItin02.html

http://www.troccolitm.com/1106010302Itin.html

I see that in the first one, which was for Hong Kong/Japan/Europe, both Doug Goldstein and Merck were listed as managers:



But in the second one, which was for the N.A. fall tour, only Merck is named as manager:

Are there any publication dates for these itineraries?

I am trying to pinpoint exactly when Goldstein was out as manager.

Soulmonster wrote:
Are there any publication dates for these itineraries?

No, there aren't, but I suppose they were printed a reasonable amount of time before each leg of the tour started.

Goldstein was still there on August 29, as is evident from this letter he sent to NME on that date:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t2051-2002-08-23-carling-weekend-leeds-festival-leeds-england#18428

So considering that the first scheduled show for the N.A. tour was on November 8, I would say he was fired in September.

Goldstein said in one of the recent podcasts he did that Axl, still angry at him for something, had warned him to stay out of his sight or else he would be fired. Then, according to Goldstein, one time (after a show, I think) he went near Axl to protect him from paparazzi or something, and Axl said "you're fired" and that was it. Maybe it happened that very day (Aug. 29) he sent the letter, which was also the VMA performance. But in another version Goldstein said it was his decision to retire (it's not clear when).

But I think, for now, September is a good guess.

I think that the first anonymous "insider" that was quoted in this article was probably Goldstein:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4899-2002-12-19-dallas-observer-gn-r-whys-duff

Blackstar wrote:I think that the first anonymous "insider" that was quoted in this article was probably Goldstein:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4899-2002-12-19-dallas-observer-gn-r-whys-duff

It absolutely sounds like him. I even thought about it when going through the article some weeks ago.

He says Axl had turned on him after 14 years, that's back to '88. Fits well. I think I will use the quote but state that we don't know if it really is Goldstein.

Soulmonster wrote:He says Axl had turned on him after 14 years, that's back to '88. Fits well. I think I will use the quote but state that we don't know if it really is Goldstein.

I think the 14 years were 1987-2001, when Axl blamed him for booking a tour without his knowledge and Goldstein was sidelined after that and until he was fired. In the quote he says "I only recently got over the hurt" which implies that it had been a while since Axl had "turned on him".

GN'R related excerpts from Motley Crue's autobiography, The Dirt:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nikki Sixx [referring to sometime in early 1986]:

At first, it was a big party. Izzy Stradlin would be rolled up in a ball in front of the fireplace, porn stars would be passed out in the living room, and Britt Ekland would come stumbling out of the bathroom One night, two girls came by and said that they were with a guy named Axl who was in a band called Guns N’ Roses, and he wanted to come in but was too shy to knock and ask.

“I think I’ve heard of him,” I told them. “I know his guitar player or something.”
 
“Then can he come in?” they asked.

“No, but you can.” I told them. And they did.

*

Nikki Sixx [referring to sometime in 1986, after GN’R were signed]: The next day, I resolved to clean up so that I could write some music for the album, and maybe even call my grandfather and beg him to forgive my self-centeredness. The first song I wrote was “Nona,” which was the name of my grandmother. Tom Zutaut stopped by the house and listened to it [...] Tom wasn’t working at Elektra anymore. He had moved to Geffen and had signed Guns N’ Roses. He wanted me to produce their record and see if I could give the punk-metal they were playing at the time a more commercial, melodic edge without sacrificing credibility. They were just a punk band, he told me, but they were capable of being the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world if someone could help them find the melodies to take them there. I was in too much agony trying to slow down my drug intake to consider the idea, but Tom’s confidence motivated me to write for my own album.

*

Nikki Sixx [referring to the day of his overdose (Dec. 23, 1987)]: I needed to go out on the scene to escape from my own decay and loneliness. I flipped through my phone book in search of old friends. I called Robbin Crosby, then Slash, because Guns N’ Roses were going to open for us in America after the European tour. I picked up Robbin at his house in a silver limo I liked to rent and gave him some blow. On the way to the Franklin Plaza Hotel, where Guns N’ Roses were staying because they were all homeless, I threw up all over the limo. I wiped the chucks off on an antique beaver-hair covered top hat I had bought for Slash and gave it to him at his door along with a bottle of whiskey. Some of the guys in Megadeth were also staying at the hotel, so we all piled into the limo. Robbin scored some junk from his dealer, who wasn’t too happy about the conspicuous limo outside his house, and we did drugs until our minds went blank.

