Use Your Illusion Song by Song Thread

It's bland, it soulless, its pedestrian, there's no feeling, there's no personality. It's competent and that's it. He's just there. And before anyone mentions You Could Be Mine, Duff wrote that intro.
There is no Groove to any of these songs, except Civil War (oh I wonder why?)

 

I guess what I'm getting at is if he was soulless and has no feel, what was it about him that got him hired by The Cult and subsequently by Guns? Apparently he met the approval of the band members (Slash/Axl) so there must have been something redeeming about his style. I'm trying to find out what it is. I'm not a musician and my drumming has been limited to cardboard boxes, pots and pans when I was ten so I'm really trying to get to the crux of this in my own mind.

I'm not entirely convinced Adler would have made these songs swing any more than they do because the whole band dynamic had changed by now. Izzy was a no-show and that had an effect on how the band played as well. I don't think it's as simple as saying Sorum ruined the songs.

And it's perfectly fine that Duff wrote a drum intro, ideas come from all over. McCartney often told Ringo what to play, if I'm not mistaken. Something like that isn't out of the ordinary.

 

I find there is a nice groove on Locomotive. Sorry, not to jump ahead but you forced my hand.

 

The drumming on that is stuff as hell, and Civil War, even when cut from thirty different takes, is still the only track that sounds like it was played by a human.
And Ringo being told what to play did not happen near as much as people think, and I mention Duff writing that intro because people always use that track to defend Matt, and I'm pointing why he doesn't deserve much credit for that.

Not to mention this involves the guy who hired Frank Ferrer and DJ Ashba.

 

Yeah, the countdown in Perfect Crime is an example of the band (probably really Axl) overstuffing the songs, until they resemble an audio Mr Creosote ('are you sure you don't want just one more over dub sir? It is wafer thin'!)

 

The countdown in “Perfect Crime” is pretty innocuous on its own. I don’t think it adds anything, but it doesn’t drag the song down. It is excessive, sure.

The “selective annihilation” part in “Civil War,” the doctor’s crosstalk in “Coma,” the phone call in “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” the voice-over in”Breakdown,” the “cool ranch dressing” pun in “Pretty Tied Up” - all things that feel tacked onto the songs. All excessive. I love most of those songs (“Coma” is one of my top 5 all-time GNR tracks), but there was a tendency to add more & more elements, way past the point of absurdity.

Somebody upthread mentioned the lyrical swearing thing. I’m one of the last people in the world to come down on swearing in song lyrics. On the Illusions albums, however, it seems like Axl took swearing to new & gratuitous extremes, for whatever reason - because he could, I guess. “Get In The Ring” and “Perfect Crime” are among the main offenders here.

Appetite had only a little actual swearing in the lyrics, which gave the swearing that was present a lot more nasty bite. Chinese Democracy had very little lyrical swearing, which was a surprise at first. And it worked really well there.

That said, the swearing in “Double Talking Jive” works perfectly. Some other songs... not as much.

 

I had the demo tape from GNR before lies even came out so songs like You Could Be Mine, Back Off, The Garden, Don't Cry and November Rain weren't new to me when Use Your Illusion appeared. Of those, I had the most anticipation for The Garden, but more on that later. Don't Cry seemed like a very nice song, but it wasn't earth-shattering. They did two reasonable versions of it on these albums, but I'm not at all sure two were warranted. Even today, I'm not sure I can tell you much about what's different between the two except I seem to remember listening to the Vol. 2 version a little more.

Would have been a nice change of pace if they'd have done a more traditional GNR album, but on this huge slab of music, I found myself getting a little bored by Don't Cry.

 

Fun fact: the countdown was always in the song. It was a song they played in the clubs back in 1986...It had the countdown bit in 86.

 

Slash and Duff chose Matt and used him after GN'R.

