Guns N’ Roses keyboardist Melissa Reese is expected to sit out the band’s most recent tour for “personal reasons”.
Just one day ahead of their show in Mexico, Guns N’ Roses have shared that keyboardist Melissa Reese will be absent from their upcoming shows.
In a social media post uploaded late last night (March 27), Guns N’ Roses shared a photo of the entire live band, writing: “Melissa Reese will not be joining the band on tour due to unforeseen personal reasons. We hope our fans understand”.
Reese joined Guns N’Roses in 2016 during the band’s long-awaited reunion tour. In a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Reese would share that it was Chinese Democracy producer Caram Costanzo who’d recruit her for the band, after simply asking, “What are you doing for the next few years?” Constanzo was after someone with “a really unique set of skills that is excellent at those skills,” and Reese fit his description.
She later explained in the same interview that performing live with Guns N’ Roses “Gave me this fire in my belly,” and that “It made me learn shit and show to do it better than everybody else, so I could be the chick that breaks the glass ceiling.”
Since joining the band, she’s gone on to play hundreds of shows with the iconic rock group.
“Guns is definitely still looked at as this dude’s thing, where it’s a male club and there’s no place for a chick,” Reese said. “But you could not ask for a better group of dudes. That’s the band itself and everyone we work with. They’re protective of me. It’s beyond just having my back. We’re like a family, and they’re like my big brothers.”
As of writing, the band have yet to announce a replacement for Reese ahead of their show tonight at Tecate Pa’l Norte festival in Monterrey, Mexico. It’s also unconfirmed if Reese will be absent from Guns N’ Roses’ Australian tour later this year.
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