2020.08.17 - Premier Guitar's Chasing Frets - Interview with Richard

Excerpts from Ultimate Guitar (first video):
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Guns N' Roses guitarist Richard Fortus talked about the difficulties of being a member of the fold since the 2016 return of guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan. Richard has been a member of GN'R since 2002. He commented:

"It's a tricky thing, 'cause you obviously wanna bring your own character to the role, to those songs, but you have to really have some reverence for the song and the original parts.

"So it's a fine line; it's a delicate balance that you walk between your own personality and honoring the originality of the song, to begin with.

"And especially with Guns because fans are so attached to the [1987 debut] 'Appetite [for Destruction]' album - there's not a lot of room for bringing your own thing.

"But especially since Slash's come back, there's a lot more openness and room for me to inject myself in."

Asked how his musical contributions to the band have changed since joining the fold, Richard replied:

"It's been very interesting because, as different players come and go, my parts morph and change to cover different parts. So it's constantly evolving.

"Obviously, when Slash came [back] in, the parts of his that I was playing I wasn't gonna be playing anymore. [Laughs] But he's been incredibly gracious with me as a player.

"When he first was coming back, mutual friends of ours were, like, 'Man, good luck getting to be on the fifth fret.' [Laughs] But I have not experienced that at all.

"He's been incredibly gracious and really an inspiration to play with. It's very competitive in a very, very friendly, same-team type of way - always pushing each other - which I am flattered to be in that role, and for him to welcome it."

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When asked, "Can you tell us about getting into Guns N' Roses?", Fortus replied:

"We spoke back and forth, they sent me songs to learn and then a few days before - I hadn't been hearing back from them for like a week, and so I'm calling, and I wasn't getting any callbacks.

"So I thought, 'OK, well, I guess that's not happening.' And then I get out, I still go out there to do this album that I was scheduled to do. And on the session was [bassist] Tommy Stinson and [drummer] Josh Freese, who were both in GN'R at that time.

"So I was like, 'This is crazy, I was supposed to come out and audition for you guys,' and it was the first time I'd met either of them, and they were like, 'Oh, you're the guy from New York. Axl found this guy Buckethead and called off all the rest of the auditions.'

"And I was like, 'OK, cool.' Tommy and I went out that night and became best friends, and we've been super close ever since then. So that was my first experience.

"A couple of years later - maybe a year and a half later - they were looking for somebody again because there was a guitar player that played a couple of shows with them that was named Paul [Tobias, member of the band from 1994 to 2002], that was Axl's childhood friend that had come in, and he left.

"So they were looking for somebody to fill that role; they called me again, and I was actually in the middle of a tour in Europe. I had two days off, so I flew into LA and did the audition, got back on a plane and went back, finished the tour - but yeah, that was my entrance."

I believe you're the only person who survived both the Axl-only version of GN'R with Buckethead and Brain [Mantia, drums] and Tommy, but then also played in the proper GN'R where you're the only new guy among the all-original band. Can you compare the experience?

"No, you can't. [Laughs] I mean, literally, you can't; it's two completely different things - completely different things. Just the overall vibe, everything about it is different.

"The experience of playing, of being on stage and that chemistry - there really wasn't much of a chemistry. There was for a brief moment with Robin [Finck], after Bucket left [in 2004] for a minute there.

"It was just Robin and myself, and we were doing rehearsals and Brain, and it was phenomenal, I mean, absolutely amazing. And literally, I think it was two days before we were supposed to do our first show, the energy was palpable.

"Everybody that was in the room was like you knew something was happening, it was electric, it was really outstanding, and I'd never had that feeling before of, 'Oh my god, this is incredible.'

"Axl came down, he was like, 'This is the band I've always wanted.' The next day Bumblefoot comes in [in 2006], and I guess, they found this guy and he came in, and the whole dynamic just completely shifted.

"But the vibe in the band now is even beyond what that ever was, it's really incredible. Slash is just such an incredibly natural musician, and there's a reason why he is the legend he is."

What was your favorite Guns song to play live?

"You know, generally it's the newest one. [Laughs] Newest to the setlist, to us. Slash and I did this duet for a long time while they would get the piano in place to do 'November Rain.'

"The two of us would do it, and this happened at soundcheck of the first show, and Axl had a broken leg, so it's the first arena show - we played a club show where he broke his foot and was in a cast and in a chair.

