Slash. Probably one of the most recognizable names in rock and roll history. No introduction needed among music fans spanning the last 20+ years who packed 90,000 seat arenas worldwide and bought the more than 90 million albums that Guns n’ Roses sold. The talented and well respected guitarist who helped launch and rocket G n’ R, one of the biggest hard rock bands of the last two decades, to superstardom and beyond.
All this amidst an era that exposed to the music world one of the most controversial, talented, maddening, idolized, and brilliant lead singers. Mr. Axl Rose.
I’ve known Slash professionally since about 1990 at the height of the band, as he and I sat at a booth in the VIP section of a popular NYC club drinking Jack with a couple of industry folks and bullshitting. I even bummed one of his infamous cigarettes, even though I didn’t smoke but thought it would be a cool thing to remember and write about one day. Guess this is that day!
And Slash and got some time to talk again recently after all these years, this time about his looking back also, namely about his autobiography release last month. Aptly named by this talented yet soft-spoken and humble guitarist, “Slash.”
Carol Anne Szel: Tell me about the book.
Slash: It’s totally a work of flesh. It’s really cool. It’s definitely different. I don’t read a lot of rock books but when I was a kid I read a couple and I vowed never to read any more because they were all full of shit.
CAS: You wanted it to come from you and not through a bunch of journalists.
Slash: Yes. This one, because it’s written more or less by me as opposed to somebody else’s interpretation of what they think my life is about, what went on with Guns n’ Roses and all that stuff. And there’s a lot of stuff in it because all things considered there was a lot of stuff to put in. I actually remembered enough to fill the book up!
CAS: So you got it all out!
Slash: Well, even though the book’s done I keep remembering stuff I should have put in it, but too bad.
CAS: Well does that mean there will be a volume II?
Slash: Yeah right! (laughing)
CAS: What was your biggest revelation in the book?
Slash: Oh god there’s tons of them. They’re not really big, they’re just bits and pieces. I wrote it so I won’t have to answer any more Guns n’ Roses questions!
That’s the only reason I did it. I got so sick of being asked every single day - four or five times a day every time I open my mouth to the media – about Axl, about Guns, about this or that or the other. And I just was fed up with it. There’s usually a lot of sensationalism involved. But it’s usually people who are looking for dirt or looking for some controversial something or another so they can sell magazines or whatever.
CAS: So what is it you wanted to get out about your time with Guns?
Slash: Basically what it boils down to is it’s just a slow but constant issue between Axl and I that constantly gets brought up on a regular basis. It also continues to test what little relationship he and I have. I have nothing pleasant to say usually, and that constitutes as being negative on a regular basis.
I sort of wanted to get past that.
CAS: Was it a cleansing experience for you?
Slash: To an extent, yeah. People kept saying I should do a book, and at that particular moment books always seemed so final. Like I was just being put out to pasture or something! And I’m not old enough nor have I lost my ambitious edge, not even being close to finished.
So I realized at one point, someone mentioned to me, it wasn’t even my own idea, that I was pretty much past that whole period and to make it from point A to point C, and point D is where you are now where you’ll just continue what you’re doing so it won’t look so final. And I thought that was a pretty good idea since I’d really like to get past all this sort of bullshit that goes with me and the rest of the guys.
And it’s hard because I don’t find myself to be that important enough to fill up 500 or a thousand pages or whatever it is, with stuff about me in it! So it was hard for me to justify doing a book. I figure at this point I’ll put to rest a lot of the things people ask questions about and just put some anecdotes in there while I’m at it.
CAS: I won’t even bother to ask you about those escapades, since I’m one of those nosey journalists who you got frustrated with that prompted you to write the book “Slash”!!!
Slash: Yeah, thanks!
CAS:So tell me about your transition from Guns to Snakepit and ultimately to your current band multi-platinum band, Velvet Revolver.
