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Tag: Slash

  • Axl Rose Cancels “Jimmy Kimmel” Appearance; Bad News For Coachella?

    Axl Rose has dominated music headlines in recent weeks after fans got a whiff of a reunion, and when news broke that Guns N’ Roses will be headlining the Coachella Music and Arts Festival this year, a renewed interest in all things G N’ R took over the Web. Now, however, fans are worried that something is up after Rose canceled his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and no explanation was given.

    The appearance was reportedly supposed to be full of announcements regarding the festival and an upcoming tour which would reunite Axl with longtime G N’ R guitarist Slash, but Rose backed out on Monday.

    “Due to unforeseen circumstances, unfortunately Axl is no longer scheduled to be on Kimmel tomorrow,” a source on the show said.

    Even Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t in on the reasons behind the cancelation, and broke the news to his audience that Axl wouldn’t be showing up on Tuesday.

    “Axl Rose was supposed to be here tomorrow, but he will not be here tomorrow…for reasons known only to Axl Rose. Or maybe he will be here…maybe he’s just trying to keep us guessing,” Kimmel said.

    There has been talk of a G N’ R tour for some time now, with rumors flying that Rose and Slash were feuding and wouldn’t be reuniting. According to the band’s former manager, Doug Goldstein, Slash left the band in 1996 but the tension began in ’91, when the guitarist was offered the chance to work with Michael Jackson. Rose, who was allegedly sexually abused as a child, was opposed to the idea due to the many charges leveled at Jackson at the time.

    “I told him not to do it because Axl was molested by his father when he was two and he believed the charges against Michael Jackson…he was devastated. He thought that Slash would support it and would be against all the abuse. From the point of view of Axl, that was the only problem. He could ignore the drugs and alcohol…but could never ignore child abuse,” Goldstein said.

    As of now it’s still unclear what Axl Rose’s no-show might mean for the announcements and Coachella, but fans are anxiously awaiting an answer.

  • Nicki Minaj Is Smart, Says Nicki Minaj

    In a recent Billboard Magazine interview, Nicki Minaj held forth on the perception that she is not intelligent.

    “Once I did [American] Idol, a lot of people would come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re smarter than I thought,’ ” she recalls. “What does that mean? Was I making weird faces [that made you think] I was stupid?”

    Minaj figures if people knew how hard she worked they might realize how smart she is, not just sexy.

    “People don’t know how heavily involved I am in my own career,” she says. “I’m on 15 to 25 conference calls every few days strategizing with my team. I think a lot of artists sit back and have it done for them. Sometimes as women in the industry — if you’re sexy or like doing sexy things — some people subconsciously negate your brain. They think you’re stupid.”

    Minaj takes all those conference calls because she is a serious artist with serious artistic dreams and ambitions. The roots of these dreams go all the way back to her childhood.

    “I was just a little kid in Southside Jamaica, Queens, hoping one day I would have my own perfume,” she says. “And now I have three.”

    It’s important to know where you stand in a group of peers. This year has been characterized as lackluster for hip-hop in general. Courtney Love said earlier this year that hip-hop is in the same bloated place creatively that mainstream rock was in the 80s before Nirvana swept in.

    “I don’t mean to give you an incendiary quote,” Love told The Guardian, “but there’s gotta be a correction in the market.”

    Minaj sees herself as the cure for that.

    “I’m not mad at where hip-hop’s at,” she says. “It’s in a more playful place. It’s corny when rappers feel like they’ve made it and they don’t have to prove themselves anymore. You should always be competing. You should always be trying to show that you’re the best. My album is going to be important to hip-hop.”

    Others are not as kind to Minaj as she is to herself.

    Rock staple Slash recently said, “If I was casting [a movie with] Nicki Minaj… she’d be the first girl murdered.”

    Aretha Franklin recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal. She was responding to a list of today’s crop of divas that included Adele and Alicia Keys. She reacted to Nicki Minaj’s name with, “Nicki Minaj…..I’m gonna pass on that one!”

  • Axl Rose Guitarist Says Two New Guns N’ Roses Albums Almost Ready

    Guitarist DJ Ashba has his fingers in some big pies. He tours with Nikki Sixx and his Sixx:A.M. band. But he is also in Axl Rose’s lovechild, Guns N’ Roses. For a while now, Sixx:A.M. has been his focus. But he says that could change very quickly.

    According to Ashba, we could get hit with a new Guns N’ Roses album very soon. Or maybe even more than one.

    “Axl, of course, has, I believe, two complete albums worth of songs already recorded and probably a s**tload of other stuff I’ve never heard,” he said in an interview with Guitar International.

    Axl Rose has taken his time releasing anything since parting with the classic G N’ R lineup back in 1994. He took until 2008 to finally release Chinese Democracy. It’s been six years since then.

