Axl Rose Finally Speaks Out... And It's A Doozy
2/6/2009 By Brock Thiessen

After a long bout of silence, Axl Rose has emerged to give his first significant interview in nine years. And with Axl being, well, Axl, the Guns N’ Roses man doesn’t disappoint in giving us a colourful quote or two, digging into such topics as the Best Buy deal, touring (or the lack thereof), unexpectedly low Chinese Democracy sales and, perhaps best of all, Slash.

You can read the full Billboard interview over on the mag’s website but here are few of the highlights:

On record companies:
"In regards to the U.S., for the most part, I don't look at it like we have a record company — I look at it for the most part like we have friendly but otherwise cutthroat loan sharks... So in light of pirating and the mess the major labels are in, I have no sympathy for the record companies."

On Interscope and Chinese Democracy’s low sales:
"We feel that, unfortunately, we've never been really anything all that much more other than a throw it at the wall, see if it sticks, no real ground work, something to take advantage of, last quarter, cook the books, write-off, fuck this headache, hoping to get lucky scam... Unfortunately I have no information for me to believe [that] there was any real involvement or effort from Interscope.”

On touring::
"No plans, but there's talk."

On promoting Chinese Democracy:
“The opinions expressed or ‘jumped’ on publicly regarding promotion seem to be [about] my or our involvement with mainstream media — talk shows, rock magazines and dot-coms — which have generally held negative public stances toward myself or the band for years, [and they] unfortunately have not been resolved. Efforts are being made to understand the relationships and evaluate how best to proceed.”

On the media reaction to the album:
"Most of the nonsense has been from the same or the latest batch of negative idiots, so it was to be expected and really doesn't mean much. [I] did see some jump ship, and that's always funny. Watching some douche waving a flag and then being the first punk in the water's always great."

On Slash:
“What’s clear is that one of the two of us will die before a reunion.”

Guns N' Roses “Chinese Democracy”
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