27. JANUARY 2007-JUNE 2008 - LEAKS AND TOURING

Everybody asks me that. I didn’t mention that in the book because it’s on Axl’s watch. It’ll get done, and it’ll come out when he feels comfortable with putting it out. And Axl works in a different time zone than I do. So what may seem like a long time to other people is a tick of the clock to him. It’ll come out though. It will.

Now I'm at the point I feel like if anybody came up to me and said something negative about Axl then I'd f**king punch them in the mouth. I'm very proud of my relationship with him and all the other guys and what it achieved and all that kind of shit. But more importantly I think I've grown up past all that bickering back and forth stuff because that stuff was initially very personal and it shouldn't have been glorified by the media. You know that band was f**king bad ass and I'm very proud of the whole legacy which is obviously pretty cool.

I'm just glad that he (Axl) is out there doing his thing again. We didn't know what was happening with him for a long time, but I'm looking forward to hearing this album.

We have not spoke, no. You never know. I don't have a crystal ball to foresee the future, but as fate will have it we'll end up in the same room or maybe never. He's not crazy. He has his own way of looking at things. That's basically it. I have a genuine affection for the guy that will always be there. But we also hit some very rocky roads along the way and stuff. So I can't say I necessarily miss him. But he was a really interesting, great musician. He was great to hang out with and all that kind of stuff so it's regrettable that we ended up going off in such a negative — on such a negative note. I can't say at, you know, I sit around going, God I miss him. I don't think he probably would do the same for me, but we had some really cool times together, so I don't hate him.

I know about what's going on with him, probably about as much as anybody else does because it pops up in conversation. Otherwise, I don't really spend too much time thinking about it. But I'm glad that he's out there and he's doing something. He's got a record, which I know is done. He just has to put it out. I really have no animosity toward him anymore. I have finally gotten over that. I don't have any of this sort of bitter resentment about the whole fucking upheaval that was 1996.

So it's actually a nice, content feeling, and I'm glad that he's working and I'm glad that I'm working. I feel like I've achieved something by having gotten a little bit out from underneath the umbrella of the constant Guns N' Roses recognition, which is great to an extent. You want to be able to do some other stuff without having it's like toilet paper on your heel. So now I feel content in doing what I'm doing and sort of letting bygones be bygones. Although I think he's probably still pissed at me for a lot of things. But I'm like, whatever. It probably is my fault. Whatever, I'll let it go.

[...] mostly I was pissed because I felt like I was leaving my own band. There was a really ugly vibe that has lasted for years. When Velvet Revolver started, Duff and I did an international press tour to promote the record, and everybody was coming at me with Guns N’ Roses questions because I hadn't really addressed the issues. I was like a cornered animal; anything that came out of my mouth was an attack on Axl and that sparked more animosity. But I have reached out to him a couple of times since to show that I'm not so... Well, not so bitter that I can't communicate. There's still part of me that loves a part of Axl. There's still a part of him I could relate to.

Not as much as everyone else because I know him a little better. I don't spend that much time dwelling on it. I think about it when people ask me about it or tell me something about it, people I know who know him.

'There is nothing bad between me and Axl -- it is just a dead relationship.

We haven’t really spoken, but I think what I would like to sort of do is clear some of the air. The media sort of perpetrated a lot of negative energy about the whole thing; and I think I probably helped, too, because I think when I started doing press when Velvet Revolver first started I was still bitter about the whole Guns N’ Roses breakup and I didn’t have anything really positive to say. [I would like to] sort of air that out, if I can.

Well, at this point, I think, with all fairness to Axl, I actually left the group and I think he feels sort of - I mean, I haven’t approached him about getting back together anyway, but I would imagine that he feels pretty abandoned.

[That was] an unprecedented sort of kind of thing. I don’t think he thought that I was serious. And I think that really caused a lot of bad blood.

[...] I haven't met anybody in a successful band who has been through anything as difficult as what I went through with Axl Rose. It was Axl against the rest of us. I'm the type who realizes how lucky I am to be able to go out and play every night. That's all I've ever wanted to do. But Axl is not coming from the same place. The inconsideration that was shown to everybody, the constantly being late on stage, and the inability to get anything done just made for a miserable situation. I'm a workaholic when it comes to music. I have to stay busy all the time - especially now that I've stopped drinking – because free time kills me. I mean, it has been 12 years since I left Guns, and you're still waiting on a new record.