Slash: I was still in Guns and we had just finished the Use Your Illusions tour and I wanted to do something that was more along the lines of a simple rock and roll band. And so I put together this really simple project that was Snakepit. And I did that for a few months, took it on the road and played like clubs and theaters, some festival stadium dates and whatever. It was very back to basics and very stripped down and real. Compared to the stadium tours that Guns n’ Roses had been doing the previous few years.
What was good was that I got reacquainted with why I love doing what I do. And then I went back to Guns and it was just sort of, just out of control. Inevitably I ended up leaving and I toured with Snakepit for a while. And when that was over I started searching around for what I was going to do that was sort of a career move. And then by chance I ended up hooking up with Duff. And that’s basically the origin of Velvet Revolver.
I was doing a lot of jamming on people’s records and jamming in clubs, but I didn’t know what I would be doing for the long term.
CAS: Well you do have a great reputation among musicians as being not only an extremely talented guitarist but also a great guy.
Slash: I wouldn’t exactly know. I get along with other musician’s pretty easily, and I like playing with other people because it keeps my chops up and I get to learn how to work in other people’s environments and learn how to adapt quickly. And just get along with people. Do what it is that you want to do which is play music.
CAS: Your journey to find a lead singer is very well documented, you and Duff seemed to take a lot of time to find a vocalist that fit into what you wanted Velvet Revolver to become.
Slash: Well it was a frustrating thing because musicians are easy to find because there’s so many of them. But the ones that are really unique in their own way who have a style and they’ve established a certain kind of musical identity are fewer and farther between. Singing is such a personal instrument and it really reflects a person’s personality, a person’s character and a person’s talent immediately. You can’t really fake it in vocals.
And so ever since I started playing guitar I’ve been on a quest for singers, ever since I first picked up a guitar. And Axl was really the first like real singer I worked with and one of the best singers I’ve heard. But before that I think I had one singer. I used to do instrumental stuff at keg parties and whatever. Because a bad singer can ruin a band.
So in my own band, Axl was the first singer I worked with where I was partners with somebody. And realistically I’ve only worked with four singers in bands that I’ve been a part of.
Before Scott was interested in doing Velvet Revolver I must have auditioned, we listened to about 200 submissions of tapes and CD’s a week for ten months before Scott. We listened for four or five hours at rehearsal while working on new material. And then we would devote a couple of hours listening to the tapes and CD’s we’d gotten in the mail. By the end of the day you just wanted to commit hari-kari! Somehow we would manage to get up the next day and do it again with a fresh outlook. I was amazed that we were able to hang in there for that long. It was just one of those things you have to go through. There’s always a little bit of due process that goes along with everything if you want it to go well.
It’s a very daunting task. But we went into it very naively, sort of like any garage band would. Put an ad in the paper and just hope for the best. And then when we met Scott, Scott’s such a package kind of a deal. You’re like shit could you imagine if we’d put a list down with all the character traits that this guy needed to have in order to be a frontman for this band? We figured we’d know it when he walked through the door, and that’s what we were going on.
CAS: Comparing it to all the dealings you had going on with Axl in Guns, did you ever think of throwing in the towel this time around when Scott started getting into trouble with his well noted drug problems in Velvet Revolver?
Slash: It wasn’t the same reasons. All of us have been through our chemical issues. And when it came to Scott I sort of knew beforehand what sort of baggage he had. But at the same time it was something that he had to figure out that he had to shake. And he hadn’t been able to do it successfully up till that point. So that didn’t feel like such a big of a deal, like what I had to deal with in the past, (laughs) with others.
He knows how things work as far as this business is concerned, as far as what a band has to do in order to function. And so the drug end of it seemed like the least of anybody’s worries.
CAS: You seemed to have stuck together through thick and thin.
Slash: Yeah we definitely built up a sort of family bond by going through some of the things that we’ve gone through up to this point. And sticking it out through all that stuff. It’s a good feeling when you know you’ve got everybody’s band and everybody’s got yours. There’s a support group there and everybody carries their own weight.
That’s what you need to just survive as a band because it’s not easy. It looks like it is but it’s not.
