Chinese Democracy has finally arrived, and with it come certain expectations. Considering how long and arduous the journey has been to get here — and figuring in the $10 million Axl Rose reportedly blew on the record, not to mention the departures of all his original collaborators and the delays... oh, the delays — this next chapter in Guns N' Roses' tumultuous history had better be jaw-droppingly brilliant or Axl may lose whatever remains of his reputation as an artist.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and with the album's release on Sunday, Nov. 23, the world is ready to sit in judgement of Axl and what many think will be his greatest folly. So far, reviews are mixed.

Music journalist Mick Wall (visit  www.mickwall.com/home.htm to read more about WAll) has a unique insight into the world of Axl, having covered Guns N' Roses throughout the '80s and '90s. Wall penned the 2007 Axl Rose biography "W.A.R." and his somewhat contentious relationship with Axl resulted in Wall being a subject of the G&R song "Get in the Ring," off Use Your Illusion II.

As for the new record, Wall has heard it, and we went to him to get his thoughts on this momentous occasion in this e-mail interview.

Well, I guess first off, with the world getting its initial taste of Chinese Democracy, and having heard it in its entirety, what are you thoughts about this record?
Mick Wall: The immediate feeling is one of anti-climax. Inevitable given the long wait and huge build-up; nevertheless, I wasn’t bowled over. There are a handful of stand-out cuts — ‘Better’, ‘IRS’, ‘There Was A Time’, ‘Madagascar’… essentially, the ones we already know from Internet leaks. All are strong songs and all contain elements of this long talked of ‘upgrading’ of the signature GN’R sound, the electronica stuff, none of which sounds new at all now of course. (1995 is a long time ago.) Then there are a handful of good-not-great tracks — ‘Street Of Dreams’ (formerly known as ‘The Blues’), the title track, ‘If The World’… the sorts of things that could have fitted easily on either of the Use Your Illusion albums. Then there are a couple of tracks that, for me, are utterly forgettable: the un-listenable ‘Shackler’s Revenge’, the tedious ‘Scraped’…

Ultimately, I think that, were this billed more accurately as an Axl Rose solo album, which is what it really is, we would be generally applauding it. Billed as the latest Guns N’ Roses album, though, only begs the question… hey, where’s Slash? And why doesn’t it sound like Guns N’ Roses anymore? This just isn’t why people bought and fell in love with Appetite For Destruction or Use Your Illusion II. And don’t give me that shit about ‘progress’, this just ain’t the same band — literally.

A lot of people are expecting Axl to fall flat on his face with this record, considering how long it's taken to finish it and with all the turmoil that's surrounded Guns N' Roses for so many years. Is this his last chance for some sort of artistic redemption?
MW: Sharon Osbourne once told me: “You’re never dead in this business once you’ve made a name for yourself.” Meaning, there is always a chance of artistic / commercial redemption. I agree. So, no, this is not Axl’s last shot. It’s just beyond belief that it’s taken so long for him to get round to releasing it. There are people who worked on this project at various stages that will tell you the album was ready for release as far back as 2001; that will even play you the CD. Having had at least nine of those tracks on a bootleg CD of my own for a couple of years, I can tell you they sound identical to the ones now on the finished album. So what took so long? Well, let’s put it like this, they weren’t all musical reasons.

Knowing Axl as you do, why do you think this record has taken so long for him to finish?
MW: The same reason he can never arrive onstage on time, can never turn up for meetings on time, couldn’t even turn up for his own birthday party once. When I was writing my book, "W.A.R. The Unauthorized Biography of William Axl Rose," I spoke to a psychologist who told me: the worst thing you can do for a control freak is actually give them total control, because then they never get round to finishing anything, because it will never — ever — be quite right for them. Or never quite right enough. Axl is the ultimate example of the control freak given total control. I hear he even changed his mind at a very late stage about releasing it now, convinced it — or he — still wasn’t "ready." But that the wheels were in motion, and it was too late to stop this time.

