October 11, 2025 • 33 mins
Axl has teamed up with Sumerian Comics to launch a brand-new graphic novel series, "Axl Rose: Appetite For Destruction." Nathan Yocum, Sumerian co-founder and series co-creator, joins to tell us all about it!
More info:
https://sumerian.ink/
https://www.instagram.com/sumeriancomics/
Our website: www.afdpod.com
More info:
https://sumerian.ink/
https://www.instagram.com/sumeriancomics/
Our website: www.afdpod.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Axel has been the greatest to work with, the wrest
of Guns and Roses team has been phenomenal work with.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the podcast, Appetite four Distortion, Episode number five
hundred and thirty five. My name is Brando. Welcome to
the podcast. Mister Nathan yoakum. Oh you sir.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm doing good, Man, doing good.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I told you off the air. I'm intimidated a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm bearded and I have glasses, I have hair, but
you you rocket better than I do. I mean, I
feel like we should be. I don't know, like you're like,
are you a cousin? I gotta ask.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I've got to say. I have a Yankee head on too.
I think so this is weird.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
As we're taping this, Yankees got a huge win. We'll
see what happens, uh, what happens when we release it.
But that's but I digress. We're going to get into
the reason why you're here, Nathan. I'm I'm excited to
talk to you about so many things. Your work now
with Axel Rose on a comic book Axel Rose Appetite
for Destruction. Uh, it's I can't wait to talk to
(01:06):
you about that. I can't wait to talk to you.
I don't know if you could see my background, because
I've gen r st. I brought out some of my
old comics. I got Spot number one. I got a Superman,
old Superman from my dad's collection. I bet him around me.
Even I got look at this this is show Hotel.
I even got a red a stimpy comic from when
(01:27):
I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Collection.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So anyway, so it needless to say, I'm excited to
talk to you. So before we get into the whole
Axl Rose experience, I would love to know more about
you man and Samerian comics. How did that happen? That's
that's uh, it's very cool, and it's been going on,
I believe since twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, it's it's weird. We launched it unknowingly during COVID.
That was like in January, we sent our first books
to the distributor and March, you know, when COVID happened.
That's our first books hit that catalog and all the
stores shut down. The catalog never got printed and so
(02:06):
like that was me and my business partner who started
the company in like twenty nineteen ish, but put our
first books out in twenty twenty. That was that was tough,
but that was the crazy thing. So that was like
when we were putting our first comics out and we
had to deal with that, the whole up and down
of COVID, and we ended up selling almost half a
(02:27):
million comics that first year despite all that, the stores
being shut down and the craziness. We didn't really have
any licensed books though. It was like all original stuff
that we're working with so many artists from Brazil, Argentina, Italy,
Franci just great collection of artists and stuff on original
(02:47):
properties and and it just kind of went from there.
Twenty twenty one, I think we almost sold a million,
and then twenty twenty two is when we sold the
company and we sold it to my business partner, a
guy named aash Averltson his dad, who he directed Rocky
and Karate Kid and all that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
He's a great dude.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
He owns Samerian Records, amongst a ton of other companies,
but Samaran Records has a bunch of great like hard
rock and metal artists like bat Omens and Poppy and
the Solder Turberbel and a lot a lot of great artists,
and that's where all this music stuff kind of diverged
with comics finally in like twenty twenty two, and slowly
(03:29):
since then we've been doing that.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So we still do some of the originals, some of.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
The other lives and stuff like American Psycho and The Crow,
but the music stuff is where my heart's at. And
so this Guns N' Roses one was a really cool thing, obviously,
like a cool.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Thing to be part of.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
But yeah, that's the gist of Since twenty twenty it
started real small, which is me and one other guy.
Now it's a much bigger thing. We're here in Nashville,
a bunch of us here in the office with the
records team, the film's team, the Hip Parader magazine guys,
and a bunch of other crews.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It's a cool operation now.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And we're going to talk about because you're a relaunching
hit parader, right, We're gonna talk I mean, there's cool
stuff to talk about. But again, before we get to that,
because I don't know this. I wanted to get to
know the guy more that because Axel Rose doesn't do
much lately with music and this was so random. Nathan,
Why Nathan, that's so cool? Time for a lifetime. So
(04:25):
to get to know you is where did the comic
thing I guess start? Because again I'm into comics. Obviously
I was. It kind of dissipated with my youth, but
I tried to draw. You know, it was something I
really had to work at and it was not a
natural talent. Where does that come from?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
For you?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And for you to a comic business. It's got to
be so difficult because it's so it's oversaturated. But just
the fact that you have originals out there that are
selling so well, and you have these licenses, you know,
these iconic like again like the Crow coming to you.
How does I guess, how does that part of the
Nathan story happen? Because you're living the dream and then
(05:08):
now you got this actual thing added on to the dream.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, I mean the story.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I mean for me, it came like we worked in
the video game industry and me who my business partner did.
I think one of the big things that you deal
with over there is you work on properties for three
to five years. They cost millions of dollars. It's one
property and it can get cut at any time, sometimes
four years in thirty million dollars in and they're like,
(05:35):
you know what, this isn't viable anymore, and we're gonna
lay off the whole team, and you got to move
back to wherever you moved from, you know. And it's
just that industry was such a difficult thing, and it
was just creatively something I was so excited to get
into and ended up being just the opposite of what
I thought it would be.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And so comics was a natural thing.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I guess. It wasn't ever a financial thing or so
much worried about this of it. It was just more
of like a need for creative output. It was something
like you're putting out monthly comics, you're constantly creating new ip.
There's so much in the creative process, from the artists
to the colors, to the letterists, to the writer to
(06:15):
the editor. Then there's the business sides of it, which
I got to be part of for the first time,
which I didn't do in the video game industry, but
in the comics that I get to be seeing, like
the distribution side and how that worked, the printing side
of things. So it was really just that part of it,
just like that need for creative output. And yeah, that's
(06:38):
really just the story of how we got there and
working towards AXEL is just it's such a jump from
twenty twenty to twenty twenty five, like every year it's
it's you could probably trace it back like one property
at a time. It's like, Okay, if we didn't get
that one, I couldn't have eventually had that pitch that
we made to GNR and AXL. So it's like you
(07:01):
can trace it back. But it really comes down to
one person, and that person's a guy named Bart bart
Son who's a good friend of mine. He works at a
company called Primary Wave. It's an awesome, awesome, awesome company.
They hold the rights to a bunch of different artists,
(07:22):
uh you name them. Literally, they've probably owned some sort
of rights to them, whether it's the publishing rights, the
name and likeness rights or something. And it just so happened.
He called me one day and he was like, you're
gonna love this. It's like all the artists you've talked about.
