2015.06.17 - Sweetwater - Interview with DJ

Excerpts from Blabbermouth:
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Guns N' Roses and Sixx: A.M. guitarist DJ Ashba took part in a workshop at this year's GearFest, which was held June 12-13 at Sweetwater's campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You can watch video footage of his appearance below.

Speaking about how he landed the Guns N' Roses guitarist gig six years ago, Ashba said: "Guns N' Roses management called me, which, actually, was my personal manager too, so that kind of helped. But they said, you know, 'GUNS had been auditioning guitar players on the down low. They've been through over a hundred guitar players. Would you wanna come down and check it out?' And I honestly never saw myself doing it. I was, like, man, me and Axl are both from Indiana. I'd met him. Sharon Osbourne introduced me. When I was doing a Beautiful Creatures record, they were next door doing the 'Chinese Democracy' record. And I was, like, 'Yeah, I'll go down. I'd love to see Axl again and say hi.' And he wasn't there, but he caught wind that I was gonna come down. And he called management and said, 'If he even shows up, he has the gig.' And that's kind of how it happened. It wasn't a real audition process, and I didn't even know that I was getting the gig. I just wanted to go down and, kind of, say hi to everybody."

He continued: "I didn't have a clue… Even after I accepted and everything, I had no idea that the shoes I was stepping into were pretty hardcore; it was a hardcore thing. I'd never read a bad thing about me on the Internet ever [before], and [now it was], like, 'You're not Slash. Fuck you!' And I'm, like, 'Oh, shit! This is a whole different thing.' I mean, that kind of blindsided me, 'cause my head wasn't even there. I was, like, 'I'm a fan of the band. I'm just trying to help keep that music alive.' But, you know, I finally slowly won those… some of them over, so it's good."

https://blabbermouth.net/news/guns-n-roses-auditioned-over-a-hundred-guitar-players-before-settling-on-dj-ashba

Ashba, who owns a company centered around media and advertising that runs various other companies, was asked what takes him in those directions. He responded: "You know, I don't know. I've always had that creative bone. My aunt and uncle invented the technology for aerosol cans, so ever since I was young… They came out with a product, when I was really young, called Pam that's like a butter spray. And I've always kind of grew up in that environment; I thought outside the box and I was really taught that it's better to create your own job than to work nine to five. So that's always been my mindset, and I just love creating."

Ashba also talked about his belief that musicians should "diversify" and have a "backup plan." He said: "I absolutely will always stand by that. If you put all your eggs in one basket, all you've gotta do is drop 'em, and they're gonna break; and every one of 'em will break. But the whole thing… and I've learned this from Nikki Sixx… It's, like, you set up buckets… You set up buckets… little incomes coming in there, there, there, there, there… and, as a whole, that's how you… And if this one… these three buckets aren't doing so good this month, well, these are. So it's diversifying. But if you put all your eggs in that one bucket, and you have five months of, you know, 'God, things aren't going well,' that could really spill your eggs."

https://blabbermouth.net/news/guns-n-roses-guitarist-dj-ashba-claims-his-aunt-and-uncle-invented-technology-for-aerosol-cans