Slash Signs European Deal with Roadrunner Records

via Blabbermouth
Roadrunner Records has announced the signing of guitarist Slash for the forthcoming European release of his debut solo album, Slash, in spring 2010.

Slash will see Roadrunner Records enter into a unique and innovative association with a UK media partner — the special-interest media group Future. In a brand new concept in record distribution the standard album release will be preceded by a "fan pack," in which the Roadrunner Records album will be bundled together with a highly collectable special issue of Future Publishing's Classic Rock magazine dedicated to Slash's career. This will be the first format of the album available anywhere in the world.

Slash will release a two-track CD single in Japan on November 11 containing the song "Sahara" (featuring singer Koshi Inaba of the Japanese hard rock duo B'Z) and a version of the GN'R classic "Paradise City" (featuring Cypress Hill and Fergie).

"Sahara" is expected to appear on Slash's forthcoming solo album. According to the guitarist, "the [record] is in its mixing stage and the mixes to this point sound great. We have recorded 18 songs, with one more I want to track." He added, "the record is still slated for a February/March release."

It's Cold Gin Time Again

Ace Frehley featuring Slash last night (Saturday, September 12) at the Viper Room in West Hollywood, as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival.

Fizzles and Bringdowns 2009

January 17
VH1's Sober House Premieres. Steven Adler shows up wasted, with syringes in his pants pockets, and a tin foil package full of heroin down his pants. Chaos ensues and he gets taken to the home of a staff member to spend the first night, both to protect himself and the other participants.

January 26
Steven Adler is arrested again.

January 27
A mere 8 weeks after it's release, Chinese Democracy plummets to number 57 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

January 29
Former Guns N' Roses manager Alan Niven tells Classic Rock magazine that Axl fired him "to wrestle control of GN’R!" Of the new GN’R, Niven comments: “Y’know, everyone has the right to make the music they want to with whomever they wish. But just be up ’n’ up about it. All this ‘last man’ standing stuff from Axl is horseshit. He wore us all out. Drove us all off. And for a personality like Axl, solo work only makes sense. If he wants to be Elton Rose then more power to him. Go for it. Pull it off. He has the talent to do that. But don’t pretend that one person alone represents the idea of Guns N’ Roses."

February 6
Axl Rose breaks his silence and gives his first public interview in 9 years with Billboard magazine. He addresses rumors of an upcoming tour, "no plans, but there's talk. Management and our promoters are really excited with the offers coming in both here and worldwide." Axl mentions that they're "finalizing a video for 'Better' and writing a couple others now." On the subject of Slash, Axl had this to say "one of the two of us will die before a reunion and however sad, ugly or unfortunate anyone views it, it is how it is. Those decisions were made a long time ago and reiterated year after year by one man. Anyone putting his own personal entertainment above everything else is sickening."

February 9
Matt Sorum reveals that Velvet Revolver hopes to announce their new vocalist in April.

February 9
Steven Adler heads back to rehab (again).

Febraury 9
The third single from Chinese Democracy, "Street of Dreams," appears on eBay and YouTube. It is never played on the radio, seen in stores, acknowledged by the band or heard from again. Copies of the promo disc are fetching over $150 a piece on eBay.

February 13
Regarding Velvet Revolver's new singer, Duff McKagan tells Opie and Anthony that "I think we have the guy ... yeah. You'll be blown away by the quality. I think we have the right guy. We all know he's killer."

February 14
Nick Sterling auditions for Guns N' Roses.

February 18
Jimmy Fallon says that he wants Axl Rose to appear on his new late-night show. Jimmy calls Chinese Democracy "awesome."

February 23
Rumors of a European festival tour begin to trickle in. Organizers of Spain's Kobetasonik festival list Guns N' Roses as a headliner on the festival's web page. Other rumored dates include June 26 in Norway, August 1 at the Sonisphere Festival in Knebworth, England and June 12-14 at the Download Festival also in England. There are also reports of dates in Italy for the month of June.

February 27
Axl is interviewed by his longtime friend Del James. In the interview Axl says the he considers Slash "a cancer and better removed, avoided -- and the less anyone heard of him or his supporters, the better." In regard to a release date for the sequel to Chinese Democracy Axl says he has no idea and that he doesn't care.

March 4
Rolling Stone reports that Axl Rose intends to follow last November’s release of Chinese Democracy with a worldwide Guns N’ Roses stadium tour this summer. Guns’ manager, Irving Azoff, tells Rolling Stone that the band has big plans for this year. "We have some exciting things in the works this year for GN’R, I’m looking forward to it." Hits Daily Double reports that a co-headlining tour with Van Halen is in the works. Rumors suggest that Guns' set will feature a full orchestra and lavish stage show.