He's like, you tell me all the time. He's like,
you want rock, you want metal artists, and we got
(07:44):
we got these jazz artists and these classic artists who
don't care about He's like, I got the.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Artist for you this time. And I was like, all right, tell.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Me, tell me who you got and and so yeah,
and that's that's when he told me that they were
doing the deal with Axel And from there it was
like I couldn't want to go. It was whatever we
had to do to get the deal done. I chased
it for two months and the deal was done. It
was funny. We thought it was going to be a
two year long process, something that was difficult to close.
(08:17):
Two months later we closed the deal. Axl has been
the greatest to work with. This project has had a
great launch. The rest of the Guns and Roses team
has been phenomenal work with nothing but positive things to say.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's crazy, awesome, awesome, So let's make the pivot right there.
So it was announced and it's funny. So is there
so much fake news out today? It almost I had
to reread the headline in the story again, like right,
Axel's he's doing what Axel Rose and Sumerian Comics are
presenting the graphic novel series Axel Rose Appetite for Destruction
(08:50):
and if I can try to put in my best
movie voice, set in the undrenched Paradise city where humans
and robots are meant to coexist? How about the struct
follows Axel Rose, half human, half robot, who lives on
the fringes and finds solace in the music of a
back alley lounge singer. When she vanishes under mysterious circumstances,
(09:13):
Axel's axel search for answers drags him into deadly conspiracy,
into a deadly conspiracy, one that could decide the fate
of humanity itself. So you and Axel Rose wrote this story.
Let's take a step back. How did this happen? You
pitched the idea, they pitched it. Who said Axel Rose
needs to have a comic book? Yeah, so this came
(09:37):
from your brain?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And so.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
How did it happened to make that mark? I could
say anybody you know?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, I mean when? So when Primary Wa've got those rights?
And Bart naturally was like to Axel's prime for a
graphic novel. He told me what Fernando and Vanessa, you know,
his his management team, what they were thinking, like, here's
the next steps for Axel logically outside music. Honestly, here's
the next steps for him? And Bart's like, dude, graphic
(10:04):
novel is one of the best ways to like make
this guy into this this badass character, right, let him
live on forever outside of music in other ways, and
so that that was really it. So whenever it came
to doing that pitch, it was like I didn't know
what he would think.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Obviously, I was.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Like, great, you know, I mean, I'm probably pitching the
dumbest thing in the world. He's going to read it
and be like, yeah, I don't want to do this shit,
but whatever, you know, but I send it to him.
There's three pitches, and the craziest thing happened. I send
him to three pitches. He comes back through Fernando and
we talked and he says, Axel wants to do all
(10:44):
three and I was just like, okay, so how does
that work. And he was like yeah, let's well, we
want to do like a trilogy of books. And I
was like, okay, so we can like rework this story
into like this sort of trilogy. And this is overarching.
Axle is the main character at all three. First ones,
Appetite for destruction, second, third ones are different. You know,
(11:06):
obviously you can guess where it's going. And so yeah,
it was as simple as that. It's I almost wish
there was like a story where it's like being acxul
had to fight over something and we had to like
He's like, no, change this. And now he was so
easy to work with. There was great creative input that
he gave so many times throughout the process around like
(11:27):
he's like, well I would say this, you know in
this part, like in this scene.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
This is more how I would act.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And feedback like that. That was phenomenal. And one thing
about how involved he was. I really appreciated some artists
you can trollably don't really care so much Axel. He
was really into this story where he was calling the
characters by their names when he was providing the feedback.
He was like, oh yeah, yeah, this character and this
resistance force, would you know, I think they should do that?
(11:54):
And I was like, dude, this is so cool that
he's like actually into this cares about it. Providing that
being back was super cool from him. But yeah, it
literally it was as simple as me just pitching the
idea three three different synopsis and Frando and him just
for like, let's do all three.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's so it's so cool again that I can't help
but remember the guy's name Bart because I'm watching the
Simpsons in all the time, and my uh, my son
actually because I have the five plush action figures from
like the nineties from Burger King and he carries them around.
He's been saying, Bart, Bart Bart, so Bart. The fact
that he went with you to you with Axel and
(12:35):
they had already had this kind of okay, what's this
life after music? Idea? Very very fate driven if you
if you want to believe in that stuff. So where
does the story? How do you start the story? Does
it start with a visual? Does it start with a
storyboard like writing? Or are you making a script? So
(13:00):
how do you start writing? You know Axel Rose, you
know that kind of character. How does how does that
begin for you? How do you create that world?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I mean it started with what we did next. What
actual wanted to see was take that first synopsis, the
first one of the three, because we end up making
it into like this bigger arc and we expanded it
into an outline basically the beginning in the end. So
it started as just a paragraph and then so now
it's a full outline. What's the script beginning to end?
(13:32):
Without being this fifty sixty page document that he's got
to go through and read everything. So it's just something
basically like a page and a half two pages. I
put that outline beginning to end, here's what the story is.
And that's where he provides that first creative round of
feedback of like, here's the direction of what I think
this world would be, Like here's the characters, here's this,
(13:52):
change the name of that, and well, this bar should
be this, my character would do something more like this
and stuff, and so that's what we started with in
that career process really came in around there. At the
same time, I'm pitching portfolios of different artists. I pitched
I think only like four or five different artists. I
gave him portfolios and they connected with like two of
(14:15):
them they really liked, but both of them were vastly
just different directions. But ultimately they decided on Frank, which
is a great, great artist, great choice. Frank is he's
managed by this guy named Enzo, and they they're both
just so awesome and in terms of just delivering on time,
delivering detailed work, passionate about his work. He's worked on
(14:38):
big properties too, like Dune and others as well, so
he's just such a talented guy. And but that's I'm
glad they chose him, honestly, But yeah, that's the thing.
You're basically doing two things at one time. You're figuring
out what that story is while they're deciding the art direction,
and then from there, once you walk those two things in,
(14:59):
you're building.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
That script out.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
So I'm writing the script and then feeding those first
few pages to Frank to start storyboarding Axel's character, which
is such a fun process that we'll probably reveal here
over time, or at least will be in the back
of the hardback as Frank is drawing Axel for the
first time, you know, and how how he's his bandana
should look? Right, what in what age should Axel even be?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Like?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
What what portion of Axel's career? Obviously since Axel's had
so many different looks.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Right, that's a great, that's a great that's part about
you know, I'm glad you said that, because I'm like, Okay,
what Axel. But it just seems like there could be
a lot of different Axles, I guess, and I want
to give him credit. Frank Mazzoli, So that's the artist.
So as Axel is giving you notes on you know,
your portion, we'll kind of notes that we're talking about
(15:47):
maybe with with Frank, because I've had the the writers
of both the Looney Tunes episode and the Scooby Doo
episode that Axel was in, and it's so funny that
myself included I'm like, why does he have yellow hair?
He's not known as it's a blind so I guess
what were what? What was Actual's involvement there, because he
would be specific about and this is I'll never forget it.
