Marc Canter: Chinese Democracy Was Recorded in 3 Years

The author of Reckless Road opens up to Argentinian Guns site Daily Better.

Marc Canter on Izzy Stradlin's departure from Guns N' Roses:

"There was a lot going on with Izzy. He was paranoid of all the law suits that were coming in from the riots. He was sober and didn't want to hang out with Duff and Slash who were not. Plus it didn't help that they were getting drunk all night while they were waiting to go on late. Also Slash was still using heroin. Izzy was not happy about the late fees the band was paying for from the venues, he didn't want to spend a ton of money for the videos. He called me right before he quit to see if I would make him a video of all the times they played "Don't Cry" from the old days. I guess he thought that they could use the footage for the MTV one. It was just no longer his scene. There could be a few more reasons I never asked him about it. The things that I just said are things that I have put together myself."

On the breakup of Guns N' Roses:

"They wanted different things. I don't blame Axl or Slash for the split. I think they wanted different things at the time. I wished that Axl would have put out a solo record in 1996 like Slash did and then they may have been ready to work together again. The problem is if you ask them why they split both of them will give to a one word answer - each other's names."

On Chinese Democracy:

"I love the new stuff and it didn't take as long to make as people think. Some people think that it took too long to make. It took 2 years to put a band together. Most of the record was done in about 3 years but there were many things to work out with the record compnay and management and while that was going on [Axl] added some things to it."

You can read the full interview here.

You can purchase Reckless Road (Marc Canter's definitive book on Guns N' Roses) here.

© Daily Better Group 2009
Translated by Natalia Salaberry