Guns N’ Roses fans may finally have reason to believe that a long-awaited new album is on the horizon: in a recent interview with Guitar World, guitarist Slash confirmed that the band has accumulated a substantial amount of material and that new music is “coming”, though, true to the group’s unpredictable nature, he stopped short of naming a timeline.

“There’s so much material at this point, it’s a matter of having the discipline to sit down and fucking get into it,” Slash 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 do this.’ Every time we’ve done that, it falls apart.”

The guitarist, whose signature riffs helped define one of rock’s most volatile and successful bands, suggested that the group’s creative process is less about planning and more about instinct. “It just spontaneously happens through some sort of inspiration that triggers it,” he explained. “And the next thing you know, it’s off and running. So it’s coming. I know it’s coming because everybody is thinking about it. It’ll just happen when it happens.”

If realized, the new record would mark Guns N’ Roses’ first full-length release since 2008’s Chinese Democracy, the notoriously delayed project that took over a decade to complete and featured frontman Axl Rose as the only original member. More significantly, it would be the first album to feature Slash and bassist Duff McKagan since 1993’s The Spaghetti Incident?, closing a 30-year gap since the core lineup last appeared together on record.

Since reuniting in 2016 for the Not in This Lifetime tour, which grossed nearly $600 million globally, the revived lineup has been gradually reestablishing its creative chemistry. The band has released a handful of singles, including “Absurd” and “Hard Skool,” both reworked from previously unfinished sessions, but fans have continued to hope for a full album of new material.

Slash’s comments come as he balances his solo work with renewed activity in Guns N’ Roses. Last year, while promoting his blues-inspired solo project Orgy of the Damned, the guitarist told the Daily Star that he deliberately kept that album separate from his work with Axl Rose and Myles Kennedy. “It was my own side thing, so I wasn’t dragging my own guys in,” he said at the time. “Guns N’ Roses are trying to make their own record and I’m working with them in that capacity, but this didn’t involve anyone else.”

That statement echoed remarks made over the years by other members of the band, all of whom have teased that new music is in progress. In 2019, McKagan told Trunk Nation that a new LP was “real,” though he declined to elaborate further. “The fun part about Guns N’ Roses,” he said, “is that we don’t really talk about it, what happens next just happens.” Guitarist Richard Fortus, meanwhile, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2018 that a new record could arrive “faster than you think,” though that optimism has yet to materialize into a release.

The uncertainty surrounding a new Guns N’ Roses album is hardly unusual for the band. Since their explosive debut with 1987’s Appetite for Destruction, they’ve been known for both their musical ambition and chaotic production timelines. The mythos surrounding Chinese Democracy (an album that underwent countless revisions, producer changes, and legal complications), only heightened the sense of unpredictability that has long defined the band’s creative identity.

Still, Slash’s latest remarks suggest a renewed sense of focus among the reunited lineup, one that fans hope will translate into a complete studio record rather than sporadic singles. Though no label announcement or release date has been confirmed, the guitarist’s acknowledgment that “everybody is thinking about it” may be the clearest sign yet that the project is moving beyond speculation.