Guns N’ Roses’ Tommy Stinson Wants the Original Lineup to Reunite

If the original lineup of Guns N' Roses is to reunite, one person who will be as thrilled as anybody will be Tommy Stinson, even if it means he'll be out of a job. In a new interview, Stinson, who got his start as a member of '80s college rock heroes the Replacements, says that he knows what it's like to get back on stage after all these years with the guys you grew up with, even if it means he's out of a job.

“I’ll be perfectly honest with you, man," he told the Current. "I hope they do because when you go back to where you started from and just check that out, and feel that for a moment after you’ve gone on and done all these other things, you know, there’s a reward that comes with that, and I had that with the [Replacements]. It’s a good thing; it’s a good thing to do once in a while. And I hope it works out for ‘em, if it actually happens.”

After breaking up in 1991, the Replacements got back together in early 2013 to record Songs for Slim, an EP that raised more than $100,000 to help pay the medical bills of former guitarist Slim Dunlap, who suffered a stroke in 2012. Small tours followed over the next three years, but frontman Paul Westerberg said this past June that they had their slot at Primavera Sound in Barcelona would be their last performance.

Still, Stinson, who hasn't played Guns N' Roses since April 2014, repeated what he said earlier in the month that he's not really sure of the current status in the band. "I don’t really want to talk about on air," he continued, "‘cause what happened with it, it has nothing to do with Axl [Rose] or any of that stuff. It had more to do with my personal situation. Basically, I played my last gig in Las Vegas with them and had to come home and tend to that the best I could while the Replacements were kinda being offered up. My guess is that, at some point, someone’s gonna call me and tell me what’s up with that. ‘Cause we all left, we’ve left on friendly terms. It wasn’t like a bad thing. But another guitar player, DJ Ashba, I think he officially quit to do something but, you know, I had to walk away and take care of my stuff.”

Stinson joined Guns N' Roses in 1998. He's also released two solo albums, toured and recorded with Soul Asylum and fronted the bands Bash & Pop and Perfect.

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