(16:10):
In Looney Tunes of all things, he made sure that
his actual at one point wore his dog uh dog
collars of his dogs, his pet dogs were passed his
angles and that was revealed by like the Looney Tunes,
you know writers that he said he wanted that in there,
so like anything.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
So interesting, he didn't really give any anything like that.
I mean, they were picky about his eye color, which
was something that you know, it was hard for me
because I'm colorblind.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So it's like, okay, so it I'm pulling.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I'm literally going from pictures on the internet trying to
like just do a dropper and I.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Pull it in the look did you overcome and doing Wow?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Sorry, yeah, it's it's it's a that's a tough ride, man,
But thankfully we had a talented colors on the book,
Antonio Andtro's his name, and he's really talented and way
way better at it obviously than me. But that early
stage where I'm helping out and stuff axles and the desks,
that they were like, yeah, that's not his icolor. So
there's there was things like that, but I'm trying to
(17:13):
think if there was really anything else. I think, you know,
they really just love the direction.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Early on.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
They I remember one thing that's a note. Some people
may have caught this, some people may have not. I've
noticed a few d ms on it. The original inspiration
is the Appetite for Destruction the band album artwork, right,
so you have the girl on the album artwork with
the robot and then like the drone robot coming over.
(17:42):
So we we had some moments about like how how
much we should lean into that, how much we should
make this original. We end up going more original, just
inspired by That's all I ended up being. And then
we also had moments where we tell talked about how
dark we should go with this, because there was a
(18:03):
lot of moments where as we were writing and it
was like, oh my God, that's that's really dark.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And they they were really great about it.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Throw throughout the process Axel was, Vanessa was, Fernando was.
There was no time where they ever just said no.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
They were very.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Just creative throughout the process basically look great feedback and great,
well here's what we think. And that's always great to
work with because a lot of artists they're not.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
That easy to work with.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I want to ask you to name names, but that
seems to be the consensus honestly of what I hear
about Axel. It's it's so funny. I I put out
that episode and that's that story. I don't know, I
don't doesn't matter if you've heard it or not. I
don't expect people to listen to me. But about uh yes,
the song Yesterday's and the unknown writer Billy McLeod and
(18:56):
his sister spoke telling a story about Axel, you know,
giving him royalties back then and on told story and
getting all these comments about like I've never heard anything
good about Axel before listen to my podcast. This is
just another example of just axual, easy tour, you know,
a pleasure to work with. But this would go with
whether it's Axe or not how difficult. And I guess
(19:20):
maybe in this state twenty twenty five, we're all used
to it because you're writing your story and you're maybe
waiting on notes and you want to move on to
the next thing. Is that difficult or was there a
good enough kind of fluidity to it all for you
to It was.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So fluid early on until the tour happened and then
but that was natural. That was like something that even
Fernando was like, look, tours coming up, we got to
get stuff done before that, and so he was real
clear about that. But even then once the tour happened,
I mean, feedback was natural of what other artists do,
(19:57):
you know? And when Axel has his downtime. The thing
I think I was most impressed by was that this
was his focus. And I'm sure yet others are going on,
of course, don't don't get me wrong, definitely other stuff
going on, but the fact that he was putting so
much focus into it, and I would send something and
you know, like an hour later, I'd be like, Oh,
there's the answer, you know, and I'd be like, wow,
(20:17):
that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Always always email, any phone or FaceTime or any of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Always email, phone in FaceTime with Vanessa and Fernando the
management team, and again nothing but fantastic things to say
about both of them. It's you know, and I guess
I don't want to just sit here and seem like
I'm just by praising.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Everybody, but it's your experience.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
One of the things I guess is what you're saying
is where you hear a lot of negative things about
a pressent, right, so it's it's something. I guess it
necessarily didn't hear tons of negative things about Axel or
anything like that. It was just something we're going into
this project. I didn't know what to expect whatsoever, and
I'm just so pleasantly surprised that it's just his management
(21:06):
team is a well oiled machine, great feedback, this is
how it works, here's what you need to do, and
I don't know, it's it's very pleasing and it extends
beyond them, from his marketing team to his PR team
at the oriole Kim is this marketing person at the syndicate,
and just so many people that are just just a
(21:28):
killer team.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
But that's great to hear. No that it's cool to hear,
and I guess I want to ask I have a
taped interview with Dell James, the tour manager, and I'll
put it out on social but i'll say it here. Initially,
his graphic novel was going to come out on the
(21:49):
November fourth, but now I got pushed back to November
twenty fifth, so my interview is going to be pushed
back to probably the twenty fourth, like the day before
the hype it. But anyway, that said, how does del
James have a graphic novel? And now Axel Rose has
a graphic novel? Do you know is something cooking there? All?
Speaker 1 (22:11):
It's funny. We've been talking about it internally and it's
something that we wanted to is get the rest of
the members. I think that'd be really cool, whoever those
members would be. Obviously, you know, you got to think
about that and you got to work through all the
likenesses and then the different rights and stuff. So as
(22:32):
of now, our focus is just Axul because it's just
such a fun I mean, it's so fun to work
with this world. I found saying fun. It's such a
fun world.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
To work in.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
And the coolest thing that we're talking about doing is
just where do we actually go beyond the graphic novel,
whether it's to TV, whether it's to film, whether it's Yeah,
there's just really cool things that are in discussion right
now and I'm just so excited about And I think
he's so cool. If Axel was like animated character and
(23:09):
he's voice acting his own character, I'm cool.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Would that be man?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So he would be insane. It's something that I mean, yes,
I can hear all the fans already, anything but new music. Look, yeah, yeah,
that's a conversation for another time. But this is still
a very awesome thing. And Axel every again, the cartoons
that he's done. I still would love to Since you're
(23:33):
in the video game industry, maybe you could help me
off the air. I want to be able to find
out the story behind him and a GTA when he
was the Tommy Nightmare.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I don't know the story, but I want to know
that too.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I can't find the right producer or I gotta I'll
keep digging to see because I want to because he
did such a great job and everything he does, he's
such a well spoken guy. I could listen to him
read the alphabet.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You know, we've by the way, we've talked to him
about a video game and that that's one thing that
it's just I guess what we're trying to do is
just like we started with this graphic novel and it
was just so pleasant and easy to work with them
that we were like, well, actually, now what about this?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
What about that? What about this? Right?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Axl World, He'll be like Wally World, but with actual world, right,
but with all the hypotheticals, because we can you know,
Axle the Ride, you know all these things. Can you
talk about some of the things that are included other
than just if you order the comic, which is available
for pre order now that you can get like it's
(24:33):
an autographed car, right, So that's that's Is that limited
availability or did he Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
He only signed five hundred of him.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I think he's signing him still now he's doing it
before did the tour start already?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I think yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Two shows?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, so I think the idea was that he was
supposed to finish them and then he's recording a video
like one of the first few days of the tour.
