1992.06.06/07 - MTV - Reports and interviews from Paris (Slash, Duff, Matt, Gilby)

TRANSCRIPTION:
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Voice-over: For the first time in their career, Guns N’ Roses are playing Paris - at Hippodrome de Vincennes, to be exact - before a local audience of some 40,000 fans and at estimated 200,000 households in 14 countries, that will be watching the pay-per-view concert via satellite.

[cut to joint interview with Slash, Duff, Matt and Gilby]

Slash: The only reason we’re doing this is because it’s a vehicle for us to get our show out to a bunch of people that don’t have the opportunity to see it. So that’s that.

Duff: And also, I might want to add, it’s not, like, a profit motivated thing for us to make money. It’s just for kids. Cuz we’re only playing certain towns and certain places, and kids that don’t get to see us, and can’t afford it, and just can’t make it, it gives them the opportunity to see us. So I hope it all works out great.

Voice-over: Guns N’ Roses aren’t complete pay-per-view rookies. Axl Rose and former Guns’ guitarist Izzy Stradlin joined the Rolling Stones for a song during the Stones’ own cable special back in December of 1989. And Guns will have some special guests of their own for this Parisian broadcast. Chief among them, former Yardbirds guitar legend Jeff Beck; singer Lenny Kravitz will be doing his own Always On The Run, a song on which Slash played guitar; and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, the group for which Guns N’ Roses opened a few years back, will be stepping out on stage for run-throughs of Train Kept-A-Rolling and the Aerosmith classic Mama Kin. In addition, cable viewers will be seeing an opening set by Seattle’s own Soundgarden, which is currently touring Europe with Guns and Faith No More. For those who can’t actually be in Paris for the show, but will be watching at home, Guns N’ Roses have a few tips.

[cut to joint interview with Slash, Duff, Matt and Gilby]

Gilby: They should turn all the lights down, they should have lighters in their hand, they should have beers or their cocktails nearby... They should treat it just like a concert.

Slash: Everybody at home should just have a great time, because that’s what the whole rock thing is about.

Voice-over: And will this televised concert be any different from a normal Guns N’ Roses gig? If there is such a thing.

[cut to the joint interview with Slash, Duff, Matt and Gilby]

Duff: It’s not like we (?) in, like, tuxedos or something and make this a whole big deal, you know? We’re just gonna play a show. And that’s that.

Slash: We go out and it’s real for us. It’s like, the first couple of songs, we feel what the crowd’s like, and it’s not an easy thing to do, to be able to – you can’t fake it, you know. So we go out there and do it the way we do it.

Duff: When it comes down to it, I mean, we really are just a touring band. And that’s what we’re geared toward, and that’s what we should be doing, and that’s what we gotta do.

[Cut to interview with fan at the venue during rehearsal]

Fan: I mean, I love Guns N’ Roses, you know? It’s happening.

Loder: You have your own VIP guest pass, as we see here. Who did give you that?

Fan: John Reese, he’s the tour manager and he’s seen I was coming to the shows. And Doug Goldstein, who’s the personal manager, you know, (?) he says, “he’s part of the family, do something for him.” And they gave me this pass, which I can get into the shows and I can come backstage, you know, meet the fans...

Loder: These are pretty nice guys, I guess, right?

Fan: Excellent people. I mean, you got to know them, you have to talk to them and sit down, you know? And they’ll talk to you as long as you’re honest with them. That’s all I wanna be.

Loder: Well, we also discovered that they’re pretty entertaining guys too. We were talking to them yesterday and here’s what we saw.

[cut to footage from rehearsal]

Matt: Here we are at the Guns N’ Roses rehearsal in Paris, and we’ve got Jeff Beck coming up here in a minute to play a little tune with us called Locomotive. These are his amps they’re plugging in. It’s a couple of Fender Twin Reverbs - I think they are.

Crew member: Do you know how this goes?

Matt: I don’t know exactly how that goes.

Gilby (outside a tent near the stage with his name written on it): Major behind the scenes action. Now, let’s see, this is for when we’re about to walk on stage, and they go, “house lights.” We know where to go, cuz we can at least read.

Duff (outside a tent with his name written on it): It’s kind of obvious whose these are, as it says my name on there.

Gilby (outside Slash’s tent): Once again, no matter of what it says, (the camera zooms to a sign that reads “Do not enter”), how they try to keep us out, it doesn’t matter, don’t ever mind the sign (goes into the tent).

