2007.06.15 - Planet Loud - Interview with Slash

A week after an awesome performance at Download 2007, Planet Loud sat down with Slash from rock supergroup Velvet Revolver to talk about their new album and a few other things.

Planet Loud – So Slash, how are you today?

Slash – Great thanks. Everything’s good, everything’s working. The shows have been good and that’s all I can ask for,

Planet Loud – It’s good to see you back in the UK as well.

Slash – Thanks man, it’s good to be here again.

Planet Loud – You’ve got the record coming out shortly but you took quite a break from each other before recording it. Was that important do you think?

Slash – Well, we are what we are. You spend nineteen months basically on a fucking bus together and, when that ends, people need to decompress. They need privacy, get to know the wife and kids again and just chill out. We managed to do that but the only downside was that it was hard to get everyone back together again and get working again.

Planet Loud – How difficult was it to get back into the swing?

Slash – Yeah, it was difficult and we found that I would take to Dave or I would talk to Scott or Duff and we’d talk about doing this again but we could never get all five of us in the same room together at the same time. It was always two of us or three of us but never all five. It took a little while but then, once we got back on the wagon and started working together again, it just fuckin’ took off.

Planet Loud – Was it as good when you got back together?

Slash – You know the thing is that this band has so many good qualities that people don’t know about. It’s the same with any band that people on the outside don’t know about the inner workings as to how a band can work together and make a piece of music.

Planet Loud – I was going to say there are a lot of strong personalities in the band..

Slash – Yeah, there’s that too. You’ve got a lot of established musicians in the band and that all goes to make this band and any band special.

Planet Loud – You mentioned the qualities of the band, what would you those individual qualities were?

Slash – Well, you’ve got Duff who I’ve known for years who has a really great work ethic and really amiable and easy to get on with. You’ve got Matt who is the ultimate party guy, really sweet but you gotta nail him down as he’s definitely got his own agenda going on. Dave is totally easy and has been as long as I’ve known him which is since junior High School. Scott is great too but Scott has the most intricate personality that he wears on his sleeve. It’s not just internal, it’s external as well. With Scott it’s a matter of really sitting down and getting to work. It’s really easy to work with him, you’ve just got to do it. He’s definitely the moodier of the bunch of us and has the most presence.

Planet Loud – You can tell that watching him on stage

Slash – Yeah, he’s the most intense. Yeah, that’s the word. Intense.

Planet Loud – It must be interesting working with someone who isn’t as laid back as the rest of the band?

Slash – It’s not that he isn’t laid back, you just can’t kick back and have a beer with him. He takes what he does very seriously. It all works really well because the five of us just bounce of each other and it just gels really well, you know?

Planet Loud – Okay, during the off period..

Slash – Oh yeah, can I just mention that I’m not the easiest person to get along with though! Ha.

Planet Loud – How would you describe your personality?

Slash – Mine is that I’m over-eager to work but I’m pretty set in my ways too.

Planet Loud – Okay, during the off-time between the tour, you mentioned you kept in touch with the rest of the band. How much contact did you have?

Slash – I think when we got done which would have been at Christmas of the end of the year before last everyone did their own thing then started to reach out to each other to see what we all wanted to do. The thing is that, with a band like us, we can’t just sit down and go right, what shall we do, we had to set ourselves a date and we booked a studio. Before that we just spoke about it but never really set anything in stone.

Planet Loud – Going onto this record then, what did you want to achieve with it?

Slash – You know, for me personally, I didn’t have any set goal as to what I wanted to achieve. I don’t think I ever have. We just started working on some stuff and all these cool ideas started coming out and then you start working on them and more cool stuff comes together and that’s pretty much as much focus on what you want to achieve as I guess I have. All we do is take an idea that sounds like it could be something and work on it.

Planet Loud – What are your favourite songs on the record?

Slash – I really couldn’t tell you. Each song has its own story, how it was developed. We have our own personal relationship with each one. Each one is different but each one is just as important as the rest.

Planet Loud – Considering the pedigree of the band and the success of the first record, did you feel under any pressure going into this album?

Slash – I think as much as I dug the first record for what it was – a new band without any real working experience together, regardless of me, Duff and Matt working together before – just going in the studio and making a record in the spare of the moment and then going out to fucking tour it, as much as it was a successful record, I don’t think that creatively or musically it even began to touch what we were capable of doing as a band. I guess what I am trying to say is that, for us, it wasn’t as satisfying a record as it was commercially which doesn’t mean shit really. So, going into this record it wasn’t about surpassing what we had done on the last record, it was about making something that was satisfying for the five of us.

Planet Loud – On the album you did an ELO cover but I hear you weren’t so keen on doing it at first?

Slash – I don’t know the whole story behind that one but apparently Brendan and Scott were having a chat when I wasn’t there and I came in afterwards and Brendan mentioned the song. Now, we all know it’s a great song if you’re an ELO fan and we all know they wrote some great song but I have to admit I don’t have a lot, if any, on my I-pod. He mentioned it to me and I was the most apprehensive about it as it was a good song but I didn’t know how the hell we were going to play that song. It took me about a week to convince me to lay down some scratch acoustic with drums and bass then he put down Scott’s vocals and his vocals were awesome then I had to figure out what to do with it. We finished the record apart from that song and everyone had done their part except for me and Dave so we sat down and we started to get an idea of what we wanted on it. So, I went to Atlanta to finish the mix and I put the guitar solo on it and I think it made it a good version of the song but it doesn’t sound like ELO.

Planet Loud – Scott recently did an interview where he said that this was the most excited about a rock album he’d been since 1993. Is the music scene devoid of great rock bands these days?

Slash – You know, I was watching the Download highlights on TV the other day and they had such a diverse range of metal bands. I don’t know how many people were there this year but there was such a range of bands and then you had us who were more of a stripped down rock ‘n’ roll band compared to everything else and it fit in great. There’s that side of it then I look at it and it kind of reminds me of the early ‘80s where you can see where this whole group of people are going but, at the same time, it seems kind of directionless and lacks an attitude or a point or something. If people dig that then great but what I do miss is the anarchistic, punk rock, genuine punk rock attitude that turned me on when I was a kid and made me do what I’m doing today. So, you’ve got us on the one side but I think that there should also be a handful of bands along those lines that are capable of getting record deals and have the attitude but I just don’t see that at the moment.

Planet Loud – What about a band like Gallows?

Slash – I saw them and that was a band with attitude. The singer has got so much attitude I couldn’t tell if he had a scar on his face or it was a spot.

Planet Loud – Probably a scar.

Slash – Ha, right on. That was more punk rock. That was more fuck you and I like that.

Planet Loud – Okay Slash, I think we’re running out of time, thanks for talking to us and good luck with the album.
Slash – No problem man, take it easy.

Interviewer: Graham Finney

https://web.archive.org/web/20071007190552/http://www.planet-loud.com/v6/interview.php?interview_id=1052&bandname=Velvet%20Revolver