Guns N’ Roses roll out tour dates as fans wait for album
BySep 25, 2002 10:00 PM
Though the group still has not set a release date for its long-awaited new album, Guns N’ Roses sets out on a headlining arena run this fall.
Though the group still has not set a release date for its long-awaited new album, Guns N’ Roses sets out on a headlining arena run this fall.
Led by sole original member Axl Rose, Guns N’ Roses kick off the North American jaunt in early November, and will tour through the end of the year. The band plans to play classics, as well as new material that will be featured on the forthcoming album “Chinese Democracy.”
The tour is the band’s first since 1993, and the album--whenever it surfaces--will mark the first new GN’R set since 1991’s two-volume “Use Your Illusion.”
In addition to Rose, the group’s current lineup features keyboard players Dizzy Reed--who has been in GN’R since 1991--and Chris Pitman; guitarists Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails), Buckethead, and Richard Fortus; bassist Tommy Stinson (The Replacements); and drummer Brian “Brain” Mantia (Primus).
The group recently gave a surprise performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.
In a recent interview posted at the official GN’R website, Rose said that the fall outing is just the beginning of the band’s touring plans.
“[It’s] a warm up for the Spring tour,” said Rose. “This thing is starting now and much like Use Your Illusions that went for two and a half years, this thing is going to go off and on for the next two or three years and we’ll see how it goes.”
Last year, the group twice canceled a planned European tour. The first cancellation was due to a band-member’s illness, while the group cited plans to instead finish work on “Chinese Democracy” as the reason for the second cancellation.
Rose has spent much of the past six years working on “Chinese Democracy.” Though he claims in the aforementioned interview that the group is putting the finishing touches on the long-awaited release, he simultaneously--and scatologically--cautions fans not to “hold their breath” waiting for it to surface.
“We’ve sorted it down to what songs are on the record,” he said. “What the sequence of the songs is. The album cover art is ready. Blah, blah, blah. If you’re waiting...don’t. Live your life. That’s your responsibility not mine. If it were not to happen you won’t have missed a thing. If in fact it does you might get something that works for you, in the end you could win on this either way. But if you’re really into waiting try holding your breath for Jesus cause I hear the payoff may be that much greater.”
The album will be Rose’s first since parting with founding GN’R members Slash (guitar) and Duff McKagan (bass), as well as longtime member Matt Sorum (drums), with all of whom the singer had a major falling-out.
“Slash has lied about nearly everything and anything to nearly everyone and anyone,” Rose said. “It’s who he is. It’s what he does. Duff’s support for the man though understandable in one sense in regard to his circumstances, is inexcusable, and furthers my distance from the two of them. For me Matt doesn’t figure into the equation and for as much as I was a friend to him he was incapable of reciprocating and life is much better without such an obvious albatross.”
Rose, Slash, McKagan, original drummer Steven Adler and original rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin’ released GN’R’s hugely successful debut, “Appetite for Destruction,” in 1987. “Use Your Illusion” followed in 1991. The group has sold more than 80-million albums worldwide, according to a press release.