Guns N’ Roses quietly passed their 40th year as a band in 2025. But they’re hardly resting on their legendary status. They released two new songs, “Nothin'” and “Atlas” in early December and as Slash shares, there’s more to come.
But there’s an important asterisk here. While the songs that have been released since the band reunited in 2016 have been material that originated largely in the Chinese Democracy era, the guitarist tells UCR that going forward, they’re going to be focusing on freshly written songs.
“These songs that were already done, it was basically just the song itself and going, what’s my guitar interpretation of this song going to be? So it’s fun for me, because I get to write something to a pre-existing thing,” he explains. “Which calls for a different set of tools than when you’re just writing for yourself.”
“It was just fun because the songs themselves are great, and I just want to come up with some cool guitar parts,” he continues. “It’s not something that we can rehearse and have it naturally evolve. You got to write whatever you’re going to write and record it, and then that’s going to be it. It’s an interesting kind of a challenge.”
READ MORE: Guns N’ Roses’ Post-Reunion Songs, Ranked
‘These are the Last of the ‘Chinese Democracy’ Stuff’
According to Slash, ‘Nothin” and ‘Atlas’ are the final songs they’ll be excavating from the GN’R recordings that Axl Rose worked on during the time that he and Duff McKagan were both out of the lineup and he appreciated the challenge that was presented by the unknown.
“These are the last of the Chinese Democracy stuff,” he confirms. “And it was the last two that we did. They were [both] just really cool. The vibe on ‘Nothin” was something that I was really like, well, this is different, for a Guns song. That’s the cool thing about those songs, is that we weren’t around for the inception of them. So some of the stuff is different than what I would have written for this part or that part. It’s an interesting kind of project, [working on] each one of them.”
Listen to Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Nothin’
Will Guns N’ Roses Make a New Album?
The guitarist says it’s going to happen. He credits the fans for the energy that they continue to feed off of. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s just us and them,” he says. “It’s not about the business, it’s not about f–king keeping up with the Joneses. It’s just us writing material and the audience that ingests it, right? We’ve had such a great relationship with the fans this entire time. It’s very fun and creatively inspiring.”
They Have a ‘Ton’ of ‘Amazing’ New Material
“The new material that’s going to come up from from us getting back together is going to be amazing. I mean, we have a ton of it, so I know it’s amazing,” he shares. “[We’re always writing], but it’s hard. It’s hard for us to stop it and just go, ‘Okay, we’re gonna sit down and we’re gonna make this record. Now, none of the our records were done that way. They were just sort of spur of the moment.”
‘You Just Never Know Exactly When the Moment is Going to Happen’
“Even [the] Use Your Illusion [albums] which we did do a lot of pre-production for, a long time went by before we actually sat down and made the record,” the guitarist explains. “But then one day, we got together and put all 30 songs together in one afternoon at my house, and then went in the studio and recorded it. So once it gets going, it just goes. But you just never know exactly when that moment is going to happen.”
READ MORE: Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Use Your Illusion: The Story Behind Every Song’
For the moment, it’s the road which will keep Guns N’ Roses (pretty) tied up for the bulk of 2026. They’ll begin their extensive world tour Mar. 28 in Latin America. Here are the currently confirmed dates for North America.
Listen to Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Atlas’
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Gallery Credit: Bryan Rolli