*

Nikki Sixx [referring to sometime in 1988]: Some of the guys from Metallica walked up to me at the Cathouse and offered to buy me a drink, but when I said I was sober, they walked away and wouldn’t speak to me. Same with Slash, same with everybody.

*

Vince Neil:

Sharise was your average mud wrestler; blond hair, big tits, and a killer hard body. When the girls from the Tropicana came back to my house to wrestle for my friends, she was always the most vicious fighter. She won every time and looked good doing it. She was just my type.

When we started going out, she stopped dancing. Instead, she developed a twenty-thousand-dollars-a-month purse habit. And instead of wrestling other chicks she fought with me all the time. Sobriety may have been easy for the other guys, but I was being driven to drink every night.

Before the Feelgood album came out, I called up some of my buddies and went white-water rafting down Snake River in Idaho for ten days. It was the best way I could think of to stay sober; away from Sharise, the telephone, the band, the bars. It was just sunshine, rapids, and exercise.

As soon as we returned to civilization, I called Sharise and she was in tears.

”I was at the Cathouse,” she sobbed. “And Izzy was hitting on me.”

”Izzy Stradlin?”

”Yeah, he was all fucked up. And I told him to get his hands off me because I was your wife. Then he grabbed my shirt and pulled it down.”

”That fucking asshole!”

”But that’s not even the bad part. I slapped him across the face, of course. And the he karate-kicked me as hard as he could. In the stomach. He knocked the wind out of me. It really hurt. And everyone saw it.”

”That little shit! The next time I see his motherfucking ass, I’m going to fucking kill him!”

”Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” she added. “Your album’s number one.”

I don’t think anyone had disrespected me like that since the bikers outside the Whiskey hit on Beth and Lita so many years ago. But Izzy wasn’t a biker. He was the guitarist in Guns N’ Roses. I had taken that fucking band on tour as an opening act for a few of the Girls shows when nobody believed in them. They were nice then: Axl was a shy, humble guy who was a lot of fun to be with. But now they were starting to believe their own press clippings, and this guy who was supposed to be my friend was disrespecting my wife.

”Did you hear me? Your record’s number one.”

Izzy had picked the wrong time to fuck with me, because the MTV Video Music Awards were just weeks away at the Universal Amphitheater. At the show, I left the band waiting in their limos outside and hung around backstage while Guns N’ Roses played with Tom Petty.

When Izzy walked offstage, looking like a cross between Eric Stoltz in Mask and Neil Young, I was waiting for him. “You fucking hit my wife!”

”So fucking what?” he spat.

All my blood rushed into my fist, and I decked him. I decked him good, right in the face. He fell to the ground like a tipped cow.

Fred Saunders pinned my arms. “The next time you fucking touch her, I’ll fucking kill you!” I yelled at Izzy’s prone body as Fred dragged me away.
   
Axl came snarling after us like an overdressed Doberman. “Come on, motherfucker. I’m going to fucking kill you!” he yelled at our backs.

I twirled around. His face was sweaty and twisted. “Let’s fucking go!” I said to him. And I meant it. The blood was still pumping into my fists. He looked at me and squeaked like a little bitch, “Just don’t fuck with my band again, okay?” And he walked away.

Then, Axl suddenly launched a press campaign about me. If I was a record, he would have sold a million copies of me. Every article I read, every time I turned on the TV, he was claiming that I had sucker-punched Izzy and been insulting Guns N’ Roses for years, and he pledged to put me in my place, which was six feet under the earth. It was like rock and roll had suddenly turned into the World Wrestling Federation.

It was such a betrayal. I had every right to knock Izzy on his ass, and it was none of Axl’s business. On the Girls tour, Axl would come to me when his throat hurt and I’d show him tricks I’d developed for singing after a night spent destroying my vocal chords. Now he was sending little messengers to me with instructions to meet him in the parking lot of Tower Records on Sunset or on the Boardwalk on Venice Beach. Even though it was such a high school way of settling our differences, I showed up every time, because the only thing that would have given me more pleasure than a number one album on the pop charts was breaking Axl Rose’s nose.