I've always had that soft spot in my heart and there's a tight connection between Axl and I that no amount of mudslinging can erase, I guess because we came from nowhere together.

I went down there for a minute to say 'Hi' to Steven and what-not. What happened was Steven has finally come out of that sort of haze that he's been in for the last 17 years — I don't think I need to explain it any more than that. I was sort of instrumental in getting him out of the place he was in into a little bit more sober kind of environment. So I've been hanging out with him and supporting him and stuff. He had that gig that was about to happen, and I'm really jazzed that he's gotten back on the drums and he's gotten ambitious again and he's gonna go out and play. And then at some point he went public and said… Steven's just an excitable guy and he meant well when he said it, but he said that there was gonna be this reunion, that I was gonna be there and Duff and Izzy and Axl possibly, and that just fueled that already rapid-fire kind of Guns N' Roses rumors that goes on. Once I started getting phone calls and e-mails from all over the world about this gig, I said, 'You know what? I can't support it as such 'cause that's not what it is.' So I went down there but I didn't wanna get up and play because I didn't wanna fuel that any further. So I think Duff got up and played, and Izzy got up and played, and it was what it was, but I don't see any reunion happening for real.

That whole thing was blown out of proportion. I finally managed to get Steven out of Vegas and cleaned up, back on his drums and all that kind of stuff. Then (to no fault of Steven's Slash adds,) he did his first sort of interview having to do what he was doing and he mentioned that gig. He said that Duff would be there, Izzy would be there, and I would be there. I did say that I would be there. Izzy sort of mentioned that he may go and Duff had no idea and that Axl might be there. And it turned into this glorified Guns N' Roses reunion thing all over the world. I didn't want any part of that, because that's not what it was. I was even reluctant to go down there, to be seen there. But I did go down there for a couple minutes to say hi to Steven and never even entered the building; I was in an alley in the back. [...] There was no way I was going to go up and play. Even Izzy and Duff played separately.

It's something that the record company's not recognised. There's no new special release. [...] That's record companies. Fuck 'em. I care, but what are we going to do? I don't deal with those people any more. I'm sure Axl wanted to do something, but nothing came out of it.

We're trying to appeal that situation. It's nothing that we did since the last time we played there. But for whatever reason, they decided to do that. That obviously disappointed a lot of Japanese fans.

During the tour with Alice In Chains [in August 2007], he was just out to lunch. When he came back, he was supposed to go to rehab, so we postponed our Australian tour but he didn't really go to rehab. That was the final blow.

Well, lets put it this way - this is not Velvet Revolver's last tour.

I have no comment. Obviously I'm very aware of everything that's going on. The only thing I can add to that is in contrast to what Scott says there will be a Velvet Revolver after this tour.

Matt and Scott have had an issue since we had to cancel shows in Australia [Weiland checked in to drug rehab] and now it's all come to a head. And Scott's remark in Glasgow was like... well the rest of us were giving him the cold shoulder. We weren't even going to come to the UK. We only did it because the enthusiasm level for the tour was so high and the gigs were sold out. The band will continue after this tour, but in what form I can’t say. I'm not Nostradamus.

The specific reason why they were doing that was the silliest thing that we'd ever heard. Scott was basically saying our drum tech was singing along with him behind my amps with a microphone and it was making the sound muddy. That's what it was about. Scott got pissed off and went after the drum tech. Then the next night he said Matt was doing it. He was like, "I can hear someone singing behind me..."That’s honestly what he thought was happening. Bizarre...

I have no comment on that [chuckles].

We basically didn't speak a word that whole time. We gave him the cold shoulder in the UK like nobody's business. There were a couple of arguments around the stage, but, other than that, nobody spoke to him. I imagine he was quite uncomfortable. No wonder he didn't have a good time. Then he told everyone in Glasgow that the whole band was over. We were like, “Oh, well, I guess we've got a surprise coming for you, Scott."

For the most part, I don't really remember seeing much of [Weiland]. We flew to Dubai together, I think, when we played recently. Well, I think I remember him being on the plane, anyway. We sort of got used to him not being around. He's never really been part of the mechanics of the group – he’s always been separate and doing his own little thing.

The Australia thing was the final nail in the coffin. We just wanted to get through the UK tour, and then when that thing happened in Glasgow we didn't even feel bad about what was going to happen any more.

