1995.02.DD - Denton Show (Australia) - Interview with Slash and Eric Dover

Transcript:
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Kylie Minogue: It’s also the name of the lead guitarist for one of the biggest rock bands in the world today, Guns N’ Roses.

Andrew Denton: Gunners!

Kylie Minogue: The Gunners haven’t recorded in four years, so Slash has formed his own band, Slash’s Snakepit, who have released this album, It’s Five O’clock somewhere.

Denton: Yes.

Minogue: How am I going? I’m going?

Denton: No, you’re doing very well.

Minogue: Okay. Here with the lead singer of Slash’s Snakepit, Eric Dover, Slash!

[Cheers and applause]

Denton: Slash, this way! Come on through!

Slash: Look at this guy!

Denton: Take your chair... [...]

Slash: Alright.

Denton: Alright. Kylie-Slash, Kylie-Eric, Eric-Kylie, Slash-Kylie.

Minogue: Hi.

Slash: Who’s dealing?

Denton: Who’s dealing...

Slash: I thought we were gonna have breakfast or something.

Denton: We will have it served, eventually.

Slash: Listen, so we’ve been watching in the back.

Denton: Yes?

Slash: And the exercise thing, that definitely... (laughs).

Denton: You’re into that?

Slash: (Laughing) Like, I’m familiar with it, actually.

Denton: Really?

Slash: (Laughing) Yeah, I know some women that are into that.

Denton: What-

Slash: No, we just met a girl that just got her, um, clitoris... (laughs)

Denton: Yeah?

Slash: ...pierced. And she says ever since she did it - and she did it on the air, her name is Bobbie, she’s from Triple J.

Denton: Yep.

Slash: And she said that she exercises twice as long now, so...

Denton: Really?

(Laughter)

Slash: So...

Denton: Wasn’t that a thing everybody was interested! What a wonderful fitness tip, thank you very much!

Slash: (Laughs).

Denton: What is this thing with snakes with you? You’ve got 300 snakes.

Slash: I don’t anymore. I only have 260 or something now.

Denton: What happened?

Slash: One of the guys that used to work for me I fired, and so he had – we have sort of a business, which we sort of breed snakes to sort of keep the ecological system together, so the demand on the wildlife and the natural fauna isn’t so hectic. So we breed them ourselves and, if anybody wants to buy anything exotic, they can get it from us. Anyway, but one of these guys wasn’t taking care of stuff, so we fired him and he took his snakes with him.

Denton: I mean, what’s the best snake I could get from you, Slash?

Slash: Huh? (laughs)

Denton: I mean, you say, what’s the most dangerous snake I could get from you? What are you offering?

Slash: Actually, I’m on TV. I wouldn’t tell you.

Denton: Oh, I see. So there’s... Does he take snakes on the road?

Slash: It’s very private, underground kind of snake network.  

Dover: It’s inhumane.

Denton: To take snakes on the road?

Dover: Well, sure it is. You put them through a lot of different climate changes and stuff and you don’t want to do that.

Slash: Yeah.

Denton: Slash-

Minogue: Does your snake have a name on it? Them?  

Slash: My...

Minogue: Them? Your snakes.

(Laughter)

Slash: Some of them... (laughs).

(Laughter)

Slash: You said it, I didn’t. Um, there’s a couple of snakes that have names, but as we got more and more – they can’t hear anyway, it would be sort of pointless (laughs).

(Laughter)

Minogue: (?) (laughs)

Denton: Slash, far be it for me to talk manners here, but you’ve just had a cigarette without offering one to anybody else.

Slash: I didn’t – (to Kylie Minogue) do you want one?

Minogue: No, thank you.

Slash: I didn’t think so. (To Dover) Do you want one?

Dover: No, I’m trying to watch, you know, my thing happening.

Slash: Something with sex and food on this show, isn’t it? (laughs)

Denton: Pretty much. Are you gonna offer me cigarettes?

Slash: Do you want one?

Denton: No, thank you very much.

Slash: Okay.

Denton: But I just thought-

(Laughter)

Slash: No, well, I just assumed that I’d be probably the only one that would go ahead and light up...

Denton: Well, that’s the problem, Slash, with you superstars. You just assume too much!

(Laughter)

Denton: Sorry. Sorry, everybody-

Minogue: The mall-table rocked when you did that.

Slash: I know. (?)

Denton: I’m very powerful.

Slash: Start smoking, Jesus Christ.

Denton: No, no.

(Laughter)

Denton: The jewelry here, Kylie. What do you think of the look?

Minogue: Yeah, great. If you need silver, go for it.

Slash: Yeah... I like my stuff. I don’t...

Dover: You can always tell where he’s at, too.

(Laughter)

Slash: I know, I sound like a Christmas tree walking around.

Denton: You can hear Slash-Slash-Slash and he’s just...

Slash: You can hear me coming down the hallway in the hotel. Like, it’s 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, and everybody’s in bed, and I’m coming back late, and everybody knows when I’m coming.

Dover: Of course you’re bumping into a few walls.

Slash: Well, that’s probably-

Minogue: They just don’t know where you come from.

Denton: That’s right.

Slash: Yeah, they don’t know where I’ve been or where I’ve come from.

Denton: Isn’t this a hassle to sleep with, though? You know, you keep on having (?)

Slash: I’ve been wearing stuff like this since I was a little kid, so it doesn’t, really.

Denton: Really?

Slash: Plus, I’m too lazy. I couldn’t imagine trying to take the stuff off and just to go to bed, you know? Sometimes I take it off just because I get sick of it. Like, I start with - there’s a couple of permanent ones on here; that I can’t get off, unless I cut them off.