    “Lack of songs is not our problem,” Ashba explained. “It’s just getting into the studio.

    “A machine like Sixx:A.M. [with three members] isn’t nearly as hard to move as a machine like Guns N’ Roses with eight guys. It just takes a little more to turn the wheel.”

    Ashba says the new material from Rose sounds like classic Guns N’ Roses. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what has been said about Slash’s latest album with vocalist Myles Kennedy aptly holding down the chair that Axl himself used to fill.

    Maybe there will be some comparison about which lineup sounds like the real Guns N’ Roses. Either way, Ashba is stoked to get into the studio and get his guitar onto the new material.

    “He’s played me quite a bit of stuff that’s phenomenal, and, hopefully, I can get my hands on it and put my little stamp on it, before all is said and done… [T]here’s been more and more talk about getting in there before the end of the year, which I’m really excited about.”

  • Axl Rose and Slash: So He’s Saying There’s a Chance?

    For a long time, the notion of getting Axl Rose and Slash back together on an album and/or onstage again fell in the same category as getting Roger Waters back onstage with Pink Floyd or David Lee Roth back with Van Halen.

    If those comparisons fill you with hope, you are not alone. Roger Waters did finally play onstage with Floyd at the Live 8 event back in 2005. And Roth reunited with the Van Halen brothers for an album and tour that reached back to the band’s early days and was well-received by fans and critics alike. Officially, they’re still together.

    Maybe, just maybe, there is hope for a full-blown G n’ R reunion?

    Well, Slash weighed in on that in a recent Guitar World interview. Since original G n’ R bassist Duff McKagan has been playing the occasional gig with Axl and his current G n’ R lineup as fill-in for bassist Tommy Stinson, the question needed to be asked: Might Slash bury the hatchet and play with Axl again?

    “People have been speculating about it for years,” Slash replied. “But I really have a hard time picturing it. There hasn’t been any communication along those lines between he and I. I have a hard time picturing it because I’m always focused on the next show. I’m one of those people who lives in the moment. I don’t look too far into the future and I don’t dwell too much on the past.”

    Slash says he lists the early days of Guns n’ Roses as among the highlights of his career, but he’s moved on.

    Axl’s former personal manager from the Use Your Illusion days has come out as saying that Duff’s recent involvement with Axl will help make a full reunion happen.

    “Duff is paving the way to open the gates again,” Craig Duswalt says. “Axl and Duff are really getting along well at the concerts, so there’s an opening.”

  • Axl Rose, Slash Haven’t Talked About A Reunion

    Axl Rose and former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash have been the subject of several rumors this year as fans began to hope for a reunion, but Slash says that’s not going to happen.

    Rose and original bassist Duff McKagan have been on tour with the band this year, and McKagan’s willingness to work with Rose again prompted fans to speculate on Slash’s return. But, he says, there’s been no talk between the musicians about it at all.

    “People have been speculating about it for years, but I really have a hard time picturing it. There hasn’t been any communication along those lines between he (Rose) and I. I have a hard time picturing it, because I’m always focused on the next show. I’m one of those people who lives in the moment. I don’t look too far into the future and I don’t dwell too much on the past,” Slash told Guitarworld.com.

    Slash is currently hard at work with his band The Conspirators, whose second album World On Fire will be released on September 16. He says that while so many things have changed over the years, a lot of things are still the same.

    “Obviously I’m in a different band now, but the road trips and venues are pretty much the same. It was a blast then and it’s a blast now. I do know I’m not as fucked up as I was! We were at the height of our debauchery back then,” he said.

    As for comparisons of World On Fire to Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, Slash says there was no intentional similarity, and points to producer Mike Baskette’s skills in the studio for giving it a raw sound.

    “The sonic landscape has completely changed in the recording world. Mike really cut his teeth working as an engineer in the studio trying to record rock and roll the way that it should be. I think it was a relief for him be able to work with a band that was actually going to play through the songs and then be able to use his own chops to achieve what the band sounds like. It was a really good pairing.”

  • Slash Joins The Cast Of Angry Birds Space

    Slash Joins The Cast Of Angry Birds Space

    Slash of Guns N’ Roses fame is no stranger to video games. The prolific rocker was immortalized in Guitar Hero 3. Now he has officially joined the cast of Angry Birds in its latest interstellar outing.

    Rovio announced today that they commissioned Slash to perform a cover of the Angry Birds Space theme after the guitarist professed last year to being a huge fan of the franchise. The cover can be heard in the latest update for the game.

    In even better news, Rovio has also created a Slash inspired bird to join the cast of Angry Birds Space. The little guy just might be the coolest avian rocker since Rock-A-Doodle.

    Grab the latest update to Angry Birds Space from Google Play, or iOS.