But yeah, so yeah, he did five hundred of those, which,
thank god, that's a lot to ask for. But that's
awesome that he did that.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
That was unexpected. Sure, I'm like, oh, graphic novel and
then all these little okay, maybe you would get a
T shirt of the graphic novel or all these you know,
it's a it's a cool the money, honey.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I hesitated asking, But we have the guns and Roses
pinball machine here in the office that has the sign
card with I think it's stuff slashing him, but it was.
I think it says limited to five hundred on it.
So it's like, okay, well I'll ask, you know, And
so it took a little greasing, but he was down
(25:35):
for it, and it just happened that there was enough
time before the tour, you know, so you know, obviously
you can only sign so many of those cards.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Today.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, you can see the video of John Cena just
like as like a robot, just like signing oh yeah, stack,
I mean, if you could see John Cena.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
But that's yeah, that's one of the cooler things for sure.
I think one of the other things we were super
excited about that it actually came by. I pitched it
originally to Bart was doing the figurine, and because we
had done figurines with some other artists, and Bart was like, well, yeah,
(26:15):
I think it'd be kind of cool, and they may
have done like a funk go thing or something like that,
and so we just kind of tabled it at the
moment and then out of nowhere, Axel comes back and
he was like, what about a figurine? And we were like, well,
just so that was a cool thing because it was
something that was basically his idea. The rest was us
just coming up with it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
What do you think? You know?
Speaker 1 (26:37):
The figurine was like we both thought of it separately,
independent ideas came to each other and we were like, yeah,
let's do this.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Have we become just best friends? Yeah? Awesome. All the
comic book stuff again, I was a huge Spawn guy
and all the Spawn figurines and and man, so that
that's kind of par for the course with the comic
So I'm glad that's again that a mutual idea that
(27:08):
kind of just came together out of nowhere. Any chance
for I mean, I know there's a lot of chances
for things, but what about an audiobook and maybe like
a soundtrack to this?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
We we talked about a soundtrack. There's I guess we're
still figuring that part out with Primary Wave, just because
of how that would work via publishing if Axle's infallved
if it's an original soundtrack, so that there's I guess
some things there to figure out. So it was just
about getting the book out at first and then figure
(27:41):
that out, because I do think a soundtrack.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Would be cool something on vinyl.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
We've also looked at just like repressing my appetite for
destruction and just had that like as a cool like
little tear. As far as an audiobook, definitely, that's what
I want to do, and I want to see if
if the animated series doesn't actually become a thing, then
we should totally try to get Axl to do just
a part of it, right, just a part of it,
(28:08):
just a couple of lines. Man, maybe the intro, like
a forward or something.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
He's got such a good I mean, I know I
sound like a crazy fan, but as like a radio guy,
I'm just jealous of his natural ability to talk. I mean, yeah,
it's just he just has it.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I want to ask because my listeners were excited as
I was to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
This is a question from Eric F on Facebook. I
guess speaking of maybe music, is there any story behind
the instrumental being played? On the promo for the year.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, it's it's it's it's actually a sad story. We
we looked at trying to use uh, you know, Paradise City,
Welcome to the Jungle, all these other songs and the
publishing rights of those, and it.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Just became a thing of time.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So that that's a song by another artist and it
was just the one that actually cleared to use. But
it has literally no relation to Guns and Roses whatsoever.
But it's unfortunate because we really wanted to have you know,
guns and Roses behind the trailer. I thought, how cool
would that be. But that's a whole thing, which I
(29:17):
knew it would be, But it's when you're talking about
all the publishing rights, the writers' royalties and stuff, and
then the labels, and it becomes a thing that's not Okay,
we're about to watch us in two weeks.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Can we get this done?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
They're like, no, Yeah, I wish I understood that that
world you know, you're here Welcome to the Jungle on
a fan dual commercial that can get that could be done,
but this project that actually involves whatever, I don't I
don't want to get you in trouble. I'm just a
fan something.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
It's like we'll pay. It's like we'll pay, we'll do it,
but it's still it's just something. Maybe we won't pay enough.
I don't know what it is, but it has nothing
to do with actual Obviously, if it's up to him,
he would be yeah, use it.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So yeah, So I didn't see again it's available for
pre order. I didn't see an actual release date unless
I'm completely blind. So when we right, when can we
expect expect this?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
It looks like January at the moment, we're going to
print probably in two weeks. So we're doing the final
touches right now on the lettering, just a final editing
pass from AXL, just like I wouldn't say that. I
would say that. So it's just like his.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Last chance just to change anything. And then it's done.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's wrapped off to the printer and once it's in hand,
it's out to the consumers. So January is just kind
of like that safe bet because of Christmas, Like it's
hard to like it's going to be in hands before
Christmas and then it doesn't hit.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
We did that last year with sleep.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Token, when we did a book with those guys, and
we said it was going to be in hands before Christmas,
and then it wasn't. In every It was like an
eighty percent of hands before Christmas, but those other twenty
percent that it wasn't you.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Felt off about.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, that's a horrible thing. And so we rarely wanted
to not overcommit on this one.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
And Guns of Roses fashion soon is the word.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Soon is the word?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Right, Yeah, but at least in this case, it's going
off to Prince and now it's done.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's just yeah, no, it's I mean, it looks awesome.
So you can go to a Samerian dot inc. Right
and you have all your all your on all of
our social media. Samarian comics again pre ordered. There are
five different tiers. The comic itself again looks beautiful and
it's like forty bucks. That's like, that's it.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah, it's a hardback and.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, so it's definitely affordable. Uh So, again, I thank
you for your time, and I hope we do this again.
Since this is going to be a trilogy, it's going
to be more things to again, my mind is going
so many places. Of course, the Guns of Roses story
people talk about could be a movie and Netflix shows.
But this, I feel like this is how Kiss should
(32:01):
be doing it in a way to live on. You
were talking about to live on forever, and now I'm
just thinking it's one of the reasons why I do
a G in R podcast. It's not because I'm just
I've said this story a million times. It would be
boring if it was just like talking about my favorite songs,
or if it was just maybe just a cool band.
We take Axel and Slash. Of course, these are like
(32:24):
larger than life characters who belong in a comic who
belong is like you. You recognize there's silhouettes, so I
think they kind of immortalize You're more already immortal Axel
Rose in this way is just a fun adventure for
fans for hopefully years to come.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah. No, totally, man, I totally agree with you, spot
on it.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
So thank you. Sorry, I wanted to get off my
little fandom there and my brother from another mother with
I like the Rancid shirt and all this were you
You're located in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Nashville.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, good people there, all right, good people, all right.
So thank you, Nathan, and we'll do this again. So
thanks to everyone for listening. I know people are excited
for this episode. Afdpod dot com for catch up last episodes.
Patreon you want to support the podcast all that fun stuff.