Duff: When we play, I run, you see? We got this... Let’s go, run.

Gilby (outside Axl’s tent): I think he might be there? It’s Gilby, can I come in?

Duff: To get the gist of this, let’s run. Here we go! (starts running along the stage)

Gilby (inside Axl’s tent): This is Big Red’s. It’s full of action here. A little TV monitor to make sure that we’re not doing anything bad.

(Duff is running)

Gilby: That concludes our backstage Keith Moon tour of Guns N’ Roses.

Duff (after running): That’s only for one chorus of a song. And we play about 3-1/2 hours. So, you see it’s a lot of hard work. This is Duff McKagan for MTV, signing out.

Loder: Guns N’ Roses, fun guys. Even they, however, are seriously impressed by certain aspects of the show, which is just moments away now. Most particularly they are impressed by some of their special guests today, who include Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, their old buddy Lenny Kravitz and former Yardbirds guitar legend Jeff Beck, whose performance you really won’t believe.

[cut to interview with Jeff Beck]

Jeff Beck: Well, I just got a phone call from my manager saying, “Guns N’ Roses called. Would you care to step on stage and do a number of them?” And I said, “Where?” “In Paris.” I said, “Yep, let’s go.” They told me Locomotive was the song. And it’s pretty – there’s a lot of changes in it. I guess they thought that I’d be alright for that, for a guest spot.

[Footage from rehearsal of Locomotive]

Loder: We were talking to the boys themselves about Jeff Beck and the rest of the show yesterday, and here’s what they had to tell us.

[Cut to interviews with Slash, Duff, Matt, Gilby and Lenny Kravitz]

Slash: The phone rings, I pick it up and I’m like, “What!” And he goes, “Is that Slash? This is Jeff.” And I’m like, “Oh, Jeff... Jeff who?” (laughs). And he was Jeff Beck and I was floored. I was like, okay, this is my all-time favorite guitar player calling me up to ask me about the song and what the schedule was gonna be. And I was like, “Well, you can play whatever you want. I don’t even care if you don’t even learn it. Just come out, that would be great.” (laughs)

Matt: It was really cool because, you know, Jeff Beck was here last night, in the bar downstairs in the hotel, and we said, “Hey, do you wanna come upstairs and learn the song?” You know, he’d never really listened to it. And he came upstairs, and Duff, after a couple of cocktails, was teaching him how to play it on the guitar. And he was, like, teaching Jeff Beck how to play a Guns N’ Roses song. That was something new and different.

Duff: I just thought to myself: 15 years ago, 10 years ago, a year ago, if I would have seen myself showing Jeff Beck a song on the guitar, you know, people would have thought I was nuts.  

Gilby: Jeff Beck, Duff and I are in the room and Duff’s soloing (laughs). Perfect. “Duff! Let him do it,” you know?

Duff: Gilby takes everything - you know, he’s so mellow about everything. And he’s such a good player, and he’s very confident. So Gilby... What does Gilby think about this whole thing? He’s, like, “Cool, can I have a sandwich?”  (laughs) You know?  “Hi Jeff. See ya.”

Lenny Kravitz: I’ve been waiting a long time to get to actually play live with them. And so they called me a week or so ago and said, “Come to Paris and play.”

[cut to another interview with Lenny Kravitz]

Lenny Kravitz: It’s always fun to play with other people, you know, and do something different from what you normally do. Especially when you’re on tour and you’re doing the same thing every night.

[cut back to the interview with Slash]

Slash: It was a riff that I wrote. Initially, I mean, I write everything for Guns, you know. And, sometimes, especially when Steve was in the band, some stuff was definitely too funky. And so we just didn’t use it. So now, having Guns play it, I was like, you guys don’t even realize how funny this is (laughs).

[Footage of Always On The Run]

[cut to another interview with Duff]

Duff: Well, yeah. I mean, it’s gonna be Lenny singing, of course, but it’s gonna... Yeah, it’s a good way to put it. It’s gonna have the Guns N’ Roses attack on it.

Lenny Kravitz: Well, it’s more that we’re just a big jam now, everybody’s playing. We’ve got two keyboard players, three of us on guitar, you know, bass, drums, horns, background singers... It’s kind of a big jam on the tune.

