Guns N’ Roses have made some changes to their lineup over the last two and a half decades. They majorly made some alterations while making their ‘Chinese Democracy’ album. It turns out that Queen’s Brian May was also almost featured on the record.
Brian May almost worked on the album
A lot of guitarists have stood beside Axl Rose since Guns first formed in 1985, especially after Slash quit in 1996. Without him or Gilby Clarke, Rose had to find new guitar players to fill the gaps, and so Paul Huge, Robin Finck, Buckethead, Richard Fortus, Bumblefoot and DJ Ashba were all brought in at one point or another.
Fortus is still in the band and Ashba joined after Chinese Democracy was already released, but the rest of them cited the lack of progress on the album as one of the reasons they wanted out.
May had to experience an inconsistent experience with Rose as well. In an interview with Classic Rock [via Guitar World], the Queen guitarist labeled the whole experience as “odd,” and noted that it was a nine-year process to record guitar parts for the song “Catcher in the Rye.” Here is what he said:
“It was an odd experience. I think it was about midway through the whole thing. By that point Axl was pretty much a recluse,” May recalled. “He was working in his house, and I was working in the studio at the bottom of the hill with his engineer at the time, and he only rarely came down. Now and again he would call in and get all enthusiastic and talk a lot, and then he’d be gone again. I don’t think any of what I played actually got onto the album.”
It was originally reported back in November of 2008, just a few weeks prior to the release of the album, that May had been dropped from the finished product.
