Why Guns N' Roses Won't Release A New Album

When Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose announced a reunion tour with former bandmates Slash (on guitar) and Duff McKagan (on bass), the cheers from hard rock fans could be heard around the world. Rose had spent years touring with a "new lineup" of GN'R (which basically consisted of Rose and whomever he wanted to play with), and fans had flocked to shows to see him, but not with the fervor with which they had greeted the original lineup of the band. This new version of the group even completed and released the Chinese Democracy album, which took 15 years to make, though it was greeted with a collective yawn from listeners.

The reunion tour has been successful, both financially and as an artistic endeavor, which raises the question: Will the classic trio be making any new music together? Some have high hopes that Rose, Slash, and McKagan can find some creative spark that will guide them to creating an opus on par with their best work — a new "Welcome to the Jungle," "November Rain," "Rocket Queen," or "Sweet Child O' Mine." Not to ruin anyone's hopes, but the likelihood of new Guns N' Roses music happening is, at best, slim.

There was a time not so long ago when the idea of Axl Rose and Slash being in the same room together was to invite the chance of a fight breaking out, or at least a really loud argument. The first signs happened when Rose indirectly called out Slash onstage in 1989, referring to the guitarist's heroin addiction when he told the crowd, "I'm tired of too many people in this organization dancing with Mr. Brownstone," referring to their song about heroin abuse. Doug Goldstein, Guns N' Roses' ex-manager, told Rolling Stone Brazil (via AOL) that the rift that broke up the pair was exacerbated when Slash agreed to play on Michael Jackson's song "Black or White." "I told [Slash] not to do it because Axl was molested by his father when he was two and he believed the charges against Michael Jackson," Goldstein said. 

The name-calling between the two in the press was legendary. According to Rolling Stone, Axl called Slash a "cancer" in 2009, and Slash admitted that Rose "hates my guts" in an interview with the magazine. Even though they appear to get along onstage now, with such volatility in play, it's hard to imagine the pair ever spending the kind of time together that recording a new album would warrant — months, if not years, of studio sessions, in close quarters.

Why drag (according to the Phoenix New Times) 36 trucks, 125 crew members, 106 speaker cabinets, 300 lights, and endless cables to locations around the world, when you could just compel your audience to come to you? And what better place to have them find you than Las Vegas, home of Wayne Newton, Cirque du Soleil, and Celine Dion?

Bands like Kiss, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, ZZ Top and The Who have all staged extended residencies at various locations in Sin City. Even Guns N' Roses themselves did it (albeit before Slash and Duff McKagan returned to the fold), performing 12 concerts at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in 2012 and another nine-date residency in 2014. Between these two runs of shows, there were pyrotechnics, Andrew Dice Clay opening, Nicolas Cage introducing the band, Sex Pistols covers, and several Izzy Stradlin sightings. Why wouldn't the band just set up shop on the Strip and do it all again, rather than slog through making another record?

A decade ago, the prospect of a reunion of Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan was unthinkable, regardless of how much money was thrown their way. That had them in the same company as acts like ABBA (who had turned down $1 billion to reunite, according to E! News), Led Zeppelin (whose singer, Robert Plant, allegedly turned down an $800 million deal from Virgin honcho Richard Branson to get back together — a rumor that turned out to be untrue), and, however jokingly, even the Beatles, whom Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels once offered the princely sum of $3,000 to appear on the show.

Animosity can keep one from earning a ton of dough, though. While most would agree there aren't a lot of people willing to pay for records anymore (streaming and illegal downloading have seen to that), there seems to be no shortage of those willing to pay for GN'R to perform live. This includes the organizers of such festivals as Coachella, Rock in Rio, and Download, as well as the backers of a Formula One race in Abu Dhabi. It's one reason the band's Not in This Lifetime tour has stretched on for years, and it probably gives them several million reasons to keep working on the road and not at the studio.

One reason Guns N' Roses' ongoing tour started out so strong was the novelty of seeing Axl Rose, Duff McKagan, and Slash on the same stage again. (It's one reason the name "Not in This Lifetime" was so apropos.) What has sustained the tour's popularity is the idea that it could all go away at some point — when you've played every enormous stage on the planet, there's not much more to do except either go back and play them again with the same songs (to diminishing returns), change things up somehow, or hang it up. The first option is probably a non-starter, and, judging from the group's set lists, they seem unwilling to do more than throw in an extra cover song or two to alter the selections they play, so the second option is also probably out.

Rolling Stone made a few suggestions of where they band could go from here, and one of the thoughts they offered was to record a new album in order to "simply become a normal band again that releases new albums and takes them on the road." After years of being greeted as conquering heroes, though, it's unclear why they would want to embrace the "normal" album/tour/album/tour cycle, particularly since they really haven't done that since the Use Your Illusion records were released. If one thing is certain about GN'R, it's that they've never done the "ordinary" thing.

Prior to the conception of the Not in This Lifetime tour, Axl Rose still ran a version of Guns N' Roses, with Tommy Stinson (of the Replacements) on bass and guitarists Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and DJ Ashba. Stinson and Thal were among the many musicians who helped Rose record Chinese Democracy, and who ostensibly played on new material that GN'R lineup recorded after the album was released. Rose referred to a follow-up album in a 2014 interview with Revolver. "[W]e have what I call kind of the second half of Chinese [Democracy]," he said. "That's already recorded. And then we have a remix album made of the songs from Chinese. That's been done for a while, too." Guitarist Richard Fortus, who still plays in GN'R, also told the Associated Press in 2014 that the band was "working on stuff."

There are several questions that arise when considering this new music, in the context of what has transpired since, with the reunion. Will Axl Rose do anything with the music he and the Chinese Democracy lineup of the band recorded? If he does move forward, will he release the music as is, or have Slash and Duff McKagan record new parts? Will they be willing to do that, or would they prefer to contribute their own songwriting to such an endeavor? As is so often the case with Guns N' Roses, there's only one person who can answer those questions — the guy with the microphone. And he's not talking.