"And we were at soundcheck trying to figure how the hell we were gonna do this, 'How are we going to pull this off with our frontman in a chair? How we were going to pull this off?'

"And the question of, 'OK, how do we get the piano up?' And this is gonna take time, to wheel him out to the piano, and at that point, he's like, 'You guys got to do something while we get this all in place.'

"Slash looks at me; he's like, 'What do you want to play?' And I'm like, 'I have no idea.' He's like, 'What about [Pink Floyd's] 'Wish You Were Here'?', and I'm like, 'Sure, let's try it.'

"So the two of us, at soundcheck, he started playing it, and I played the vocal melody - it's got to be there - and then we just went back and forth over the progression, trading solos, and the band comes in, and we did this just off the cuff at soundcheck.

"And the crew, which is the most hardened bunch of pirates you'd ever come across, they are incredibly unimpressed by anything, stopped and applauded. It was just magical. And so we did that for two or three years in the show, and that was my favorite thing because it was different every night.

"There's a few things like that, like 'Heaven's Door' is different every night, there's this big open section, we don't know what's gonna happen. And one thing - and this is a real testament to the legend that is Slash: he never plays the same thing twice in situations like that.

"As a guitar player, you sort of fall into your ruts, you get into your lead, your licks that you feel comfortable in that song... He doesn't, and I love that. So that's why I buy that competitive thing - we push each other, we don't want to fall back and rest on our laurels.

"I'll say this: he comes out every night and does a guitar solo. Axl introduces him, and he just plays by himself - walks to the front of the stage and just plays. I've never heard him repeat himself.

"I'll be honest: sometimes, the hair on my arms is standing up, and it's hard not to because sometimes we'll come in with a progression behind him and he'll sort of lead it, and there's times when it's very hard for me to focus on what I'm doing because I'm listening to him.

"And it's just awe-inspiring. Some nights are not magical; some nights you're just like, 'Ooh!' [Laughs] But overall, his musicality, I think that's the sign of real genius.

"You listen to Jeff Beck, and one night he is the greatest player ever, and then the next night it's not so great, and Hendrix, like, every show was so different. They released a box set of four different concerts with Hendrix over the course of four years, and each set was a lot of the same songs, but completely different versions.

"He played completely different - that's genius. You listen to bootlegs of Hendrix on the same tour and within different nights he just completely play different things - he approached the song completely differently, I love that."

I think Slash is a very underrated improviser, that kind of output you only really see when you're seeing him night after night and seeing him constantly creating.

"You know what? He can't improvise the solo to 'Sweet Child,' right? Because when we play South America, every person of 80,000 people is singing the guitar solo. You know, you can't improvise that. There are sections when he does, but hat's not the time to experiment."

Elsewhere in the conversation, Richard talked about his 2011 stint in Thin Lizzy, saying:

"The hardest, biggest honor for me was when I was asked to join Thin Lizzy because that was a band that I grew up listening to and was very important to me and really helped develop my ideals of what the perfect rock guitar tone was.

"I was very indebted to them, and it was a great thrill to be able to play guitar harmonies with Scott Gorham. That was a huge thing for me, and in that instance, I really wanted to because it's so intricate, the parts and how they play.

"I really spent a lot of time copying Brian [Robertson]'s vibrato, as well as Gary Moore, and really sort of honing that in because they really would match their vibrato, which I thought was really cool, and I wanted to nail that.

"And then I showed up to a rehearsal in Ireland with those guys, and Scott had a Les Paul with a Floyd Rose on it, and he was doing his vibrato with the bar, and I was like, 'Dude, you're messing up the whole thing here.' [Laughs]

"It was difficult to adapt on the fly to that, but what a blast was to do that tour."

Extremely interesting. Great to see Richard be comfortable to open up on the previous years, I assume enough time has gone now. Also interesting that he says, "they found this guy" = [Bumblefoot]. Who are they? To what extent was Axl involved?

Yes, there is a lot of missing information there - and in general about the NuGNR era, as the members and the people involved have been reluctant to say much, due to NDAs, probably.

Bumblefoot auditioned in late 2004 - someone must have recommended him - but was hired in 2006, at the last moment before the tour started. It seems after Buckethead left there were auditions for his replacement, but either Axl couldn't find someone he liked or there was uncertainty (and Axl was indecisive) about whether the band would continue with a three guitar lineup. What seems clear is that Robin and Richard didn't want a third guitarist and were probably happy that Buckethead left.

Here are the other two parts of this interview.