Axl gets his 'Chinese Democracy'

David Menconi - The News and Observer

In the 2000 movie "Wonder Boys," Michael Douglas plays a novelist struggling with writer's block of a peculiar sort: It's not that he can't write -- he can't stop writing. Douglas' character has spent years trying to finish a book, a monster that has grown to thousands of pages, with no end in sight. Eventually, Douglas' book literally blows away.

On Sunday, the musical equivalent of that tome will reach the end of the road: "Chinese Democracy," the heavy metal band Guns N' Roses' ridiculously long-awaited new album, arrives at Best Buy.

In the 14 years "Chinese Democracy" has been in the works, it has become a music business punchline similar to "Christmas is coming, too." It's been a mystery for so long, the actual release feels anticlimactic. The music is less interesting than the strange and excessive circumstances of its making.

During the long gestation of "Chinese Democracy," every Guns N' Roses member except frontman Axl Rose quit or was fired. That left Rose to go through scores of musicians, producers and engineers, not to mention tens of millions of dollars, to finish his obsession.

A 2005 New York Times article called it "The Most Expensive Album Never Made," estimating it cost $13 million (three years later, it has no doubt gone up). By contrast, major-label records can be made for less than $100,000.

"I can't even begin to fantasize how you'd spend that kind of money to make one record," says local mastering engineer Brent Lambert. "You could build 13 studios from the ground up for that. That's just insane."

But there's been much insanity about "Chinese Democracy." In an online interview, drummer Bryan "Brain" Mantia described the painstaking process of cutting drum tracks for the 30 tracks under consideration.

At Rose's behest, Mantia played drum parts that another drummer had written, duplicated note for note, with pages of transcriptions taped onto a banner. Mantia guesses it took "about seven to eight months" -- in a studio that cost $2,000 a day.

That's how you spend $13 million and 14 years to make a record.

Way back in '94

Other artists have spent years on their projects, but "Chinese Democracy" came out of highly unusual circumstances. When recording began in 1994, Guns N' Roses was one of the most popular and controversial bands in the world. "Appetite for Destruction," the band's 1987 debut, sold more than 15 million copies, and 1991's two-disc "Use Your Illusion" was a signpost of larger-than-life, MTV-era spectacle.

That created immense pressure on Rose to deliver a career-defining magnum opus. He responded the way many artists do, by creating impossibly high standards.

Perry Wright, leader of the Chapel Hill band The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, went through something similar on a smaller scale in writing songs for his band's second album. It started out as writer's block, then mutated into a paralyzing hyperperfectionism.

"For a year, I just could not write anything," Wright says. "But once I started again, it wasn't writer's block so much as editorial block. I couldn't put together stuff that I felt was a step forward."

Ultimately, Wright came up with songs he felt were a step forward (that album is due out next year). And his case is mild compared with the neurotic perfectionism Brent Lambert deals with.

Lambert operates Kitchen Mastering in Carrboro, where he has mastered albums for Ani DiFranco, Avett Brothers, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Rosebuds and many other local and national acts. He sees mastering as the sonic equivalent of what a colorist does on films: fine-tuning adjustments. It's the final stage of production, and a lot of people just can't stop tinkering.

"I get two types of people who come in here," Lambert says. "One group is relieved their project is coming to fruition so they can move on, but the other is mortified to be losing control of their art. A lot of people fall in love with the process of making a record, so losing control is a big deal."

Lambert tells of one band that sent him 110 compact discs and 55 reels of half-inch tape to master. The band and its handlers couldn't decide which version of anything they liked, so Lambert spent days mastering 10 versions of the same song in search of the elusive "perfect" take.

Another of Lambert's clients has been working on the same record for more than three years, remaking it over and over.

"I have to admit I crossed the line and told him this is insane and not healthy," Lambert says. "It's not our place to say that, but he had all these rationalizations about why he's doing it. So we just leave it alone. He's a steady customer."

Not the only one

Multiply that unnamed artist exponentially, and you have something like what's been going on all these years with Guns N' Roses. And while "Chinese Democracy" is an extreme case, it's not unprecedented.

Brian Wilson tried and failed to finish his Beach Boys masterwork "Smile" for years in the 1960s, a process that involved putting a sandbox in his living room. Wilson abandoned "Smile" before improbably reviving and releasing a reconstructed version in 2004, to much acclaim.

At least "Smile" had a happy ending. British shoegazer band My Bloody Valentine made one of the landmark albums of the '90s with 1991's "Loveless," but mastermind Kevin Shields has been unable to follow it up. That also goes for The La's, of "There She Goes" fame -- La's maestro Lee Mavers has not been heard from since his group's 1991 debut.

Of course, writer's block and creative paralysis are luxuries that few people can afford. If Axl Rose had to pay his own bills and sing for his supper, "Chinese Democracy" probably would have come out on time (and under budget).

Eventually, there comes a time when you just have to bear down and finish something. Paul Jones, a UNC-Chapel Hill professor who is also a poet, cites the work ethic of the late William Stafford as a sane alternative.

"Stafford was a poet who was very prolific and didn't believe in writer's block," Jones says. "Someone asked how he could write when everybody else bogged down, and he said, 'If you get stuck, lower your standards and keep going.' He wrote every day. Every morning before he'd leave the house, he'd write at least one poem. Many were crap, but he didn't care."

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