Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash revealed the band plans to take a break from touring in 2027 to focus on working on the band’s upcoming new album.
Speaking on Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Slash said: “We’ll get done with [shows in India, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand in November and December], and next year basically Guns is off. But I’m hoping that, because we have so much material that we need to sort of, like, put together and start getting into that whole phase, so I’m hoping that’s what the next phase is gonna be.”
“We have so much material, and it’s all over the place, and it needs to… That’s one of the things that’s been hard to do, is the amount of time and focus it takes to sort of get all that material together and start working on it.”
“It doesn’t work on the road. Writing on the road for me is easy, and I’m the only one that seems to like to sort of sit up all night and do that. But Duff [McKagan, Guns N’ Roses bassist] does his own thing, and Axl [Rose, Guns N’ Roses singer] does his own thing. And so we’re all creating on the road just individually. But getting us together and trying to do that while you’re touring is next to impossible.”
The planned hiatus would give the band time to organize material created separately by its members, a process Slash describes as difficult to manage during an extended touring schedule. His comments also place the wait for a new Guns N’ Roses album in the context of the group’s recent history.
Guns N’ Roses has not released a full-length studio album since Chinese Democracy in 2008, leaving an 18-year gap that the band’s next project would close. Since then, the group has issued standalone tracks rather than a complete record.
The band released “Absurd” and “Hard Skool” in 2021, both drawn from previously unreleased recordings that date back to the early 2000s. The two songs marked the first new Guns N’ Roses material to feature Slash and McKagan since the 1990s.
The long pause between albums followed one of the most extensive touring periods in the band’s history. The Not in This Lifetime… Tour ran from April 1, 2016, to November 2, 2019, and featured Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan performing together for the first time since the early 1990s.
The reunion trek played 158 concerts across six continents and grossed $584.2 million from 5,371,891 tickets, making it the third-highest-grossing tour in history at the time.
