1996.07.DD - Politically Incorrect - Interview with Slash

Transcript by Soulmonster:
-----------------------------------

Panelists: Dolph Lundgren, Slash, Tom Dreesen & Richard Blackwell

Maher: all right hello well I must say first of all this happens very rarely

[Slash lights a cigarette]

Maher: you wanted to sit next to mr. Blackwell

Dreesen: if slash is gonna smoke I'm moving over here if you don't mind

oh thank you

Maher: we never had this problem when women were on, isn't that odd that the men seem to have ants in their pants

Slash: Yeah, but the women should have been here.

Blackwell: [something]

Slash: We will speak on their behalf.

Maher: we have four very macho guys here on the panel

[laughter]

Blackwell: What did you say?

Maher: Macho.

Maher: You worked with Sinatra [pointing at Tom Dressen], you do [gesturing weight lifting and pointing at Dolph Lundgren], you're in Guns N' Roses [pointing at Slash], you've got a poisoned pen [pointing at Richard Blackwell].

Maher: Anyway, um, this happens very rarely that we have he's got an all-male panel but there is all male in the news at the Virginia Military Academy, I'm sure you've been reading about this, was ordered by the Supreme Court to admit women. Some people are upset about that. It seems some people say that the white male is the last person in our society who can segregate himself, I mean, they have all-girls schools and they have all-black dorms but it seems like this is the last... is there something wrong with us getting together and just being ourselves?

Slash: Think about it... [laughter] Can I just throw the first one, because I thought about this one and I was like, you know, all things considered, I think women... I think it should be co-ed [breaks out laughing]

Maher: Yeah, you did do a lot of thinking about that one.

[laughter and sporadic comments]

Maher: And women say we are dumb, eh, I guess the joke's on them! Right boys? [laughter]

Slash: I had to throw that in because I figured it would shake things up a bit.

Blackwell: Listen, I'm all for it, who would get a dance with on Saturday night

[semi-serious discussion]

Slash: I think it should be... I think women are really... one of those things that where...  they've been put in a place where... I don't think they get enough respect, for one, and they've been fighting this and so on for you know [laughter from other panelists] don't laugh!

Lundgren: [chuckling] Yeah, I agree with you buddy.

Slash: Because as far as the way that they're accepted from an international point of view as far as their their involvement in politics, their involvement in government. Period. You know, it's like, I really think that women are, like, infinitely more intelligent than men are. [applause from the audience]

Maher: it's an easy crowd-pleasing thing to say but, I mean, if you listen to some of your lyrics and videos...

[laughter]

Slash: Those weren't mine [laughter]. Those were not mine.

Maher: But you're part of the group, you got to take responsibility.

Slash: We work as a group and that's how that goes. And however anybody feels that's how it goes, you know. What I'm saying is what I personal, as an individual, I always found that that women were, you know, if it weren't for women it's... it's the only thing that sustains our existence, not just in humans but just in nature all together.

Dreesen: Well, you're right. If it wasn't for women we wouldn't be here. What do you think about that?

Maher: It was obvious unnecessary comment and our reputation as an intelligent beings is going going way down by the moment so I'm gonna take a break.

[commercial break with a poll where people could take a guess at "Slash's home page" with the following alternatives "gunsn'roses.guitar" (28 %), "rock.longhair.guitar" (20 %) and "slash slash backslah SLASH" (52 %).

Maher: Okay, we were talking about excluding the sexes from each other which is appropriate cuz we happen to wind up with an all-male panel. I know, Dolph, we cut you off, you were saying something probably about the locker room thing, right?

Lundgren: No, it was just a comment on Slash's monologue here about women.

[laughter]

Slash: I know somebody you know.

Lundgren: Yeah? Who?

Slash: My mom used to do makeup for Grace Jones when you were with Grace.

Lundgren: Oh, yeah, really?

[something]

Maher: Your mom did make up for Grace Jones?

Slash: My mom says she was the…

[something]

Lundgren: I was just thinking that, um, you know, I think it's also wonderful that men and women are different and I think that if you try to make them the same all the time and, you know, that isn't was meant from the beginning and I think that uh you don't want to lose the wonderful differences.

Maher: What a battle of the platitudes we have here today!

[something]

Maher: But the question is, should we be able to separate ourselves from them?

Slash: No, why should we? I think they should be able to do whatever they want.

Dreesen: [arguing that women can't meet physical requirements in the military]

Lundgren: [arguing that is tougher for men to see wounded woman than wounded men]

Slash: Isn't that women's decision? A woman's decision, to be able to...

Lundgren: Yeah, sure.

[applause]

Lundgren: I mean you are right there, what can I say?

Slash: I am not gonna argue with the fact that obviously men are more naturally adapted to going out there and hitting their heads against rocks and, you know, sure.

[laughter]

Slash: But if a woman wants to make that decision to go and do that it's their decision.