[Footage of Always On The Run]

[cut to interview with Joe Perry]

Joe Perry: Well, I think that when we first went out with them, that was, like, their first big tour or something, you know? So it’s pretty cool to see them doing what they’re doing. At the end of the tour we gave them all Halliburton luggage, you know, the metal stuff, and we said, “Man, you’re in for a ride. Dig it.” So it was cool. It’s great to see them doing what they’re doing. We haven’t really played together that much, but, you know, we can play a song like Mama Kin and it seems to mesh pretty well. And we did Train-Kept-A-Rolling too yesterday. It was pretty good. It was fun.

[live footage]

Duff: We toured with Aerosmith, so we’re already like family with them. You know, they’re pals, and so it’s like Old Home Week or something.

[live footage]

[cut to interviews with Matt and Gilby]

Matt: So they just showed up to watch Jeff play, you know, and then we just got and went out there. And we had never really rehearsed it or anything, but it sounded cool.

Gilby: It’s kind of a great position to be in, to be able to ask, you know, people like that, and they go, “Yeah!” And they’re into it, you know. They did it because they want to jam, you know.

[cut to another interview with Matt]

Matt: I think it’s a great thing for people in countries and, like, states that they don’t have the opportunity to see us. Like, let’s say, a kid lives in Montana or Idaho, which we’ll never play; I mean, maybe someday, but not this week. Or somebody in Russia, because they have MTV in Russia, right? And there’s pay-per-view all over the world. So people can see us that don’t get an opportunity to come to the concert.

[cut to the other interview with Duff]

Duff: We’re not really paying attention or letting it get to us that there’s millions of people watching us (chuckles). Well, you know, we’re just gonna play a regular gig. We’re a rock ‘n’ roll band, you know.

[cut to the interview with Slash]
   
Slash: I have to admit that the amount of pressure going into this pay-per-view thing is a little bit more than the average show. But all you can do is just, like, walk out there and, you know, start playing (laughs).

[cut to MTV News]

Tabitha Soren: You may have been wondering why guitar great Jeff Beck failed to show as promised. Well, Beck was in Paris, but he was unable to play, because he’s suffering from tinnitus, the same ringing in the ear affliction that troubles Pete Townsend of The Who. Beck’s doctor told him to try playing, but apparently the pain in his ear got bad enough after a rehearsal that Beck had to bow out.

[cut to the other interview with Matt]

Matt: He was rehearsing with us all day yesterday and he had - he has tinnitus in his ear and he was having a real problem sleeping last night with this huge ringing in his ear. So he called and he said that, you know, he talked to his doctor, and they thought that it’d be a better idea if he didn’t play, cuz it could cause, you know, damage. So we thought it’d be best for him, and he thought it’d be better if sat out of this one. But it was great to meet him and play with him in the rehearsal anyway, you know.  



TRANSCRIPTION:
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Slash [on being on the cover of Rolling Stone in January 1991]: Yeah, I mean, it was pretty flattering to even - you know, I’m one of the few guitar players that gets the cover. It’s always the lead singer which was... That was cool. And I got to get my snake in it.
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Slash [on the Freddie Mercury tribute concert]: The idea behind the whole concert, the fact that it was completely sold out before they knew who was on the bill – talking about the public – and it sold out in the way to give a sort of certain kind of energy to the AIDS awareness thing, especially in the rock ‘n’ roll circle. And losing Freddie to it was, you know, like a catastrophe. And it turned everybody’s heads around. Having everybody show up at the concert for that cause was great. And then all the bands that were there. There was none of that sort of rock star – you know, who’s who of rock vibe going on. So we all had a basically good time and it was really well organized.
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Duff: Prague, it was – the crowd was great. And the people were very interested in the American culture and talking to us. They spoke English very well.
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Matt: We got a guy named Teddy, Teddy Andreas [sic] and he does harmonica, which is on songs like Bad Obsession, and he plays organ, he’s a great organ player and he’s just a great background vocalist.
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Slash: And it’s fun having this - like, this whole, you know, entourage out on the road. You know, like, five girls, and Ted, and the rest of us. It’s a circus, you know?
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Matt [on the tour with Metallica]: We’re good friends with those guys and stuff, and we’ve got it worked out, so it’s gonna be a cool thing for everybody. It’s not gonna be, like, Guns N’ Roses is headlining and Metallica is opening. It’s gonna be, you know, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. And, you know, they’re gonna do their full set, we’re going to do our full set. And then, you know, what will happen after the end of that, it will be probably something cool.  
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Duff [on the UYI documentary]: We’re making a movie. I can’t really tell you too much about it because we’re kind of sworn to secrecy a little bit, but it’s a documentary, also videos will be intertwined. Okay... If you’ve noticed, some of our videos don’t really make sense. They will. For me to really tell you everything would really kind of spoil the fun of the anticipation.
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Gilby [on the UYI documentary]: Yeah, I just see the cameras all over and stuff, and, you know, after a while you just forget about them. I don’t know if it’s gonna be like the Madonna thing or anything (laughs). I hope not.
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Slash [on the UYI documentary]: I pray for the guys that have to edit it, because there’s a lot of stuff to take out, you know? (laughs)

Loder: Like what?

