The Izzy Stradlin Documentary You Might Have Missed
Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin, a key songwriter behind some of the band’s greatest songs, got a rather unexpected documentary back in 2020. Titled Dust N Bones: A Story So Far, the film was put together by fans and offers a look at the career of one of rock’s most elusive figures.
Considering that Stradlin has practically disappeared from the music world’s radar over the years, making only occasional brief appearances, some might easily mistake this for an official documentary, which of course, it isn’t.
Anything connected to Guns N’ Roses, whether it involves the band’s past members or its present activities, has always been surrounded by secrecy. Even today, there is plenty we don’t know about the band’s plans, including whether “new” album is going to be released ever. We just don’t know in which format we want to release it, they once said. Five, six, eight, maybe ten years ago… who cares.
As far as this film is concerned, the credit goes to a group of dedicated fans from Ayewis Documentaries, with support from Appetite For Distortion, a podcast dedicated to Guns N’ Roses. Rather than being an official production, Dust N Bones: A Story So Far brings together audio and video recordings of Izzy Stradlin, various interviews, and footage from Guns N’ Roses and Ju Ju Hounds, the band he formed after leaving the group.
We originally covered this story back in 2020 on the non-English language part of Junkyard Rock Stories. Six years later, the documentary is still out there, and if you missed it the first time around, you can watch the entire thing on YouTube.
Junkyard Opinion: The funniest part is that practically nothing has changed in six years. Guns N’ Roses are still touring, basically the same tour they were on back then. Sure, they’ve released six new songs since, but there’s still no new album. And as for Izzy Stradlin, he’s pretty much where he was in 2020, far removed from any kind of involvement with the band and still keeping well out of the public eye. Nothing has really changed, and frankly, it probably never will.
It’s worth mentioning that the actual film was not available for some time around the date when it was originally released. In the meantime the same production team released the second part of the story in 2024.
