2010.11.05 - SVT/NRK Skavlan - Interview with Slash

Transcript:

Fredrik Skavlan: We see in the clip here, the last clip, from your new album, we saw you and Fergie from Black Eyes Peas.

Slash: Yeah.

FS: What were you doing there?

Slash: What was I doing there?

FS: She was putting something in your drink, I think.

Slash: Yeah, she plays an obsessed stalker and she tries to lure me into her hotel room. So she puts a little mickey in my cocktail, drugs me out, so she can get me in the car and takes me back to the thing.

FS: I see.

Slash: That's the premise.

FS: I see. Okay. Uhm. Then I have to ask you, how are you these days?

Slash: Good.

FS: Because I read a few years ago that you had a major heart trouble.

Slash: I had alcohol poisoning so I had cardiomyopathy which is where your heart enlarges and doesn't beat as strongly as it is supposed to. So they gave me a, what do you call it, a sort of pacemaker, defibrillator.

FS: Aha, I see.

Slash: They said, "that will hopefully keep you alive." Because they told me, "you only have like six weeks to live at best ," at that time.

Eli Hagen: So you quit smoking and drinking then?

Slash: I did [laughs].

EH: That was very wise of you.

Slash: So I survived it but I've been a... that was in 2001 and I just got completely clean 4.5 years ago.

EH: [?]

FS: How does this machine work? Does it like-

Slash: If your... you know the defibrillator they put on you that pump your chest?

FS: Yeah.

Slash: It's like that, only from the inside. So if your heart starts beating too fast or too slow it kicks it back into its normal rhythm.

FS: And has it done that yet or?

Slash: No, yeah, it did it when I first got it because I forgot to tell the doctor that when I go onstage my heart beat goes way up so I went and did some shows with Michael Jackson and I was onstage and all of a sudden this thing kicked in. It was like getting hit with a baseball bat without the pain but with the impact of it. And I said, "what the hell was that?" And it did it, like, 5 times.

Carl I. Hagen: What happens if say the batteries go out? Do you then die? Can you still live on your own heart?

Slash: No, I mean, basically it's there to protect you if your heart goes out of rhythm.

CIH: So if your batteries go out and your heart's okay, you'll be fine.

FS: When I read the book about you it's like you took pills like it was candy, or drugs like it was candy. And I wonder, how could you play the guitar so amazingly when you did that?

Slash: That's a good question. I don't know. It was just something that I was sort of good at doing. It's a great balancing act. I was a little bit more responsible than I probably appeared. I was very aware of how much I was doing. But there would be moments when... this particular thing was with alcohol and I'd just been drinking so much for so long it had to affect something and it just turned out to be my heart. But I played fine.

EH: When did you start with drugs? Did you start early?

Slash: When I was probably like 13.

EH: 13?

Slash: Yeah. I was one of those sort of rebellious kids that was getting into everything.

EH: And how old are you now?

Slash: 45.

Eh: 45?

FS: And still here.

EH: And still here. Good.

FS: You actually grew up in a sort of rock and roll environment. I mean, you are originally British.

Slash: Originally, yeah.

FS: And you...

Slash: Well I still am.

FS: And your mother I understand was really a big-time designer doing clothes for John Lennon, Yoko One and David Bowie.

Slash: Yeah.

FS: It's amazing!

Slash: Yeah, it's great. She - both my mom and my dad - she did the clothing, the designing, for really a lot of the big entertainers of the 70s, and my dad was doing album covers, so we were in that sort of entertainment circle. Which everything, especially in the 70s, there was a lot of drugs, a lot of sex, a lot of stuff, and I just naturally fell into that lifestyle.

FS: Is it true that she actually dated David Bowie for a while?

Slash: She did, yeah.

FS: So, did she bring him home?

Slash: Yeah. He was sort of like, for want of a better word, sort of like my "stepdad" for a period there.

FS: It doesn't seem natural to call him dad.

Slash: No.

[laughter]

Slash: But he was the first man to come along and sort of take the place of my dad in the household. It was an interesting-

FS: Incredible. What period of Bowie's was this?

Slash: This was his Thin White Duke period.

FS: Incredible having the Thin White Duke as your dad.

Slash: And the thing was, she was... my mom was making clothes for him and designing his clothes. But I mean, I got used to him pretty easily, he was a good guy. A very mild-mannered, softly spoken, creative individual.

EH: Can I ask you something total different? Are you always wearing the hat and the sun glasses?

[laughter]

Slash: A lot [laughs].

EH: Just curious.

Slash: I mean, in certain public situations like this, yeah.

FS: She always has-

EH: I always have my hair, so that's the reason I asked.

[laughter]

Slash: It's one of those things I feel more comfortable with.

EH: is it your image?

Slash: Yeah but it's more of a comfort zone for me because I am basically pretty shy and if I was out here without the shades and without a guitar and without the hat.

CIH: How can you be shy? We saw you on the clip, I mean, you were dancing around on stage and playing the guitar fantastically and you do all these things...

Slash: But that's different-

CIH: Why?

Slash: Because as a performer with a guitar I feel a lot more comfortable than without.