Also, this is the Mates Rehearsal from 1989 which features Steven on UYI songs and it sounds pretty much the same to me:


Alan Niven has claimed the band wanted a more technical drummer for the new songs and more than the drug issue, Steven's inability (or unwillingness) to play the songs the way Slash/Duff wanted them, was what led to his firing. Niven is not an Axl apologist, and he was their manager from 85-91, so I don't doubt what he says.

 

Alan Niven: "Losing Steven was frustrating and painful. But we tried and tried to pull him through. The problem was, he just could not connect to the more intricate material Axl was writing for the Illusion albums. Time and again, Slash and the others would bemoan that he just couldn't get it, and that he would play the same section the same way twice instead of fixing it.
The ******** that he was fired for his addiction is just that – ********. It was a performance matter. There were other issues between Steven and Axl that certainly didn't help, and may have been sufficient within themselves to see him go. I will say the band never quite felt the same after Steven Adler was gone. He may not be the best drummer in the world, but he had a great exuberance to his playing when he was “on.”

 

An undeniable factor contributing to the tremendous amount of time it took the band to produce this album was the problem surrounding their former drummer, Steven Adler. Unable to cope with a destructive heroin addiction, Adler could not perform in the studio. He was often absent from sessions, and showed little or no interest in the new project. After almost 18 months of wasted time (and money), the decision came down to let Steven go and search for a new set of sticks. The keeper of those sticks proved to be Guns N' Roses' savior.

"I don't want to say anything against Steven, but we went through so much miscellaneous ********," recalls Slash. "I mean, for years all the other distractions, and with Steven for more than a year alone. Then, all of a sudden, Matt [Sorum] enters the picture. We rehearse 36 songs in a month and record the whole LP, all the basics, in five weeks - I mean all the guitars, bass and acoustical stuff; the vocals took a little longer. When Matt came in, we just went into the studio and did it. Just like that! We were entangled in the biggest procrastination situation you ever heard of."

"The Cult was looking for a limey drummer anyhow," remembers Duff. "So we snatched up Matt, and he gave this band the kick in the ass that it needed. I've been asked before if it's strange playing with Matt after so many years with Steven, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't at first. But now, it's so natural."

Last January Guns performed their first live shows with Matt at Rock In Rio II, doing two sets for a combined audience of about a quarter million. Along with the "sixth" Gun, Dizzy Reed, on keyboards, the band excited the South American audience with a set that included seven tracks from Use Your Illusion.

"Matt and Dizzy had never played with us as a complete band, because Axl doesn't come to rehearsals," Duff observes. "They'd never seen Axl sing with us. And we didn't even have a set list for Rio. We have this 'pick list' we like to use. So, anyway, we tell Matt, three minutes before he goes onstage in front of 140,000 people, that he's gotta do a drum solo. And he pulled it off! He rocked! Dizzy, ****, the biggest crowd he ever played for was about 400, opening up for L.A. Guns at the Country Club. Let's just say Dizzy had a few cocktails before we went on, but he pulled it off too. Right before we went onstage, the whole band - and this hadn't happened for a long time - got together in one room. You could just feel the electricity. No matter how many people were out there, or our families, or the press and photographers, bla bla bla, what it came down to was , we were just the same guys that we were five years ago, and you could feel that in the nervous laughter. It was f?!king amazing."

 

For a while, a drummer from the Sea Hags sat in with Guns, then Martin Chambers from the Pretenders stepped in momentarily. How did you settle on Matt Sorum from the Cult?

The guy from the Sea Hags was a really cool guy, and we got along, but he just didn't have the right vibe. I saw Matt at the Universal Amphitheater and after a few months went by and nothing happened, it dawned on me that he was the best drummer I'd seen in a long time. So I just said, **** it, it couldn't hurt to try him.

Thank God I went to that show that night. The fact that Matt could play and fit in was what saved us. If we hadn't found somebody, it would have ultimately been the demise of the band. Matt's been capable of keeping up with it, if not enhancing it totally and bringing new stuff to it. He still can't show up anywhere on time, though. [He laughs.]

