To me the vocals definitely sound like pre-Appetite era demo Axl. Maybe even Hollywood Rose-era. It seems more like he's shouting and less like later songs where he's settled into his own vocal style.

*edit* Ooh, there's a third clip up now: https://soundcloud.com/scntofawoman16/soaw-snippet-3

In the last two years, Bucket's released over 100 half-hour EP's ("Pikes") on Bandcamp. For each one, he's released a $9 digital download, a $25 signed edition, and a $35 edition with a hand-drawn cover. Based on the numbed copies I've seen posted on the Buckehead boards, I'd estimate he's selling between 100-300 of each of these, maybe even more for the download versions. I'm not sure how much of a cut Bandcamp keeps, but that could easily put him at a million dollars worth of sales in the last two years alone.

However, knowing that his mom recently passed away, and with the state of the American health care system, it's possible that he could be churning these out simply to pay off her medical expenses.

Regardless, whenever the follow-up to Chinese Democracy comes out, I hope it will still included Bucket's contributions both in songwriting and solos, and Axl doesn't feel the need to replace him with DJ's solos.

Here's another in-depth cover interview, this time with Slash from the 01-24-1991 issue.

Call me naive, but I'm hoping this is a sign that there's a new album coming soon. Which in GNR world, would mean the next five years.

Here's another blast from the past: Guns' first Rolling Stone cover story, from Nov 11, 1988.

*EDIT*
There was also a brief followup ten years later (12/16/1989) where the photographer explained the shot above.