CIH: So it's safe to hold the guitar?

Slash: yeah.

CIH: You're safe when you have it?

Slash: Yeah.

EH: And if you take off your hat and your glasses no one will recognize you.

Slash: That's not really the whole thing of it, though.

EH: Isn't?

Slash: All things considered, I think it's something that people started to recognize me like that because I always wear it.

FS: If anything, what do you miss from the Guns N' Roses years?

Slash: I don't really miss anything because I had such a full experience doing it and really took it as far as one could take it and still have a good time, so that was all... that was really... it's not something I miss, because I did it and when I moved on I was pretty satisfied with where it ended.

FS: You got to, you got to, work with a lot of other musicians as well, and among them Michael Jackson as you mentioned. Do you relate to him as a person?

Slash: Yeah, as an artist, for sure. Our relationship was purely professional. I didn't go over to the house and hang out and all that kind of stuff. But on a professional level we got along great and I really liked him as a person on that level, you know.

FS: I also have to ask you about one of, I think he is one of your neighbors in LA, Robbie Williams.

Slash: Right.

FS: Because he is coming on this show in a few weeks.

Slash: Yeah, that's what I heard.

FS: And... how is he is a neighbor?

Slash: He's great. I go over there... I mean, he's a good guy. Play poker over there and stuff.

[laughter]

FS: Is he a poker player?

Slash: He is a good poker player.

FS: Really?

Slash: Yeah.

FS: He doesn't have much of a poker face.

Slash: Actually, he's got a great poker face. He's just... it's hard to explain. He's just acting himself while he's kicking your ass in poker.

[laughter]

Slash: He doesn't look like he's trying very hard and he talks a lot to other people while he's doing it and actually, the way I met Robbie Williams was in a courtyard of a hotel in Hollywood, and this guy - which I never... I didn't know who Robbie Williams was, in the States he is not as popular as he is in Europe - and so this guy come sup top me and goes, "Hey, you're from Stoke!" And I was like, "Yeah," you know, and I said, "Yeah, I'm from Stoke," and he goes, "I'm from Stoke!" and I'm like, "That's great," you know. I wasn't really interested in this conversation, and he goes, "I'm Robbie Williams," and I'm like, "Okay". Anyway-

[laughter]

Slash: Later that night I went to do a jam guest spot with some musicians called Camp Freddy which is a cover band that has all these different celebrity musicians get up an jam. And so I got up there to start playing and the guy who was singing was Robbie Williams.

FS: Incredible. I mean.... You are both from Stoke, they must be very proud of you in Stoke?

Slash: I haven't been back there, but, you know, my family is proud and I talk to them all the time and I see them when they come out to visit at shows and so on. But I actually haven't been back to Stoke in 40 years.

FS: You probably have a statue there or something.

Slash: Well, they want to build a statue-

FS: They want to build a statue?

Slash: Yeah. So I plan on going back there some point next year during the UK tour and actually doing a show in Stoke if I can. Because apparently they have a great venue that we can play-

FS: And then they will have a statue there?

Slash: I don't know, I think they are lobbying to have a statue. I don't know-

FS: One of Robbie as well?

Slash: I don't know. I know that they want to build one of me and one of Lemmy from Motorhead.

FS: But not Robbie?

Slash: I don't know. I haven't heard about Robbie.

FS: This might be an issue. You know, I'll certainly discuss this with him.

FS: We're gonna move on here.

[Shift to Norwegian and cut]

FS: Slash, you're actually a spokesperson for a shark initiative, what is that?

Slash: Protect sharks campaign, it's an organization that is funded by the Humane Society. And it's basically to protect sharks because people get the wrong impression of sharks and kill them, you know, wantonly. It's not really right.

FS: But... do you know any sharks or have you only seen them on television?

Slash: Uhm, I'm a big fan of sharks. I think that when I was a little kid I used to draw sharks, I never had any kind of encounters like he's had in the ocean [referring to other guest as the show]. But, you know, I used to study them and stuff.

Guest: I told him he's gotta come shark diving with me some time.

Slash: That's something I would love to do. I fed sharks in Australia.

FS: That's easy to say, that's easy to say, Slash, but one day he will call you, you know?

Slash: Yeah, I know, I'm into doing it. I am the kind of guy who would just go. Follow his lead and... he's still here. I would be in good company.

[cut]

Slash: I have been to Africa a couple of times on these sort-of private safaris, and okay, "I really want to see a leopard," and it's probably one of the most boring things you could do, just waiting around for 4-5 days in the spot where that leopard is supposed to be at, just stay there. And when he shows up, it's great, but it's tedious.

[cut; talking about English accents]

Slash: Yeah, my accent is long gone, but when I was little I had a really thick Northern accent. I grew up in the Midlands.

FS: How would that sound?

Slash: I can't do it.

Guest: [in Northern accent] You talked like that. Northern accent.

Slash: And in my family that's from there, I see them on occasion, they still have that accent, it's really strong. And very easily identifiable.

Just finished transcribing this.

It was surreal to see Eli Hagen (married to Carl I. Hagen, also a guest at the show and a far right politician) ask Slash all kinds of questions.