Jeff, thanks for the link there...interesting read, if you can manage to make it through the whole thing. Axl has a way of being over the top wordy. It's nice to finally get some of his perspective on the entire GnR thing and the break up of the original band.
That said, I think he is still over the top bitter about it. He has now said his piece, and in his autobiography, Slash said his piece about what happened. I think Slash's perspective on events may have been a bit altered due to all the drugs he was using at the time. However, I think both guys were telling the truth from their point of view. What really happened to the band is somewhere in between. I'd love to hear what Duff had to say about the break up...but I don't think he's been one to comment publicly about that sort of thing.
I think Axl really needs to extend the olive branch to Slash and Slash needs to do it. Now that they are both clean, unlike 12 years ago, a discussion and burying the hatchet would be much easier. I will say that from Slash's perspective, he felt that Axl was trying to take creative control of the band and was bringing in too many of his own people and blowing band money left and right on stupid stuff, like excessive parties for groupies and hangers on type people. I think Slash had a lot of distrust for those people who were coming around because the band was making money hand over fist and was at the top of the metal world. Most of that I believe came during the UYI tour. FWIW, I think both of those albums are badass!!!
One thing I would love to see is a reunion, especially if/when they are inducted into the Rock n Roll HOF. IMO, GnR is one of the greatest bands ever, right up there with Aerosmith. And incidentally, those two bands have had many similar experiences, especially when dealing with talents and personalities and egos. I would love to see Axl and Slash work out their differences, being clean now as I mentioned earlier, and make a new album. I'm not trying to defend Slash here at all, simply offering perspective. I think he's the best guitarist of my generation and will always be thought of as a top 5 guitar player in the rock world. The same goes for Axl, few people have the vocal range that he does. When you put the two of those things together, great things happen.
I think both of these guys know and understand how truly talented the other is. The roadblock at the moment I think is Axl's bitterness. Slash claims to have tried in the 90's to go by Axl's home and work it out, but apparently he was all f'd up at the time, probably drunk as opposed to high on heroin.
Now, I'm just hoping. I've listened a bit more to the new album and while it's a far cry, IMO, from the old GnR, it's still decent. I do like the bluesy-rock sound. However, as I said in a previous post, I just can't get past it not being the original band. I can tell it's not Slash on the guitar. To me, it often sounds as if it's a really, really good GnR cover band with Axl doing the lyrics. I'm not taking away from any of the other musicians who played on it, it's just not old school GnR. I say all of this as I'm jamming to "Let it Ride" by Velvet Revolver...a totally kick ass song with a great guitar riff!!!
I just want to point out that the stuff above is just my opinion and my view of things that have transpired. Often times, we tend to bag each other's opinion because it's not the same as ours.