Axl Gets "Slashed" By Former Bandmate

Was guitarist Slash rubbing it in Tuesday when he announced that his band Velvet Revolver's next album would have a "quick turnaround"?

The string-shredder said he and his bandmates, including fellow former Guns N' Roses members Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum and new singer Scott Weiland, would start on the record immediately after their tour - and he expected no trouble finishing.

"I'm really jazzed about doing it," Slash said. "I've been working on new ideas, and we've had a couple times where the guys all got together and worked on some stuff. I'm itching to see what this third record's gonna be, 'cause I think it's gonna be f- awesome."

Surely, Slash is aware that Axl Rose once again failed to release "Chinese Democracy," the $13 million Guns N' Roses album he's been working on for more than a decade.

Slash and Axl, who lives mostly as a recluse in Malibu, haven't spoken during that time - though Axl claimed Slash came to his house at 5:30 a.m. one day in 2005 and said "Duff was spineless," "Scott Weiland was a fraud," and he "hates Matt Sorum."

Slash denied the visit on an indie radio station show last year, saying: "It's just blatantly untrue. I have not talked to this guy in any way, shape or form going on 11 years."

Like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, there have been hints that "Chinese Democracy" does exist. Baseball player Mike Piazza gave a CD of the song "IRS" to deejay Eddie Trunk, who played it on 104.3 until Axl's management stopped him. And Axl himself showed up at Stereo a couple of years ago in the wee hours and played 10 tracks at the Chelsea nightspot.

In "W.A.R.: The Unauthorized Biography of William Axl Rose," out next month from St. Martin's Press, veteran rock author Mick Wall quotes Stereo co-owner Barry Mullineaux: "Everybody was surprised at how good it sounded. The music sounded great. He wanted to play his favorite song over and over, like six times."

But will fans still order "Chinese" to go? Wall surmises that Axl has waited so long to release the CD that "it's not just Guns N' Roses that's changed beyond all recognition, but the entire music industry itself."

SOURCE: New York Daily News