2001.09.07 - The Howard Stern Show - Interview with Slash

Transcript:
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Stern: Stopping by the show is Slash, he’s formerly with Guns N’ Roses. That band broke up, unfortunately. I loved that. He’s now with a band called Snakepit. [Music plays in the background] Is that Snakepit?

Someone: No, this is Guns.

Stern: Alright, it’s Guns N’ Roses. Hey, Slash. How’re you doing, Slash? What’s happening?

Slash: (inaudible)

Stern: There he is, man. Look at you, you look good. You look healthy, you look rested... I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Get on the microphone, what’s the matter with you?

Quivers: (Laughs)

Stern: There he is, Slash!

Slash: I’ve never been here before, right?

Stern: Yeah... Well, the guests do that. They start talking and I can’t hear them.

Quivers: I know, I mean they don’t realize it. It’s not TV, we don’t have boom mics.

Stern: That’s why Guns N’ Roses broke up. They were talking to each other -

Quivers: Slash couldn’t find it.

Slash: (Laughs)

Stern: No, all of them, they couldn’t hear each other. That was the problem.

Slash: I did a skit on Conan O’Brien last night where there was a bunch of why Guns N’ Roses broke up?

Stern: Yeah.

Slash: And I think one of them was the original name of the band was supposed to be Roses N’ Guns but it didn’t work and something like that. And then another one was Guns N’ Robots, and that was, if we had called it Guns N’ Robots then we would’ve never broken up. (laughs)

Stern: Well, Conan, is that what he did to you? Is that what they did to you on Conan O’Brien?

Quivers: (Laughs) No wonder they put that show on till late.

Slash: They did this thing called, you know, “Secrets”?

Stern: I think Conan’s been wanting to know why he’ll never host an 11:30 show, and now we know why.

(Laughter)

Slash: Look how big this place has gotten.

Stern: Yeah, we got a bigger studio for the television cameras and stuff. We’re very, very successful (laughs).

(Laughter)

Stern: It’s the size of a shoebox. Anyway, Slash... Are you still smoking cigarettes? When are you gonna stop that? You’re a healthy –

Slash: It’s my last real good vice.

Stern: No, come on. Are you drinking still?

Slash: Not really. I...

Stern: Did you go to rehab?

Slash: Uh-uh.

Stern: No. Why are you not drinking? You were legendary for drinking.

Slash: You know, there just came a point there where it just sort of came up and bit me in the ass.

Stern: You were getting sloppy.

Slash: Yeah, exactly. And so I said, “Alright,” you know. And I had a little - I spent a week in the hospital, you know, so... (laughs)

Stern: Really?

Quivers: What hospital?

Slash: Somewhere in Pittsburgh.

Quivers: And what was wrong?

Slash: Just excess, let’s leave it that.

Quivers: Really?

Stern: Like a Mariah Carey visit?

Slash: No, no, no. This was a physical – this was the real deal.

Stern: What happened?

Slash: It was in the middle of the tour, right?

Stern: Yeah.

Slash: And I wasn’t feeling good, but knowing me, I just kept going and kept going, kept going... And my tour manager at the time was like, “You should go get yourself checked out.” So I went to – I thought, “Well, I’ll go to the doctor, then I’ll do soundcheck. Or I’ll do soundcheck and then go to the doctor.” (?)

Quivers: (Laughs)

Slash: So I went before soundcheck and once I got in, there was all she wrote.

Stern: Really?

Slash: It was like, “You’re not going anywhere, man.”

Stern: Wow!

Slash: So I was on my back actually for a week in Pittsburgh and for another week in L.A. But so I got all completely cleaned out.

Stern: Guns N’ Roses was the real deal. I mean, you guys didn’t worry about your health. I mean, you guys drunk...

Slash: Yeah, there’s a mentality that you just don’t have when you have that kind of a history.

Stern: Yeah.

Slash: You just don’t think about what normal – you know, your morality isn’t great (laughs).

Stern: Are you still married or something?

Slash: I got divorced.

Quivers: He didn’t even know he was married.

Stern: He wasn’t even sure.

(Laughter)

Stern: Was that the broad that was in my movie with you?

Slash: Yeah, yeah.

Stern: Yeah, you were married to her for a while.

Slash: I was married to her for a while...

Stern: What went wrong there?

Slash: It just went wrong. It was just wrong to begin with.

Stern: Are you different...

Quivers: At the time you said she was wonderful.

Slash: For the moment I got -

Stern: At the time you said she was great.

Quivers: (Laughs)

Slash: For the moment... well, you know.

