1992.04.20 - MTV - Interview with Slash backstage at the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert

TRANSCRIPTION:
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Kurt Loder: ... the rehearsals that they go on this week at Wembley stadium, and right now we’re backstage at Wembley, in one of the dressing rooms, with another headliner here, Slash of Guns N’ Roses. You guys have tried a couple of years ago to play a benefit for the gay men’s health crisis and now you’re here at this AIDS benefit. Is this, like, an issue for you guys?

Slash: Well, it’s an issue for me, it really cramps my style, the whole AIDS thing. It’s really not... (laughs). It’s not clicking with me, you know. But things come up and we were like, well, yeah, we’d like to get involved and try and do something to help it out. But then it turns around on us, right? And they got, like, all these gay activist groups and jumped on our case for being involved with this, to the point where there was a question as to whether or not was even safe for us to do this gig. And finally we just said, screw it, let’s just do it, you know. Whatever. I hope we don’t get shot or anything.

Loder: Were there threats for your life or something?

Slash: I don’t know what they’re so uptight about. They were saying they were gonna do whatever they could to sabotage our part of the show and they totally attacked the whole Queen Organization for allowing us on the bill and all this stuff. And I’m like... It is never ending, you know? It’s always something, it’s, like, so ridiculous.

Loder: This is all hangover from One in a Million, I suppose, huh?

Slash: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don’t know.

Loder: I gather you were probably a Queen fan (?)

Slash: Well, yeah. I mean, it was one of the bands that I was definitely leaned on. And at rehearsal for this thing the other day, it was great. I mean, I was like a little kid when we got up and played Tie Your Mother Down with Brian May.

Loder: Wow.

Slash: You know, and I’m standing next to... It’s weird when you’re coming up you don’t see yourself ever doing that kind of stuff. You get hooked up with, like, the Stones, and then it’s the so and so, and you’re like, “Wow!” You start recording with all these people that you knew about when you were a little kid and they just seemed so distant. So I’m gonna play it tonight, you know.

Loder: It must be great to stand next to Brian May.

Slash: Oh yeah! And he’s, like, one of the sweetest guys. Really easy to get along with and really gracious, you know. There’s no pop star attitude and no errors going around. This whole gig is gonna be really cool.

Loder: I look forward to seeing you out there. We’re gonna finish the thing off here. We’re about done with our pre-show, however the two-hour highlights show is coming up in just a couple of minutes on the Fox network, so they tune over to that and we’ll have a complete wrap up on the Day In Rock on Tuesday, and MTV will be airing the complete concert next Saturday starting at noon. So try to catch that too. We’ll see you then.

Other segments of this interview, as well as of interviews with Duff, Matt and Gilby at the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert, were used in this MTV special:
https://www.a-4-d.com/t3539-1992-07-17-mtv-special-guns-n-roses-past-present-n-future