Slash: Just stuff. You know, stuff that we don’t want to have. Nothing bad, you know. Nothing as far as you know. Basically right now we’re just trying to do the shows. And then when it’s all said and done, we’ll get together and start going through the video stuff, and putting out the punk record and, you know, getting all that out of the way, and then concentrating on the next album.
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Matt [on the “punk EP”]: Well, we recorded it after the epic Use Your Illusion I and II albums. Duff gave me a call and he says, “Hey, let’s do a punk record.” I’m like, “I was thinking of going maybe in Hawaii or something,” but...

Loder: But no.

Matt: (Laughs) But - so we went into the studio one day and we did a bunch of covers, about four or five songs. New Rose, and a song by Fear, which I can’t say the title on the air (laughs). And a bunch of stuff.
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Matt [on writing material for the next album]: Well, we do that when there’s a chance in soundcheck. We usually try to, like, just jam, you know, come up with riffs. So we’ve got some good stuff going in. We tell the sound man to hit the tape player. And then, later on, we’ll compile some of it and maybe we’ll have another Guns N’ Roses album in... five years (laughs).
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Slash [on the next album]: We haven’t gotten together as a band per se and, like, started to put songs together, although we’ve been jamming a lot. You know, cuz we always jam. And so I sit around and, you know, come up with ideas and I just keep it in my head. And when, you know, everything is over with, we’ll probably get together and start trying to complete some of the ideas.

The clips in the second video were included in this MTV special:
https://www.a-4-d.com/t3539-1992-07-17-mtv-special-guns-n-roses-past-present-n-future

The unedited Duff interview recorded on June 6, 1992 (only bits of it were used in the edited videos above).



Transcript:
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[Talk before the interview

Duff (drinking something): I’ll get this out of the way.

TV crew member: It’s out of frame anyway.

Duff (to Kurt Loder): You want a smoke?

Loder: Uh, I just finished one, and then if we all smoke it’s gonna be great. Doors are closed, we can smoke a lot. Hot and smoky (laughs).

TV crew member: Hey, we can do something.

(Laughter)

TV crew member: We actually stole these from the hallway.

Duff: Okay. Just don’t say nothing. (?)

TV crew member: Okay, I’m rolling?

Loder: You’re rolling.]

Loder: So what was it like playing up there with Jeff, huh?

Duff: Well, like I was saying, when I was 11 or 12, in 1976, I saw the Rocks tour and Jeff Beck was opening for Aerosmith, and at the end, for the encore, they played Train Kept A-Rollin’. Now at that age, Aerosmith and Jeff Beck were my heroes, you know, and I was on stage today with those very same people. And I told myself back then, I said, “I’m gonna be there someday” - not necessarily be on stage with them, just be there, you know what I mean? And I was there. It didn’t really hit me until, like, halfway through Train Kept A-Rollin’. I’m looking at Jeff Beck, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and then there’s, you know, Slash, Gilby, Matt... and me! What am I doing up there?! And they were having a blast, because it was literally a blast from the past for them, you know? We were coming up with different ways to play the song and they were all into it, and it’s just... it’s a dream come true. And if I seem a big giddy, there’s a reason for that, you know? I’m still in constant amazement. I’m just... I don’t know what to say.

Loder: Did Jeff make any mistakes? Do you think he makes mistakes? He didn’t blow any lines or anything.

Duff: Who?

Loder: Jeff.

Duff: I hope so. He’s human. Yeah, he made some mistakes. We got in a rehearsal tonight. And, like, I said, last night, here I am in my hotel room showing Jeff Beck a song.

Loder: Really? (laughs)

Duff: Yeah. On his guitar. And it’s like, something’s wrong here, you know?

Loder: (Laughs) Jesus! He’s a quick learner though, right?

Duff: Oh yeah. No, he... I hope so (laughs). No, he already knew the song. There was just a couple of things.