Stern: I knew your marriage wasn’t gonna last, by the way. I did say that to you. I mean, as beautiful as she was...

Slash: Yeah, but you know, it just got – something got real wrong and old about it. And right –

Stern: Yeah, she got older.

Slash: And right as I was...

Quivers: She got older. That’s what got old.

Slash: (Laughs)

Stern: Slash still looks the same.

Slash: Right as I was about to get divorced, I ran into an old friend of mine in a bar one night, and she and I hooked up, so I went from getting divorced to starting a whole new relationship, who I have as my fiancée now.

Quivers: Oh my God.

Stern: Will you be getting married again?

Slash: Yeah, at some point.

Quivers: Tell us how wonderful it is (laughs).

Slash: No, no. She’s so cool, you would love her.

Stern: Who is this girl? Is she a supermodel?

Slash: You would love her. Her name is Perla and she’s 100% Cuban. She’s just...

Stern: Oh, Cuban!

Slash: She’s great. She’s really, really cool.

Someone: Must be great.

Stern: That must be great.

Quivers: And grateful to be here.

Stern: We’ve never had one of those.

Someone: Those who’re great are illegal in this country.

Stern: Oh, that’s great.

Slash: That just like happened, so I went from one to another, but it was a huge difference, because for four years of being married and not being happy to all of a sudden being ecstatic, it’s like, “Okay, so there is...”

Stern: Why don’t you ever say to yourself –

Quivers: But how much does he lose when he doesn’t think like that.

Stern: But first of all, why don’t you ever say to yourself, “Wait a second. I’m not good at marriage.”

Slash: Uh, that was the first time I ever got married, and it wasn’t really my idea. I was sort of forced – no, no, I mean...

Quivers: Forced?!

Slash: With all due respect.

Quivers: Did she have a gun? (laughs)

Stern: Yes. What happened? How were you forced?

Slash: Short story long...

Stern: Right.

Slash: There was a... let’s see what’s the best way to put it... She was like, “Only if you marry me”...

Quivers: Oh, you mean she wouldn’t (?)

Slash: And I just... What happened was, I got busted for doing a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have been doing...

Stern: Right.

Slash: So I figured we were split up and everything was cool. And then, all of a sudden, somehow we managed to get back together.

Stern: Right.

Slash: And if we were gonna continue on in that sense, then she wanted to get married. She wanted a ring, you know.

Stern: Right.

Slash: And so I was like – you know, being typical me – “Okay, whatever.”

Stern: I bet you could get tons of girls. Why don’t you say, “Listen, I’m not getting married, that’s it.”

Slash: Well, you know, all things considered, I had no business being married at that time anyhow. I was a lousy husband.

Stern: Yeah, you were the worst. You were the worst husband ever.

Quivers: I’m sure! (laughs)

Stern: I can imagine you were a bad husband, but...

Slash: Yeah, you know, this last five-six years I’ve spent with Perla, I’ve been, you know, like total...

Stern: No cheating?

Slash: I haven’t even looked around, I haven’t even gone there.

Stern: You haven’t. Wait till you get married, you will.

Slash: Come on, don’t say that.

Quivers: If you marry her...

Stern: You’ll see.

[Cross talk – inaudible]

Quivers: Wait a minute...

Stern: But Robin asked you a good question.

Quivers: Yeah, come on. That’s not...

Slash: Nice to see you, by the way.

Quivers: Hello there.

Stern: Did you lose half of your Guns N’ Roses money from the divorce?

Slash: No, no.

Stern: You had a prenup?

Slash: Yeah. The beginning of the end was when I said, “Sign this prenup.”

Stern: Oh!

Quivers: Oh, good.

Slash: I remember exactly where I was. I was in San Francisco, Guns was touring the stadiums with Metallica.

Stern: Right.

Slash: And that phone call was made that there was gonna be a prenup.

Stern: Who makes that call? You do?

Slash: That was me, yeah.

(Laughter)

Stern: You don’t have an accountant who does that?

Slash: And that was one of the biggest fights in our entire relationship over the phone.

Quivers: Oh really?

Stern: She was like, “Well, if you really love me...”

Slash: Well, I don’t even get into it. You know...

Quivers: You know the drill.

Stern: I can imagine.

(Cross talk – laughter)

Slash: And it stressed me out so bad that, after the show was over, I ran into the wrong people at the wrong time, and after the gig I ended up in the hospital, you know, messing around...

Stern: Really?

Slash: I was so depressed from the whole argument that I ended up OD’ing that night.

