2019.02.02 - TVK Rock City (Japan) - Interview with Slash

Transcription:
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[Question in Japanese]

Slash: I mean, with Guns, everybody’s mentioned - Axl, Duff, myself, even Richard, we all talked about it. There’s material and stuff going on already for a new record. So it’s just, with Guns N’ Roses, you don’t go, “Oh, there’s a plan, and it’s gonna be like this,” because that’s not how it works. So, basically, the only real answer to give is we’re hoping to put a new record out and we’ll just see what happens, when it happens.

[Question in Japanese]

Slash: I mean, really, I didn’t have any - I mean, it was surprising in itself that we got together in the first place. The first show that we did was magic. That was unbelievable. And that first series of shows that we did around Coachella back in April of 2016, I guess it was such a huge thing for the guys in the band, for myself to be on stage with Duff and Axl and just have that chemistry. It was so powerful. I sort of – you know, you forget, because it’d been a lot of years since I’d really jammed with both those guys, and it was really powerful. Then one thing just led to another, and we just ended up having this amazing tour that you couldn’t possibly dream of. It was a really great tour, and it lasted a really long time. I think it was the longest tour that we ever did, because it was about two and a half years.

[Question in Japanese]

Slash: No, we really had a great, great time. I mean, there was no bullshit, like one of those situations that a lot of people like to show an appearance, you know, saying “It’s great,” and this and that and the other, but the reality is something else. But for us this whole thing was really a magical experience. The band was great, the fuckin’ entourage, the crew, the whole production was just like this really great marriage of people, and we just all had a really great time. And the fans were amazing, so it was really epic, you know? So I’m really happy that it happened.

[Question in Japanese]

Slash: Yeah, it’s very tight. It’s very tight, very family (?). It’s really back to where everybody is really, really happy and comfortable, and we sort of got rid of - there was a lot of bad influences going on back in the day that affected a lot of things, and that’s all been sort of cleared away. So now it’s back to normal.

[The next three questions are apparently about Slash's current tour]

[Question in Japanese]

Slash: Most of the time we’ve been writing songs live, we’ve been performing in the studio live. They always seem to work well live. But this particular (?) seems to go over the best, so far, of everything that we’ve done. So, you know, we keep adding new songs from the record into the set and they’ve all been received really, really well. So I think we’re doing, probably, about eight songs off the album now, at this point  - maybe seven or eight, I’m not sure. So it’s good. It’s cool.

[Question in Japanese]

Slash: Yeah, we started out, like – I think we put, maybe, two songs off the new record. When we were doing the U.S. tour in September, we started out with two songs, and then three, you know, we sort of tested the waters. And at this point we’re doing as many songs as we’re doing. And I would imagine, probably pretty soon, we’re gonna have new songs, more. So that’s probably the best sign for a new record.

[Question in Japanese]

Slash: Well, I mean, there’s always the first single, right? And the second single. So that’s an easy start. Usually you pick the most obvious hardest rockers that have high energy and good tempo. That’s going for, like, the first songs. Then you throw one of the ballads in there at some point, or whatever slow song it is, and see what happens. There’s a song called “Read Between the Lines” that we just put in the set, which is sort of upbeat, up-tempo, sort of funkier song, and that goes over great; and we didn’t know it. So we didn’t know how it was gonna go over ahead. Serves You Right, which is very much a sort of mid-tempo, cool kind of rhythm. That goes over great. So it’s hard to really tell what’s gonna happen, but so far everything’s been going.