What's happened within the last year that you know of that's led to Chinese Democracy being finished? Do you know of any breakthrough Axl had with it?
MW: I don’t think there was a musical or artistic breakthrough, as such. I think he was simply running out of money. The record company pulled out of financing anymore work on the album as far back as 2004. Also, his new management team of Irving Azoff and Andy Gould are extremely experienced, veteran operators that wouldn’t have gotten involved if it hadn’t meant an end product. My guess is that Axl finally agreed to allow the green light to be pressed at last in exchange for a large cash settlement. I stress, I have no factual evidence to back up this claim. Merely what I’ve deduced from what I’ve been told off the record by a number of well-informed sources.

Has Chinese Democracy changed from what Axl's original vision of it was?
MW: Good question. One imagines that surely part of the hold-up was him merely changing his mind about which direction he wanted to go. Interestingly, however, given how insanely long the whole process has taken, I would say not. As it explains in my book, originally the whole thing began as an idea Axl had for a solo album. Newly obsessed with the electronica of Nine Inch Nails he planned to write and record with a “dream team” comprising NIN frontman, Trent Reznor, Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and then Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. “Then he changed his mind,” said Slash, “and thought, why do a solo record if he could do it with Guns N’ Roses…?” Listening to the finished album, I’d say he stayed remarkably faithful to that idea. Like I say, the reason for its long gestation was only partly to do with musical reasons.

You've written a biography of Axl and you were privy to much of what went on with the original incarnation of Guns N' Roses. What was at the root of the original line-up implosion, as you see it?
MW: You might say the real story of Chinese Democracy goes all the way back to 1990 when Axl first hired a new keyboard player, Dizzy Reed, then fired drummer Steven Adler. The first concrete signs that Axl planned to take over GN’R, [and] within 18 months he had also engineered the sacking of manager Alan Niven and overseen the far-from-amicable departure of guitarist Izzy Stradlin — the guy he’d grown up with in Indiana who’d first encouraged him to be a singer. As Izzy later told me, “the power went to this guy’s head. The control issues just became worse and worse.”

The trouble for Slash began in the summer of ’95, when Axl — obsessed by the out-of-nowhere success of Nirvana and grunge, and determined to “update” the GN’R sound — dismissed the new songs Slash had been working on, then rubbed salt into the wound by hiring another new guitarist named Paul Tobias. The first Slash knew of it was when he turned up at the studio one day and found Tobias laying down guitar parts. A scene that left him feeling “suicidal,” Slash said. “If I’d had a gun with me at that time, I probably would have done myself in… It was heavy.” So heavy, Slash quit. Over the next two years he was followed by Matt Sorum — storming out after a row with Tobias — and then, eventually, even Duff McKagan, who recalled how, “I went out for dinner with Axl and I told him, ‘Enough is enough. This band is a dictatorship and I don’t see myself playing in those conditions. Find someone else’.”

You were actually written into the song "Get In The Ring" off Use Your Illusion II, having clashed with Axl on occasion. What was your reaction upon finding out you were a subject in the song and what do you remember about hearing it for the first time?
MW: I’d been warned a few months ahead of time. Then other people got to hear the album before I did — I’d finished with rock journalism at the time it came out and gone, briefly, into management. How did I feel? A mixture of horrified, flattered and more than a little pissed. Being called a liar by a group — and I blamed them all, even though I knew it was only Axl that felt that way — that I had spent years covering for, hurt at the time. You have to remember that, apart from the fact I was the first person outside America to put them on TV, the first to regularly play their records on the radio, the first to write about them in any serious depth — all this at a time when they weren’t famous at all — I was also the go-to-guy they could depend on not to put things into print that would hurt them unduly. The one they went to for advice about certain things I still won’t talk about. The one that witnessed scenes I could have sold to magazines and newspapers dozens of times over but never did out of respect for our "friendship." The one they gave a gold album to for GN’R Lies for all the help I’d given them. So to be lambasted as someone “rippin’ off the kids” felt extremely unfair. I lost respect for Axl as a man after that. Of course, all these years later, I now find it hilarious. It certainly conferred a degree of fame I couldn’t have imagined otherwise. And Slash has since apologised to me, and Izzy and I have laughed and joked about it. Steven even asked me to write his official biography. Duff still can’t bring himself to speak to me, though. Which is strange as he sounds so grown-up and together in interviews. I always liked Duff. Maybe he’s just embarrassed.

