More thoughts on Izzaxl
Okay so i dont wanna get all heavy but i cant help but see parallels between Izzy and Axl and other creative pairs such as Jagger-Richards and Lennon-McCartney.
I know i answered an ask rather flippantly abt how Izzaxl would be as a couple, but seriously, the creative tension and passion between these two was THE fuel that ignited and propelled GnR.
Duff is really great and all and Slash and Stevie were a tight pair with history as well. I don’t deny the elements they added to the mix that made the band great.
But Izzaxl was the core element.
Consider the way everything blew up when Izzy left… Axl’s fury…whoa that was next level!
Axl never got over it. Izzy had moved on and was MAKING A SOLO RECORD that he had wanted to make FOR A LONG TIME.
And Axl NEVER wanted to go solo. He never had that inner security. Consider how many times he pulled away out of fear. Stage fright. Izzy just wanted to play. And the lengths Izzy went to pull him back into the fold.
Climbing trees outside Axl’s window is next level.
Izzy was saying to Axl, hey man, you’re great. I believe you’re an amazing singer and we’re gonna make it if we stick together and keep our shit together.
Intense.
But by the start of UYI recordings, Izzy and Axl were approaching music from very different perspectives and whereas before their strengths meshed and complemented the other, now they just rubbed and irritated.
Izzy wanted to record fast and instinctive. He didn’t second guess the material was good enough. Raw and inmediate. That’s his style.
Axl agonised over the material and took an age to record and re-record everything and analyse and perfect and produce it to the Nth degree.
As Izzy withdrew from the band and reclaimed his life and sanity, Axl’s spiral into chaos shows the level of intense emotional grief from the singer towards his former partner in crime.
The relationship seems quite profound, perhaps felt more strongly by Axl due to his childhood trauma and the way Izzy offered him things he hadn’t received before.
Respect, approval, inclusion, protection.
After Izzy left, he wasn’t 💯 sure if it was for good, but Axl’s tirades against Izzy from the stage and in the press only made Izzy pull back more. What a powder keg!
The tension that sparked so much creativity in the mid 80s could never last.
It’s clear by what little original output GnR had post 92, that the separation of these two key songwriters and teenage allies, messed with them both - Izzy temporarily withdrawing from the music industry after making his solo record (with a band backing him) and Axl doing the same by mothballing GnR in the mid 90s.
And the bridge still hasn’t been fully restored - I don’t know if it ever will. So Izzy remains the missing man from the current band reunion. Not that they’re creating great music anymore.
It’s too bad. But we have to understand that between Izzy and Axl, there’s too much history. Too much betrayal.