Quivers: What did you go through with that marriage?! (?)

Stern: Wait a second. You said to your girlfriend, “Listen, I want a prenuptial agreement,” she got into an argument with you, so you went out and OD’d?

Slash: Basically.

Stern: Wow!

Slash: And then I had a gig the next night.

Stern: Is heroin as good as they say it is?

Slash: It was when you had a lot of it around you. You know, you were doing it and had a good time. Whenever you’re having a good time, whatever it is that you’re doing, is the best thing that’s happening.

Stern: Right. But does it make you lose your sexual desire?

Slash: Um, it’s not really important.

(Laughter)

Stern: Heroin is most important.

[cut]

Slash: His [Michael Jackson’s] band is, you know? (laughs)

Stern: Does he talk about it? Yeah, right, right, they are cool.

Slash: Some of the guys in his band have been with him ever since he took off as a solo artist, so that’s like years and years.

Stern: So you will come out on stage for one song with Michael Jackson?

Slash: I’m doing two songs.

Stern: Two songs.

Slash: Right.

Stern: And you’ll sit there, you will play your guitar...

Slash: Uh-hah.

Stern: And he will what, sing and dance while you do this?

Slash: He does his thing, and there’s some choreography with the dancers, and I just do my thing. That’s why I like doing it, because, I mean, the first time I played with him it was just going and put some guitar down on these two songs, easily enough. I met him in the studio, the first time in person was in L.A. at the Record Plant. I got down to the studio and he was with Brooke Shields, and so that whole thing was sort of like mind blowing for me (laughs).

Stern: Right. You were always like that, though. You never cared, like – you were never hung up that you were in Guns N’ Roses, you played with pop artists, you played with everybody.

Slash: Yeah, I did all kinds of stuff.

Stern: Right, yeah.

Slash: So I just wanted to make sure whatever effort I was putting on this record was a good one, and so on and so forth. And so he met me and, you know, just hung around for a minute and then took off and let me do whatever I wanted.

Stern: Right.

Slash: And then from there we did MTV Awards and he just let me loose, you know? (laughs) So I just go out there, play my thing and, you know, bombs go off...

Stern: So you’re looking forward to this.

Slash: Yeah, it’s gonna be cool, cuz we’ve been rehearsing and, you know, he’s got Whitney Houston, he’s got Diana Ross, there’s Britney Spears, there is...

Quivers: That’s a wild place!

Slash: That’s why I think tickets are so expensive, because there’s so many people on the roster.

Stern: So many artists, a limited show...

Slash: The stage is amazing...

Stern: I see. And it’s fascinating to know that he called you.

Slash: Yeah.

Quivers: How many hours is this show? There’s all these people.

Slash: Actually I haven’t even been through or run through the entire show yet, right?

Stern: And of course I have to ask you the inevitable question. Axl Rose is running around with a new Guns N’ Roses...

Slash: Right...

Stern: You are probably distraught over this.

Slash: You know, it pisses me off. What I think he should have done is - I mean, when basically everybody in the original band [left and] it’s depleted...

Stern: Yeah.

Slash: It would have been cooler if he left the name Guns N’ Roses alone.

Stern: Right!

Slash: And started up something different, got all these guys, did this thing that he wants to do, which inevitably caused the rest of us to quit...

Stern: Right.

Slash: But instead he insisted on keeping the name. And what happened was, the guys in the band said, “If we’re not in the band, what do we need the name Guns N’ Roses for?” And so we very easily said, “Yeah, Axl, take the name. Anything, let’s just get out of our hair,” okay?

Stern: You’re working with new musicians and you called your band Snakepit.

Slash: Yeah, exactly.

Stern: You didn’t call it Guns N’ Roses Junior or something.

Slash: Exactly. So...

Quivers: It’s sort of like The Temptations. There’s only one original member (laughs).

Slash: Right, yeah. But he chose to do it and we allowed him to do it, which at this point I think it’s come up a few times where we might contest that, because it doesn’t seem...

Stern: Yeah.

Slash: People are walking around with new Guns N’ Roses jackets not knowing what Guns N’ Roses is (laughs).

Quivers: Yeah.

Stern: The product isn’t what it used to be. Would you go back to him if he asked?

Slash: Well, I’ll get around to that (chuckles).

Quivers: Oh, there’s something else (?)

Slash: No, this is cool, because this is the one time where I have a forum where I can speak intelligently about it.

Stern: Really? This place?

Slash: Yeah, yeah.

(Laughter)

Stern: This should be the first time something intelligent happens.