Who's the next episode? When you're gonna see it? Well,
(33:17):
In the words of Axel Rose concerning Chinese democracy, I
don't know as soon as the word, but you'll see.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It thanks to the lame mass security.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I'm going home.
Axel has been the greatest to work with, the wrest
of Guns and Roses team has been phenomenal work with.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the podcast, Appetite four Distortion, Episode number five
hundred and thirty five. My name is Brando. Welcome to
the podcast. Mister Nathan yoakum. Oh you sir.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm doing good, Man, doing good.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I told you off the air. I'm intimidated a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm bearded and I have glasses, I have hair, but
you you rocket better than I do. I mean, I
feel like we should be. I don't know, like you're like,
are you a cousin? I gotta ask.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I've got to say. I have a Yankee head on too.
I think so this is weird.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
As we're taping this, Yankees got a huge win. We'll
see what happens, uh, what happens when we release it.
But that's but I digress. We're going to get into
the reason why you're here, Nathan. I'm I'm excited to
talk to you about so many things. Your work now
with Axel Rose on a comic book Axel Rose Appetite
for Destruction. Uh, it's I can't wait to talk to
(01:06):
you about that. I can't wait to talk to you.
I don't know if you could see my background, because
I've gen r st. I brought out some of my
old comics. I got Spot number one. I got a Superman,
old Superman from my dad's collection. I bet him around me.
Even I got look at this this is show Hotel.
I even got a red a stimpy comic from when
(01:27):
I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Collection.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So anyway, so it needless to say, I'm excited to
talk to you. So before we get into the whole
Axl Rose experience, I would love to know more about
you man and Samerian comics. How did that happen? That's
that's uh, it's very cool, and it's been going on,
I believe since twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, it's it's weird. We launched it unknowingly during COVID.
That was like in January, we sent our first books
to the distributor and March, you know, when COVID happened.
That's our first books hit that catalog and all the
stores shut down. The catalog never got printed and so
(02:06):
like that was me and my business partner who started
the company in like twenty nineteen ish, but put our
first books out in twenty twenty. That was that was tough,
but that was the crazy thing. So that was like
when we were putting our first comics out and we
had to deal with that, the whole up and down
of COVID, and we ended up selling almost half a
(02:27):
million comics that first year despite all that, the stores
being shut down and the craziness. We didn't really have
any licensed books though. It was like all original stuff
that we're working with so many artists from Brazil, Argentina, Italy,
Franci just great collection of artists and stuff on original
(02:47):
properties and and it just kind of went from there.
Twenty twenty one, I think we almost sold a million,
and then twenty twenty two is when we sold the
company and we sold it to my business partner, a
guy named aash Averltson his dad, who he directed Rocky
and Karate Kid and all that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
He's a great dude.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
He owns Samerian Records, amongst a ton of other companies,
but Samaran Records has a bunch of great like hard
rock and metal artists like bat Omens and Poppy and
the Solder Turberbel and a lot a lot of great artists,
and that's where all this music stuff kind of diverged
with comics finally in like twenty twenty two, and slowly
(03:29):
since then we've been doing that.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So we still do some of the originals, some of.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
The other lives and stuff like American Psycho and The Crow,
but the music stuff is where my heart's at. And
so this Guns N' Roses one was a really cool thing, obviously,
like a cool.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Thing to be part of.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
But yeah, that's the gist of Since twenty twenty it
started real small, which is me and one other guy.
Now it's a much bigger thing. We're here in Nashville,
a bunch of us here in the office with the
records team, the film's team, the Hip Parader magazine guys,
and a bunch of other crews.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It's a cool operation now.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And we're going to talk about because you're a relaunching
hit parader, right, We're gonna talk I mean, there's cool
stuff to talk about. But again, before we get to that,
because I don't know this. I wanted to get to
know the guy more that because Axel Rose doesn't do
much lately with music and this was so random. Nathan,
Why Nathan, that's so cool? Time for a lifetime. So
(04:25):
to get to know you is where did the comic
thing I guess start? Because again I'm into comics. Obviously
I was. It kind of dissipated with my youth, but
I tried to draw. You know, it was something I
really had to work at and it was not a
natural talent. Where does that come from?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
For you?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And for you to a comic business. It's got to
be so difficult because it's so it's oversaturated. But just
the fact that you have originals out there that are
selling so well, and you have these licenses, you know,
these iconic like again like the Crow coming to you.
How does I guess, how does that part of the
Nathan story happen? Because you're living the dream and then
(05:08):
now you got this actual thing added on to the dream.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, I mean the story.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I mean for me, it came like we worked in
the video game industry and me who my business partner did.
I think one of the big things that you deal
with over there is you work on properties for three
to five years. They cost millions of dollars. It's one
property and it can get cut at any time, sometimes
four years in thirty million dollars in and they're like,
(05:35):
you know what, this isn't viable anymore, and we're gonna
lay off the whole team, and you got to move
back to wherever you moved from, you know. And it's
just that industry was such a difficult thing, and it
was just creatively something I was so excited to get
into and ended up being just the opposite of what
I thought it would be.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And so comics was a natural thing.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I guess. It wasn't ever a financial thing or so
much worried about this of it. It was just more
of like a need for creative output. It was something
like you're putting out monthly comics, you're constantly creating new ip.
There's so much in the creative process, from the artists
to the colors, to the letterists, to the writer to
(06:15):
the editor. Then there's the business sides of it, which
I got to be part of for the first time,
which I didn't do in the video game industry, but
in the comics that I get to be seeing, like
the distribution side and how that worked, the printing side
of things. So it was really just that part of it,
just like that need for creative output. And yeah, that's
(06:38):
really just the story of how we got there and
working towards AXEL is just it's such a jump from
twenty twenty to twenty twenty five, like every year it's
it's you could probably trace it back like one property
at a time. It's like, Okay, if we didn't get
that one, I couldn't have eventually had that pitch that
we made to GNR and AXL. So it's like you
(07:01):
can trace it back. But it really comes down to
one person, and that person's a guy named Bart bart
Son who's a good friend of mine. He works at a
company called Primary Wave. It's an awesome, awesome, awesome company.
They hold the rights to a bunch of different artists,
(07:22):
uh you name them. Literally, they've probably owned some sort
of rights to them, whether it's the publishing rights, the
name and likeness rights or something. And it just so happened.
He called me one day and he was like, you're
gonna love this. It's like all the artists you've talked about.
He's like, you tell me all the time. He's like,
you want rock, you want metal artists, and we got
(07:44):
we got these jazz artists and these classic artists who
don't care about He's like, I got the.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Artist for you this time. And I was like, all right, tell.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Me, tell me who you got and and so yeah,
and that's that's when he told me that they were
doing the deal with Axel And from there it was
like I couldn't want to go. It was whatever we
had to do to get the deal done. I chased
it for two months and the deal was done. It
was funny. We thought it was going to be a
two year long process, something that was difficult to close.