Loder: Yeah...

Duff: But, I mean, I just thought to myself: 15 years ago, 10 years ago, a year ago, if I would have seen myself showing Jeff Beck a song on the guitar, you know, people would have thought I was nuts.

Loder: How did this whole pay-per-view thing come together? Did the band just sit down one day and say, “Well, we can do this”?

Duff: Well, we were approached. We were approached with it. Also I would really like to say we’re not doing it for the money. We’re doing it for – like, the money I’m making, I’m giving it to charity.

Loder: Oh. What charity?

Duff: A couple. My mom in Seattle – I’m from Seattle and she works for the homeless.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: So I’m giving some to the homeless and the other half to the Red Cross.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: Because they need a lot of help right now.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: Um... Where was I? (laughs)

Loder: You’re giving the money from this pay-per-view to charity.

Duff: Oh, oh. How we got approached for the pay-per-view was, the powers that be for pay-per-view approached us to do it. We thought it was a good idea to simply get to the audience that we can’t get to physically, right?

Loder: Yeah. Right.

Duff: It’s simple as that, really. I mean, we can’t play everywhere. You know, in the States we can’t, we just can’t. We’ve been touring now for a year, over a year, and we’ve still got a ways to go with Metallica thing. People think it’s a glamorous life. We’re getting tired, alright?

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: We’re really getting tired, so we can’t play every place. So that’s that.

Loder: How was the thing in Prague? How did that work out? Was that unusual? Was it strange?

Duff: Uh, yeah. They got to learn about toilet paper there (laughs).

Loder: (Laughs) I bet they do.

Duff: No, Prague... the crowd was great. And the people were very interested in the American culture and talking to us. They spoke English very well. Where was strange was East Berlin, which is now all Berlin.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: You know, I shouldn’t say anything... They don’t speak English – well, they shouldn’t, because it’s Germany. But West Germany, on the west side, they speak perfect English. On the east side...

Loder: They speak Russian.

Duff: Yeah!

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: And they have those little cardboard cars. They’re actually made out of plywood and papier mâché. You know that, right?

Loder: (Laughs) No.

Duff: Yeah! The guys from Faith No More got one for free. Someone just gave them a car (laughs).

Loder: (Laughs) Wow!

Duff: And they drove it all the way up to Cologne (laughs).

Loder: (Laughs) Jesus!

Duff: (Laughing) I’m serious! They’re made out of plywood and papier mâché.

Loder: Wow! God... And they just threw it away when they got to Cologne, I guess, right? (laughs)

Duff: Yeah. They just left it on the side of the road (laughs).

Loder: (Laughs) Jesus.

Duff: But it’s very strange there, man. I went to the... what’s it called, the Dead Zone? Or the... Yeah, where they would shoot to kill...

Loder: Ah, a no man’s land kind of...

Duff: Yeah. Very bizarre. And Checkpoint Charlie... We’ve seen a lot of stuff. It’s not like we haven’t been to Europe before, but this time we’ve been able to spend some time and really kind of – I’ve taken time to learn about the different cultures, and it’s really interesting. It’s very educating.

Loder: Yeah. What do you make of Paris?

Duff: Well, we’ve only been here since last night. (Looks outside the window) Let me see. Well, it’s overcast and... (laughs). No, I don’t.... I’ll find out.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: We’ve got two days off here, so...

Loder: How did you go about picking these guest? It’s kind of an unusual assortment of people, Beck and Aerosmith, and Lenny Kravitz. Were they, like, first choices or...?

Duff: Well, with Lenny we are a family. And with the Aerosmith guys, Steven and Joe, also it’s like a family; you know, we toured with Aerosmith. Jeff Beck... was a godsend. I don’t know how we got him, but we did, and he’s into it. It’s really overwhelming for me, because I’m just a regular guy, you know? And this is really grandiose for me. It’s like, “Wow! I’m playing with Jeff Beck” and...

Loder: Lot of guitar players on stage.

Duff: Yeah!

Loder: A lot of guitar players.

Duff: Yeah, and I’m the only bass player.

Loder: (Laughs) Excellent. You play a little drums, too, right?

Duff: Mmm-mmm.

Loder: So yeah (?).

Duff: Yeah.

Loder: And what does Gilby make of all this? Is Gilby fitting in well in the group? Is he, like, totally assimilated by now?