How did you first meet Axl and become close to G&R?
MW: As mentioned above, I was simply one of the first journalists to arrive on the scene of the crime, as it were. First time they toured the U.K. in ’87, I was there. The next couple of years found me mostly in L.A., and we got to know each other really well. It was during that "dark" period between Appetite and Use Your Illusion, and you’d see the guys everywhere. There were no bodyguards or bizarre disguises when Axl went out in those days. Just his brother Stuart and pal Del James. Good guys, I thought. But who always put Axl first, right or wrong. So when Axl got a downer on me, so did they. But then, the same thing happened to Slash, to Duff, to Izzy and Steven and Alan the band’s manager, to Erin, Axl’s wife, to Stephanie his fiancée… shit, to pretty much everyone he ever knew, it seems. Except those that had the ability to bite their tongues and keep saying “Yes, Axl.”

Describe your relationship with Axl.
MW: I think I have given a good glimpse from the above. With Axl, you were always either totally for him or totally against him. I started out in the former camp and ended up in the latter — along with everyone else. Would I sit down and speak with him again, though? Absolutely. We’ve all made mistakes, and I know what it’s like to spend too many years of your life believing it’s you against the world. I think the only thing holding Axl back is an ability to admit he may have made a few wrong turns in the road back there somewhere. Until he’s mature enough to do that I don’t think he’ll ever get over whatever it is that’s been eating him all these years. I do wish him well, though. My god, he is certainly not boring!
 
Finally, how does this current incarnation of Guns N' Roses compare to the original?
MW: For me, there’s no comparison. There is only the "real" lineup of Guns N’ Roses — the one with Slash and the guys, obviously — and the one that is effectively a bunch of hired hands, doing what Axl tells them. I have a question for you and everyone else out there: if Tommy Stinson or Bumblefoot or whoever walked down the street outside your door right now, would anyone in the street stop to point and say, "Hey, isn’t that…?” Now, imagine Slash walking down the same street. Who wouldn’t know who that is? And they wouldn’t be saying, “Hey, it’s the guy from Velvet Revolver!” They’d be saying: “Look, there’s Slash from Guns N’ Roses!” And they would be right…

To borrow a line from "Sleeping Giant," the hopeful first single off Copper Sails' upcoming, buzz-worthy long-player, Hiding Place, "the world is waking up" to this Richmond, Va., quartet and its intoxicating blend of dreamy atmospheres and well-crafted, starry-eyed indie-pop.

Made up of Boomer Muth (vocalist/bassist), Jonathan Crawley (vocalist/guitarist), Kyle Crosby (keyboardist) and Jim Courtney (drummer), Copper Sails borrows liberally from influences like U2 and Brit-pop supernovas Doves, while propping up the piano-driven epics of Snow Patrol with strong, dark surges of rock. And yet, there is something different about Copper Sails.

Perhaps it's how Crawley and Muth blend their lead vocals to heighten the emotional, searching drama of their lyrics. Or maybe its how they get their complex guitar parts and Crosby's fully realized keyboard schemes to dance so easily together, or how the rhythm section of Courtney and Muth engage in stunning dynamics that lasso listening ears. Then again, maybe what it all comes down to is how rich the songcraft is and how, despite Copper Sails' somewhat ethereal aesthetic, each song — from the tidal choruses of "Still Lost" to the glimmering guitars of the title track and the relentless build of "Reckless Motorist" — is build on a solid structure, with strong, undeniable hooks.

Opening slots for The Strokes and Switchfoot have given the band broad exposure that's only grown in recent months, with "Sleeping Giant" appearing on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight." Help from industry heavyweights like Mitch Easter and Greg Calbi (U2, Interpol, The Strokes) with the sound of Hiding Place certainly didn't hurt. Full of wonder, expectancy and light, Hiding Place begs to be heard, and Courtney tells how Copper Sails does it in a recent interview.

