For all of you who were wishing the interview-circuit-shy Axl Rose had more to say about the long-awaited debut of Chinese Democracy and why he's still recording under the Guns N' Roses name now that he's the only one remaining from the band's heyday…
Be careful what you wish for.
In response to fans' questions posted on the band's website, the Guns N' Roses frontman unloaded over the weekend in a 4,584-word (including emoticons!) open letter addressing everything from the current state of GNR to what happened with Slash to David Bowie's Pink Floyd preferences. (Apparently Bowie digs the Syd Barrett years.)
Saying he couldn't divulge his secrets sooner because he "could have jeopardized whatever nonsense was going on," Rose starts off by calling rumors that he was too unstable to take the stage during the band's dry spell "all made up, fallacy and fantasy."
"Had that been the case I would've have been cremated years ago legally, [my old bandmates] could've cleaned me out for the name and damages."
Rose also says that Slash was "on the up and up" as far as handing over the GNR name to Rose and never meant to paint his fellow "November Rain" maker as the bad guy. Not at first, anyway.
"But when the reality of the breakup hit and the strategy to have me crawl back was put into play, Slash had to save face and get business team and public support. Painting me as the one who held a crowd hostage forcing the others to sign over the name worked out pretty well in that regard. I'm the bad guy and Duff, the fans and most importantly himself were the victims…
"Media and others ignorantly, wrongly and falsely harped on about it at mine and the fans expense for years and Slash has hoped to use all that to continually sue and have some sort of legal nonsense going on behind the scenes in an effort to reverse things," Rose writes.
"He wouldn't have been able to get the support and action on the part of his various team members over the years to do so if the truth were out there, especially when the statute of limitations had run out years ago."
As far as keeping the name of what was once a four-man partnership goes: "Why keep the name? I'm literally the last man standing. Not bragging, not proud. It's been a f--king nightmare, but I didn't leave Guns and I didn't drive others out."
He calls the years-in-the-making Chinese Democracy "a Guns record [made] with the right people who were the only people who really wanted to help [him] try, were qualified and capable while enduring the public abuse for years."
And we know to what extent some fans just couldn't wait for the finished product. Kevin Cogill, who admittedly leaked pirated Chinese Democracy tracks online before the album dropped, formally pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge of violating federal copyright law.
Cogill is facing a maximum of one year in prison, a $100,000 fine and five years' probation.
But while he obviously didn't care with whom Rose was making music, so long as he was making music, Rose felt the need to further explain GNR's evolution over the last decade.
"I don't see myself as solely Guns, but I do see myself as the only one from the past making the effort to take it forward whether anyone approves or not and giving beyond what many would or fight for to do so...I don't feel any reason whatsoever I should have to throw what I've not only worked for but fought and suffered for away because some hurt, angry, betrayed, misguided and lied to people with a lynch mob mentality, joined by others who could care less (especially in the media), enjoying the controversy and hate, choose one over the other regardless of what's right because they want what they want.
"As to what would possibly make me change the name would be some form of evolving that I don't feel we've reached yet and not in any way consciously trying to at this time. It's really hard to say. I'd have to feel it was right for me and those involved and whatever we're doing at that time."
Besides, he adds, Universal Music Group wanted the GNR name, figuring that was what would sell albums.
"I wasn't legally obligated, but we probably would have gotten dropped and I would have been driven into bankruptcy," he writes.
"I think it varies and happy Christmas to u and everyone."
That wasn't the end of his letter, but it seemed to us like a good place to stop.