Axl Rose Initiated Phone Call With Slash Before Guns N’ Roses Reunion
At the tail of 2015, it was reported that Slash (and Duff McKagan) would rejoin Guns N' Roses. It was an earthshaking moment that fans had hoped for, for decades, but few expected that it would ever actually happen. The animosity between Axl Rose and his estranged bandmates following the dissolution of the core lineup in the '90s seemed to run too deep to ever be repaired.
And then, suddenly, after decades apart, Axl, Slash and Duff were back together, and the tour seemed to go without a hitch.
Slash credits Axl with making the first moves towards reconciliation. Speaking with USA Today about the new Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators album, Living the Dream, he recalled reconnecting with the singer. "It was nice that it happened," he said. "I don't know if I would have had the wherewithal to call him, just because I'm introverted and it might have been hard for me," Slash admitted.
"Not during that initial phone call, but after that, it was really good to be able to get rid of some of the negative baggage that we'd been carrying around for a long time," the guitarist continued. "It'd been 20 years of not talking and letting this bad blood continue to be perpetuated by the media. It turned into something way bigger than what was really going on, so it was good to get past that."
The partial restoration of the classic GN'R lineup, which also saw bassist Duff McKagan return to the fray, has been a massive success. The "Not in This Lifetime..." tour was listed as the fourth-biggest tour of all time in January of this year and has raked in nearly half of one billion dollars in box office sales. There's even talk amongst the members of writing a new album.
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