It's almost done! I thought about doing it forever, but I didn’t want to look like I was getting bored from what I was doing. Then Velvet Revolver happened and some people thought if I was going to do it, it's a good time to do it because you have another career started. Then I started realizing the amount of rumors and shit that Guns N' Roses has generated in all the books that are unauthorized. I hooked up with this guy and I started to do an autobiography and so it's coming out. [...] I think we will try to get it out in November of 2007. The writing is done and now is just the editing.

I don’t know what people are expecting but what I’m writing about is as much as I can remember from between the time I was born in the UK and Velvet Revolver. Everybody kept bugging me about doing a book and I said I didn’t want to do it - this has been going on for a couple of years - because it makes it sound like I’m saying that was my whole life. Then it was suggested that I chronicle my Guns N’ Roses life because now I’ve got another career, another band going. And I could see the point of doing that. It’s not about guitar necessarily - I don’t get into the details like a guitar magazine interview - I just talk about some of the shit I was into and everything is thrown in there. Life in general...

It was a lot like having kids. It was sort of like, I thought my wife was gonna do all the, you know, diapers and this, that and the other, and I just had to hang out and be cool, and it turned out not to be that way (laughs) ... Writing the book was the same kind of deal. You know, it was a lot more complex than the actual interview part of the thing, which I thought that would basically be it. But instead I'd read it back and go, 'Oh, no, no, no...'and really have to write it myself.

I never wanted to write a book, because it would be too final. The only reason I wrote it is because a lot of the stuff I was reading and seeing about the band got pretty frustrating. I just had to straighten out some s--t.

I’ve been approached about doing a book for probably all the wrong reasons so many times, I couldn’t validate it in my own mind. For one, it seemed very self-indulgent, very self-centered and very final -- and I have no plans of retiring. Finally, I started to realize all this Guns hype that goes on, all this bull--- that surrounds that band, it’s inaccurate, and most isn’t even inaccurate, it’s just made up. I got fed up with it. (The book will) answer a lot of these questions. I just figured, “Be as honest as possible.”

That’s one of the reasons, one of the inspirations for doing the book in the first place - because I've been approached about doing a book for years and I just was never interested. But because there's still so much attention given to Guns N’ Roses, and all the controversy, the breakup, and Axl’s new record, me and Axl’s relationship, and all this stuff, people have been just taking artistic license to make up whatever they want. Nobody monitors it, there's no control over it, and people just, sort of like, make up what they think would be really entertaining to write - you know, for whatever reason. And there's also a lot of rumors that are perpetuated by the media, and so on and so forth, and that's what made me go, “I just need to set the record straight from my end,” so that if anybody… you know, because I get asked a lot of questions, especially because of Velvet Revolver, where I have to do so much press, and at least 20% of every interview has to do with some [bleep] that I have to explain all over, and over, and over.

Well, what happened was, I decided I was gonna write the book because I wanted to set the record straight on a lot of the Guns N’ Roses mania that's been going on. So we figured the best way to do it was to do it in book form. And this is why the timing is such, it’s because in the last couple of years the Guns N' Roses stuff has been overwhelming - and because of Velvet Revolver: I'm out doing press all the time and I have to deal with 15% or 20% of Guns N' Roses questions, all the same stupid stuff. So we said, “Well, let's do an autobiography.” So it's a snapshot of my life and the Guns stuff is in there, and… there you have it.

It was the only format that I could find where I could get some of the facts straight about Guns N' Roses. A lot of the stuff that's been going around is just wrong, and people have been asking me a lot of stupid questions.

I would never write an autobiography just to talk about myself. That's not my personality. But it got to this point where, because Velvet Revolver is so high profile, and I'm doing so much press with them, I'm faced with having to deal with Guns N' Roses stuff 20 per cent of the time.

So I said, 'Let's do a book and I'll get all this s--- straight.'

I put the book out to sort of set the record straight on a lot of the story having to do with why I quit Guns 'n' Roses, and the band reuniting, and a lot of other subjects having to do with that band. Basically that's what influenced my decision to write a book. Prior to that I had no interest in writing a book, even though people keep asking me. But after seeing all the attention that Guns 'n' Roses has garnered of late, all the misinformation that's available to people, and all of the other, you know, falsehoods that are going on about a lot of different things, I just figured probably the only way I'd be able to do myself and the story any justice is to write it myself.

The sole motivation for the book was to straighten out a lot of the myths about Guns N' Roses that are still prevalent on the Internet and in unauthorized biographies. I'd love to sound like the book was sort of a deep statement for me. But, in all honesty, it wasn't. It's really everything that's on the surface; I'm way too introverted and shy to bare my soul.