But Axl never showed. It finally got to the point that whenever he arranged a fight somewhere, I just sent some people to the spot to call me if and when he appeared. Maybe someone else would have just let it drop after Axl chickened out a good half-dozen times. But I was pissed: He was in the press acting like he was the king of the world, saying that I couldn’t fight and that he was a red belt in this and that. But in real life he was too chicken-shit to back up his word. So I finally went on MTV with a message for him: I said that if Axl wanted to fight me, then he should do it in front of the whole world. I proposed a Monday night –fight night – at the Forum. We’d go three rounds, and then the world would see who the pussy was.

I was ready to go. I didn’t even care about Izzy anymore. I’d dealt with him. He even called and apologized for what he did to Sharise. As for Slash and Duff McKagan, we were friends through it all – they knew what an asshole Axl was. I wanted to beat the shit out of that little punk and shut him up for good. But I never heard from him: not that day, not that month, not that year, not that century. But the offer still stands.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Source:
Motley Crue with Neil Strauss; The Dirt; ReganBooks, 2001

Article about the history of the Cathouse with a quote from Slash; Los Angeles Times, Aug. 23, 2001:

It’s a Different Breed of Cat

By KASTLE WASERMAN
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

On any given night, high-heeled, platinum blonds vied for attention on the dance floor. Aspiring rock musicians with impossibly teased hair crowded the bar and offered their standard pickup line: “Come see my band play.” In VIP corners, rock notables mixed easily with Hollywood scenesters. And always there was the thunder of loud music, the promise of fast sex, the smell of hairspray. A decade after its demise, this is how the faithful remember the Cathouse.

Within weeks of its opening in the late 1980s, the Cathouse became “world-famous,” L.A.'s place to be for rock ‘n’ roll kicks. A six-year run saw it evolve from a lightning-strike success into a legendary landmark.

Now original owner Riki Rachtman wants to find out if lightning can strike twice. The promoter has revived his old playground at the Martini Lounge on Tuesday nights. Why the sudden urge to revisit the past? “I saw a screening of the movie ‘Rock Star’ and it made me miss the Cathouse,” Rachtman says. It’s easy to understand his nostalgia. The Cathouse opened in 1986 at a disco venue called Osko’s, a partnership between Rachtman, a dance club deejay, and scenester Taime Downe. From early on, the Cathouse’s reputation came from its crowd-pretty-boy rockers and scantily dressed groupies who embodied the sexy, fast-lane, rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. “It was really sleazy back then-the way people dressed and the way they acted. It was sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds so cliche to say that now, but that’s just the way it was,” Rachtman recalls.

Clubgoers danced to a soundtrack of Motley Cre and Led Zeppelin. While the flamboyant Sunset Strip scene was churning out hair bands such as Warrant and the Bullet Boys, the scene at the Cathouse had a more edgy, underground vibe rooted in punk and what Rachtman calls “dirty rock ‘n’ roll.”

Many of the Cathouse’s regular patrons-members of Guns N’ Roses, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, Jet Boy, Bang Tango-became players in L.A.'s notorious glam-metal movement of the late ‘80s. “All the people who hung out in the club started putting records out,” remembers Joseph Brooks, who deejayed at the Cathouse throughout its original run. “The customers were becoming the ones being played on the dance floor. I don’t think that’d ever happened at a club before-the guy who was once just another person on the barstool suddenly became a superstar of the world. It was fascinating. The Cathouse went from obscurity to stardom because of that.”

*

The club’s popularity reached its height when Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose wore a Cathouse T-shirt in the 1989 video for “Paradise City.” Lines formed around the block to get in. By this time the Cathouse had relocated to the Probe [now the Playroom], Downe had left the partnership, and Rachtman sought to leverage the club’s name by booking more live acts and merchandising the Cathouse brand.

Cathouse was emblazoned on T-shirts, caps, even swimwear. But a certain leather vest with a motorcycle-club-style “Cathouse Hollywood” logo was reserved for the Alumni, a gang of Rachtman’s friends who would do whatever they liked at the club. “We’d get drunk, we’d get chicks, we’d get in fights,” Rachtman says. “We were the type of guys who were usually thrown out of clubs. So instead of getting thrown out, this time we ran it.”

The Alumni included members of Guns N’ Roses. “We were kind of like cheap L.A. royalty there,” says former GNR guitarist Slash.

