Guitarist Doug Aldrich recently shared how he was once invited to audition for Guns N’ Roses during their Chinese Democracy era — and the invite came from none other than keyboardist Dizzy Reed. According to Aldrich, Reed told him that Axl Rose was interested in bringing him on board.
In a new interview on the Appetite for Distortion podcast, Aldrich recalled the moment Reed reached out to him while Guns N’ Roses was in the middle of one of its most chaotic and ever-changing periods:
“Only by one guy, because he called me — Dizzy called me. I had known Dizzy ’cause Dizzy and I had a mutual friend, and Dizzy played on a solo record that I did way back in the ’90s, and he played beautifully on it. It was so cool for him.”
Reed explained what the band was looking for:
“But he called me and said, ‘Hey, we’re looking for a guy to play the Slash stuff. And we’ve got Richard Fortus and Robin Finck.’ And he goes, ‘We’re looking for someone to do the more rock stuff.'”
At that moment, Aldrich was working closely with David Coverdale on Whitesnake’s 2008 comeback album Good To Be Bad:
“And I was literally sitting next to David Coverdale. We were just starting to work on the first Whitesnake record that we wrote together. And I go, ‘Dizzy, I really appreciate it and I’m grateful, but I’m right in the middle of doing an album with Whitesnake. I co-wrote it and I’m co-producing it.'”
He added with a laugh:
“And he goes, ‘Okay, man. Are you sure?’ And I think Coverdale heard it and was, like, ‘Douglas, tell him you’re busy’ or whatever.”
Though he ultimately turned it down, Aldrich appreciated the gesture:
“But, yeah, that’s as close as it came. Dizzy thought of me that I should come audition. And he said, ‘I think Axl would like you’ or whatever, and he’s pretty picky about the people he is around. But I was super, super excited about what I was doing [with Whitesnake]. And you never know where it might’ve led to.”