Well, you are on KNAC.COM, so I am sure that you are probably aware of all the hoopla that goes on about Guns N' Roses. It has gotten to the point as being really overwhelming. The amount of misinformation that is taken in stock on the Internet and the media at large just got to be really overwhelming. On top of that, there was a couple of unauthorized books, one about me and one about Axl, and one about the band. It was just taking artistic license on shit that they didn't necessarily know anything about and going out and capitalizing on it. I just got to a point where I needed some sort of a vehicle to be able to set a few thoughts straight. The media wasn't the way to do it. So I resigned to writing a book. Which is way out of character for me. I have been asked about writing a book a bunch of times and I flatly turned it down. So I said, "You know what? Fuck it. I am going to actually to do the book.

Anthony [Bozza] was someone who was introduced through my management. He was a little bit apprehensive. We had this great conversation one night and that was months and months before I actually decided to write the book. It was just sort of a preliminary meeting with an author to get a feel for it. The guy was so genuinely fascinated by some of the experiences that I had and just things just seemed to pan out in my life and what not, and he was really encouraging about it. He just sort of gave me an idea on an angle for writing a book so it wouldn't sound very final. That is what books always represent to me. Autobiographies are like this is my last hoorah. That is obviously not the case. He inspired probably about six or seven months and me later. He and I hooked up again, and just started commencing on doing the interviews for it. So it was in a way, it was fun to do and it wasn't an overly intimidating experience or anything like that. The intention of the book was to provide some insight on a few facts to the public that really no one never knew that had to do with Guns N' Roses. It is just some antidotes from where I come from playing guitar, how Guns started, bands I was in, and some of things that happened along the w

It was a different experience. I was resigned to writing the book due to the fact that some guy came out with an unauthorized Slash book. So, I just decided to do my own book, because doing an interview or press release to offset any of this stuff didn’t work. The guy who I wrote the book with [Anthony Bozza] had such a genuine zeal for my whole story. Not just the cliché stuff. It was a real collaboration between us. I wrote entire chapters of the book on my Blackberry… sending it to my co-writer. But you know, it was worth it, because finally after all my input, it turned out good.

I often struggled with the concept of writing a book, but I never did, because I didn’t want it to sound like I reached the end of my rope and was planning my retiring. But I really needed to put a cap on all the Guns N’ Roses rumours which were inaccurate. There are too many people who write books about us and have no idea what the truth was.

I think the main catalyst for writing the book was to straighten out some very heavy rumors that were going on having to do with Guns n‘ Roses. And that was what the motivation was. And I just threw in a bunch of anecdotes along the way.

It almost reads like a journal, except for the fact that I never wrote anything down. It was a hard book to make, because I was pretty f--ked up from 1980 to 2000-something. I really had to dig deep to try and remember a lot of s--t."

[I] can't remember three-quarters of what went on.

I mean, if you think of that, there was a lot of partying, a lot of excess going on. So, you know, it was pretty daunting to go back and say, “Okay, can I remember all this accurately?”

Well, I mean, everything that's in the book is stuff that I remember actually happening. It wasn't that kind of a foggy… If there was something I could remember, I didn't remember it at all. But if I did, if I recollected anything, then it came back pretty solid. And, you know, there's a very honest retelling of everything that I basically know about that whole period (laughs).

It's hard to write a book, because it seems like it's all about me. It's sort of weird. It's got some funny shit in it. It's not really a book that I'm out attacking anybody or venting all my grievances on it or that kind of shit. It does sort of factually tell everything that happened since I started till now.

didn’t want the book to be a vehicle to vent my frustration. I just wanted to be fair and honest, because I realized that my point of view is only one point of view.

This is not a vehicle for me to vent. It's not to lambast Axl or to talk shit about anybody else. It's just telling the story as I knew it.

It will set the record straight as far as I’m concerned. There’s no dirt in there, there’s no stirring up any shit. I’m not about to reveal secrets about people or relationships that they wouldn’t want out there. It’s more of a day-in- the-life kind of thing and all sorts of precious secrets are still intact. I didn’t go out to be vicious or anything.

A lot of that stuff I came back and cut out because I didn’t want it to be one of those books that basically bragged about how hardcore (we were), blah, blah, blah. Especially nowadays, (because) a lot of musicians and rock bands have this badge they wear that says that they can party really hard, and I hate that. But I probably talk more about that than I actually talk about music. The music was sort of a natural thing you don’t have to talk about, but chemical abuse was sort of every living, breathing moment.