Because of the Cathouse, Rachtman became famous. He was hired to host MTV’s heavy-metal show “Headbanger’s Ball” from 1990-95, and deejay a 1991 show called “Radio Cathouse” on rock station KNAC-FM.

The party ended in 1993, as the wild sex and party lifestyle of the late ‘80s buckled under the weight of ‘90s political correctness and a new form of doleful, dressed-down rock called grunge. The antics of glam-metal became almost clownish by comparison. After the Cathouse closed, Rachtman continued as a radio deejay. He tried to reopen the club in 1998 but with little success.

In June he opened the Cathouse again on the club’s original Tuesday night. But times have changed. Those who continue to love that “dirty rock ‘n’ roll” are older now. Much of the original Cathouse crowd, then in their 20s, now has to forgo that up-all-night party ethic for day jobs and families. Rachtman himself runs Pool School, a skateboard company.

But while patrons aren’t going to find Axl Rose on the dance floor at the new Cathouse, they will get a good dose of rock and a live band every week.

[...]

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-23-ca-37223-story.html

Interview with Greg Strzempka from the band Raging Slab who opened for GN'R at the 1991 warm-up shows; Metal Sludge, Sept. 25, 2001:

6. You guys did a club tour with Guns N Roses. Tell us about that and what good Axl stories do you have?

During sound check- Axl would make EVERYBODY leave the venue while he did his "vocal check" - ( and I mean everybody...including the rest of his band! )- Being naturally curious---one time we managed to stow away behind some road cases .....When the great man was assured the coast was clear-he was led onto the stage by a couple of "handlers" and after some yelling at the soundman-and checking the positioning of his telepromters-he proceeded to trot around the room with a cordless mic -JUST a-wailing these phony-baloney blues scats- and then began singing "Live and Let Die" ACCAPELLA-! ---We we're finally discovered because we were laughing so hard we almost pissed ourselves....needless to say Axl's people were VERY upset with us .......Anyhow- having us open was Slash's idea...-and He always made damn sure we felt right at home- and thanks to him -It was the only time we didn't run out of Backstage Booze!

https://web.archive.org/web/20020206170643/http://www.metal-sludge.com/20QuestionsStrzempka.htm

Lars Ulrich talking about the GN’R/Metallica tour; Rolling Stone via Blabbermouth, May 2003:

Rolling Stone magazine recently asked Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich which band was the most fun to party with on the road. "Guns N' Roses," the drummer replied. "Everything you've heard is true. Use your imagination. That summer we toured with them, '92, it was the most fun in terms of the girls and the drugs and the debauchery. At the same time, four months was plenty. We sort of walked out of there going, 'I'm really glad I got to experience that. Now I'll crawl back into my safer cubicle with Metallica.'

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-s-ulrich-recalls-the-group-s-first-ever-outdoor-performances/

Lars Ulrich on Axl, Rolling Stone, Sept. 2, 2004:

Sorum played with Gn’ R. You toured with Gn’ R. How much of a freak is Axl?

I haven’t heard from the guy in 12 years, but Axl was two people. You were truly left wondering what the fuck was going to happen next. When he was in a good mood, he was the sweetest guy, and when he forgot to take his medicine or decided to go off, he was kind of a freak. He was the last person I’ve ever seen, though, besides maybe Bill Clinton, that when he walked into a room every single person was drawn to him. That’s a rare thing.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/qa-lars-ulrich-162348/

From an online chat with Zakk Wylde at the Gibson Custom website, February 24, 2004:

Aero: My question is: How was your work with guns n roses? Musican style, musicans you played with... thank you

Zakk Wylde: Aero - Axl called me and asked me to jam, I have nothing but respect and love for the guy.  We jammed for a while, just take a Black Label album and put Axl's vocals on it, that's what it might have sounded like. As far as I'm concerned, Axl is one of the greatest front men and singers ever

[AsXpLy asked about Velvet Revolver]

Zakk Wylde: I'm good friends with Slash, Duff, and Matt, they are the real deal. I've never met Scott. I think it's great for them and I hope it's huge, it's great for the whole rock community.

From proguitartechs.com, guitar tech Sean Paden's old website, 2003:

[...]
I moved to California from Houston TX in 1989 with really no intensions of becoming a guitar tech. Man, at that time I had no idea what I was doing period. I was just trying at the age of 19 to get on with life and figure out something to do with it. Of course, moving to a new place and not knowing anyone there was a period of time spent wandering around and searching. Until one day I made friends with some people and started hanging out. One of the guys I met was in a local LA band and needed help with his gear. So like any good friend would do, I started helping him with his guitar stuff. I had some, but very little experience at this time.