Duff: Oh, Gilby... Let me tell you a little story about Gilby. He had three weeks to learn 50 songs, right, before we came out. We started in Boston and I was really nervous for Gilby. I’m like, “Gilby, are you okay?” It was right before the gig, the first gig. He said, “Yeah, why?” I’m nervous, and Slash is going, “Gilby, everything’s going to be okay?” and he’s like, “Yeah, it’s fine. Why? Won’t you guys settle down?” Gilby takes everything - you know, he’s so mellow about everything. And he’s such a good player, and he’s very confident. So Gilby... What does Gilby think about this whole thing? He’s, like, “Cool, can I have a sandwich?” (laughs) You know? “Hi Jeff. See ya.”

Loder: (Laughs) Do you guys have another keyboardist on board now?

Duff: We have Teddy. Yeah, Teddy “Zig Zag.”

Loder: Who is Teddy? Where does he come from?

Duff: Teddy... He toured with Carole King and he has been back in L.A. also.

Loder: Is this a connection with Slash, you know, working with Carole King? Is that how this came about or...?

Duff: No, no. We’ve known Teddy for quite a while. Just a friend. How it started off is he helped us find the horn players we have and the backup singers. Then we said, “Well, let’s get Teddy on board, too,” because he plays everything and he’s a great singer. So that’s just how it works out, basically.

Loder: Okay. So since starting out Guns N’ Roses has now added, like, two keyboard players, backup singers, horn section... (laughs).

Duff: (Laughs) Yeah, but...

Loder: It’s a true orchestra (laughs).

Duff: Okay, everybody thinks that it’s throughout the whole show. But it’s not. They only play on three songs.

Loder: Oh, okay.

Duff: So it’s still just the band.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: As opposed to using emulators, which are synthesizers or tapes - I hate to say it, but about 98% of rock ‘n’ roll bands out there use tapes.

Loder: No! (laughs)

Duff: Which everybody knows. You know, as opposed to using tapes - we were like, “We’re not gonna use tapes. We’re a rock ‘n’ roll band, man.” So, you know... You know what I’m saying, right? So we got the real thing. We got real horns, real backup singers.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: You know, it’s such a cop-out to use tapes. It’s like, if you can’t make the music that you love – it takes love and it takes every emotion, love, hate, joy and everything to create a song. Now you can’t emulate love, joy, hate, heartbreak through tape. You have to do it live. So, to all those bands... (laughs).

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: Yeah. Have fun with your money.

[TV crew member: Maybe record Lenny [Kravitz] since he’s here.

Loder: Lenny, would you like to be worked in?

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah, I’m just grabbed out, you know.

Duff: (Laughing) Did the truck come to pick you up?

Loder: Would you like to hug on camera or something?

Duff: Or did Earl come down?

TV crew member: Maybe we can get this rolling (?) quick and then we’ll get the guys together for a couple of (?).

Loder: Okay. Sure.

Duff (to Lenny Kravitz): Do you wanna do a Westwood One? It will be live tomorrow night.

Lenny Kravitz: Whatever. See, he’s my publicist.

(Laughter)

Duff: We’ll be live. It’ll be live tomorrow night.

Lenny Kravitz: Right.

Duff: It’ll be on tomorrow night.

Lenny Kravitz: Whatever, I’m...

Duff: Just you and I, man.

Lenny Kravitz: No problem.

Duff: The brothers.

Lenny Kravitz: That’s it.]

Loder: (Laughs) What are you gonna do? I saw one of your film guys says he’s shot, like, 100 hours of tape and film today.

Duff: Over 200.

Loder: What are you going to do with this stuff?

Duff: We’re making a movie.

Loder: Mmm-mmm. It’s like a dramatic movie or...?

Duff: Well, I can’t really tell you too much about it because we’re kind of sworn to secrecy a little bit, but it’s a documentary, it’s also videos will be intertwined. Okay... If you’ve noticed, some of our videos don’t really make sense. They will.

Loder: Oh, I see. Okay.

Duff: Okay? There’s, like, the endings of, say, Don’t Cry and November Rain that we’ll be putting out tomorrow night, right?

Loder: Right.

Duff: Okay. The endings kind of like leave you up in the air, to say the least? (laughs)

Loder: (Laughs). So there’s a story somewhere and it’s gonna be put together as a movie.

Duff: Yeah. So there’s some things going on, and for me to really tell you everything would really kind of spoil the fun of the anticipation of the scenes.

Loder: When is this going to be out?

Duff: (Laughing) Knowing us, probably in about five years.

