It’s funny to think of Axl doing this as someone who had been just about the biggest rock star in the world. As a nobody I have done it to myself many times and have pretty much only ever finished songs if other people are actively involved and provide the impetus to say it’s done and we have to move on. It’s just wild to think someone like Axl who should feel confident as anyone could be a victim of his own insecurity like any of us, and to the point it more or less destroyed him as an artist.
Slash's book goes into great detail about the writing process in Guns and their group dynamic.
From their formation to the release of Appetite they were destitute and borderline criminal low lives who associated with strippers, hookers, bikers, drug dealers (for obvious reasons) and other lost souls. Duff was the most well-put together, as he always had a job and a live-in girlfriend and was merely an alcoholic. The rest of them lived transient lifestyles, either crashing at known party houses, shacking up with strippers or living in a storage unit behind Guitar Center, which was their jam space.
The band was the core of their social circle, they lived, worked and partied together. Most of the people around them, who lived the same lifestyle but didn't have their ambitions, ended up sucked into heroin addiction and other life-ruining vices. One of these people was immortalized in "My Michelle," and she eventually got out of LA and started a family.
It was in this environment that the songs for Appetite For Destruction, and many for Use Your Illusion, were written. The band was a singular, functioning working unit. Steven, Slash and Izzy all had heroin problems and Axl was insane but they functioned. Slash got off heroin for the recording of Appetite and stayed off for the tour.
After the Appetite For Destruction tour the band went on a break. This is where it all fell apart, because they were no longer that same united gang. This was the first time since forming that they put the band on pause for a bit and went their separate ways, and it almost destroyed the band. Slash went deep into heroin for two years. Izzy hit rock bottom and went back to Indiana to get sober. Steven completely disintegrated on drugs. And Axl withdrew from all of them. Without that common goal, that immediate fight to survive, their bonds slackened and never really pulled back.
The band moved to Chicago to be closer to Izzy, who was still too fragile to feel safe in LA. The band moved out there... but Axl didn't come out for weeks and Izzy didn't either. So they were just jamming and partying without Axl or Izzy. Eventually the five got together, but by then Slash was fed up and went back to LA, which Axl never forgive him for. Eventually Slash got off heroin and the band were able to reconvene at his house. They took stock off all their material, songs that pre-dated Appetite ("Don't Cry" and "November Rain," which was supposed to be on Appetite but was bumped for "Sweet Child O' Mine," which is another thing Axl resented), songs that had been written during the Appetite sessions and tour ("Perfect Crime," "You Could Be Mine," "Civil War") and songs that had been written in Chicago ("Estranged" and "Get in the Ring"). Slash wanted to pick the best twelve and polish them up, but Axl wanted a double-album. Slash's concession was that they be released separately (funny how CD changed perspectives so quickly - both Use Your Illusion I and II were each released on vinyl as double albums, so Use Your Illusion was really a quad album).
When UYI was recorded the band as a whole recorded a song a day, then Slash rerecorded all of his guitar parts. When he finished he left the studio and Axl came in to do his vocals.... the next time Slash heard the music, there were massive amounts of key, orchestration and backing vocals all over the album. Slash lamented it and wished the original versions were available somewhere, although he acknowledged the quality of it all. All of it had been programmed and performed by Axl, by himself. There was also a new track on the album, "My World," which was the result of Axl doing a shitload of mushrooms in the studio. Izzy didn't know about it until the album came out and it was a breaking point for him.
After the UYI tour the band struggled to find their footing in the studio. Izzy had quit, and he had been the only person who could get through to Axl. Duff was now sober after his pancreas had exploded, so Slash didn't really have anyone to drink and party with. Axl took complete control over the band, and this is where it became the band sitting around and jamming, waiting for Axl to show up. It got to the point where Slash just hung out at the strip club around the corner and had a messenger tell him when Axl had showed up. Massive amounts of money were being burned with no productivity. When Axl did show up he didn't actually sing, he just sat and listened as they recorded into Pro-Tools. Then after they left he'd stay up all night "working on it." Slash on his own recorded demos of new songs, which Axl rejected, so that became the first Snakepit album.
The holding pattern remained for years. Gilby was fired by Axl without approval from anyone. Slash quit in 96. Duff quit in 97, frustrated that after three years of work there wasn't a single song. Matt was fired in 97 for telling Axl that there is no Guns without Slash. And this is the situation Ezrin saw when he arrived on the scene years later.
Once Axl became one of those cigarette holder turds he lost touch with what made it cool. What made it cool was they were a bunch of street urchins making straight up rock n roll. Now the dude probably lives in a gated community up in his ivory tower, completely out of touch.
This is the problem with all bands who come "from the streets."
When being a gutter rat is just a marketing image they can maintain it forever. But Guns lived that lifestyle, and it wasn't necessarily by choice. There are many moments on Appetite that lament their lifestyle and wish for something nicer. That's why they never worried about November Rain and Estranged and Patience fucking up their image, their image was just a reflection of who they were and who they were changed.
Same thing happened to Metallica. Their schtick was that they climbed out of the pit onto the stage, but once they were megazillionaires they can't project that same image and be honest about it. They wound up pigeonholed in thrash, and alienated their original fanbase more and more with every new album they put out. Like, fuck them for wanting to put out hard rock tunes? Fuck them for not wanting to deal with long ass hair anymore? Can't win.
this forum is funny.. everyone complains everything sounds the same, but then they get pumped on other bands from the era putting out the most cookie cutter shit and think its cool "they are still doing it" and are knocking over old ladies as they run to ticketmaster to buy tickets at 9am when macys opens. Guns though actually does something a little different and its the worst thing ever and someone needs to tell them to retire 