When touring with my friend, all of the set-up stuff just felt normal. From there I started working with a lot of other LA bands. Man, so many nights spent working the Sunset Strip clubs. So after about a year I was really hooked and wanted to focus on trying to build guitars and becoming a tech. I went to every guitar company and repair shop in town looking for a day job. I must have gone everywhere with no luck. Until I found a little guitar repair shop inside a music store and to my surprise found a repairman who I had toured with as a kid. His name is Sammy Sanchez. We met on the Rainbow “Straight Between the Eyes” tour with Krokus as the support act. I started working with Sammy and all this guitar repair stuff just made sense to me. Through Sammy, I met a ton of people like guitar techs and musicians. Guys like Slash, Ted Nugent, Steve Vai, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Kiss just to name a few. Through these introductions I began working on their guitars and became friend with all of them. Eventually they wanetd me to tour as a tech. The money wasn’t as good as the money I made in the shop but I was going to sleep on a tour bus! So after the years I spent building guitars for people like Mick Mars and Ace Frehley (I built two smoking guitars, one light guitar, and two rocket launcher guitars), I started touring on and off for years with you name it-anyone and everyone.

After those years I was tired and looking to go back to the shop and did for awhile until the day I got a call to go work for Axl Rose in the studio as “the” guitar tech for the new Guns-n-Roses. Here is where my career gets weird. I spent six years there working on a record that still isn’t done yet. The music is really cool and I liked it enough to stay for that long. To make a long story short - Zakk at one point in time was going to join G-n-R with Slash and Axl and that’s where I met Zakk. That never came to pass but it was pretty cool to see it go down. So over the next couple of years I would end up running into Zakk at different places like NAMM conventions and different studios. During this time Zakk recorded BLS records at the same studio where I was working with the new G-n-R and we started talking about me working with him - mainly on guitars and just hanging out at that point. So finally the gig with Ozzy came back around and I was ready for a change. So I basically told Zakk I was the guy and I never let up till finally he gave me the gig. That pretty much gives you an idea of how these things came to pass.

It was awesome working with Zakk. In my opinion he is the best rock guitar player going. At the age of 32 I won’t just go work for any guitar player. You either have to have a lot of money or the ability to shred on guitar. Contrary to what you made have heard, Zakk and I are friends again. In fact, I will be fretting a couple of his guitars very soon (On a side note, I've refretted over 4000 guitars).

Of course I left a lot of things out and just got right to the point. Hope everyone enjoys the website!

Sean Paden

https://web.archive.org/web/20030416040048/http://www.proguitartechs.com/overview/seanbio.html

According to Sean Paden's current website, he moved to Nashville in 1999:

[...] Moving to Nashville in 1999, Sean has been touring with acts like Guns and Roses, Ozzy Osborne, Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, Lincoln Park, KISS, Mick Mars and countless more.  When Sean was off the road he was a consultant with Southbound Custom Finishes handling all structural and electrical repairs and designing and consulting with custom builds. [...]

https://padenguitarservices.com/about-2/

Zakk Wylde returned to Ozzy's band in 2001.

So Paden must have worked with GN'R from 1994/early 1995 to either 1999 or 2001.

From an interview with Josh Freese; Full Throttle Music, November 2003;

FTM: How did you and Maynard get hooked up?

JF: I met Maynard in '97 on Lollapalooza when I was playing drums with Devo and he was with Tool. We hit it off and became friends. About a year later I started working with Guns & Roses & this guy named Billy Howerdel, told me that he was roommates with Maynard. So we started hanging out and Billy was kind of quiet about the music he was writing, but Maynard pulled me aside one day and said, "Man, you know Billy writes these great songs and we should try to record some of them.

FTM: How do you feel about the Guns n Roses project you were part of?

