The Chinese Democracy Years – 2007: The Album Was Completed By Xmas, But Everyone Knows That

Still the rumours and reports kept rolling in.

Rolling Stone: “[Sebastian Bach] reported that he’s heard ‘at least four albums’ worth’ of finished Guns N’Roses tracks, recalling a night in January 2007 when Rose rolled out new songs from midnight to 6 am at New York’s Electric Lady studios.”

Bach: “One of my favourite songs is this song called The General, which is so… it’s by far the heaviest metal tune I think I’ve ever heard Axl do, this slow, grinding riff with these high, piercing vocals, screaming vocals. [Axl] goes, ‘Well, this comes out on the third record.”

Bach claimed that the track is ‘the sequel to [Use Your Illusion II’s] Estranged, and connected to
the parable that Del James wrote of the trilogy’.

In May 2007, four tracks were leaked across the internet and travelled around the world like wildfire: the title track, The Blues, I.R.S. and There Was A Time. The source, a wrestler called Mister Saint Laurent bragged online about how he’d managed to dupe some ‘hoarders’ in Portugal to get the songs.

With versions of Catcher In The Rye, Madagascar,  and Better already leaked, suddenly it was possible to get an idea of how Chinese Democracy was shaping up. And it was looking – and most importantly sounding – good: better than anything else around, in fact. At the end of the year, to be mischievious and to make a point about its availability (it being the first time that a ‘lost’ album has still be available) – and because it blew our minds – Classic Rock made Chinese Democracy album of the year, 2007.

In conversations for an article (in Classic Rock 116 about Tom Zutaut’s experiences in 2001),
Beta Lebeis – now Axl’s Personal Manager – said they were pleased at being Album Of The Year. She added, “The album was completed before Christmas, but everyone knows that. We’re in negotiations now with the record company…’” The project had already outlived its originally intended record company twice.