March 5
Canadian Sports Station, TSN, announces a contest to win a trip to see Guns N' Roses perform live "somewhere in the world."

March 9
Velvet Revolver demos with Gord Prior leak.

March 18
Bass Player magazine publishes an interview with Tommy Stinson where he mentions tour dates beginning in April. "I have a feeling it's going to happen, but I'm not holding my breath. It seems that every time that ball starts rolling, it rolls a bit Like a square wheel at first."

March 20
An update on Nomad Recording Studio's MySpace page reads "JT Longoria is the process of mixing new tracks for Izzy Stradlin" As of today (July 24), there is still no release date for this record.

March 21
Guns N’ Roses add guitarist DJ Ashba for “upcoming tour.” The phrase "upcoming tour" is later redacted from the band's website.

March 26
Duff McKagan's Loaded announce Spring tour dates.

April 14
Chinese Democracy comes to the Rock Band 2 videogame.

April 17
Sick, the new album from Duff McKagan's Loaded, sells 1,400 copies in the United States its first week of release.

April 22
Guns N' Roses front-of-house engineer, Ken "Pooch" van Druten appears in a pair of videos discussing the band's Waves audio set-up for their upcoming tour. Pooch talks about the challenges of live mixing a 9-piece band. You can hear the musicians rehearsing "Sweet Child O' Mine" in the background. The videos are removed from YouTube in a matter of hours and the tour is called off several days later.

April 28
Richard Fortus tells KDHX 88.1 FM that Guns "hopefully, will be announcing dates soon, I hope."

April 30
Matt Sorum tells Joe Bosso at MusicRadar that Velvet Revolver needs "a singer soon. We need the right guy in six months. We can't wait another year. Otherwise, it might not matter."

May 7
Slash appears as a mentor on American Idol's rock week.

May 19
Bumblefoot jams with Duff McKagan's Loaded at the Gramercy theater in New York City.

June 1
Slash announces that Izzy Stradlin will play with him on his upcoming solo album.

June 7
The NY Daily News reports that Axl Rose has fired and rehired his manager, Irving Azoff, at least three times in the last five weeks.

June 15
Amazon announces a June 30 release date for the Chinese Democracy guitar tablature book. As of today (July 24) it has not been released.

June 16
New, alternate artwork for the Chinese Democracy booklet appears online. An indie record store in Hollywood is selling copies of the promotional disc for $100. A rep at Universal told me that there are no plans to re-release the album.

June 30
Slash and Friends play the Quart festival in Kristiansand, Norway. The 90 minute set featured appearances from Ron Wood, Ozzy Osbourne and Fergie. The band, which featured Franky Perez on lead vocals, covered songs by Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Velvet Revolver, The Rolling Stones, Guns N' Roses, Black Sabbath and more.

July 7
Mister Saint Laurent resurfaces in an attempt to obtain and release a collection of hoarded, unheard songs from the Chinese Democracy sessions. He is, unfortunately, unsuccessful.

July 14
Blogger Kevin "Skwerl" Cogill is sentenced to 1 year probation for leaking 9 songs from the Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy. "No fines, no restitution, no jail."

July 15
A live chat with new Guns N' Roses guitarist DJ Ashba fails to deliver any information on the group.

July 17
Slash tells Classic Rock magazine that Velvet Revolver is "at a standstill."

July 23
Kevin Cogill tells the GN'R Syndicate that Beta Lebeis' son Fernando lied to the FBI and was responsible for past leaks of GN'R material. "He may have been trying to play hero to redeem himself, or he may have mistakenly thought he was somehow responsible. I don’t know."

“Scott Weiland is like George Bush to me – I like him now that he’s gone…”

Classic Rock
Slash was unhappy throughout his entire career in Velvet Revolver – and working on his forthcoming solo album has given him a new creative lease of life. The former GN’R/VR guitarist has been talking to Classic Rock about the dissolution of VR and how the band’s split with Scott Weiland pushed him work by himself on a solo album.

“Now at this point I can talk about it,” says Slash. “I always support whatever group I’m playing with – I’ll never say anything bad about them while I’m in it. But fuckin Velvet Revolver – that was the toughest five years, dealing with that band, just because of the obvious [Weiland] and really, really bad management. Joke management for the entire time.

“For some reason in that entire five years I could never be happy. I could never get comfortable and happy with it because it was such a fucking mess. That last tour in the UK was the first time I ever had any fun in that band – because I knew that Scott was leaving and it was a huge relief.