JF: I would really like to see it come out. Everybody worked their asses off on the project.

https://web.archive.org/web/20031121180109/http://www.fullthrottlemusic.com/interviews.asp?catid=3&article_id=389

Another interview with Josh Freese; Las Vegas Review Journal (via Rockdirt.com, March 24, 2004):

Josh Freese Comments On Axl And Maynard

Drummer Josh Freese has worked with two of the most talked-about singers in the rock world: A Perfect Circle’s Maynard James Keenan and Guns ‘N Roses’ Axl Rose. Keenan is often painted as a dark recluse, and Rose as a megalomaniac. But Freese — who takes A Perfect Circle to the Hard Rock Hotel on Monday — says he has no odd revelations about either singer. “Axl was always nice to me and always generous,” he told Doug Elfman of The Las Vegas Review Journal. “People want to hear horror stories, but I personally don’t have any. And Maynard is a serious artist who, on one hand in regular life, could be as normal as you or I. Maynard gets a weird rap, (because) he does very little press. People think he must be crazy. He’s just a man of few words.” The full story at reviewjournal.com has since been removed.

http://rockdirt.com/josh-freese-comments-on-axl-and-maynard/9149/

From an interview with Billy Howerdel and Maynard James Keenan (as members of The Perfect Circle), Guitar World, November 2003 issue:

Howerdel: ... then one day I saw this chick holding a holding a computer and a guitar at the same time, and it dawned on me. After that I started working for Guns N' Roses and got them into computers, showing them what I had learned from Nine Inch Nails. I learned more as I worked in their crew. That's also where I met Josh [Freese]. What I like about computers is you can work at your own pace, and it's so much cheaper in the long run than working with tape.

[...]

GW: Your bandmates in A Perfect Circle have dealth with notorious frontmen like Axl Rose, Marilyn Manson and Billy Corgan. How do you stack up?

Keenan: It comes down to popularity. I think some of those guys got to a point where maybe they were incapable of handling the attention. Axl, bless his heart, can't make a move. He thinks I'm the devil. I helped Billy Howerdel, who used to work with Axl and was very close to him, finally make it on his own. An Axl considers me the devil because of it. That makes no sense to me. But I'm sure there's a bunch of things about me that don't make sense to someone else.

From another interview with Billy Howerdel; The Mercury News, June 4, 2004:

[...] Howerdel toured Europe with a band called the Throb. At 18, he started playing guitar while working as a guitar technician and, later, a computer programmer for various bands.

One of those was Fishbone, the Los Angeles punk-funk band, and that job led to a lot of big-name contacts.

“Instead of partying, I'd practice guitar or work with a four-track recorder, writing songs,'' Howerdel says.

He stumbled onto a job with Guns N' Roses and he met Tool's singer, Maynard James Keenan, in 1992. The two talked about forming a band. In 1999, while taking a break from Tool, Keenan told Howerdel he would like to sing some of Howerdel's songs.

“I saved up my money to start this band,'' Howerdel says. “I maxed out my credit cards, I quit my Guns N' Roses day job. If this band didn't work out, I was going to be flat broke.''

But fortunately, it did work out. [...]

https://web.archive.org/web/20040622125307/http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/music/8812371.htm?1c

Spin Magazine's Readers Poll for 1999, published in the February 2000 issue; Axl/GN'R won the first place in "the comeback you'd like to see" category.

THE COMEBACK YOU’D LIKE TO SEE

Axl Rose/Guns N’ Roses

In the Where Are They Now? File, Axl edged out haven’t-really-gone-away Radiohead. As for third-place Weezer, who were they then?

- Be careful what you wish for – the new GN’R album is called Chinese Democracy!

In Spin's Readers Poll for 2000 (published in the February 2001 issue), GN'R won the second place in a similar category:

LONG-LOST ARTIST WHO HAS NO IDEA HOW MUCH HE/SHE IS MISSED

Kurt Cobain (We’ll say!)
Campaign: Release no albums, stay dead

2nd PLACE: Guns N’ Roses
Last year’s winners promise to reemerge in ‘01

3rd PLACE: Weezer
Last year’s third-placers promise to reemerge in ‘01

Alice Cooper talks about working with Bob Ezrin and Ezrin’s involvement with GN’R; King County Journal, Oct. 15, 2004

[...]

The song [“This House Is Haunted”] profited from the input of veteran producer Bob Ezrin, a longtime associate who masterminded Cooper's 1971 breakthrough disc “Love It to Death'' and still serves as an artistic sounding board.