I'll let you in on a little secret. The book has a lot of stuff in there and it's all good and everything, but I'm very private. There's a lot of stuff in there, but it doesn't tell all. It's not as personal as it sounds. It's all stuff anybody could tell you if they were there.

There is some personal stuff in there, having to deal with certain incidents that a lot of people wouldn't know, or weren't there for. But the majority of the book has things that happened--and it's all sort of cool--but it's not an emotional or opinionated or a personal view on things the way that some autobiographies are. I can't even keep a journal or write lyrics because it's so hard for me to express myself on that level. If someone were to ask me to write a book about, "How do you really feel?" I'd say, 'F--- off.' It has a lot of accounts of a lot of different things, which are sort of cool. It has some in detail and it has a lot of what was going on that led up to the Guns break-up and stuff that happened post-break-up.

More than expecting me to, I think they wanted me to. Everybody was poised for picking that book up and reading all the negative stuff they could possibly hear about Axl. That was not my whole purpose of expelling that relationship and the demise of the band. I just wanted to shed some light on the reality of why we broke up, not to berate Axl for anything that he didn't deserve. Axl is not as bad a guy as some people make him out to be, and I wanted some clarity on that.

The one thing I wouldn't have them do or allow them to do would be to actually do the book with the characters in it, the way that they are in real life as far as who they are. You know, if you wanted to take the story and make up some people (laughs) and change the names and all that kind of stuff, and make everybody fictional, it could be interesting. But if you were gonna try and go, 'Okay, this is Slash and this is Axl (Rose) and this is Slash's mom, and this character's gonna play Scott (Weiland),' no, I wouldn't allow it.

The whole book signing experience was pretty memorable because it was a whole different medium - I was promoting something I'm not familiar with. I'd walk into a book store and meet an audience that was somewhat similar to the live audience that I perform for, but the demographic was all over the place. It went from six and seven year olds, all the way to 60 and 70 year olds, and everyone in between. When I'm standing on a stage in front of a room full of people, I don't really notice any 70 year olds, on the average. The cool thing about the signings was being in a position to actually stand toe to toe with people who are fans - or just curious. I got to look them in the eye, shake their hands, and sometimes even get names. It was a very different experience for me. It was personable and that was really cool. I was there with this piece of material, this book we just wrote and people were really into hearing what I had to say. It's different than putting out a record, which people listen to and then you see them when they show up at your gigs. At a book signing you're much more accessible, and your fans are right there, living and breathing in person. They are in front of you as individuals, not just as crowd you see from a stage.

I knew it was going to be different at the very first signing, at Barnes and Noble in New York City. I had taped Letterman just before it and was wearing a jacket and button down shirt for the show, so at the signing I took off my jacket and was there in my shirt, starting off this whole thing. This girl came up to the table and kind of looked me over and just said, "Slash, this is way too conservative for you." It dawned on me right then what a different element I was in.

All of the signings were fun but the best for me, the one where I was the most comfortable was the one at the Whiskey a Go-Go. We had a bar, and loud music was playing; it was a club environment and there was some jamming and stuff later that night. And it was in LA. I got up and played at that one, but the one that was most like an actual show was the one at the Mall of America in Minneapolis. I was actually on a stage - they built one stage in the atrium there in the biggest mall in America - hence the name. Unlike other places where people were lined up outside the store, they were lined up in front of the stage, like a crowd at a gig, as I sat up there signing books.

I felt sort of naked out there at the table at all of the signings without the backdrop of my band and crew - my gang. I was there with a bunch of people who work in the bookstore and I was in their store, trying to get away with smoking cigarettes. And sober. It was definitely a little bit different. The pressure was really on me to hold up my end of the bargain which was to be able to accept my audience. It was cool to do it; it was almost cathartic in a way. I wasn't totally sure what to expect, just being out there, meeting fans in this way. I have to say that everybody was genuinely really nice. I wasn't expecting anything bad, but I wasn't sure what they would be like. When you're just sitting there signing books at a table, it's possible that somebody can just walk right up you and go "You're a fucking asshole!" Doing a signing is like being the host of a big dinner party with a bunch of people you've never met. You just don't know what's gonna happen. But everybody was really really nice - endearing is the best word I can think of. They were full of compliments, and I don't take compliments that well, but it was really, really nice. Young and old, everyone was very cool, and we did signings for 800-1000 people per event. A lot of people brought stuff they wanted signed, like guitars, Guitar Hero controllers, pictures, all kinds of gifts. The thing was, I'd need to get into a whirlwind pace of signing just to get through that many books in the time period available - some people bought upwards of 40 books a piece that I had to sign one after the other with no break. In that type of situation, all you can do is sign it. Then I'd look someone in the eye as they'd try to hand me something that clearly meant something to them, and ask me, "Can you please just sign this? Please?" I really couldn't, because if I did one, I'd have to do every one. So what ended up happening was that I'd tell them to wait around until the end and I'd sign it later. I'd go outside and sign all of that in the parking lot for another hour or however long it took.

