2014.07.DD - BBC Radio 6 Music - Interview with Slash

Excerpts from Blabbermouth:
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During a recent interview with BBC Radio 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny, legendary guitarist Slash spoke about the first time he ever performed sober after years of substance abuse.

Tom Zutaut, former Geffen Records A&R executive who was responsible for signing Guns N' Roses to the label, was quoted as saying that at the height of the band's success he was worried that he would one day turn on the radio and find out that Slash had died of an overdose.

Asked how he finally managed to clean himself up, Slash told BBC Radio 6 Music (hear audio below): "Well, I wouldn't die. I mean, there's some truth to [what Zutaut supposedly said], where it was, like, I finally got to a point where it was, like, 'OK, I'm not going anywhere, so I'm gonna have to sort this out.' It wasn't that I had any kind of a death wish, per se, but I really took everything to the extreme and didn't care."

He continued: "I think the only time I got a little nervous was when I was in rehab, there was a point when Velvet went out and did a real quick tour around California. And so I left rehab and went out and did this tour, and it was the first time I'd been on stage sober — ever. [laughs] That was a trip and it was a little shaky, but you get past that pretty quickly. 'Cause you're in the moment; you can't just sit there and go, 'Oh my God, I can't do this.' You have to do it. So I got over that pretty quickly."

https://blabbermouth.net/news/slash-the-first-time-id-ever-been-on-stage-sober