-Slash, 1991.

 

Sea Hags, to hear the drummer:

 

Matt played with The Cult at the Universal Amphitheater on 3/31/1990. Steven wasn't fired until July 11th 1990. So they were scouting for new drummers even while Steven was still in the band.

The Days of Thunder soundtrack, which GN'R put Knockin' on Heaven's Door on, was the first appearance by Matt on a GN'R song. This album came out on 6/26/1990...So, Matt recorded a song with Guns while Steven was still in the band, also the first song to feature Dizzy Reed. Interestingly, Civil War, the last song to feature Steven, was first released on 7/24/1990.

Also, Steven had to miss playing at the 1989 AMA (Don Henley filled in on drums) because he was in rehab. So it seems like the issues with Steven were going on for over a year.

 

Thanks for all of the info you're bringing to the thread.

Before I had joined this forum I had never heard of so much disdain for Matt's drumming and now it appears it has reached epic proportions where it's become the thing to do every time a thread pops up discussing the Illusions. In all honesty, I don't entirely get it. I don't play an instrument but I feel I've got a pretty decent ear for what I hear. To me the song structures on the Illusions are different than what's on AFD for the most part and requires a different approach.

Regardless of my personal feelings, how could respected musicians like Duff and Slash feel that Sorum was a good fit where many people on this forum don't?

It's almost become cliché to rag on him and really, while I do hear a difference in styles for people to say Matt has no groove or swing is ridiculous. There is plenty of it evident on these records and he also adds plenty of subtle touches on the ballads as well. I guess I have to side with Slash and Duff, I think he brings a different element to the band and people like to slag him for a quote Izzy made or some poster made that has exploded into something beyond what it should be.

And I'm sure I'm in the minority on this but I don't think Adler could have done what Sorum did on some of the longer tracks. And sometimes I wonder if you played two tracks side by side and asked people to guess who was drumming, many people would be doing just that...guessing.

 

Funny how over the years the unpopular addition of Matt has been seen by many as an Axl decision. For a lot of GNR fans, any move that got them farther away from the Appetite lineup/sound was initiated by Axl. The quotes above from Slash & Duff pretty much put that to rest, don’t they? Slash & Duff were both drivers in the shift away from the Appetite vibe too.

You could make a case that the Appetite lineup splintered right after they came off tour in ‘88. The “R” side of Lies was a sort-of epitaph for the Appetite band, although nobody knew it at the time.

 

If you listen to the Mates Rehearsal I posted with Steven on Locomotive, he's all over the place, missing time and the beat.

 

I like a lot of what Matt plays on UYI. His playing on “Locomotive” is tremendous, and I’m not convinced Adler could’ve even slightly pulled off “Coma.”

I’m not at all crazy about how the drums are situated in the mixes, but that’s a whole different issue. The weird mixes are a frequent weak point throughout both albums.

Did the band make any statement about Matt drumming on “Heaven’s Door” at the time it was released on Days Of Thunder?

 

The thing to remember with Matt and the Illusions is that they wanted someone to come and quickly lay down basic tracks for 30 plus songs.

Adler has delayed production so much at that point, that getting things down on tape was the highest priority. Throw on top that the songs/demos were done already, and was probably told to replicate or rehash what was there.

There just wasn’t any time to get a feel for the swing or dig deep for those songs. GNR/Geffen at that point weren’t going to blow up the recording time/budget for Matt Sorum

 

Same here, the mixes, but as you say that is an entirely different issue.

 

Make a single album of the best of the two Illusions, and it's a better album than Appetite by far.

 

Locomotive has a great groove. Probably the greatest "groove" track they have.

 

Just noticed your post!

 

Eh, 80% of AFD eats that for breakfast, but we'll save it for when we get to that song

 

It would be better than Lies ,I'll give you that.