Tell us how Copper Sails came to be, and how your sound developed.
Jim Courtney: Copper Sails came to be in early 2003 in Richmond Va. Jonathan (guitar / vocals) and Boomer (bass / vocals) had recently gotten out of a previous project and were looking to find a drummer and a piano/keyboard player to start anew. I heard about the band through a friend of a friend and had recently gotten out of a project myself. I went out and tried out with the band, and by that time, they had already settled on Kyle (Keys) after jamming with a number of other keyboardists. When I got there, they had already tried out a number of drummers.

The interesting story about me getting in the band actually comes from a song on our previous album Silhouette, and the song is called "Silo." "Silo" was a complete song through in a 7/8 time signature, and apparently all of the other drummers were struggling with a drum part on the song. Like I didn't struggle, too? I guess I did what I try to do even today in writing drum parts, and that was lock into a melody, probably [with] Jonathan, and follow it. When I did that, I wrote a drum part they were excited about it. I jammed a few more times with them and they offered me the job. They were three of the nicest guys I had ever met, especially in the music business. I just enjoyed being around them, and we seemed to meld together well as musicians, so I decided it was the place I wanted to be, and with that, Copper Sails was formed. Everyone else really seemed like they wanted to be there too. It was just a great environment. It is a choice I am really happy I made.

As for our sound developing, I think the guys would all agree that during the writing of Silhouette we were still developing and searching for our specific sound. Boomer and Jon had very similar musical tastes, and influences. Kyle and I each had our own set as well. So it took us some time to meld those influences and styles together. Silhouette was the start of that conglomeration, and while we were all proud of the album, it was when we started writing the songs for Hiding Place that we realized we had really hit on something that we were all really pumped about. We just started getting more and more comfortable with each other. One of my favorite things about the band is that we all see ourselves as part writers. Everyone in the band writes a part that sounds the best for the song. Not necessarily the most complex and noticeable part that makes him stand out, but sometimes the subtle parts that don't necessarily reach out and grab you at first are actually what is best for the song. Musically, I think we share the load pretty evenly when it comes to our sound and writing.


Your new album, Hiding Place, due out on Jan. 19, and yet, you've had a track on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight," you've played with The Strokes and Switchfoot, and there's talk of a song appearing on an MTV reality show. How has word spread so fast about you?
JC: I don't know that I would say the word has "spread so fast" for us. We have been at this for quite a while. I think we have learned a lot since the previous album and surrounded ourselves this time with people that have guided us in a better direction. Don't get me wrong. We have always been very concerned about the quality of a recording and how well our albums are produced, but we were also much more cognizant of money back then, too. We thought that we could get a great sound but pinch the pennies here and there to save money. The truth of the matter is that if you are going to do it, go all out and do it right. An album needs a Mitch Easter or Greg Calbi on board to even have the chance of getting the recognition from the industry people that it deserves, or if you are really lucky, credentials like that just help get the A&R folks to give it a quick listen. We also had (producer) Ted Comerford on our side this time, and he is invaluable, not only from a production and engineering standpoint, but also from a knowledge and contact base.

We have also had some great help back in our home town and surrounding cities. We have had Brad Wells from the National Theater and Innsbrook After Hours in Richmond on our side for a lot of years, and he has really helped with shows that got us the Strokes and Switchfoot gigs. Bill Reid with the Norva in Norfolk, Va., too. We spent three years as the Richmond Budweiser True Music band as well, and that helped us with some recognition. Planetary is on board now as well and helping us on the marketing end. So, I wouldn't really say the word has spread so fast about us, but it has definitely helped to get the word out there now that we have so many great assets on our team, and a marketable product that we are really excited about. We are just excited and thankful for the whole experience.

