2011.04.10 - Dirty Rock Nation - Interview with Slash

„Dirty Rock Nation“ Interview with Slash

SLASH: Dirty rock is just raw, sweaty Rock n‘ Roll, that’s sexy and has a pulse.

DRN: Hello everyone! This is Metal Mel from Dirty Rock Nation and I‘m about to make a mess out of this couch because I’m extremely excited I’m sitting next to rock legend, guitar hero, motherfucking Slash! Slash, thank you so much for doing this!

SLASH: Oh yeah, it’s been good to be having back here (?), I guess. All things considered I... we just got here, so I don’t know wxactly where this place is.

DRN: We are at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina. I want to mention that myself and Coleen both love your book. When you first decided to make your autobiography, did you want to say anything special to the world about Slash or straighten out any misconceptions?

SLASH: Um, yeah, not really. I mean, 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.

DRN: Part of the book that we love at Dirty Rock Nation is berfore you were in Guns n‘ Roses and you played that Bar Mitzvah and it was like someone‘s house. How old were you doing that?

SLASH: Um, I was in high school I think. So I was probably like 16, maybe 17.

DRN: And you guys pretty much trashed the place. Can you tell our audience what happened that night?

SLASH: Um, it’s a long story, but an acquaintance of mine told me about a party that was being thrown for a wedding. It was a wedding party and they wanted us to play and all these big people were gonna be there and it was blown way out of proportion. And so we signed up to do it. And then we drove the pickup over there and had like my crew of friends who were also sort oft he band, and crew and the guys in the band and a couple of girlfriends, and all that. And weg et there and it was basically… uh, it was basically a Bar Mitzvah and there was all like old people and this whole.. anyway we had to stay over night there and they gave the guest house. So we got really drunk and we trashed the guest house and we went into the main house and stole all their liquor and trashed the backyard. And then had to get up the next morning and actually play and you know we were as loud as we possibly could be. It was… we were offensive.

DRN: And didn’t something happen in the kitchen?

SLASH: No, it was in the.. in the guest house. There was a sink for one and somebody sat on that and broke that. And then somebody puked in the stew that they were cooking overnight and you know they didn’t tell anybody about it.

DRN: Well, I understand that you’re sober now and you don’t even smoke cigarettes, which is awesome.

SLASH: I still have a really bad nicotine problem. So I have supplements.

DRN: You have a gum?

SLASH: No. I do the gum but more, uh more habitually at this point I do this little… this stuff called snus, right? Comes in a can and you suck on ´em. And I’m really strung out on those at this point, but I’m not smoking. It’s been almost two years.

DRN: So, on your iPod what are you listening to? What’s on high rotation in your iPod?

SLASH: Um, I’m not an iPod guy. I hate the way iPods sound. I mean Apple’s great and it’s very convenient. Um, and I have one and it’s got all my stuff on it, but at the same time everytime I go to listen to it, it just sounds so crappy. So I don’t really have anything in rotation on the iPod.

DRN: You’ve worked with an endless list of musical legends. Um, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, of course Ozzy, Lemmy. Um, and is there anyone that you missed out working with, because they passed away?

SLASH: Oh well, I mean you know there’s a lot of amazing artists that have passed away that I would have given a right limb to... to work with. Um, from Keith Moon to Jimi Hendrix to Jim Mo…  any of those guys.

DRN: Right, right.

SLASH: Um, Albert King would have been fun to jam with… anyhow but it’s not really about making a list of people that you want to play with… that you aspire to play with. What happens is, ´cause I’m out there so much, you know, and I’m always jamming and in the studio or whatnot, I end up coming across a lot of people that I admire a lot. And in the course of conversation or whatever it’s sort of spontaneous . You just say: „Let’s get together!“ or write a song or something like that. And you just,  instead of doing it the LA way where you say that and then you never do it,  you actually go in and get it done. And so I do it a lot.

DRN: Sounds like the end product would be better that way when it’s spontaneous and from the heart.

SLASH: It’s definitely more inspired, yeah.

DRN: Well, you’re currently on tour with Ozzy. Does he come out and sing with you?

SLASH: He’s... Ozzy is one of these guys. He’s like a machine. He is very driven and does his thing and he sort of.. he gets to the show at the very last minute. The changeover from our set to his set is super fast. He goes up there and he does an amazing show and then he splits. It’s like that. And we’re sort oft he same way. We go in. We put our set together and we go in. We kick ass for an hour and then take off. So we haven’t really gotten to that point of being able to come to terms with like rehearsing a song and doing all that.

DRN: Right, right. Well that song on your new album is classic Ozzy.

SLASH: It’s a cool song. It’s a hard song to play. It’s got funny tuning. Um, so we actually did before the tour started we rehearsed it once, just in case something would come up, and it’s  a tricky song to play. Doing a thing with Ozzy has been great, yes. Otherwise I don’t like opening for people, because there’s not a lot of artists that I really fit with these days, you know.

