Appetite for animation: Axl Rose releases first song in 10 years, with help from Bugs Bunny
Axl Rose is back with his first new song in more than a decade. But it’s not a new Guns N’ Roses song. This time, he’s got an appetite for animation, belting “Rock the Rock” in an episode of the Boomerang network’s New Looney Tunes.
The last time the once-reclusive Guns N’ Roses frontman released original music was in November 2008, via his ever-mutating band’s long-delayed, ill-fated Chinese Democracy album. In 2016, Rose reunited with two members of the classic GNR lineup, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan, for the “Not in This Lifetime” tour, which became the second-highest-grossing concert tour of all time — but that reunion has so far resulted in no new music. Instead, Rose’s comeback track is a solo outing, written not by Rose nor his bandmates but by Looney Tunes’ Rob Janas and Joshua Funk.
“Rock the Rock” admittedly sounds a bit more like AC/DC — with whom Rose toured in 2016, filling in for AC/DC singer Brian Johnston — than like Guns N’ Roses. But there’s no mistaking Rose’s raspy growl or aviator-shaded, bandanna-swathed, lank-haired, cowboy-booted likeness in the New Looney Tunes video.
The viral clip stars the cartoon Axl — backed by an all-star band featuring not Slash and Duff, but Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig — utilizing the sonic powers of rock ’n’ roll to stop an asteroid on a collision course with Earth from annihilating the planet. The New Looney Tunes episode, titled “Armageddon Outta Here, Part Two,” aired in late December, but Boomerang only just confirmed that the character and song are indeed voiced by Rose.
Guns N’ Roses’ two and a half year “Not in This Lifetime” tour ended Dec. 8, and the band members have hinted that new GNR material may be forthcoming. During a rare interview for Iceland magazine in July 2018, Rose himself quipped, “You never know,” when asked about the possibility. In September, Slash told Yahoo Entertainment he was “totally open” to recording with Guns N’ Roses again, saying, “If it happens, it happens — great. And I would love to see that happen, and I’m sure that’s pretty much universal with all of us. But it’s just a matter of we’ve been touring this entire time since we got back together, so there’s nothing etched in stone as far as a plan is concerned. But hopefully it’ll happen. … Band relations are great. I can’t put into words how awesome the whole experience has been, and the way everybody’s been getting along and so on.”
But last month, the band’s other current guitarist, Richard Fortus (who played on Chinese Democracy), was more specific and enthusiastic, surprisingly telling KSHE.95: “We’re going to try and do another record and get it out soon. The band’s so great right now. I think it will happen faster than you think. I sure hope it happens faster than you think.”
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Slash talks addiction, recovery: ‘I was fortunate. I didn’t die, and I didn’t go to prison’
Slash talks ’80s versus #MeToo era: Some GNR songs were ‘sort of sexist,’ but never ‘malicious’
Living the dream: How David Bowie, Sylvester, and Neil Young shaped Slash’s rock ‘n’ roll childhood
Appetite for reconstruction: A look back at Guns N’ Roses’ landmark debut album
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