GNR…Long Haired Dudes Fighting…Again

December 17. 2008

Axl Rose and the new Guns N' Roses

Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Roses is publicly fighting with guitarist Slash in a war of words. He lashed out at his former friend today, stating he is taking too much credit for the band’s songs and using items related to its intellectual property (copyrights and trademarks) without permission.

Rose complained about video game Guitar Hero using Guns N’ Roses’ song “Welcome To The Jungle” and the band’s name, without his permission.

Slash

In other news, this week Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy” experienced a small sales decline, 48K sold, down from 57K last week, which leads me to believe, Axl talking to then cussing out some fans on the message board may have counted as strange form of promo, in that the album didn’t nosedive much further as it could have.

He also downplayed Slash’s role in writing the band’s songs, especially one of their biggest hits, Sweet Child O’ Mine. But those guitar riffs are some of the most notable in rock. You better hide it before Coldplay hears it.

All I know is, if Guns N' Roses had been signed to Death Row Records, Suge would have beat at least 10 more albums out of Axl over the last 10 years.

ROSES - SLASH REFUSES CREDIT FOR SWEET CHILD O' MINE

…He tells Rolling Stone magazine, "There was not a lot of forethought to Sweet Child O' Mine, that riff. It was just something I was messing around (with), and stumbled across this interesting pattern.

"I've got to give credit to Axl Rose and the other guys in the band for really turning it into a song".

http://www.contactmusic.com

Axl Rose unhappy with Slash, Guitar Hero: rants long and hard

…"[Slash] being Guitar Hero’s fine but not when Activision in using Jungle, having Yahoo use Sweet Child unauthorized, claims no involvement with Slash, his or anyone's image or VR or anyone or anyone's music in either camp in promotion or commercials etc," he wrote.

"I wasn't broadsided. I read about it as it moved along but Activision continually denied it right up to the release. That’s some low life chicanery on all their parts."…

"Yes Slash was in Guns and on Jungle (and the whole I came to him for his riff is as much crap as him saying he brought Locomotive and Coma in as complete songs) and he has rights to perform it but not to be represented in this context in association with Guns. And since they weren't granted the license it’ll take some sorting."

No one but the lawyers has access to the actual licensing Activision put together for Guitar Hero, but it's doubtful that the publisher would have licensed the song without the ability to put the name "Guns N' Roses" next to it. Rose seems to think that since he owns the name, the "live" performance by Slash under the name Guns n' Roses is dirty pool...

http://arstechnica.com