(08:17):
Two months later we closed the deal. Axl has been
the greatest to work with. This project has had a
great launch. The rest of the Guns and Roses team
has been phenomenal work with nothing but positive things to say.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's crazy, awesome, awesome, So let's make the pivot right there.
So it was announced and it's funny. So is there
so much fake news out today? It almost I had
to reread the headline in the story again, like right,
Axel's he's doing what Axel Rose and Sumerian Comics are
presenting the graphic novel series Axel Rose Appetite for Destruction
(08:50):
and if I can try to put in my best
movie voice, set in the undrenched Paradise city where humans
and robots are meant to coexist? How about the struct
follows Axel Rose, half human, half robot, who lives on
the fringes and finds solace in the music of a
back alley lounge singer. When she vanishes under mysterious circumstances,
(09:13):
Axel's axel search for answers drags him into deadly conspiracy,
into a deadly conspiracy, one that could decide the fate
of humanity itself. So you and Axel Rose wrote this story.
Let's take a step back. How did this happen? You
pitched the idea, they pitched it. Who said Axel Rose
needs to have a comic book? Yeah, so this came
(09:37):
from your brain?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And so.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
How did it happened to make that mark? I could
say anybody you know?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, I mean when? So when Primary Wa've got those rights?
And Bart naturally was like to Axel's prime for a
graphic novel. He told me what Fernando and Vanessa, you know,
his his management team, what they were thinking, like, here's
the next steps for Axel logically outside music. Honestly, here's
the next steps for him? And Bart's like, dude, graphic
(10:04):
novel is one of the best ways to like make
this guy into this this badass character, right, let him
live on forever outside of music in other ways, and
so that that was really it. So whenever it came
to doing that pitch, it was like I didn't know
what he would think.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Obviously, I was.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Like, great, you know, I mean, I'm probably pitching the
dumbest thing in the world. He's going to read it
and be like, yeah, I don't want to do this shit,
but whatever, you know, but I send it to him.
There's three pitches, and the craziest thing happened. I send
him to three pitches. He comes back through Fernando and
we talked and he says, Axel wants to do all
(10:44):
three and I was just like, okay, so how does
that work. And he was like yeah, let's well, we
want to do like a trilogy of books. And I
was like, okay, so we can like rework this story
into like this sort of trilogy. And this is overarching.
Axle is the main character at all three. First ones,
Appetite for destruction, second, third ones are different. You know,
(11:06):
obviously you can guess where it's going. And so yeah,
it was as simple as that. It's I almost wish
there was like a story where it's like being acxul
had to fight over something and we had to like
He's like, no, change this. And now he was so
easy to work with. There was great creative input that
he gave so many times throughout the process around like
(11:27):
he's like, well I would say this, you know in
this part, like in this scene.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
This is more how I would act.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And feedback like that. That was phenomenal. And one thing
about how involved he was. I really appreciated some artists
you can trollably don't really care so much Axel. He
was really into this story where he was calling the
characters by their names when he was providing the feedback.
He was like, oh yeah, yeah, this character and this
resistance force, would you know, I think they should do that?
(11:54):
And I was like, dude, this is so cool that
he's like actually into this cares about it. Providing that
being back was super cool from him. But yeah, it
literally it was as simple as me just pitching the
idea three three different synopsis and Frando and him just
for like, let's do all three.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's so it's so cool again that I can't help
but remember the guy's name Bart because I'm watching the
Simpsons in all the time, and my uh, my son
actually because I have the five plush action figures from
like the nineties from Burger King and he carries them around.
He's been saying, Bart, Bart Bart, so Bart. The fact
that he went with you to you with Axel and
(12:35):
they had already had this kind of okay, what's this
life after music? Idea? Very very fate driven if you
if you want to believe in that stuff. So where
does the story? How do you start the story? Does
it start with a visual? Does it start with a
storyboard like writing? Or are you making a script? So
(13:00):
how do you start writing? You know Axel Rose, you
know that kind of character. How does how does that
begin for you? How do you create that world?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I mean it started with what we did next. What
actual wanted to see was take that first synopsis, the
first one of the three, because we end up making
it into like this bigger arc and we expanded it
into an outline basically the beginning in the end. So
it started as just a paragraph and then so now
it's a full outline. What's the script beginning to end?
(13:32):
Without being this fifty sixty page document that he's got
to go through and read everything. So it's just something
basically like a page and a half two pages. I
put that outline beginning to end, here's what the story is.
And that's where he provides that first creative round of
feedback of like, here's the direction of what I think
this world would be, Like here's the characters, here's this,
(13:52):
change the name of that, and well, this bar should
be this, my character would do something more like this
and stuff, and so that's what we started with in
that career process really came in around there. At the
same time, I'm pitching portfolios of different artists. I pitched
I think only like four or five different artists. I
gave him portfolios and they connected with like two of
(14:15):
them they really liked, but both of them were vastly
just different directions. But ultimately they decided on Frank, which
is a great, great artist, great choice. Frank is he's
managed by this guy named Enzo, and they they're both
just so awesome and in terms of just delivering on time,
delivering detailed work, passionate about his work. He's worked on
(14:38):
big properties too, like Dune and others as well, so
he's just such a talented guy. And but that's I'm
glad they chose him, honestly, But yeah, that's the thing.
You're basically doing two things at one time. You're figuring
out what that story is while they're deciding the art direction,
and then from there, once you walk those two things in,
(14:59):
you're building.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
That script out.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
So I'm writing the script and then feeding those first
few pages to Frank to start storyboarding Axel's character, which
is such a fun process that we'll probably reveal here
over time, or at least will be in the back
of the hardback as Frank is drawing Axel for the
first time, you know, and how how he's his bandana
should look? Right, what in what age should Axel even be?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Like?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
What what portion of Axel's career? Obviously since Axel's had
so many different looks.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Right, that's a great, that's a great that's part about
you know, I'm glad you said that, because I'm like, Okay,
what Axel. But it just seems like there could be
a lot of different Axles, I guess, and I want
to give him credit. Frank Mazzoli, So that's the artist.
So as Axel is giving you notes on you know,
your portion, we'll kind of notes that we're talking about
(15:47):
maybe with with Frank, because I've had the the writers
of both the Looney Tunes episode and the Scooby Doo
episode that Axel was in, and it's so funny that
myself included I'm like, why does he have yellow hair?
He's not known as it's a blind so I guess
what were what? What was Actual's involvement there, because he
would be specific about and this is I'll never forget it.
(16:10):
In Looney Tunes of all things, he made sure that
his actual at one point wore his dog uh dog
collars of his dogs, his pet dogs were passed his
angles and that was revealed by like the Looney Tunes,
you know writers that he said he wanted that in there,
so like anything.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
So interesting, he didn't really give any anything like that.