The song that appeared on "Baseball Tonight" is called "Sleeping Giant," and it's on Hiding Place. Of all the identifiable traits of Copper Sails, the chiming guitars are perhaps the things that get noticed right away. You really use them to create kind of starry atmospheres. How do you come up with the guitar parts for that song and others? It definitely seems to have some basis in early U2 and Doves, and bands like that.
JC: This is a guitar question being answered by a drum guy. Jon would certainly be the better person to answer, but since I am answering the questions, I will do my best. Jon would probably be mad at me for saying it on record, but he is just an amazing guitarist. Hands down, [he's] the best one I personally have ever played with. Although you do notice starry atmospheres and intricate melodies in the guitar parts right away, there is also a nicely orchestrated conglomeration of guitar and keys in many, if not most, of our songs. Kyle and Jon work tirelessly together to create melodies that complement each other, and don't step on one another. Jon is a great writer as well, and the songs he brings into the band to develop are mostly guitar based, but our writing sessions in practice often times lend to guitar parts that become organ parts and visa-versa. Kyle and Jon both have the skill for creating powerful moods, textures and tones.

As for the influences, you sure hit that nail right on the head. Jon, Boomer and really now Kyle and myself are all staunch U2 fans, and actually are quite fond of the Doves as well. None of us would be upset that you hear those influences in our music; in fact, it is quite the compliment to us. I was never much of a Brit-rock fan before I got involved with Copper Sails. I never had an appreciation for U2, and I had never even heard of the Doves. I'm really glad these guys introduced me to that genre of music, and with all of the other bands that I have grown to like as a result, I realize how much I had been missing out on.

In a way, Hiding Place comes across as dream pop, especially on the atmospheric "Spinning," but there's not that amorphous quality to your sound that you sometimes hear with that genre. There's real definition to all the instrumentation and the melodies. Was that something that was important to you?
JC: Absolutely. I cannot tell you how many songs we tried to write but lacked one specific part that we felt like it needed to be really good, and those songs generally get put on the back burner or tossed completely. We seem to generally hold to the pattern of writing definitive verses, chorus, bridges and other sections that set themselves apart from each other. I think we feel like that the individuality of the parts make them interesting in and of themselves but also flow nicely with each other as a whole song. Again, this goes back to all of us being part writers and doing what is best for a song as a general whole. We tend to attack songs in sections and make sure that each section is distinguishable to the listener, as well as complementing the rest of the song. "Spinning," as you referred to, is one of those songs that is very atmospheric and ethereal, but it still has structure that is easily defined by the listener. None of our stuff is really all over the place in that regard.

There's a real flash of sonic light in the choruses, especially on the title track and "Still Lost." And I think people relate to the combination of vulnerability and the summoning up inner strength found in the lyrics, especially in these times. I've always loved that combination of sonic grandeur and lyrics that look inward to gauge just how strong or weak you are. I think that's a contrast that results in something epic, because that struggle within — as self-absorbed as it sounds — is an epic one. Do you find that as well?  
JC: Jon and Boomer have written the majority of our lyrics. The band pretty much maintains the idea of democracy in this arena as well. Meaning that when we write a song in a practice session, Boomer or Jon or both generally come up with a natural vocal melody in conjunction with the music we are writing. Along with a rough vocal melody generally come rough, scratch lyrics to fill the melody until we figure out where the song is going, and what we want it to say. With that said, the scratch lyrics over the melody are pretty much open game for anyone in the band to write lyrics for. Jon and Boomer tend to be the ones that do this, and tend to be the ones that lyrically get their message out. I think you will see more of Kyle and myself writing lyrics as new songs come to fruition, but most of the lyrics you hear on Hiding Place came from the minds of Jon and Boomer.

As this is the case, I think you hear a lot of these "epic" internal battles and conflicts because that is where they were in their lives. The concepts of relationships and life-direction struggles. The "what am I supposed to do" and "why am I here" type things. Even though Kyle and I are both six or seven years older than the other two, we still relate to a lot of the issues that are in Copper Sails' lyrics, being as that it wasn't that long ago that we sat in similar shoes. I think that is why we don't feel the need to be so lyrically involved, and to let the two of them do most of the writing, because the issues they write about can hit home to the 21-year-old college student as well as the 50-year- old businessman. I hear that from fans of the band and my own friends when they listen to our music, and they are all over the board in ages. With that kind of feedback, I would say you are correct, many of our songs are a bit epic. I like that.