DRN: Um, and you… when you wrote that song, did you have him in mind?

SLASH: When I wrote the music he just… the way the record was done the way that it was put together was I’d write the music and think who would sound good singing on this. And so I was actually writing that music for a movie I was scoring. And while I was writing I was going.“You know, Ozzy would sound great on this.“ And so when I decided to do the solo record, I actually pulled that song out of the score and made it into a… well it was a piece of music . It was an instrumental. I pulled it … uh borrowed it from the score and made a song out o fit and called Ozzy up and like that. There’s a couple songs on the record that were originally written as  just instrumentals for the movie.

DRN: The lyrics to that song… part o fit goes:„We lived the same dream. Lived life to extreme. A loaded gun jammend by a rose. The thorns are not around your head. Your ego cut you till you bled. You cannot crucify the dead. To me you’re dead.“ What was your first reaction when you heard those lyrics?

SLASH: Um, what’s that about? Yeah. I was... when he was writing the lyrics I was hanging around the house. And so he came to me with a couple different sort of passes and they all sounded hauntingly similar to some life experiences that I had. But his whole thing at the time was well you know I’ve been going through a lot of different things with different artists over the years and and this and this. And these all sort of pertain to all these different things. But I think the „the gun jammed by the rose“ was a definite Axl thing.

DRN: Now is the time that I’m going to have to ask you something you’re going to hate me for: Will there ever be a reunion show for your fans? For Slash’s.. for Slash’s Snakepit. It was a joke.

SLASH: Um, yeah.

DRN: So who is the singer for Velvet Revolver now?

SLASH: I have no idea. There isn’t one.

DRN: I was gonna mention how I would love it if you did something with Dave Mustaine again. I know that in your book you mention that you jammed with him before, right?

SLASH: We never released anything. That was some really really cool stuff and it was like totally Riff City, you know.

DRN: So it was recorded though?

SLASH: No, it wasn’t recorded. So nothing ever came from it, but Dave and I lakugh about it from time to time that we’ll get together and do something, but we never do.

DRN: I thin we would love that, because you do amazing things with these fiery redheads.

SLASH: *laughs*

DRN: So tell me more about Slasher Films? I know you just came back from Sundance?

SLASH: Yeah, I did. Um, that’s a whole different thing. It’s some… probably the coolest thing I’ve gotten involved with outside of putting together records and stuff. Um, I’m a huge horror movie fanatic and always have been ever since I can remember. And I hooked up with this production company called Scout, who’ve done a couple really great horror movies: Trans-Siberian and Session Nine and all this stuff. And a bunch of TV shows and so in the course of conversation and this guy discovered what an affinity I have for horror movies and the knowledge of the history of horror and everybody involved and so on. And it was „You should produce horror movies ans we’ll back it.“  And it’s a good opportunity for me because the way I see it the lowest of genre in the film business right now is the horror movies. There’s very few people who’re putting together or spending the time and money to make really great horror movies. So I want to sort of go in and I was just looking for good scripts and I waited for a year before I found… I looked for a year before I found a really good script. And at this point I actually have four maybe five and so what we’re gonna do is make really intensaly scary, psychologically scary sort of by the seat of your pants kind of movies. And not completely reliant on blood and guts as being the shock factor. Like... and so there’ll be..  ther’re moments but make really great movies that have characters that you actually care about. And villains that are really villainous. And you know..

DRN: You’re totally speaking my language. That’s awesome!

SLASH: ´Cause no one’s doing it. ´Cause everybody.. you know... they start… ever since the late 80s they started the franchises and the franchises started out great. I mean Nightmare was great. Freddy was great. All those original movies were killer, but then they just turned into these cash cows that have absolutely no creative integrity. You know. And everybody was looking to make money. Sort of like the music business. Yeah.

DRN: Very predictable. Very, you know, it’s worked before let’s follow the formula.

SLASH: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yes.

DRN: Um, so do you currently have movies in production now?

SLASH: Started the first one in the summer. Yeah.

DRN: And can we expect a cameo from Slash in there?

SLASH: Um, yeah I very rarely do any kind of cameos or anything. I’m sort of… I don’t have the actors personality. You know- Um, so I doubt it, but I’ll definitely be involved in the music.

DRN: How many times have you lost your trademark hat over those years?

SLASH: Um, I… there’s two notable times. Once was I was passed out at the Cathouse and in a booth. And I woke up and my hat was gone. So I don’t know what happened with that one. And then another time after that was me and Duff got drunk and went to go see The Ramones at this club on the Thames in London. And it was pouring rain and when I woke up the next morning my hat was just a melted… yeah because it’s only felt.

DRN: Right.

SLASH: Those are the two notable times, but you know after that I pretty much sort of kept them.

DRN: Okay.

SLASH: I had one ripped off not too long ago.

DRN: Oh, really.

SLASH: I got it back. Yeah.

DRN: Thank you so much again. This is Metal Mel and Slash saying: "Dirty Rock Nation". Thank you.

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