Who would have thought, though? I've never released a book, I've never been to a signing and outside of the library or a book store, knew nothing about books or publishing in general. I'd read them and that's it. I never thought about what goes into writing them or editing them or producing them in general. When we wrote this I thought it was only going to go out to those Guns N' Roses fans who cared - and I knew there were those - and no one else. I had no idea that we'd get a turnout like this, from the many different types of readers to the huge number of readers. I had no idea that the book we wrote would appeal to enough people to get it on top of the New York Times Bestseller list for over a month straight. I had no idea that what we were dong was working toward something that would become this big. Who knows... maybe that's why it's cool.

[...] in general, I really liked promoting the book. You get a chance to really get close to your fans. I mean, we had kids from 6 years old all the way up to people in their 60s [at book signings]. The book crowd is different than the record buying crowds, but all in all it was a good experience.

I've been told more explicit, negative stuff about drugs (than is in my book) and I still did them. If you're smart, you'll see where it (the book) starts and where it ends up and you'll go, 'It seems like a pain in the ass.' At the same time, there was a lot of fun. I don't have any regrets about it.

Well, I wrote that stupid book. When I was doing book tours for the book, I was asked more than a dozen times: ‘What about when your kids read it?’ I said: ‘My kids are never going to read it. They’re never gonna be interested to see what dad had to say about anything.’

But my eldest turned around one day and decided to read that fucking book. So now, any time I have anything to say to him about school or work, or whatever it is that he doesn’t necessarily want to hear, he can fucking fire back at me: ‘Well, in your book you said…’

Marc was always good at taking pictures. He always kept a lot of pictures. As we got older, Marc turned into a big fan of Aerosmith, and he got into collecting their magazine interviews and photos and any kind of rarities he could find. So I guess at one point he started to put a scrapbook together of stuff that I was dong when I started putting bands together. He always had a camera around. Marc has been working on the peripheral forever and I just never really paid much attention to it because he just always kept shots and kept scrapbooks of everything. It's Marc's nature and it's great. I wish I were like that. I would have a clearer memory of my past.

It’s great. It’s probably the best rock and roll coffee table book I’ve ever seen.

When I was a kid, for any of my favorite bands, you couldn't find something that was behind-the-scenes. When Led Zeppelin first came out, they had their publicity shots. No one either allowed it or no one cared enough to get all the behind-the-scenes footage of their first rehearsals or this, that or the other thing. It's the same for a lot of my favorite bands. I don't think anybody's got a pictorial history that comprehensive of when a band first started as we do with Reckless Road. So it's really cool.

Mark is a really close friend of mine from way back in the 5th grade and when I first started playing guitar, he used to just bring his camera. He used to shoot a lot of rock concerts. He used to sneak cameras in and shoot from Judas Priest to Aerosmith and whoever else you can think of. So, he's pretty handy with a camera.

When I first started in my first band and what not, he used to always come and take pictures and physically record the shows. When Guns first started, I guess he saw something in Guns that we, maybe, didn't necessarily see at the time. But, he really thought it was gonna go somewhere.

He started shooting all the shows, recording all the shows and never missed one. Really, for the whole time that we were a club band up, until the point where we got signed. So, this book is really, really candid stuff from all these different dates, backstage and some other casual stuff.

But, it's the kind of pictorial history that most bands don't have because they either weren't fortunate enough to have somebody that saw more in them than the band itself saw or, you know, just having somebody around with a 35mm on a regular basis. But, it's really a cool, cool book. It's probably the coolest rock and roll table book I've seen in a long time.

Yeah, someone sent me a text about that at 3am last night. I thought, "What kind of left-field shit is that?" It's pretty funny, actually. I guess Buckethead and I will just have to make do with Coca-Cola.