“But, all things considered, Scott to me is now like George Bush – y’know, I like him now that he’s not here. I have nothing bad to say about Scott, but he doesn’t work well with others in a group situation. So towards the end I had written a bunch of music and there were a lot of restrictions because of him writing in Velvet and a lot of stuff that I wanted to do was just sort of squelched. Y’know Slither happened and Fall To Pieces and a couple of other songs I wrote, but it didn’t have the direction that the group – especially before Scott came into it – really set off in. Especially on that last record – which I still think is a good record, but was a lot mellower than [I would have liked].

“Anyway, so I was writing a lot of material and on that last UK tour I started taping a lot of stuff and when I got home I was like, ‘I need to get away from this group situation – I just need to be in control of something and do things my own way’. So it was a relief. And we’ll see – it’s not really about trying to make the biggest record in the world, but I will support it. I’ll go out there and do what I have to do to make sure that people go out there and listen to it cos I think it’s a cool record.”

How will that affect Velvet Revolver?

“Well Duff’s on tour, I’m doing my record, so it’s sort of at a standstill. I haven’t heard any amazing submissions from singers as of late, so I might… Y’know, Velvet when it finds the right guy will be amazing, but I’m in no rush. I’m not freaking out – because that’s how we got Scott in the first place. He was the first decent guy that came up.”

After the Norway gig everyone is going to think Franky Perez is the guy.

“I thought about that. Yeah, Franky’s fucking bad ass. You know, he did some time with Velvet but I think because I was so preoccupied with my record nothing really came of it. Anyway, we’ll see what happens. When my record comes out there’s going to be a lot of different things that I can do so what happens as far as Velvet is concerned – we’re going to be on a hiatus until we lock together and say, ‘Hey, these are our options, let’s see what we’re going to do’. I don’t know if Franky is going to be the guy or what – he’s just a really, really good singer. Even Ozzy came up and said, ‘Who the fuck is that guy? He’s fucking great!’ He actually said: ‘What the fuck am I doing up here? He’s the one that should be singing…’”

In Norway, Franky Perez confirmed that he had worked with VR in the last six months: “I’ve probably known Slash a little under a year. We have this mutual friend and we’ve run into each other a few times but we met – actually met, met – about six months ago. And then I was working with Velvet Revolver for a little bit and then Slash started doing his solo record…”

So you worked with VR after Weiland left?

“Yes. So I got to hang out with all the guys and started working with them and then about the same time Slash had to work on his solo project and Duff was doing Loaded so that dissipated, but the great thing is that I got to have a great relationship with Slash.”

Did he realise that the internet was going to be filled with ‘Franky-is-the-new-Velvet-Revolver-frontman’ stories?

The singer just smiles and shrugs: “Well, you know, if the opportunity comes around, I’m ready.”

For a full interview with Slash & Friends, see Classic Rock 136, on sale 19 August.

Slash at Quart

On June 30, 2009, legendary rocker Slash, will take the stage in Kristiansand, Norway for the 2009 Quart Festival.

For the opening night of the festival, Slash has invited several of his friends to join him on stage.

Slash will be joined by living legend Ozzy Osbourne, acclaimed rock drummer Jason Bonham, former Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5, Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood and Pop Star Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.

"We've got a great set for Norway, but we're not playing any songs from my new CD," says Slash. Instead, Slash and Friends will perform some of music's greatest Rock N' Roll hits, including "Sweet Child O' Mine," "Crazy Train," "Black Dog," and many more.

Duff in London Town

From Duff's Twitter:

Just got to London. Playing live on Radio 5 and Absolute Radio today. Giving Manic Street Preachers a MOJO award tonite. Tomorrow DOWNLOAD!!



And from Duff's Seattle Weekly blog:

My family comes to Europe tomorrow, and I am more than excited to see them. Tomorrow in London, Squires and I will play live on the radio to something like eight million listeners. No pressure. Later that day, I will present an award to the Manic Street Preachers at the MOJO Awards (a big British awards show). On Friday, Loaded plays the Download Festival, probably the pinnacle of any rock band's career. I have played it with GN'R, and twice with VR. Next week? We start our European tour with Mötley Crüe. Oh, the stories I could tell . . .

Franky Perez

Las Vegas, Nevada singer and guitarist Franky Perez dropped some news on his MySpace blog

"On June 30th I'll be Singing with Slash & Friends at The Quart Festival in Kristiansand, Norway. Other Artists performing with us that night will be Ozzy Ozbourne, Ronnie Wood, Jason Bonham, Fergie, and many more... "





It looks to me like Slash found himself a pretty cool singer.