1999.MM.DD - Young Guitar - Interview with Slash

SLASH'S interview from YOUNG GUITAR magazine

The Opening song 'Been There Lately' is the song about life in Hollywood. I have been had this riff and finally made it as a song after Rod joined the band.

'Anything' is a new song. This song came from spontaneous atmosphere.

I told you about the song 'Shine'. We couldn't get it right, but we alter a little when we were recording and came out good. At first, I had only bass line. It worked out fine after the band became solid. That's a classical Snakepit song.

I wrote 'One Mean Bone' on a last day of pre production. This song says that ladies treat rock musicians very bad, but we just pretend not noticing it, because we love them.

Ryan and Rod wrote 'Break You'. But we will change the title to 'Back to the moment'.

'The Truth' is a new song. The riff has been in my head for a long time. I think Rod and producer Jack wrote the words.

Matt's idea turned to a song 'Landslide'. He plays the guitar. Me and every member in this band contributes for song writing.

Originally, I wrote 'Ain't Life Grand' for Les Paul.

'Speed Parade' is the oldest song in the album. I wanted to do with Gn'R, but the relation between members was terrible. It was too far to finish up the song. I didn't have a chance to do that song on the other project. That's alright. I finally made it as I imagined. That song is in my pin ball machine.

(YG: Is that a theme song when you play pinball?)
Yes. I play it loud and heavy.

Rod brought his image of across America by hitch hiking and I gave the taste of devil image. That came out as a song called 'Serial Killer'.

I said to finish the song 'Shine' was hard, and this was also not so easy to play. I almost gave up. But I told myself ''When I could play perfectly, this would be a killer song''. After all, it made satisfied after I worked with positively. We recorded chorus and vocals at the end of mixing. And I thought that was worth to work
hard. If you try to put all the troubles together, it will make you want to stay away or make it complicated. But I learned that if you try harder and harder, you will get more satisfaction.

Rod plays acoustic guitar and sing on 'Something about your love'. This is new one, too.

Matt brought the idea of 'The Alien', but it came out like work of Jack Douglas, to me at least.

(YG: Is that slash used arm on the solo part?)
Right. I used Mocking-bird.

'Bleed', Jack inspired us to make us to arrange his idea with my band. He is happy with that song.

Ryan wrote the song 'What kind of life', I tried many kinds of arrangement. I couldn't see the whole thing until we finish it.

I was not taking a break. You might not know how hard I was working. I formed a band and did sessions after I left GN'R. It passed five years. Time flies like an arrow. Five years is a long time. I'm feeling the change of time. I'm excited to have done the Snakepit album. I didn't think I would form Snakepit again five years ago. I started just for fun then. I needed enough length of time for preparation to start this band, because I wanted to show new Snakepit. All I can say is to listen to the album, I hope you would like it. I am sure that you would realize five years are worth waiting. Let me say this one more time, kept you wait so long is not my fault!