“Bob Ezrin came in, listened to it, and goes, ‘Clarinet.' I said, `What do you mean?' He says, ‘A clarinet's gonna give it this 1890s kind of feel. A clarinet's got a real lonely sound to it.' We tried it and I said, ‘Oh, that's good.' It's almost Dixieland. It had that New Orleans vampire kind of thing to it.

“But that's exactly why I run things by Bob Ezrin. He and I think so much alike that I'll go, ‘I know I'm missing something here, Bob. What is it?' We came up at the same time together. He was a classically trained kid from Toronto, and we were this sick, theatrical garage band... Somehow, the two met, and we found he was as warped as we were. But then he could take all that classical training and plug it into what we were doing...

“I'm not the only one. To this day, really good songwriters that are ready to finish an album call me up and go, ‘Do you have Bob Ezrin's number?' He did it with Jane's Addiction. He did it with The Darkness. He did it with Guns 'n' Roses. I know Axl (Rose, the lead vocalist of G 'n' R) called him up and said, ‘I want you to listen to (the still-unfinished CD) ‘Chinese Democracy’' and tell me what I've got (that's good).' Bob listened to it and said, ‘Three songs.' This is after seven years (of songwriting). Bob's not going to be a yes man. He's going to go in there and tell you how many (decent) songs you actually have... He's basically taught me everything about how to write a song.''

http://web.archive.org/web/20041030080022/http:/www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/175858

Interview with Kevin Quin, tattoo artist in L.A. and then guitarist of the band American Pearl; The South Bend Tribune, March 1, 2001:

[...]

But American Pearl did not just simply achieve all of this overnight. Quinn said it was all the baby steps along the way that got them where they are today. It all started with the formation of the band. Before becoming a member of the band, Quinn ran his own tattoo parlor in West Hollywood called the Quinntessential Motherf***er.

[...]

Quinn spent some extra time with Guns N’ Roses when he got to go along with them during their seven week tour of Europe at the end of their Use Your Illusion tour. “I did a few tattoos on the tour for Dizzy, Matt and Duff. But I was also shown Europe first class with private jets and through the eyes of the band itself.”

So never fear Guns N’ Roses fans. They are set to release a new album soon and are planning a tour. Quinn said Guns will be playing some House of Blues shows, tour Europe, then return for a major tour. American Pearl is on a short list of possible opening bands for Guns N’ Roses.

[...]

In April 2001 there was a rumour that Axl was going to do a duet with Alanis Morissette; The Province, April 3, 2001:

[...] Meanwhile, the rumour mill has [Morissette] teaming up with Axl Rose in a duet destined for the soundtrack to the pending Lord of the Rings movie. She’s booked to appear at a festival in Italy in mid-June which also features Guns N’ Roses. The recording is supposed to be taking place while both acts are in Europe. [...]

Article/interview with Sharon Osbourne (Ozzy's wife and manager) in the Guardian, May 25, 2001:

[...][Sharon Osbourne has] also declined – more politely – recent requests for career guidance from Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, Guns N’ Roses and Courtney Love. [...]

In November 2001, some fans started a petition for an update on Chinese Democracy:

To: W.Axl Rose

We, the Guns N' Roses fans of the whole planet ask Mister Axl Rose singer of Guns N' Roses to make a statement about what's happening with the band and the new album Chinese Democracy. We think we've been patient enough for several years and we deserve some news.

And we all sign...

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

https://web.archive.org/web/20011107032144/http://www.petitiononline.com/Yanz76/petition.html

From an article by Chuck Klosterman in the Times Leader, Dec. 28, 2001:

2001 gave us some darn good pop music

By Chuck Klosterman

A lot of terrible, tragic things happened this year. But at least 2001 rocked. For all the complaining I hear about the current state of pop music, 2001 was a great year for pop music, if you knew where to look. Actually, I predicted that would be the case last December; of course, that was because I thought Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy was coming up in April. Unfortunately, that record was rescheduled for June, and then October, and then it was completely taken off the schedule. There’s a rumor that Axl Rose won’t release this album until we’ve won the war on terrorism, but that’s probably just gossip. Oh well.

Before the prank about naming the next Offspring album "Chinese Democracy," Noodles had "predicted" that GN'R wouldn't make it for the 2002 show in Leeds. Metal Hammer, July 20, 2002:

The Offspring: "GN'R Will Not Play Leeds"

Just like the rest of us, Noodles of The Offspring has his doubts that W. Axl Rose and his ever-changing line-up of Guns N' Roses will make it to the Leeds Festival later this month.

