It took Guns N’ Roses 14 years from starting to record Chinese Democracy in 1994 to its eventual release in 2008, but Axl Rose appears likely to release the next Guns album rather more quickly.

Rose and the current Guns lineup have apparently almost completed work on their followup album, and could even release it next year. Guitarist Richard Fortus confirmed the development to Australian news service Noise11.

Chinese Democracy became of the great sagas of popular culture, as Rose spent a decade promising the record even as the band’s lineup dissolved around him. It remains notorious as being the most expensive album ever recorded, with the total studio bill coming in at $13m. It eventually emerged 15 years after covers collection The Spaghetti Incident?, the band’s previous record.

By that point Rose was the only member of the original lineup, but he has successfully kept the Guns N’ Roses brand alive, touring and headlining festivals. The current band consists of Rose and Fortus, also guitarist with the Dead Daisies, along with Dizzy Reed, Tommy Stinson, Chris Pitman, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Frank Ferrer and DJ Ashba.

It had been rumoured that Chinese Democracy would be the first instalment in a trilogy of releases, and Ashba joked in 2011 that the second part would “not take as long” to release. In 2011, he told Melbourne’s Triple M radio station: “Axl has a lot of great songs up his sleeve. He probably has three albums’ worth of stuff recorded. The stuff I’ve heard -- I’ve been up in his hotel room many nights and he just sits down at the piano and plays. I’m like: ‘This is amazing, people have to hear this song,’ and he’s like: ‘Ah, this is something I’m tinkering on.’”

Still, Guns N’ Roses fans know from bitter experience not to expect the new album until it is actually released.