Loder: (Laughs) Is the band used to practicing with Axl now? Is that just normal, you can go on and just get the band together and, you know, make a set up?

Duff: Oh yeah, um... Well, Axl, you know, he rehearses on his own in his room, and so on and so forth. We play all the time, so that’s like rehearsal, you know.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: So it’s alright.

Loder: Okay. We’re doing something on this magazine, actually. I wonder what this means to you. I don’t know, do you get excited when you see yourself on the cover of this or do you think it’s a piece of shit, or... Or what?

Duff: (Laughs) What? We’re on MTV.

Loder: Well, yeah, but that will be edited out.

Duff: I’m not gonna show Rolling Stone (throws the magazine aside).

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: No, being on the cover of Rolling Stone is like...

Loder: Like what?

Duff: I’ll go back to when I was a kid, you know? I’d never thought I’d be on the cover of Rolling Stone. What does it mean to me...

Loder: I mean, are you a longtime reader of the thing? Did you always read it when you were a kid?

Duff: Well, you just know it’s there.

Loder: Yeah...

Duff: Um... yeah, of course I did. You know, seeing Led Zeppelin on the cover of Rolling Stone, Rolling Stones on the cover of Rolling Stone...

Loder: Right.

Duff: (Looking at Lenny Kravitz) This goofball on the cover of Rolling Stone...

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: (To Lenny Kravitz) You’re on the cover of Rolling Stone?

Lenny Kravitz: No, at Spin. Rolling Stone wouldn’t put me on the cover.

Duff: Oh! Spin?

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah, they say I’m nothing but hype, you know?

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: Okay, fuck Rolling Stone!

Loder: (Laughs) Did you agree with what they said about you guys? I mean, do you like the stories they do on (?)

Duff: Well, we have a good friend at the Rolling Stone. Luckily.

Loder: (Laughs) Right.

Duff: Yeah, Spin is the magazine that hates us.

Loder: Why is that?

Duff: Bob Guccione. That shit (laughs).

Loder: What a guy.

Duff: Yeah. Okay, well, being on the cover of Rolling Stone twice, you go into every supermarket and see yourself, and everybody sees you. It’s too much... things like this are too much for me to really take in, you know? My mom calls me and says, “I saw you at Safeway,” you know?

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: And that stuff - I’m serious! For me to really think about it, it would, I think, maybe screw me up a bit.

Loder: Okay, I’m sorry.

Duff: No, no, no! So I go home, and I go to my dogs and I play with them. That’s how I deal with it. And I had a pig; I had to give him away, though.

Loder: You had a pig?

Duff: Yeah. Pot belly pig.

Loder: Why?

Duff: Why did I give him away?

Loder: No, why did you have a pig.

Duff: Because I like pigs.

Loder: Okay. I like pigs, too. I collect little pigs. But we can talk about it later.

Duff: I do, too! I collect pigs. I collect pig stuff.

Loder: How many do you have?

Duff: Pig things?

Loder: I mean, I’ve got a lot of pig stuff.

Duff: I’ve got a lot of pig stuff.

Loder: Well, I’ve never really had a lot, though.

Duff: (Laughing) I’ve really got a lot of pig stuff.

Loder: (Laughs) All right. What were you trying to tell me?

Someone: Actually Duff’s got another thing to do, so we since we have Lenny here...

Duff: Well, but...

Loder: We were talking about pigs

Someone: Why don’t you guys have Lenny walk in, too (?)

Duff: Oh, man. It’s alright, man.

Lenny Kravitz: In New York, man.

Duff: You told my pig how to fly but he didn’t land very well (laughs).

(Laughter)

Duff: I know, I was wrong. I was wrong, man.

Loder: Jeez...

Someone: (Inaudible)

Loder: Okay, alright, we’re going ahead. So how did you guys get together? What’s the Lenny-Guns kind of thing? When did you become friends with these guys?

Duff: Well, I’ll tell you first of all, we heard Lenny’s first record. And Slash and I, we would – it was, like, our favorite record to...

Loder: How to put this...

Duff: Be with a woman? How do you say that? (laughs)

Loder: Hand-holding music kind of thing.

Duff: Well, you know...

Lenny Kravitz: Well.

Loder: Okay. I think we understand that (laughs).

Duff: You know what I’m saying. Well, okay. We got promotional copies of it, so we got it, like, way before-

Lenny Kravitz: You didn’t buy it?

Loder: You didn’t buy it, right?