"Those guys ain't gonna show, we were supposed to have played with them in Italy last year and they blew out," chuckles the guitarist. "Man, there's so many rumours about that band, what with Buckethead being instutionalised and Axl's hair implants going wrong. And taking 18 years to make a new record - that's insane. But I'm looking forward to seeing the Prodigy again at Reading, and I hope Jane's Addiction will be on the same night as us."

Interviews with Les Claypool (of Brain's former band, Primus) who in 2002 had formed a new project, Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, with Buckethead and Brain.

Star Tribune, November 22, 2002:

[...]
The status of Primus is unclear.

“We’ve been on hiatus for 2-1/2 years,” Claypool said. “As time has progressed and I’ve done all these different projects and I’ve become more comfortable with the world I’m in right now, I’ve lost a lot of interest in doing it. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Primus. It’s not in the foreseeable future that Primus will be doing anything.”
[...]
With Primus, things were calculated as career moves, Claypool said. Now his approach is more casual.

The singer/bassist, who has sat in with Gov’t Mule, also has an ad-hoc improvisation group, Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, with keyboardist Bernie Worrell, guitarist Buckethead and drummer Brain. The group has talked about making a studio album. However, Buckethead and Brain are now on tour in the revamped version of Guns N’ Roses.

“We downplay that,” Claypool said. “Guns N’ Roses epitomized what we were rebelling against when Primus came up. That was what we made fun of.”

MTV News, November 25, 2002:

BUCKETHEAD'S BRAINS ON HOLD DURING GN'R TOUR, CLAYPOOL SAYS
BAND MAY RELEASE LIVE ALBUM IF GUITARIST AND DRUMMER BRAIN ARE TIED UP THROUGH 2003.

ARCHIVE-JON-WIEDERHORN
11/25/2002

The short-term fate of Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains may lie in the hands of Axl Rose.

That's because the band, which was formed by ex-Primus singer/bassist Les Claypool, features guitarist Buckethead and drummer Brain, both of whom are on the road in Guns N' Roses.

Claypool hopes to enter the studio in January with Brain, Bucket and Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell to record the group's debut album, but if the Guns tour is extended the project will have to be put on hold and the quirky jam-rocker will begin work on his second studio solo album instead.

"If Bucket and Brain weren't committed to another project, I probably would devote much more time to it," Claypool said. "But I'm just not interested in being in a situation where my tour schedule or my release schedule is dictated by someone else."

If Claypool sounds a little bitter maybe it's because he played a major role in forwarding the careers of both Brain (a.k.a. Brian Mantia) and Buckethead (a.k.a. Brian Carroll). Brain replaced Tim "Herb" Alexander in Primus in 1996, and Buckethead first received mainstream exposure opening for Primus in 1999. In addition, Claypool was a major collaborator on Buckethead's Monsters & Robots (1999).

Even if Axl keeps Buckethead and Brain on the road through 2003, Claypool will probably still release a Bucket of Bernie Brains CD next year, only it'll have to be a live album. The band, which played together for the first time at the second stage of this year's Bonnaroo Festival, recorded its three off-the-cuff San Francisco dates.

"We just showed up and start playing," Claypool said. "They were completely improvised. We didn't even know what key we were going to be in from moment to moment. We went in there and starting throwing pasta at the walls, and it turned out great."

Considering the spontaneous nature of the project, you might expect endless walls of freeform noise, but Claypool said Bucket of Bernie Brains is surprisingly musical.

"Brain, Bernie and myself are very structured players, so everything is very groove-oriented. It's like this thing that starts in one place and just morphs itself into other places. There's not definitive changes between the jams so much as this constant morphing flow of audio."

Although he loves improvising, Claypool said a Bucket of Bernie Brains studio record would feature complete, structured songs, somewhat like The Grand Pecking Order, the 2001 album by his Oysterhead side project with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio and Police drummer Stewart Copeland.

"That was a lot of fun, and those guys are now good friends," Claypool said. "That's one thing I love about all this. You get to make all these songs with incredible musicians, and you wind up being friends with a lot of them. I'm doing exactly what I want to do. Life's too short to do anything else."

http://www.mtv.com/news/1458874/bucketheads-brains-on-hold-during-gnr-tour-claypool-says/