I mean, they were picky about his eye color, which
was something that you know, it was hard for me
because I'm colorblind.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So it's like, okay, so it I'm pulling.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I'm literally going from pictures on the internet trying to
like just do a dropper and I.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Pull it in the look did you overcome and doing Wow?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Sorry, yeah, it's it's it's a that's a tough ride, man,
But thankfully we had a talented colors on the book,
Antonio Andtro's his name, and he's really talented and way
way better at it obviously than me. But that early
stage where I'm helping out and stuff axles and the desks,
that they were like, yeah, that's not his icolor. So
there's there was things like that, but I'm trying to
(17:13):
think if there was really anything else. I think, you know,
they really just love the direction.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Early on.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
They I remember one thing that's a note. Some people
may have caught this, some people may have not. I've
noticed a few d ms on it. The original inspiration
is the Appetite for Destruction the band album artwork, right,
so you have the girl on the album artwork with
the robot and then like the drone robot coming over.
(17:42):
So we we had some moments about like how how
much we should lean into that, how much we should
make this original. We end up going more original, just
inspired by That's all I ended up being. And then
we also had moments where we tell talked about how
dark we should go with this, because there was a
(18:03):
lot of moments where as we were writing and it
was like, oh my God, that's that's really dark.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And they they were really great about it.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Throw throughout the process Axel was, Vanessa was, Fernando was.
There was no time where they ever just said no.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
They were very.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Just creative throughout the process basically look great feedback and great,
well here's what we think. And that's always great to
work with because a lot of artists they're not.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
That easy to work with.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I want to ask you to name names, but that
seems to be the consensus honestly of what I hear
about Axel. It's it's so funny. I I put out
that episode and that's that story. I don't know, I
don't doesn't matter if you've heard it or not. I
don't expect people to listen to me. But about uh yes,
the song Yesterday's and the unknown writer Billy McLeod and
(18:56):
his sister spoke telling a story about Axel, you know,
giving him royalties back then and on told story and
getting all these comments about like I've never heard anything
good about Axel before listen to my podcast. This is
just another example of just axual, easy tour, you know,
a pleasure to work with. But this would go with
whether it's Axe or not how difficult. And I guess
(19:20):
maybe in this state twenty twenty five, we're all used
to it because you're writing your story and you're maybe
waiting on notes and you want to move on to
the next thing. Is that difficult or was there a
good enough kind of fluidity to it all for you
to It was.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So fluid early on until the tour happened and then
but that was natural. That was like something that even
Fernando was like, look, tours coming up, we got to
get stuff done before that, and so he was real
clear about that. But even then once the tour happened,
I mean, feedback was natural of what other artists do,
(19:57):
you know? And when Axel has his downtime. The thing
I think I was most impressed by was that this
was his focus. And I'm sure yet others are going on,
of course, don't don't get me wrong, definitely other stuff
going on, but the fact that he was putting so
much focus into it, and I would send something and
you know, like an hour later, I'd be like, Oh,
there's the answer, you know, and I'd be like, wow,
(20:17):
that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Always always email, any phone or FaceTime or any of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Always email, phone in FaceTime with Vanessa and Fernando the
management team, and again nothing but fantastic things to say
about both of them. It's you know, and I guess
I don't want to just sit here and seem like
I'm just by praising.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Everybody, but it's your experience.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
One of the things I guess is what you're saying
is where you hear a lot of negative things about
a pressent, right, so it's it's something. I guess it
necessarily didn't hear tons of negative things about Axel or
anything like that. It was just something we're going into
this project. I didn't know what to expect whatsoever, and
I'm just so pleasantly surprised that it's just his management
(21:06):
team is a well oiled machine, great feedback, this is
how it works, here's what you need to do, and
I don't know, it's it's very pleasing and it extends
beyond them, from his marketing team to his PR team
at the oriole Kim is this marketing person at the syndicate,
and just so many people that are just just a
(21:28):
killer team.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
But that's great to hear. No that it's cool to hear,
and I guess I want to ask I have a
taped interview with Dell James, the tour manager, and I'll
put it out on social but i'll say it here. Initially,
his graphic novel was going to come out on the
(21:49):
November fourth, but now I got pushed back to November
twenty fifth, so my interview is going to be pushed
back to probably the twenty fourth, like the day before
the hype it. But anyway, that said, how does del
James have a graphic novel? And now Axel Rose has
a graphic novel? Do you know is something cooking there? All?
Speaker 1 (22:11):
It's funny. We've been talking about it internally and it's
something that we wanted to is get the rest of
the members. I think that'd be really cool, whoever those
members would be. Obviously, you know, you got to think
about that and you got to work through all the
likenesses and then the different rights and stuff. So as
(22:32):
of now, our focus is just Axul because it's just
such a fun I mean, it's so fun to work
with this world. I found saying fun. It's such a
fun world.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
To work in.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
And the coolest thing that we're talking about doing is
just where do we actually go beyond the graphic novel,
whether it's to TV, whether it's to film, whether it's Yeah,
there's just really cool things that are in discussion right
now and I'm just so excited about And I think
he's so cool. If Axel was like animated character and
(23:09):
he's voice acting his own character, I'm cool.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Would that be man?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So he would be insane. It's something that I mean, yes,
I can hear all the fans already, anything but new music. Look, yeah, yeah,
that's a conversation for another time. But this is still
a very awesome thing. And Axel every again, the cartoons
that he's done. I still would love to Since you're
(23:33):
in the video game industry, maybe you could help me
off the air. I want to be able to find
out the story behind him and a GTA when he
was the Tommy Nightmare.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I don't know the story, but I want to know
that too.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I can't find the right producer or I gotta I'll
keep digging to see because I want to because he
did such a great job and everything he does, he's
such a well spoken guy. I could listen to him
read the alphabet.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You know, we've by the way, we've talked to him
about a video game and that that's one thing that
it's just I guess what we're trying to do is
just like we started with this graphic novel and it
was just so pleasant and easy to work with them
that we were like, well, actually, now what about this?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
What about that? What about this? Right?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Axl World, He'll be like Wally World, but with actual world, right,
but with all the hypotheticals, because we can you know,
Axle the Ride, you know all these things. Can you
talk about some of the things that are included other
than just if you order the comic, which is available
for pre order now that you can get like it's
(24:33):
an autographed car, right, So that's that's Is that limited
availability or did he Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
He only signed five hundred of him.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I think he's signing him still now he's doing it
before did the tour start already?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I think yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Two shows?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, so I think the idea was that he was
supposed to finish them and then he's recording a video
like one of the first few days of the tour.
