1995.06.DD - Slovakian TV (STV1) - Interview with Slash

Transcript:
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Slash: Guns N’ Roses is more or less my family; you know, that’s where I come from. Snakepit is definitely a little bit more personal for me, because I can’t seem to make Guns N’ Roses sound like that anymore, even though I do try. The Snakepit thing is nice for me, but at some point I do have to go back and focus on Guns N’ Roses. So in August that’s what I have to do.
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Slash: First thing, we’ll just get together with Duff and Axl and Matt, and figure out who the fuck is gonna play guitar (laughs) - the rhythm guitar, because Gilby is not in the band anymore. So that’s my first priority after the Snakepit tour is over. But I'm having so much fun on the Snakepit tour that I’m not really worried about Guns N’ Roses right now, because I know it’s there.

Interviewer: Wouldn’t you like to shape a new Guns N’ Roses project on this way, on a Snakepit way? Or it doesn’t (?) different on you?

Slash: Yeah. I tried already.

Interviewer: How did you try?

Slash: When I first started writing songs, I went to Axl with it and I said, “This is what I’ve been doing,” and he was, like, already thinking about videos that were just big huge movie type things. And I was like, “Oh great,” you know? And at the same time, Snakepit started to materialize. Do you know what I mean?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Slash: It’s like, I didn’t plan Snakepit out; it just sort of happened. So I think it sort of kept me and Axl from fighting, you know? And obviously we get to go out, we tour places Guns N’ Roses has never been. Part of the fun of touring is to go out and experience a lot of different [cut]
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Slash: The only thing about Snakepit that’s different than, say, Guns N’ Roses when it first started, is we have to work for it. Guns N’ Roses doesn’t have to work for it anymore. We go out on stage and all we have to do is play the first three notes of any given hit song, and everybody is just, “Yeah!” and they’re happy – that’s it. We have to go out and really fuckin’ struggle, and be on top of it, and win the crowd over. So that’s the main thing. And then, as far as freedom is concerned – you know, guitar playing and all that – we have, like, extended solos here and there, but for the most part we just go out and play the songs the way that we wrote them. None of us sort of get into major solo, like there’s not a big drum solo, there’s not a real long guitar solo anywhere in the set or anything like that. But we do have a lot of musical freedom; you know, we make up a new setlist every night, we have a different cover song every night.

Interviewer: Do you like to improvise on stage?

Slash: Yeah. A lot.

Interviewer: Yeah? What do you think about the art stuff? Are you good to improvise?

Slash: I’m better at improvising than trying, like – you know, I take sort of the pattern of the guitar solo or whatever that I initially wrote when we recorded the record, and then I make up a new version of it every night. So I’m getting there. I don’t know if I’m good.
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Slash: When I used to practice 12 hours a day, I didn’t – I was really first discovering guitar playing, but I didn’t have a show to do every single day. Now I have a show to do every single day, and so I probably do most of my what you’d call practicing during the two hours we’re on stage. I don’t like to sit and practice like Yngwie Malmsteen or something like that, where it’s like all scales and – it’s boring (laughs).

Interviewer: Do you work more for the improvement of your guitar technique or more for your own sound expression? What is for you more important?

Slash: I don’t know. I mean, I just like – that’s a good question. Yeah, you got me there. I mean, the whole time that I’m playing, yeah, I work on my guitar style, you know, making sure that I play what I want to play and, of course, doing it live you have to be very spontaneous, you have to do it right then and there; and that’s work. As far as my sound goes, I haven’t changed my guitar sound since I was 15 years old; I mean, it’s the same Les Paul and Marshall kind of thing. As far as why I do this, is just because I love doing it. So it’s not any one thing in particular. It’s just try to do the best I can.

Interviewer: What you feel?

Slash: Yeah. I just try to do the best I can while I’m up there and, you know, I just try to get better and better at it, and that’s the main thing. But I have fun doing it, so it’s like a part of me.
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Slash: I don’t think there’s a person on this earth that plays lead guitar that has not listened to Jimi Hendrix.

Interviewer: And, for example, his influence is more about his personality or about his technique and his playing?

Slash: Well, no. You see, musicians it’s all about everything. It’s your personality, it’s your instrument and what comes – like, your instrument is a tool for your personality to come across.

Interviewer: Eric Clapton? He’s your role model.

Slash: No, he’s one of my influences.

Interviewer: Yeah? True influences?

Slash: Well, one of them, yeah.

Interviewer: And have you ever played with him?

Slash: Yeah, I played with him in London.

Interviewer: Yeah?

Slash: Yeah. Just in a club.

Interviewer: When it was?

Slash: A couple of years ago. Not even a couple of years ago, maybe last year.

Interviewer: And it was by chance or –

Slash: Yeah, just by chance.

Interviewer: It was great?

Slash: Yeah, me and him and Ron Wood.
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Slash: Let’s see, Rolling Stones... When I was a kid, I was raised on The Who, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. That’s what my parents listened to. So the Stones has always been my be-all end-all favorite band.

Interviewer: Really?

Slash: Yeah. So I can listen to the Stones anytime; where I have to be in a certain mood to listen to Led Zeppelin and I have to be in a certain mood to listen to Aerosmith or AC/DC, I can listen to the Stones anytime.
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Slash: I said I like Soundgarden, and I like Alice In Chains, and I like Nirvana. I like – there’s a couple of other bands. They sort of like come and go, you know? But then there’s a hell of a lot of bands that copy [cut].
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Slash: The Rolling Stones are a repetition of the blues - I mean rhythm and blues from before them; and we’re sort of a repetition of the Stones being a repetition of the – before them. So we just sort of carry the torch, you know?
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Slash: There’s blues element in Guns N’ Roses, too, from a guitar point of view. Even from Axl’s point of view; I mean, he has a soulful voice when he gets into it. Maybe I had a little more freedom to do a little bit more blues and jamming as opposed to Guns where everything is sort of set.
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Slash: Guns was a product of hating the 80s. That’s where we came from. We hated everything about it and we did everything differently; which is why we’re always in the press and stuff, because we were not part of – we weren’t a society type band, we were doing everything differently then. And then the 90s have been such a strange time as well, because, with the exception of a few good bands that came out of Seattle or wherever – you know, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana... With the exception of that, most of the music that I see that’s real popular on TV or selling a lot of records is usually crap, you know? And it’s just one of those periods where there’s – it doesn’t have any heart; you know, it doesn’t have any soul to it. But that’s the music business.
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Slash: Snakepit is really the product of just a bunch of musicians getting together and playing. And, I mean, we deal with the business, but we deal with it the way that we think we should deal with it. Nobody tells us what to do, you know? And I don’t mind dealing, like, with press or dealing with dollars and cents when it’s necessary. But, I mean, the main thing is not to take money too seriously, and unfortunately a lot of producers and A&R people – record companies in general – don’t look at that way. There’s one out of every ten – I don’t know what you’d call them – employees in a record company that are actually musically minded; normally they’re just looking for money. We went in with my own money and took the band in the studio, and we made a record in two weeks. And then, at this point now, I mean, we – actually, believe it or not, we’ve sold about a million, you know? So I’m like, okay.
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Slash: When there’s a period where Guns N’ Roses isn’t working, like after the tour or whatever, then I’m gonna do another Snakepit record and come back and play clubs.
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Slash: There’s no rockstars in this band. Everybody carries their own weight. We’re all really good friends, all very considerate of one another. And that’s basically it. It’s real simple, you know? We just have basically a good time.