With All Due Respect to Tommy Clufetos
As someone fully aware of how the music business can and will screw anyone who isn’t the face of a band (and they’ll happily screw those people as well), I understand that some reunions aren’t meant to be. However, don’t expect fans to be super excited about them when there are replacement members in the lineup.
Band reunions mean big money—especially when the original or most popular lineup reunites. If it’s a bigger group like, say, The Police or Led Zeppelin, it’s an absolute certainty that the band will sell out arenas and stadiums around the world, raking in hundreds of millions. For that kind of money, you’d have to be incredibly foolish not to put your tail between your legs, hide your ego, and bottle up any enmity and hatred towards your now-once-again bandmates.
That’s why I find the new reports of Guns N’ Roses’ recently “reunited” lineup to be utterly ridiculous.
Those reports disclose a lineup of Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Dizzy Reed, Frank Ferrer, Richard Fortus.
Wait, Frank and Richard who?
That’s right. These “reunion” reports only have three out of five original—and still surviving—members.
Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of this highly publicized reunion. But I can tell you that fans, many of whom have been begging to see the real deal for over twenty years, will be disappointed. Sure, there are countless fans who are clamoring to see Slash and Axl Rose on stage together. But that’s not Guns N’ Roses. That’s Page & Plant.
The overwhelming majority of fans want to see Duff, Izzy, and Steven alongside Axl and Slash for this reunion tour—and if Steven can’t or won’t do it, Matt Sorum would certainly suffice.
(At least Dizzy Reed played with the classic lineup, having been a touring member of GNR since 1990.)
This reminds me a lot of what’s been going on with Black Sabbath.
In 2012, Bill Ward sat alongside former Black Sabbath bandmates Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, and Ozzy Osbourne to announce a brand new album—their first since 1978—and a world tour. Sure, they’ve toured on and off again since 1998 or so, mainly on Ozzfest, but this time, it wasn’t just another golden oldies set. This time, they had something to say, and something to prove. So when Bill Ward announced he was holding out over contractual disputes, most fans thought, “Okay, they’ll figure something out.”
They never did. So they hired Tommy Clufetos, the drummer in Ozzy’s solo band, to do the job. A drummer who was born in 1979—a full year after Ozzy originally left the group—is now about to sit behind the kid as they embark on their upcoming farewell tour.
With all due respect to Tommy Clufetos, Frank Ferrer, and Richard Fortus, who are all insanely talented musicians, if a band is touting a reunion tour, they will mainly be seen as interlopers by fans who want to see the “classic” lineups, not some replacements. It’s like seeing the hottest Broadway show and getting an understudy. Sure, they’re talented and will do the job just fine, but that’s not what you wanted… and it sure isn’t what you paid to see.
And if they couldn’t get a member or two of the classic lineup, they could have at least looked into the past instead of picking up a hired gun. Chris Slade’s return to AC/DC is the perfect example of that.
AC/DC did it the right way. After Phil Rudd’s legal troubles, they didn’t just get some hired gun. They looked to their past and got the mighty Slade, who played with the group from 1989 to 1994, to rejoin the group.
He has a history with the band, which the fans respect. So you can’t get Steven Adler or Matt Sorum to play on the tour. Fine, use your current guy. But come on… Gilby Clarke couldn’t get a phone call if Izzy wasn’t going to do it?
This isn’t Jeff Lynne and ELO, where it’s one guy whose name we know in front of a bunch of nobodies. He can get away with doing that. But at what point does it become a respected reunion or just a cynical money grab?
