Guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (SONS OF APOLLO, ex-GUNS N’ROSES) was recently interviewed by RadioactiveMike Z.

On his favorite GUNS N’ ROSES songs to play live:

Ron: “[For] one that I was on, I would have to go with ‘Shackler’s Revenge’, because I was doing a lot of backing vocals and a whole lot of switching between fretted and fretless. Definitely from the ‘Chinese Democracy’ stuff, ‘Shackler’s Revenge’ was a great one to play live, and one where I felt like I contributed a lot more compared to some of the other songs. That one, I felt more of a personal — I don’t know if connection is the right word, or just, I felt like I made a baby with it. With some of the other ones, I felt like I was kind of in the room, maybe, even though I did play on every song and I did write parts for every song and recorded them all, but that one, I contributed the most, and I felt good about that — that I was able to contribute a lot in that song.

“As far as the rest of whole rest of the catalog, tons of stuff — the obvious ones, ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. Why? Because that’s the one that got some of the biggest cheers in the audience, and that’s what it was about. That’s why we’re there; that’s why we were playing. Whatever is going to make people the happiest and lift them the most, and that was one of the songs that did it. ‘[Welcome To The] Jungle’, ‘Nightrain’, ‘Paradise [City]’, ‘November Rain’… I loved playing ‘Don’t Cry’. Our first year of touring together in 2006, 2007, we didn’t do that song as a band, and fans would always write to me and say, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Don’t Cry’?’ What I started doing in my guitar solo, when it was time for me to do my thing, I started playing this sort of one-man version of it, bringing in the chords and the melody and everything, and the audience would sing along. Eventually, it became part of the set. I remember I was in Tokyo in 2007, and we were ending the show. I didn’t grab a solo that night, and I remember Axl [Rose] said to me, ‘Hey, let’s go out, second encore, and let’s do ‘Don’t Cry’. I’m going to join you.’ It was the first time he did that song live in over a decade, from what I understand. From there, it became part of the set.”

The full conversation can be listened to here