With a world tour planned for spring, Guns N’ Roses have decided to capitalize on their Chinese Democracy sessions to find two new singles. The band released “Nothin’” and “Atlas,” now both featuring new parts recorded by guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan, on Thursday after decades of kicking around in the band’s vault.
“Atlas,” a mid-tempo, keening hard rocker, was once known as “Atlas Shrugged,” a nod to Ayn Rand’s controversial novel, according to a 2025 interview with A&R rep Tom Zutaut by Classic Rock. “We were finishing tracks, doing overdubs with [guitarists] Buckethead and Robin Finck and some stuff with [bassist] Tommy Stinson,” he said. “I felt we had a well-finished version of ‘The Blues,’ ‘Madagascar,’ ‘Chinese Democracy.’ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ was pretty good.”
The song as it is now is a tight (by GN’R standards) four minutes on which Axl Rose sings, “I’d be the last to say, ‘Don’t, follow your heart’/But there’s more to what it takes to be a man.” Slash’s unmistakable guitar tone snarls around Rose’s voice, and McKagan’s hollow-sounding bass, a hallmark of classic GN’R, rumbles underneath the proceedings; it’s hard to imagine what it would’ve sounded like with the Chinese Democracy-era musicians. The song sounds both like a Chinese Democracy deep cut and a fresh take on the band’s classic sound.
“Nothin’,” in some ways feels more like a departure. The track opens with a piano line that sounds like it could have leaked off a Wings album before Slash’s guitar transforms it into GN’R’s recognizable sound. His guitar whines and sighs behind Rose’s voice, as the frontman sings about feeling like he needs to be saved. Slash’s solo halfway through transforms what might have been an R&B-leaning, classic-rock ballad into something more dramatic and special.
Both songs came out unceremoniously via a leak of the band’s music in 2019. It contained an early version of “Nothin’,” allegedly recorded around 2000, and “Atlas Shrugged,” ostensibly stems from 2001 sessions.
In October, Slash teased the idea of a new GN’R album in a Guitar World interview. “There’s so much material at this point — it’s a matter of having the discipline to sit down and fucking get into it,” he said. “But the thing with Guns is, in my experience, you can never plan ahead. You can never sit down and go, ‘We’re going to take this time, and we’re going to do this.’ Every time we’ve done that, it falls apart.” He added, “It’ll just happen when it happens.”
It’s a safe bet to expect these songs on the band’s set lists next year since the group already soundchecked “Nothin’” before a Yokohama, Japan concert in May. The tour kicks off in March with North American dates planned in Monterrey, Mexico on March 28 and two Floridian gigs in May before kicking off a North American run in full in July.
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