Finally, there's the recent re-emergence of Axl himself. The reclusive rocker showed up for a party last month in Los Angeles celebrating Korn's tour announcement. And during a weeklong visit to New York, which also saw him visiting a Victoria's Secret event, he stopped into a New York nightclub reportedly to continue the celebration of his 44th birthday early on the morning of February 10 (although his birthday is actually Febuary 6).
At about 5:30 a.m., when Barry Mullineaux and Mike Satsky, owners of the club Stereo, opened their doors to Rose and a handful of his friends, who'd been booted from another club at the standard New York watering-hole closing time of 4 a.m. As a sign of his gratitude, Mullineaux said Rose sent someone to his hotel room to retrieve two CDs, each one containing 10 tracks.
"He was talking with everybody freely about how he's been off for 10 years, and how even though Slash and the rest of the guys [have moved ahead with their careers by starting] Velvet Revolver, he's been holding back," explained Mullineaux. "He said this album will show everyone who was the main ingredient from GN'R. He was freely answering questions about his work, the band, what happened with the split, the direction he's headed in — and the music sounded great."
Mullineaux, who said he manned the DJ booth and spun the discs for Rose, said several of the tracks reminded him of classic GN'R, with moments of uncharacteristic heaviness. Axl "kept telling me to put back track #3 — I guess that was his favorite song," he said. "He wanted to play that one over and over, like six times. He was really getting into it and rockin' out. Everybody was surprised at how good it sounded. And that third track, that was the song where his voice sounded the best; the smoothest." |
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