Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has confirmed that the band’s next studio record will consist entirely of brand-new original songs — a significant shift from their recent releases, which have consisted largely of re-recorded and reworked material. The comments came during a January 28, 2026 interview with Sylvia Alvarado on Las Vegas rock station KOMP 92.3, where Slash discussed the band’s recent singles and future plans.
In December 2025, Guns N’ Roses dropped two new tracks — “Atlas” and “Nothin’” — marking the band’s first releases since 2023’s “The General” and “Perhaps.” Both songs were produced by frontman Axl Rose and longtime collaborator Caram Costanzo, who also co-produced the band’s 2008 album Chinese Democracy. According to Slash, the recently released songs were taken from older material the band revisited and updated.
Slash explained that they re-recorded those older tracks at different times over an extended period. “We only re-recorded those songs — like a couple of songs here, a couple of songs there,” he said. “These were the last two that are left to do… and then there’s really no more of that sort of old rehash stuff to release.”
While the recent approach has involved releasing standalone singles and revisiting older material, Slash made it clear that the band hasn’t abandoned the album format. He said the band plans to take all the previously recorded songs, package them together, and then move forward with a completely fresh full-length album:
“What we’re gonna do… is take all those songs and put them on something and release that as a package. And then the next record that we’re gonna do is gonna be all new original stuff, and that’ll be an actual album.”
Slash acknowledged that the music industry and how fans consume music have changed — with digital singles and streaming creating a different landscape than the traditional LP era — but insisted that making an album remains important:
“It’s a really weird time for… rock and roll and how it works in this industry… but to me, it’s a no-brainer. Make a record… make sure that there’s an album.”
Slash also spoke about the band’s process for the recently released songs. He said “Atlas” featured interesting chord changes and time signatures, while “Nothin’” was more spontaneous and bare-bones, born from improvisation rather than meticulous planning. Slash said both tracks were rehearsed in anticipation of live performance and will finally get their live debut during the band’s upcoming tour.
Guns N’ Roses are gearing up for an extensive 2026 world tour, scheduled to run from March through December, with stops in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Europe and Canada, and a special return to Los Angeles’s Rose Bowl — a venue the group hasn’t played in over 30 years.
If realized, the upcoming album would be the band’s first all-new original release since Chinese Democracy in 2008 — and the first with the classic core lineup of Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan since 1993.
