Unless you've been living under a rock, you're well aware that the Guns N Roses "Not In This Lifetime" tour, marking the reunion of Axl, Slash, and Duff on stage together, was easily one of the best attended tours in history. Through out the momentous reunion, that even saw original drummer Steven Adler make appearances at select shows, it was clear a couple guys in GNR history were absent. Namely the rhythm guitar section.
Original guitarist, Izzy Stradlin, has already gone on record to explain his absence in a single twitter sentence:
"They didn’t want to split the loot equally. Simple as that. Moving right along.”
But today we hear from Gilby Clarke, who joined the band on the "Use Your Illusion" tour and remained part of the band for years. In a new interview with Eddie Truck, Clarke goes on to discuss whether or not he was asked to be part of the come back:
"They did. Yeah, they did. When it first started, they did reach out to me to come and play."
When asked about why he declined:
"My daughter, Frankie, has a band [FRANKIE + THE STUDS]," he said. "They asked me the same day my daughter's band was playing Lollapalooza [in July 2016], which was like the biggest break for her band. It was the same day they were playing Lollapalooza and I had to be there, and I couldn't really give that up to go [jam with GN'R]."
Although a missed opportunity, it's heart warming that Clarke puts family first. The guitarist goes on to say he has no hard feelings and still friendly with the guys, and is open to the possibility of working with them in the future, which would be awesome to see!
Check out the full interview below, and if you still haven't seen GNR's Not In This Lifetime tour, it's about to kick off the 10th leg which you can find dates for here.