(Laughter)

Slash: I was at the pre-VMA press thing down to the Lincoln Center...

Stern: Yes.

Slash: And I had to do, like, 20 million radio stations (?)

Stern: What did you think of the Video Music Awards last night?

Slash: I watched three minutes of it. It’s –

Stern: It’s horrible, right?

Slash: I’m glad I wasn’t there.

Stern: Not your thing.

Slash: I didn’t want to go, really.

Stern: N-Sync and Britney Spears... Do you detest this kind of thing?

Slash: Well, there’s just nothing, there’s nothing in the MTV medium that’s going on right now that I can really relate to.

Stern: Stain, do you like them?

Slash: Stain is okay. I saw them play live last night and I was thinking, “Nah” – you know, they didn’t sound that great.

Stern: Really? I had them on the show (?) they sounded great.

Slash: Well, you know, it depends on your taste. I like the band. When GN’R played the first time on MTV, we were the first rock ‘n’ roll band to go up there and play actually with just our own equipment.

Stern: Right.

Slash: Because normally the formula was, you go up, you have a backing track with drums, bass and guitar and you put a real lead vocal on. And we were like, “No fucking way.” (laughs) So we were the first band to actually go up there and play live. So I know how hard that can be, because you really – it’s TV, it’s not like playing in a stadium.

Stern: Right. It’s not easy, yeah. It’s a different medium.

Slash: We’re walking around full circle here.

Stern: So before I run out of time. You were saying that you will speak to Axl Rose about getting back together again?

Slash: Oh. Well, this is my answer for that: if he all of a sudden... First things first. He’s got to get this Guns N’ Roses record. It’s been six years since I quit. If I’d never quit, I’d be pushing daisies right now. I mean, I just can’t handle not working for that long amount of period of time, whatever you want to call it.

Stern: Yeah.

Slash: But if I was to get a phone call going, you know, “Axl wants to make a record,” I’d be like, “You get all the original guys together and then we go through six or seven months of therapy [laughter] and get rid of all this baggage, not to mention get rid of the whole Guns N’ Roses sort of business entourage that’s so screwed up. Then it’s possible, let’s maybe do a song for a movie or something like that.

Stern: So sad what happened with that band! They had such a great chemistry. All that had to be done was everybody sit tight...

Slash: Right. I had that same musketeer attitude before I quit. Just the thing got built into such a monster, which was led by a guy who had no real idea what was going on from a reality point of view. And then, everybody that worked for us that were, basically, hand-feeding him all this bullshit. And it would just keep going on, and I had no control over it anymore. And there just got to a point where there’d be like, we get huge dollar amount offers to do one show in Budapest or something like that...

Stern: You weren’t communicating!

Slash: And it was like, I couldn’t get him to do that, I couldn’t get him...

Stern: Even to go make money!

Slash: Yeah, just to make the money that he needed.

Stern: Do you think that he has any money? I don’t think he has any.

Slash: I don’t know. The amount of money that it takes to make this...

Quivers: Where is he living?

Slash: Just think about it. You know, a high profile rock ‘n’ roll band spends enough money on its own as it is, and it’s been six years of having not put out new product. So, I mean, I know there’s no money coming in – you know, of anything based on new stuff. But I’m not on it, so I wouldn’t get it anyway (laughs).

Stern: Right, right. Exactly. Alright, so anyway. So Slash...

Quivers: One of the greatest live bands you could ever want to see.

Slash: Yeah...

Stern: Yeah, Guns N’ Roses was great and in fact... Slash, you’re still rocking!

Quivers: Do those cigarettes have a filter on them even?

Slash: No.

Stern: No, no.

Quivers: Oh my goodness!

Someone: Can I smoke in here? I never do that.

(Laughter)

Quivers: No, you can’t.

Slash: They gave me an ashtray.

(Laughter)

Stern: Slash, thanks for stopping by, man.

Slash: Yeah.

Stern: It was great seeing you.

Slash: Yeah, I’m doing a new record now, just so you know.

Stern: With who?

Slash: I’m putting it together. I’ll just –

Stern: With Snakepit?

Slash: No, no. It’s gonna be something else.

Stern: Really?

Slash: Yeah.

Stern: Well, come back and see us when you have it.

Slash: I’m real excited about it.

Stern: Yeah, that’ll be good and...

Slash: It’s just good to see you.

Stern: It’s good to see you to, man.

Slash: Really.

Stern: Glad you got out of your marriage with giving up little money.

Slash: (Laughs) Yeah.