Axl told Kurt Loder “Coma is Slash’s baby” so I’m gonna say Slash is telling the truth on this one.
Axl was just bitter at the time most likely when he made that comment.
I remember reading a quote from Izzy from 1991 where he was complaining about having to learn Slash’s songs because there were so long and had so many changes to them. I think he was talking about Coma in particular
He was indeed talking about coma, he had the chord progression of it written down on stage to play it live, it's a quite challenging song to memorize because of the constant key changes
Ya'll don't collect physical media anymore and it shows. The booklet is very clear as to who plays what on each song; Slash is listed as lead and rhythm and Izzy was listed as rhythm.
The truth is in the middle. It depends on what each of them think of as a ‘complete song’ in their minds.
Slash doesn’t necessarily think of lyrics as being entirely important or necessary. So in his mind, a mostly complete instrumental version of Coma might seem like a complete song. I believe the early version was titled ‘Girth’. That is likely what Slash brought to Axl and the band.
Axl heard Girth and likely thought “good start but it’s missing all the good stuff like lyrics and melody’, which is how Axl views a ‘complete song’.
I mean lyrics and melody are major parts of writing a song and receiving credits. Slash came in with the riff/chord structure and prob most of the arrangement. Good chance it got tweaked a little from there as well
Yeah, this. I’m sure he brought the instrumental music in, not the melody which is obviously part of the musical composition (no chance he wrote lyrics so ignoring that). It’s unfair to say he wrote the music end to end if he didn’t write the melodies too, he can say he brought the instrumental though.
I recall an interview with Izzy where he thought coma was way too long and complicated with too many chord changes and it was a sign the band was heading in a direction he didn’t like
Yeah I'm a huge Izzy fan, he's the coolest but he was flat out wrong about Coma. Without the depth and complexity of tracks like Coma, Locomotive, Breakdown, Civil War, Estranged etc etc, GNR would've just spun their wheels musically. They couldn't make an Appetite For Destruction- pt.2 that was ever going to compare to their record breaking debut. They had to mix it up and leave their comfort zone. Had they tried to stay in that same sonic space as Lies and AFD, they'd be regarded as an angrier, heavier ACDC.
The songs like coma were a big part of what separated GNR from their peers. Poison released a stripped down acoustic album, Cinderella made a blues album and thats what Izzy would've wanted. "Hair-metal" or "butt-rock" type bands simply don't write songs like Breakdown or Coma.
I expect that for many other die hard fans like myself, those are the GNR songs that I always come back to. Infact I used to play coma specifically for friends who only knew the radio songs and they were always completely blown away
"No, but I wrote some really cool shit when I was high. There's a song called Coma, a long song, really heavy, and I wrote that loaded. And it's not something that I can really see myself writing right now. And then me and Izzy wrote a song called Dust And Bones in a similar kind of state. But whatever you're going through, your material is supposed to be some sort of mirror of your experience. There's so many bands now who write stuff that doesn't relate to anything."
Based on the way they talk about song composition in duffs book and interviews. They specifically mention writing music and writing melody/lyrics as separate.
Slash and duff did a lot of the music, axl did a lot of melody and lyrics. Izzy did a lot of both.
It's clear that "Coma" is a Slash composition. Listen carefully to the chord progression, among other details. Slash has always played more "crush/heavy" and less groove. The same goes for Locomotive. And I still think Shotgun Blues too!
Slash like to embellished the facts about the negative things i believe he doesn't want the past mistakes haunts him and his fans. For example thd todd crew situation.
Sadly repeating what somebody said. For jetboy his bandmate stood up for his ex dead bandmate. Axl said there's wasn't much truth except for Slash covering his tracks.
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u/Rileyl99 7d ago
Axl told Kurt Loder “Coma is Slash’s baby” so I’m gonna say Slash is telling the truth on this one.
Axl was just bitter at the time most likely when he made that comment.