Dreesen: [arguing that if Slash was in a foxhole he would rather have Dolph Lundgren next to him that a woman]

Slash: Well, they train Dolph, they can train women. It has to be right.

[laughter]

Maher: And how many times are you going to get a Dolph?

[laughter]

[talking about Dolph being the ultimate warrior and that you could end up with someone like Blackwell or Slash in your foxhole)

Slash: And if it was me I'd be on Xanax or something [?].

Maher: Well, I'm glad you mentioned Xanax because I want to get to drugs. No I mean as an issue but we have to take a break right now.

[commercial break]

Maher: Because it has been much in the news in both the music and sports, the Olympics' coming up, it's always there, and I know you are [looking at Lundgren] the pentathlon coach, right?

Lundgren: Team leader, yeah.

Maher: And this was Sunday's LA Times the front page, "heroin deaths fuel music industry soul-searching." There was a another heroin death, Jonathan Melvoin, of The Smashing Pumpkins. I know you kicked a drummer out of Guns, and by the way, what do you have to do to get kicked out of Guns N' Roses?

[laughter]

Slash: I am totally prepared for this. I'm cool. Now, the thing is is Keith Richards put it best to one of our band... "I slept in a chandelier last night and I still made it on time." The thing about music is there's no, listen...

Maher: He had a light bulb in his ass.

[laughter]

Slash: But that was one of those statements. We come from more or less like, where I was born from was in the 60s which drugs didn't seem threatening, they didn't seem... the only conflict of interest in drugs was with the law and that sort of helped feed and you know, alright, this help feed the anarchy that was anything towards, you know, authority…

Maher: Would you defend it, there's a quote here in the paper from a head of one major record label who would not go on record...

Slash: I am kinda nervous about answering this question.

Maher: ...but he said,  "I believe in drug use, it's part of growing up and the creative process."

Slash: The way it was put to me was, "is there any future in an anti-drug rock-and-roll thing," and I don't think there's any feature in an anti-drug anything.

[laughter]

Slash: No, wait. Just so I can get this across.

[someone: I am shicked that he said that]

Slash: It's in sports, it's in politics, it's a music, and I'm talking about jazz, I'm talking very classical -- wait, wait, let me finish -- it's in the theater, it is in the arts, it's in arts & crafts for christ's sake. You've got people stoned doing tiles. And in rock and roll... I don't see it leaving. It's been around for so long. I'm talking about the history of the human race, it's been it for so long. It's how you deal with it and, you know, the 90s is a certain kind of -- I'm not ready to budge…

Dreesen: I think what Slash is trying to say, Bill...

Slash: It's not going anywhere, but what I'm saying is....

Maher: In music it is all about condemning it now. Which, I'm not saying is wrong, but in sports they really seem to wink at it a lot more. I mean, I hear announcers say, you know, "oh, look at him they grow them so big down in Texas, he's 380 and 6'10 and," you know. He's a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the generation of football players before them, they don't know that these guys are on steroids, of course they do, right? I mean, isn't it a winking thing that's going?

[discussion]

Slash: The biggest thing is in, in humanity…

Blackwell: I think we better educate people, I think it's very serious. It's about time we do it.

[Applause]

Blackwell: We can all sit here and have a laugh but we better educate them.

Maher: But what do you say to those who say, "drugs make the man"?

Slash: No, no, no.

[Someone: Drug do not make the man].

Slash: In the early days, I mean, it did like, okay, um, you and I have hung out enough times to know that when I was brought up in it all right...

[Someone: I rest my case!]

[laughter]

Maher: Always at the public library!

Slash: I didn't get into the talk show host, too, you know. All right, anyway, okay, I am not pointing at you, you know, but everybody in the entertainment industry has had some sort of background with drugs whether you could survive...

[protests from the rest of the panel]

Slash: Okay, okay, 90 %. In the in the 31 years I've been around, okay, everybody I've noticed…

[people talking over each other]

Dreesen: But here the thing, you want to tell every young kid who wants to be a musician, every young kid who wants to be an athlete…

Slash: But I stopped.

Dreesen: [incredulous] When did you stop?

[laughter]

Slash: I stopped eight years ago.

[laughter]

Slash: No, I had a serious heroin problem and all these musicians' who are dying now, like, in the old days it was...

Maher: Wait, when you had the heroin problem, how sleepy were your eyes then?

[laughter]

Maher: I am sorry, Slash, I got to break you off an take a break.

[commercial break]

[the rest of the program is just about clothing]

The date of this must be wrong. Maher mentions the death of Jonathan Melvoin (Smashing Pumpkins) who died on July 12, 1996. He reads about it in a newspaper (Los Angeles Times) from last Sunday, so the debate must have happened close to that date, e.g. in July 1996.

It is also confirmed in this article: https://www.a-4-d.com/t4660-1996-06-dd-marshall-law-the-slash-interview that the Bill Maher show took place in June 1996. but I assume the airing date could still have been July.