2019.12.24 - That Jamieson Show - Interview with Bumblefoot

Excerpts from Ultimate Guitar:
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During an appearance on That Jamieson Show, Sons of Apollo guitarist Bumblefoot looked back on his 2006–2014 tenure in Guns N' Roses.

During this time, the band toured extensively and had also released the long-awaited "Chinese Democracy" album in 2008.

When the interviewer said, "In retrospect, talk about your feelings about playing in Guns N' Roses," Bumblefoot replied (transcribed by UG):

"Well, that's been a while. We did a whole lot of shows and hopefully, we made a whole lot of people happy. And I'm glad to see that they're back on top and I'm doing the things that I wanted to do from the beginning now. We had our moment.

"And when I would take my guitar solo - I hate taking guitar solos, I just feel like a douche; I don't like it, honestly. I don't like the attention, that's what it boils down to. I'm still a shy kid and I love being part of something, but I don't like it when all the attention is on me. And when I'm taking a solo, I just feel really awkward. And I'll be taking the solos with Guns, and I'll be doing all the stuff, and the whole time I'm just like, 'I'm a dick, I'm a douche, I feel like a dick, everyone hates me. This is stupid, I don't like this. They're going to the bathroom. They just want to hear songs, they don't want to hear my crap...'

"So I remember I would get a lot of emails from fans, saying, 'Oh, I wish you guys would do 'Don't Cry,' we love that song and I wish it was in the set...' So I remember it was Rock in Rio in Lisbon, Portugal - it was the biggest show, I think it was 150,000 people there or close to something like that, and it was being streamed live on the internet. And I'm playing my thing, and I'm thinking how this is what the fans want, they want to hear the songs. So I'm doing my solo, and I just started playing the song by myself. I just thought of the song and thought of the parts, and said, 'Alright, here's the melody, here's the chords, and I just started... [plays the song].' I just started putting it all together, and the audience started singing along. And for the rest of the touring into 2007, that was my moment, that was my solo, and it was the kind of thing I wanted to do. If I'm going to be up there on stage by myself, that's an opportunity to connect with everybody, and I didn't want to just put on some kind of two-dimensional display. With that, I was able to have a really nice connection with the audience, and everybody would sing along with the song, it was just me and them, and it was happy stuff. It was good."

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/guitarist_talks_really_awkward_thing_he_had_to_do_when_he_was_in_gnr__how_fans_reacted_to_way_he_handled_it.html