Chinese Democracy - Background

Background

Guns N' Roses began to write and record new music in 1994. Bassist Duff McKagan is quoted as saying, " band was so stoned at that point that nothing got finished". Guitarist Slash has criticized Axl Rose for making the band seem "like a dictatorship". Slash quit the band in 1996, with drummer Matt Sorum and McKagan both leaving soon afterwards. Slash was replaced by Nine Inch Nails touring guitarist Robin Finck, ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson replaced McKagan, and Josh Freese joined as the drummer. In early 1998, the band—which comprised Rose, Finck, Stinson and Freese along with long-time Guns N' Roses associate Paul Tobias, keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman—began recording at Rumbo Recorders, a state-of-the-art studio in the San Fernando Valley where Guns N' Roses had partially recorded parts for their debut album, Appetite for Destruction. During this time, Geffen paid Rose $1 million to try to finish the album, with a further $1 million if he handed it in to them by March 1, 1999.

In 2000, Rose hired avant-garde guitarist Buckethead, and drummer Bryan Mantia to replace Freese, who left to join A Perfect Circle. Later on in 2000, Finck rejoined the band as the third guitarist. On January 1, 2001, Guns N' Roses played their first concert in over seven years at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was followed by their headlining performance at Rock in Rio III on January 14, 2001 in front of 190,000 people. On August 29, 2002, the band made a surprise visit to the MTV Video Music Awards, playing old songs along with a new "Madagascar" to an ecstatic New York crowd.

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal replaced the departed guitarist Buckethead and touring resumed in May 2006, with Bumblefoot adding guitar tracks to the album between legs of touring throughout the year. Drummer Frank Ferrer replaced departed Mantia in July and added his drum tracks to the album. On December 14, 2006, Rose published an open letter to the band's fans on their website, claiming that remaining tour's shows were taking up time the band needed to finish recording Chinese Democracy. Rose also revealed that the band had parted company with their manager Merck Mercuriadis, implying that the reason the album was not released in 2006 was Mercuriadis's fault (many times throughout 2006, Rose had said the album would be released that year). In the letter, Rose announced a tentative release date of March 6, 2007 for the album; however, the album was once again delayed.

On February 22, 2007, the band's road manager, Del James, announced that all recording for the album had been completed and it was in the mixing process, James stated that there was no release date for the album but that things appeared to be moving on after a number of delays.

On September 14, 2008, "Shackler's Revenge" was released on the music video game Rock Band 2, making it the band's first official release of new material since 1999's "Oh My God". "Shackler's Revenge" was shortly followed by another release, "If the World", which plays during the closing credits of Body of Lies. A firm release date was announced by Billboard in October 2008, set for November 23. In the US, the retail release is sold exclusively through Best Buy. The first single from the album, "Chinese Democracy", was released on October 22, 2008, followed by the second single "Better" on November 17, 2008. The album was released as downloadable content for the Rock Band series on April 14, 2009.

Shortly before the album's release, mastering engineer Bob Ludwig offered three versions of the album for approval to co-producers Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo, and they selected the one with no dynamic-range compression, to avoid being involved in the ongoing loudness war. Ludwig wrote, "I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned." Ludwig feels that the "fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level."