Denton: Which ones (?)

Slash: This one right here.

Denton: What do you mean it’s permanent?

Slash: It won’t come off.

Denton: How did it come on?

Slash: I was young – I don’t know. This... I don’t know (laughs).  

Denton: That was a good party, that one, wasn’t it? (laughs)

Slash: (Laughs) Anyway, but... And there’s other stuff on me that, you know, doesn’t come out and I go in here...

Denton: Are you pierced anywhere else that we can’t see?

Slash: Yeah. Right here [belly button].

Denton: Whoa, that’s great. Now, if somebody pulled that out, you would [makes gesture and sound of whirling] around the room.

Slash: (Laughs) I’d probably beat the crap out of them.  

Denton: I wasn’t suggesting... (laughs). This is becoming a very aggressive interview, isn’t it?

Minogue: Would you ever have one of those?

Denton: Would I ever have my belly button pierced?

Minogue: Yeah...

Denton: Um...

Slash: It’s not really a guy thing to do. I think that’s why I did it.

Denton: Why?

Slash: It’s the sensitive side or something.

Denton: (?) This is the 90s, man.

Slash: It’s my feminine side (laughs). No, no. I just did it because it looked cool. I thought it would look cool and so I did it. If I didn’t like it, I’d take it out. But it did look cool.

Denton: Is it very... I mean, is it hard to keep clean?

Slash: It looks great on women, though – huh?

Denton: Is it hard to keep clean?

Slash: It’s got a high maintenance factor, yeah.

Denton: Yeah?

(Laughter)

Denton: What’s the daily agenda for the belly button ring?

Slash: Well, no, it’s not that big a deal. When I take a shower, then I put some soap on it and turn it around a few times (laughs).

Denton: Yeah.

(Laughter)

Slash: And then we also have, for us musicians, road rules (laughs). You take Bactine or some sort of disinfectant and spray it on there, so that...

Denton: You could learn something here, Kylie (laughs).

Slash: No, no, so that if you’re working a lot and you don’t have time to take a shower or you’re in too much of a hurry, you just do that real quick, you spray it on there and then you turn it around a few times.

(Laughter)

Denton: Eric, you’re travelling with Slash. You must be learning a lot.

Dover: Oh, loads (laughs).

Denton: Loads and loads.

Dover: I don’t have a piercing or anything.

Denton: No, you don’t have a hat, you don’t have the sunglasses, you don’t have the jewelry...

Slash: The sunglasses are for the light. I can’t deal with it.

Denton: You can’t deal with light?

Slash: I can’t, because I’m a night person. So it’s like, no, Jesus.

Minogue: It is night.

Denton: It is night time here, yes (laughs).

Slash: Well, not in here, it isn’t (laughs).

Denton: Well, can we just see your eyes for a second?

Slash: Yeah.

Minogue: Whoo!

Denton: Wow. Actually, excuse me... Yeah, put the sunnies back on, Slash, that’s cool.

(Laughter)

Denton: Now, Slash, this is the last bit of your tour.

Slash: I know. This is it, we’re celebrating.

Denton: What’s gonna happen tonight?

Slash: Oh god, any number of things. Eric, fill them in.

Dover: ...

Minogue: Like?

Slash: Well, we have that date with you.

(Laughter)

Minogue: After that.

Dover: We’re gonna take your limo out for a spin. We saw it in the back there.

Slash: Yeah, we came in a van, you know?

(Laughter)

Minogue: You can come in a little bit, yeah.

Dover: Oh good.

Slash: (?)

Minogue: Just bring your drinks. It’s BYO [bring your own] in the limo.

Denton: So basically you’re gonna go for a spin in the limo and then what, you’re gonna douse your rings in antiseptic and crash.

(Laughter)

Denton: It sounds like a big night.

Minogue: (?) they drink anstiseptic.

Denton: Drink antiseptic? Well, I learned something tonight I thought I would never learn, which I’m going to pass on to my children. Which is how to keep your belly button clean when it’s got several ounces of metal to it.

Slash: I just met some people that have done some piercings that, I mean, I wouldn’t even do.

Denton: Really?

Slash: Yeah. The guy, actually, who did this. When we were shooting the video for the first single on the It’s Five O’clock Somewhere record – or album or CD or whatever you call it – this guy was pierced from head to toe. I mean, he had three over each eye, one on each side of his nose, three in his chin, one in his tongue, one... what do you call it?

Dover: Well, not the glottis. It’s just some kind of weird area here.

Denton: Yeah.

Slash: Yeah, this area right there. And then both his nipples, his belly button and 14 in his rod. Okay?

(Laughter)

Minogue: That’s showing off a bit.

Denton: Yeah (?) (laughs)

Slash: And then he had one sort of in between (laughs). We call it a taint, but it’s not this, it ain’t that, it’s right in the middle (laughs).

(Laughter)

Denton: The original rifle then.

Slash: I was just like, “What’s the fascination with completely piercing your whole body?” But-

Dover: It’s sexy.

Slash: He was an extra on the set and he happened to work in the most famous piercing place in Los Angeles. So I just thought it was an omen and I got my belly button pierced. Much to my wife’s dismay.

Denton: You’ve shared much with us tonight. Thank you very much, Slash. Thank you very much, Eric.

Dover: Thank you.

Denton: Thank you very much, Kylie.

[Applause]

Apparently the interview took place after this one:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4655-1995-02-dd-triple-m-radio-australia-interview-with-slash-and-eric-dover