1996.08.DD - MTV Headbangers Ball - Interview with Slash

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

Interviewer: kicking it here in Los Angeles and I don't know about you but whenever I think of LA I always also think of Guns N' Roses. So it's really, really great to start off the show with that video 'Welcome to the Jungle' - how appropriate! And also very appropriate, the man who epitomizes the spirit of LA, it's mr. Slash from Guns N' Roses, of course. So Slash, it's so lovely to have you down on the show, thanks for taking time out to talk to us.

Slash: Yeah, nice to see you.

Interviewer: Nice to see you. How are you doing?

Slash: I'm fine, I just been hanging out here, actually waiting for you, sort of like *gesturing partying?*

Interviewer: Well you must be used to hanging around after all your years in a band?

Slash: Well all things considered I've been here for like four weeks so I just sort of popped down here, like, at night, you know, not usually during the day but at this point - yeah. Like sort of, you know, during the afternoons and hanging out by the pool and there's all day, and the Alice in Chains guys have been here and obviously Ian's been here and so on and so forth so it's been cool.

Interviewer: So what is new in the world of Slash, what's happening?

Slash: Well I'm on my way, actually this evening, well tomorrow morning, it is a three o'clock in the morning - I have to get ready and fly out to Budapest. So I'm doing this sort of band that I threw together to do like a whole bunch of old blues covers and we're just playing a festival. That's basically it. You know and then as far as Guns N' Roses is concerned, as of yesterday we've actually - I don't know - we've sort of concealed our contract so we're in working working order as they say.

Interviewer: Excellent! That's really good news.

Slash: Well...in contrast to everything that's been going on in the press, which I've been hearing a lot of, it's like "Guns is in the studio" or "Guns is this" or "Guns is that" or "I'm hanging up by handcuffs in a hotel room" [chuckling]. I mean, basically we've all been working and so now at this point we're actually going to formate [?] ourselves and get to work.

Interviewer: Have you actually got any new songs written or any ideas got together?

Slash: We have tons of songs. Between the three existing members, you know, like Duff and Axl and I, we've got probably about 80 songs, you know. We just haven't sat down and actually done it because there's been so much political crap going on and I know that kids don't want to know about it but it does go on in this business and sometimes you have to deal with it directly because you can't, there's no other way around it and so, you know, we finally, you know, took the bull by the horns and just said, "look, we don't want to around anymore, let's just do it."

Interviewer: Were those politics coming from within the band or outside the band?

Slash: They come from everywhere [laughing]. They really do. You know, anybody that's young and starting a band at this point, because when I when I first started, I don't know if anybody cares, but when I first started people used to say, like, "how do you get about doing all this stuff?" and, like, I don't know, it's no big deal. But when it comes down to it eventually down the line it becomes something that you weren't expecting and it comes out of the blue and it's just like, and you have to deal with it. If you're gonna function as a working band you have to, you know, confront it.

Interviewer: We'll talk a little bit later on some more about Guns N' Roses but we're actually going to go to a video of your one of your side projects Snakepit. So which video from Snakepit would you like us to show?

Slash: Really? Well, all things considered we only have one. No! We have two actually. I would just do "Beggars and Hangers-on". That was the first one that we ever did and that was the first song that we ever wrote, so.

[cut]

Interviewer: We're still hanging here by the pool with Slash from Guns N' Roses and of course Snakepit. We just checked out a Snakepit video - good to see that one again actually. A good choice, Slash. And I know you've had a lot of downtime from Guns N' Roses in the last, I don't know, two or three years, you kind of...

Slash: I've done, like, since the last... Guns' last show from the Guns' tour, I've done like 580 some odd gigs. So no I haven't had any downtime I've been doing a soundtrack for a movie called Curdled -  that's a Quentin Tarantino movie. I wrote a song for that. And then we're working on the Howard Stern movie right now, which is uh… and actually in this particular hotel, I've been writing all this stuff in the studio downstairs. So I've been working and then I just keep playing, you know, doing gigs. Because if I'm not playing I'm not happy, you know, and if Axl and I aren't seeing eye-to-eye on something having to do with Guns then I just go, "okay peace, I've gotta go, see ya!" [laughter] and I go on off to work elsewhere until we do come to a meeting of the minds, you know.

Interviewer: Yeah, what I actually meant was you've had downtime from Guns N' Roses and I know you don't like to like sit around. But also - and this whole kind of thing of when you went back to Snakepit and stuff - you like the whole underground feel of all the side projects that you do, don't you?

Slash: I wouldn't have traded... we did, I don't know, 180 gigs in four months in four continents and it was like to the point where we were lucky we had day rooms where the whole band would sleep in one room. And that's like the old days and so I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything in the world and whether it was like... it was never supposed to be as epic as Guns N' Roses turned out to be, it's just going out there and playing for kids and meeting them and just jamming. That's where I come from so it's like, I had a really good time doing it. And it also reestablished in my mind why is the fuck that I do what I do.

Interviewer: Excellent. And I know it's difficult for you to say, but if you could look in like a crystal ball and predict, when do you think Guns might actually get into the studio and and how do you think it's going to go from here?

Slash: Well at this point now that Axl and I are really civil. We went out to dinner recently and had a bottle of wine together and like sat and talked about what we were interested in and so on and so forth. You know, more complicated I guess than it normally would be, but Axl is a very complicated guy. He does like to talk about the stuff, I like to just plug in and jam and that's sort of the thing that's the difference between guitar players and he is sort of a visionary, and it sounds like Spinal Tap, and I just like to play my guitar. But we did sit down a couple times and have a really good meeting and so at this point I start rehearsal in a week and a half or so and we just take it from there. That's the way I see it. If you were to talk to him it'd probably be like a little bit more... yeah, I don't know, planned out than that but I'll just show up and we'll go from there. It'll work out, though.

Interviewer: Sure. I'm sure it will. Well it's been a pleasure talking to you thanks very much and lots of luck with with Guns N' Roses. That's very exciting news that the band are going to be getting back into the studio sometime this year. I think we can say that. All right, thanks Slash and we speak to you, I guess next time, next Guns N' Roses album?

Slash: [?]

Interviewer: Alright, cheers.

When Slash says, "Well...in contrast to everything that's been going on in the press, which I've been hearing a lot of, it's like "Guns is in the studio" or "Guns is this" or "Guns is that" or "I'm hanging up by handcuffs in a hotel room" [chuckling]," the handcuffs is a reference to a rumour that was swirling in May about Slash having to be freed after having been handcuffed to the bedpost of his hotel room in New York: https://www.a-4-d.com/t4292-1996-05-29-the-philadelphia-inquirer-short-notice-slash

Kerrang! did an interview with Slash here at Sunset Marquis on this day, too: https://www.a-4-d.com/t1606-1996-09-21-kerrang-we-ain-t-dead-yet-slash#17072