But yeah, so yeah, he did five hundred of those, which,
thank god, that's a lot to ask for. But that's
awesome that he did that.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
That was unexpected. Sure, I'm like, oh, graphic novel and
then all these little okay, maybe you would get a
T shirt of the graphic novel or all these you know,
it's a it's a cool the money, honey.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I hesitated asking, But we have the guns and Roses
pinball machine here in the office that has the sign
card with I think it's stuff slashing him, but it was.
I think it says limited to five hundred on it.
So it's like, okay, well I'll ask, you know, And
so it took a little greasing, but he was down
(25:35):
for it, and it just happened that there was enough
time before the tour, you know, so you know, obviously
you can only sign so many of those cards.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Today.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, you can see the video of John Cena just
like as like a robot, just like signing oh yeah, stack,
I mean, if you could see John Cena.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
But that's yeah, that's one of the cooler things for sure.
I think one of the other things we were super
excited about that it actually came by. I pitched it
originally to Bart was doing the figurine, and because we
had done figurines with some other artists, and Bart was like, well, yeah,
(26:15):
I think it'd be kind of cool, and they may
have done like a funk go thing or something like that,
and so we just kind of tabled it at the
moment and then out of nowhere, Axel comes back and
he was like, what about a figurine? And we were like, well,
just so that was a cool thing because it was
something that was basically his idea. The rest was us
just coming up with it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
What do you think? You know?
Speaker 1 (26:37):
The figurine was like we both thought of it separately,
independent ideas came to each other and we were like, yeah,
let's do this.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Have we become just best friends? Yeah? Awesome. All the
comic book stuff again, I was a huge Spawn guy
and all the Spawn figurines and and man, so that
that's kind of par for the course with the comic
So I'm glad that's again that a mutual idea that
(27:08):
kind of just came together out of nowhere. Any chance
for I mean, I know there's a lot of chances
for things, but what about an audiobook and maybe like
a soundtrack to this?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
We we talked about a soundtrack. There's I guess we're
still figuring that part out with Primary Wave, just because
of how that would work via publishing if Axle's infallved
if it's an original soundtrack, so that there's I guess
some things there to figure out. So it was just
about getting the book out at first and then figure
(27:41):
that out, because I do think a soundtrack.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Would be cool something on vinyl.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
We've also looked at just like repressing my appetite for
destruction and just had that like as a cool like
little tear. As far as an audiobook, definitely, that's what
I want to do, and I want to see if
if the animated series doesn't actually become a thing, then
we should totally try to get Axl to do just
a part of it, right, just a part of it,
(28:08):
just a couple of lines. Man, maybe the intro, like
a forward or something.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
He's got such a good I mean, I know I
sound like a crazy fan, but as like a radio guy,
I'm just jealous of his natural ability to talk. I mean, yeah,
it's just he just has it.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I want to ask because my listeners were excited as
I was to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
This is a question from Eric F on Facebook. I
guess speaking of maybe music, is there any story behind
the instrumental being played? On the promo for the year.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, it's it's it's it's actually a sad story. We
we looked at trying to use uh, you know, Paradise City,
Welcome to the Jungle, all these other songs and the
publishing rights of those, and it.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Just became a thing of time.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So that that's a song by another artist and it
was just the one that actually cleared to use. But
it has literally no relation to Guns and Roses whatsoever.
But it's unfortunate because we really wanted to have you know,
guns and Roses behind the trailer. I thought, how cool
would that be. But that's a whole thing, which I
(29:17):
knew it would be, But it's when you're talking about
all the publishing rights, the writers' royalties and stuff, and
then the labels, and it becomes a thing that's not Okay,
we're about to watch us in two weeks.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Can we get this done?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
They're like, no, Yeah, I wish I understood that that
world you know, you're here Welcome to the Jungle on
a fan dual commercial that can get that could be done,
but this project that actually involves whatever, I don't I
don't want to get you in trouble. I'm just a
fan something.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
It's like we'll pay. It's like we'll pay, we'll do it,
but it's still it's just something. Maybe we won't pay enough.
I don't know what it is, but it has nothing
to do with actual Obviously, if it's up to him,
he would be yeah, use it.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So yeah, So I didn't see again it's available for
pre order. I didn't see an actual release date unless
I'm completely blind. So when we right, when can we
expect expect this?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
It looks like January at the moment, we're going to
print probably in two weeks. So we're doing the final
touches right now on the lettering, just a final editing
pass from AXL, just like I wouldn't say that. I
would say that. So it's just like his.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Last chance just to change anything. And then it's done.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's wrapped off to the printer and once it's in hand,
it's out to the consumers. So January is just kind
of like that safe bet because of Christmas, Like it's
hard to like it's going to be in hands before
Christmas and then it doesn't hit.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
We did that last year with sleep.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Token, when we did a book with those guys, and
we said it was going to be in hands before Christmas,
and then it wasn't. In every It was like an
eighty percent of hands before Christmas, but those other twenty
percent that it wasn't you.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Felt off about.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, that's a horrible thing. And so we rarely wanted
to not overcommit on this one.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
And Guns of Roses fashion soon is the word.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Soon is the word?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Right, Yeah, but at least in this case, it's going
off to Prince and now it's done.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's just yeah, no, it's I mean, it looks awesome.
So you can go to a Samerian dot inc. Right
and you have all your all your on all of
our social media. Samarian comics again pre ordered. There are
five different tiers. The comic itself again looks beautiful and
it's like forty bucks. That's like, that's it.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah, it's a hardback and.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, so it's definitely affordable. Uh So, again, I thank
you for your time, and I hope we do this again.
Since this is going to be a trilogy, it's going
to be more things to again, my mind is going
so many places. Of course, the Guns of Roses story
people talk about could be a movie and Netflix shows.
But this, I feel like this is how Kiss should
(32:01):
be doing it in a way to live on. You
were talking about to live on forever, and now I'm
just thinking it's one of the reasons why I do
a G in R podcast. It's not because I'm just
I've said this story a million times. It would be
boring if it was just like talking about my favorite songs,
or if it was just maybe just a cool band.
We take Axel and Slash. Of course, these are like
(32:24):
larger than life characters who belong in a comic who
belong is like you. You recognize there's silhouettes, so I
think they kind of immortalize You're more already immortal Axel
Rose in this way is just a fun adventure for
fans for hopefully years to come.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah. No, totally, man, I totally agree with you, spot
on it.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
So thank you. Sorry, I wanted to get off my
little fandom there and my brother from another mother with
I like the Rancid shirt and all this were you
You're located in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Nashville.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, good people there, all right, good people, all right.
So thank you, Nathan, and we'll do this again. So
thanks to everyone for listening. I know people are excited
for this episode. Afdpod dot com for catch up last episodes.
Patreon you want to support the podcast all that fun stuff.
Who's the next episode? When you're gonna see it? Well,
(33:17):
In the words of Axel Rose concerning Chinese democracy, I
don't know as soon as the word, but you'll see.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It thanks to the lame mass security.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I'm going home.
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