Axl Rose has an odd idea of album promotion. The long awaited Guns n’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, was released after a 15-year wait on November 23rd. But no one has been able to find Rose for the last 2 months.

Despite all the effort put into one of the most extravagant rock albums of all time, staff could not contact Axl to get him to promote his rock epic.

In fact, they failed to make contact with him from the day he delivered the final cut.

Chinese Democracy’s first week US sales are between 300,000 and 500,000. Yet their 1987 debut album Appetite For Destruction went on to sell a staggering 28million, so they have a long way to go with their new effort.

An insider said: “Everyone knows Axl is a bit of a maverick genius and won’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.

“The label is really glad to have him back. But it is frustrating because the album would have had a much better chance of going to No1 if he had only been prepared to show his face.

“People have been trying to contact him for two months and he’s been completely AWOL.

“You would have thought after spending 15 years on an album you might do a few weeks promotion.”

[From The Sun]

But the reason no one can find Axl may be an even bigger payoff if the rumors are true. Rumor has it Axl is trying to get Izzy Stradlin and Slash back into Gn’R. Stradlin has said publicly that he’d like to see the original band back together and Slash’s group Velvet Revolver is all but kaput. Slash has been putting together a solo album with various featured singers since he knew Revolver was failing. After seeing how well Chinese Democracy is doing, though, even without proper promotion he may be persuaded. There’s a lot of water under that bridge for Axl and Slash, but money has motivated bigger rivals to put aside their differences before.

Axl Rose is shown out on 7/3/06 in London. Credit: Bauergriffin