A ROSE IS A ROSE? Geffen Records...

A ROSE IS A ROSE? Geffen Records must be disappointed in Izzy Stradlin, right? After all, he was part of Guns N’ Roses last year when that band’s two “Use Your Illusion” collections entered the Billboard pop album chart at No. 1 and 2. But Stradlin’s solo debut, “Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds,” has been in the stores two months now and it still hasn’t even made it to No. 200 on the same chart.

No problem, insists Robert Smith, head of marketing at Geffen Records, which, he says, remains fully committed to the project. “We all really wanted to avoid the endless hype of him being a former member of Guns N’ Roses,” Smith says. “He wanted to stay low-key and let the music speak for itself.”

But is anyone hearing the music? Yes, to some extent. “Shuffle It All,” a track on the album, is a favorite of rock radio and the album itself has been a fixture on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart, which measures retail interest in new artists. Smith says the band is touring Europe in preparation for a series of U.S. club-theater shows starting in mid-February.

“Rock ‘n’ roll stars are not made overnight, even someone who was in Guns N’ Roses,” Smith says. “We were adamant about not blasting it out, hyping it to death and having a one-hit wonder.”