1995.01.DD - Much Music - Interview with Slash (and Eric Dover)

Transcript:
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Slash: ... like, or Gilby. That’s a side thing for everybody. It’s sort of like – you know, just sort of a shot in the arm (laughs). Anyway. But the whole Guns thing is fine, you know? So none of the stuff – what I’ve been hearing from doing radio interviews and stuff is that, like, we broke up and this and that and the other. And it’s like, no, that’s not true.

Interviewer: Now, it is true that Gilby is no longer in the band.

Slash: Gilby is no longer with us, no. I mean, he’s with Snakepit, but he’s not with Guns.

Interviewer: Okay. And there’s a new guitarist that’s been hired?

Slash: No. Uh-uh.

Interviewer: Not at all? Because I’ve heard rumors that there was somebody –

Slash: Well, there’s a couple of guys. There was that idiot Paul and then –

(Laughter)

Interviewer: Who are you trolling, Huge? (laughs)

Slash: Paul Huge [Hu-gey] (laughs).

Interviewer: Hoo-gey! Huge.

Slash: And then we jammed with Zakk. But Zakk’s, like – he’s a good friend, so he’d just been jamming. We haven’t made some sort of finalized decision as to who’s gonna be the new guitar player.

Interviewer: We’re talking Zakk Wylde now.

Slash: Yeah.

Interviewer: He is at the Pride And Glory thing. Is that –

Slash: He’s in Ozzy right now, as as far as his relationship with Guns in concerned, it’s sort of like – it’s more like a buddy thing, where we’re just hanging and sort of jamming some stuff, so...

Interviewer: So now Guns N’ Roses is still at this point a (?)

Slash: I think the band holds it together. It’s just in hiatus, you know? And I’m gonna be touring with other guys for Snakepit till mid-summer.

Interviewer: Are you still talking to Axl? Do you talk on a regular basis?

Slash: Yeah! Everything’s fine, yeah. Relax.

Interviewer: That’s good. That’s fine (laughs). Everybody wants to know! Everyone wants to know, yeah (laughs). Okay, this came together. Now, you’re known for jamming a lot, you show up and jam with people. Is that how this Snakepit thing came together? How did this whole thing come together?

Slash: What’s the best way to put it... We just sort of – when the Guns tour was over, me and Matt started writing tunes. And then, all of a sudden, we started – Gilby got involved, and Mike Inez got involved, and we had a band. So we went in the studio and recorded an album. At the same time we started auditioning singers and Eric was the 41st guy that we got involved with. In the first – actually we’re gonna play it, but the song called Beggars And Hangers On, we gave him the material, the music, and he wrote Beggars And Hangers On. And it was like, “Cool.” You know, done deal. And now we’re just touring but we’re gonna play in clubs and stuff, as opposed to going out and trying to make a big thing out of it. You know, we just go and jam.

Interviewer: ... and they’re just doing a little promo tour right now, and luckily they brought their guitars along, so we’ll hopefully have a little performance later. Now, Slash’s Snakepit: where did the name come from?

Slash: The name Snakepit came from the fact that we recorded the demos for this actual album in the room that’s right next to the snake pit, in my house, which is where all the snakes are (laughs). And we just called it Snakepit because it was the easiest thing to come up with. As far as “It’s Five O’ Clock Somewhere,” that’s a whole another story. It’s got its obvious connotations, but, basically, I went to England one time with Guns and went to the bar. It was about 10:00 in the morning, and I said, “I know it’s only 10:00, but give me a Jack and Coke; and the bartender looked me dead in the eye and he goes, “It’s 5:00 somewhere.” So it stuck in my head ever since then, and so when we were doing this thing - basically that’s what the whole album is about, you know? It’s 5:00 somewhere, give me a break.

(Laughter – Cross-talk)

Interviewer: You mentioned that you did an audition process for this. You had Matt from Guns N’ Roses, and Gilby was involved, and Mike from Alice In Chains; and then you auditioned. Were there a bunch of people you auditioned to be the vocalist?

Slash: Yeah, there was 40 of them. He was the 41st. And some of these guys you actually know from other bands. I don’t wanna get into naming names or anything, but I was just trying to find the right vibe where it was, like, loose and bluesy and rock ‘n’ roll. You know, something that, if I hear it, like in an instant, I would know that it was the right thing. And he was the guy.

Interviewer: Eric, you’re not - you weren’t really a vocalist when this all came together. You’ve been in Jellyfish.

Dover: Not known as one.

Interviewer: How long did you spend in Jellyfish? Jellyfish – I’m sure people are familiar, we played their video a lot.

Dover: A year and half or so. I only came in as the second record – they started touring to support the second record. So I came just in time for the band to fold (laughs).

Interviewer: What did you do with them? Just guitar?

Dover: Just guitar, backup vocals, a little banjo...

Interviewer: Banjo... (?)

Dover: It’s all Pizza Hut stuff though (laughs). It’s all happy banjo music.

Interviewer: And so that just came out and then you heard about this? How did you and Slash connect?

Dover: I was playing with Marc Danzeisen, who is Gilby’s drummer, and he told me about it, because we were just jamming together and having a good time and whatnot. So I sent in a tape and that’s it. They gave me a plaque and everything, “41st vocalist – Slash’s Snakepit.”

Interviewer: (Laughs) So you’re gonna play a song from the new album.

Slash: Yeah, we could do that, since we have our guitars with us.

Interviewer: Yeah, you’ve got the guitars, they’re not just for show (laughs). Why the hell not. Okay, so this is Slash and Eric Dover from Slash’s Snakepit, performing live on Much.

[Live performance]

Not sure how credible this is, but Setlist.fm has this listed as taking place on December 17, 1994.

Shackler wrote:Not sure how credible this is, but Setlist.fm has this listed as taking place on December 17, 1994.

I had seen this, but I figured it's probably wrong because Slash mentions the sessions with Zakk Wylde in the interview, and from what we know those took place sometime in January 1995. Also Slash's Canadian promo tour with Dover seems to have taken place in late January, judging from other interviews published in Canadian outlets.