Easy now, killer.

Brain is basically retired from drumming. Freese was barely in it back in the late 90s with Tommy pressing his buttons to do the gig, let alone now when it's a nostalgia act when could probably command more money on the open market as a session drummer and never leave LA.

I wonder what he meant by "put an end to it". There are a lot of ways to interpret that.

It's hardly fresh analysis to state that Chinese Democracy was the leaks record but I've always felt that Azoff would release the most conservative material possible and do his best to stroke Axl's ego and put him in positions to succeed. This would mean holding the wilder / experimental stuff off and pushing back and Old GN'R stuff, i.e. Jackie Chan, for his future harvest once he got the Chinese Democracy material out of the vault and the AFD5 re-united.

We know that the Bumble/Ashba era band were working on Oh My God and Silkworms. I think those are underrated tracks but that they dumbed them down with the revisions. It makes sense to stop repainting and reworking 10 year old songs, which could easily fit within Tommy's comments.

I think there are compelling arguments to the remaining Chinese Democracy mythos being just that - a myth.

That said, I do wonder about the Beltrami tracks, as they were touted as the best of the (new) bunch and The General intro was played as early as 2002, which could suggest it was a pivotal set piece for the project.

It was a nice moment when he joined GN'R onstage last year. I think that's it for him, though.

It probably doesn't matter without new music but it'd be nice if they had a different drummer.

I respect Frank's hustle and devotion. He earned the gig. I just don't really get into his drumming at all.

If you told me in 2002 we'd have 1 album in 14 years and that band would fall apart, I'd have said thanks future man and proceeded to never invest another second in Gn'R.