Duff: I bought it! I got all kinds of copies of your record - records. Records. And I keep losing them. Because I take them everywhere.

Lenny Kravitz: You leave them at the women’s house – no, no, it’s only one woman. So...

Loder: (Laughs). But anyway. So you heard his record and you said-

Duff: So...

Loder: “What a talent,” huh?

Duff: Slash and I especially, we were just in love with it and we got the pleasure of meeting Lenny opening up for Tom Petty way back when.

Loder: Right.

Duff: And it’s been a family since then, really. We just gelled, you know.

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah.

Loder: Yeah.

Duff: We think the same. Actually, Slash and Lenny went to the same high school.

Lenny Kravitz: We went to high school together, yeah. We were in the hallways most of the time, though.

Duff: Yeah, right. You tell him the story.

Lenny Kravitz: Well, no, just... I went to school with Slash and met them - re-met them and you.

Duff: Yeah.

Lenny Kravitz: Slash and I recorded together on my album.

Loder: Yeah.

Lenny Kravitz: On Always On The Run and Fields Of Joy.

Duff: And you recorded with me on my record.

Lenny Kravitz: That’s right. I sang a song on Duff’s solo record.

Duff: Yeah. We just hang. We do the (?). Like, hen we’re in New York we hang out and when he’s in L.A. we hang out, or wherever, and we’re just buddies.

Loder: Yeah.

Lenny Kravitz: Mutual respect.

Duff: Mutual respect. Thank you very much.

Loder: What’s it like playing out there with Guns N’ Roses playing behind you as...

Lenny Kravitz: Oh, it’s great, man. I’ve been waiting a long time to get to actually play live with them. And so they called me a week or so ago and said, “Come to Paris and play.” And today in rehearsal it went really well.

Duff: It went really well.

Lenny Kravitz: Really well.

Duff: God, it was great! I’m excited. We had a great time. Slash was saying earlier how we didn’t like that song, because he wrote, you know, Always On The Run.

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah. Right.

Duff: The lick, right?

Lenny Kravitz. Right.

Duff: And then he did it with you, and the thing is great, you know? So now it’s, “God, why didn’t we do that song?” (laughs)

Loder: (Laughs).

Lenny Kravitz: So now we’re doing it.

Duff: Yeah. Now we’re doing it.

Loder: That’s just sort of the way it could have been, right? So you can tag along for any other dates on the European tour? Or maybe pop out in the States?

Lenny Kravitz: I don’t know. You never know what happens. I might not want to go home, you know. I don’t know.

Duff: You just stay out with us.

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah, I may be, you know, come out and do a little tap dance every night.

Duff: Join the band!

Lenny Kravitz: Hey-

Loder: Everyone else does.

(Laughter)

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah. You beat me to it.

(Laughter)

Duff: What a good band!

Lenny Kravitz: I can play tuba or something.

Loder: (Laughs).

Duff: Yeah. Do you know how to play tuba?

Lenny Kravitz: No, but I’ll... (laughs).

Duff: (inaudible)

Loder: Or strings. The only thing missing is strings. If you just get that together it would be good.

Duff: Lenny plays accordion (laughs).

Loder: No! Really?

Duff: You do it.

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah. So, you know.

Loder: What do you play on accordion?

Lenny Kravitz: Bar mitzvah songs.

Duff: (Hums a melody mimicking playing accordion).

Loder: Lady Of Spain kind of...

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah.

Loder: Really? (laughs) That’s...

Lenny Kravitz: You know the Bunny Hop?

Loder: Yeah, yeah (laughs).

Duff: (Laughs).

Lenny Kravitz: All that kind of stuff.

(Laughter)

Lenny Kravitz: I used to go to lots of bar mitzvahs.

Loder: Oh, Jesus (laughs). Okay, that’s good. I think they want you out there.

Someone: That was great.

Loder: Brilliant.

Someone: You know, the accordion (?)

Lenny Kravitz: What do you want, the Bunny Hop or the Alley Cat? Which one is it?

Someone: The Alley Cat.

Lenny Kravitz: The Alley Cat! It’s the Alley Cat (laughs).

Loder: (Hums a melody).

(Laughter)

Someone: What’s the Bunny Hop?

Loder: Oh, much older.

Someone: I meant the Alley Cat. Fucked up.

Loder: Shit. Can we do that again?

Lenny Kravitz: Yeah, right.

(Laughter)

Loder: Okay, good to see you.