Paul Tobias

The first known collaborations by Tobias and childhood friend Axl Rose can be traced back to 1984 and the formation of Hollywood Rose. The band's demo tape featured two songs co-written by Rose and Tobias: "Shadow of Your Love" and "Back Off Bitch".

In 1985, Rose formed Guns N' Roses. Several tracks on the band's debut album, Appetite for Destruction, were written beforehand and originally intended for earlier projects. While the Hollywood Rose track "Shadow of Your Love" was re-recorded during these sessions, it didn't make it to the album. It was released as a B-side of the album's first single, "It's So Easy/Mr. Brownstone". Tobias was thanked in the album's credits.

The third Guns N' Roses studio album, Use Your Illusion I, featuring a re-recorded version of "Back Off Bitch", was released in 1991. At the time, Rose stated in an interview that the song was roughly ten years old.

In late 1994, Tobias replaced Gilby Clarke and played rhythm and lead guitar on the band's cover version of Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil". While Tobias contributed to the song on Rose's request, his inclusion is known to have caused friction between Rose and the band's then-lead guitarist Slash, because of an overdub made by Tobias of Slash's solo on the song.

Tobias is known to have worked and recorded with Guns N' Roses in 1996, when the band started working on their sixth studio album. His role in the band was not clarified publicly at the time as it was uncertain if he would eventually feature on the album and subsequent tours as a rhythm guitarist.[1] Rose further explained that the intention of bringing in Tobias was to help the band in the studio:

"The public gets a different story from the other guys – Slash, Duff, Matt – who have their own agendas. The original intentions between Paul and myself were that Paul was going to help me for as long as it took to get this thing together in whatever capacity that he could help me in. So when he first was brought into this, he was brought in as a writer to work with Slash. At the time those guys never suggested one name."[2]

In 1997, Tobias began working for Guns N' Roses full-time in a studio setting, jamming and recording song ideas with keyboardist Dizzy Reed and then-lead guitarist Robin Finck, among others.[3] During this time Tobias and Reed wrote a song called "Oh My God".[4] In 1999, the band recorded the song and released it on the soundtrack of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days.

In January 2001, when Guns N' Roses played their first concerts in eight years at Las Vegas's House of Blues and Rock in Rio III, Rose introduced Tobias on stage in both shows as someone who had helped him keep the band together during the past years. In Rio, Rose also noted that Tobias had previously played live in only a handful of shows. The band played their next two concerts in December 2001, also in Las Vegas, which were Tobias' last appearances as a band member.

In mid-2002, due to his aversion to touring, Tobias was replaced in the band by Richard Fortus.[2] At the time it was not officially stated that Tobias had left Guns N' Roses. After the band released Chinese Democracy in 2008, Tobias was credited as a co-writer on seven of the album's songs, in addition to playing guitar and piano parts.[5] In 2018, Tobias was again associated with Guns N' Roses when "Shadow of Your Love" was released as a single.[6]

In 2002, Tobias' band Mank Rage (David Lank, Darren Mickler and several past drummers) expressed interest in releasing an album, consisting of material recorded prior to his tenure with Guns N' Roses.[7] In July 2006, nearly four years later, a MySpace account featuring three of the band's demos was opened.

Tobias worked with former Guns N' Roses drummer Brain on several tracks of production music for an album called Eclectic Cinema.[8] The album also features Guns N' Roses and Buckethead collaborator Pete Scaturro and future Guns N' Roses keyboardist Melissa Reese.

• Mank Rage on MySpace
• Huge Hits: A Guns N' Roses Playlist