You had quite a recording team help out on this record. Talk about working with Mitch Easter (mixing), Greg Calbi (mastering) and Ted Comerford (producer).
JC: This is such an easy question to answer. I mean how could we have been more lucky? Talk about being in the right place at the right time. It all started with a relationship we developed with a band out of DC, and our good friends, No Second Troy. They were releasing their last album up in DC, and we were fortunate enough to get on the bill for the release show. Ted had been working with No Second Troy, as well as a number of other up-and-coming bands that were doing really well in the region. Ted heard us at that show, as he was present, and approached us about doing a record with him. I think it took us a couple of weeks to realize the magnitude of this opportunity. I mean, he is truly one of the great up-and-coming producers in the industry, who has already established a stellar resume for himself. Working with Ted was just an amazing experience. He is so good at what he does, and he has an ear for what makes the music better. We went in with the attitude that we would let Ted be the expert and follow his advice, which is what we did. I can't think of any ideas or changes he suggested that we didn't capitalize on, and those ideas only made the record better. It was truly an unforgettable experience.

As for Mitch Easter and Greg Calbi, I can only say what an amazing feeling it is to have the two of them like the music enough to be willing to work on the project. The support of those two guys energized us and gave us so much confidence that we had a marketable product. We all know those guys can pick and choose who they work with. Mitch Easter has to be the nicest person on the planet Earth. His studio is absolutely amazing, and he was just so nice about letting us in there and opening up his doors. It is a privilege just to have Greg Calbi and Sterling Sound's credentials on the CD, but what was so great about the combination of Mitch and Greg is that they really took the album to the next level. What's even better is the way people in the industry's ears perk up when they hear those three names. What an honor to have all three of them on the album.

You're going to be lumped in with the Death Cab For Cuties, Doves, Snow Patrols and Rogue Waves. How do you see yourselves establishing your own identity?
JC: I would really like to think that we have already done that. I hear all of these bands that you have mentioned here, and I do hear their influences stylistically, but I think we have worked really hard to develop our own sound. I think that myself and Kyle bring a fresh element to the music as our past musical influences are so different than those bands. So, the sounds might be buried in there, but I think it is still unique. I think Jon and Boomer have very unique and distinct voices, and myself, as well in the harmonies. The way Copper Sails regularly trades vocal parts and melodies between Jon and Boomer is unique as well — sometimes having two different vocal parts and two different melodies simultaneously. I'm certainly not suggesting that this has never been done before, but the combination of it all I believe gives us a unique sound and keeps it interesting. We can only hope that fans of the bands you have mentioned will gravitate to our music because they hear things they like, but at the same time they hear something new. I think the music shows the unique style in the range of age groups of fans we have, as they range from teenagers to middle aged adults.

A lot of people talk about dynamics at work in certain various songs. How would you describe the dynamics of Copper Sails? Is that just one of those nebulous concepts that hard to put into words?
JC: Dynamics is definitely not a nebulous concept to us. In fact, dynamics also play a significant part in our writing sessions. As a drummer, I play a large role in this. I think when you listen to our music you will hear definitive dynamic movement throughout the songs. None of us are really in favor of writing a song that stays on the same dynamic plane from beginning to end. It seems more interesting to us to move that dynamic around. The highs and lows so to speak take the listener to a much more interesting place in my opinion. This is not to say that songs can't be written without dynamics; it happens all the time. We just pay attention to it and try to vary the energy throughout the song dynamically. I think it works for us and makes the songs stronger.

What's next for Copper Sails? What's on the immediate horizon?
JC: Right now, our push is Hiding Place. We have invested a lot of time and energy in the album, and we really want to get it out there and give it the chance that we feel it deserves. So right now, we are working with Planetary and trying to capitalize on all of the things they are doing for us. We are marketing hard on Myspace and Facebook, as well as our newly updated website www.coppersails.com. We are still working with Ted and using his contacts to try and keep good, solid high-profile shows on the books, as well as continuing to work on licensing deals such as the ESPN opportunity that we had. Our big push now, after we released Hiding Place, is to keep the buzz going, and try to move this to the next level. We all have worked hard to get where we are, and only hope to continue to push the band and the music higher and higher. We really appreciate people such as yourself taking the time to ask us these questions and put us out there. We can't thank you enough.