"Estranged guitarist Slash is telling his official fan Web site that sessions relating to Guns N' Roses' long-rumored live album will be getting underway with mixer Andy Wallace sometime in July. Wallace's management company confirms that the studio veteran is booked for the sessions from July 12 through to the 29th." (MTV, 07/09/99)

"Slash was responsible for most of the work on the album. He and Axl worked the hardest. Stevie, Izzy and the others were all involved in one way or another." (Duff's official website, 11/29/99)

"Del James worked for a couple of years off and on going though every single show we did on DAT tape from the 'Use Your Illusion' tour and then every available tape, and finding tapes, and finding people that have recorded things, so he could have in his mind what was recorded best from the entire time Guns N' Roses was together." (Axl, MTV, 11/08/99)

I went to dinner with Axl and his manager. He was a manager of GN'R and still Axl's. [...] Me and Axl were getting along well and we had very good conversation. [...] I said 'Axl, we had very [much] fun together, but it's your own band now. I'm not interested in you as a dictator. I didn't come here to talk about the money advanced for next record. You can have it.'" (Duff, Burrn Magazine, 12/99)

"[Doug Goldstein] verifies that the new GN'R studio album, due out sometime next year, will be called Chinese Democracy. He adds that the title has been a done deal for at least six weeks." (Allstarmag, 11/09/99)

This next song is... something new. You know, right before I came here, before I left LA, the movie Kundun was on about the Dali Lama... So I was getting ready to leave and it was the end of the movie and the Dali Lama is about to cross over the border to be in exile for the rest of his life from his own country and he looks back at the men who helped him that escaped the Chinese government. And he looks back at them and he waves and they wave and they show a scene where he looks back and sees them all dead because he knows they will be killed.

This isn't necessarily pro or con China but right now China symbolizes one of the strongest and oppressive governments that exist in the world. And in thinking about that, we wrote this little song called Chinese Democracy.