1989.01.DD - Pop-Rock - Guns N' Roses: Slash and W. Axl Rose, Guns Sprinkled With Roses

Thanks to @djura11 for sending us this interview and providing the translation!

Transcript from Serbian to English:
GUNS N ROSES: SLASH AND DEEPER EX. ROSE (AXL ROSE)
SPRINKLE THE GUNS WITH ROSES

They look like real freaks, play like street musicians and understand the music industry better than trained managers. Their debut album Appetite For Destruction sold three million copies and is still in high demand in stores around the world. For them, the famous Mick Jagger declared that "they are the only young band that can succeed the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin"! Joe Perry admitted that Guns N' Roses are the only opening act that could "steal" the show from Aerosmith. And Jadranka Janković tried to find out who and what is hidden behind hippie scarves, cowboy boots, top hats and tattoos a rose.

The first thing that caught my eye was that W. Axl Rose (singer, keyboardist and percussionist), when he doesn't have a scarf on his head, looks a lot like Bruce Dickinson... "You are the two thousand and five hundredth person in a row that said that, and that's why I wear a scarf, a cap, boots - everything, just so I don't get confused with Bruce.

• Don't you love Iron Maiden?
Axl: I don't like them, I just adore them! But terrible bad luck happened to me - we were supposed to be the opening act for Maiden on the American tour and just two days before the first concert I lost my voice! I just shut up! The doctors told me that I have some nodules on my vocal cords, which touch when I sing and create painful friction, especially when I pull out the high registers. They banned me from singing for three whole weeks and so we had to cancel the Maiden tour.
Slash (guitarist): I was desperate about it because when I'm not playing, I don't know what to do with myself - I don't feel like doing anything, I don't feel like going anywhere...
Axl: You're a lost person anyway...
Slash: Yes, but the Maiden thing hit me so hard that I started collecting every bottle of "Jack Daniels" whiskey. I brought all those bottles home and for days I drowned the pain in alcohol... (laughs). The last bottle went this morning. and just as I bought a new whiskey at the bar, some madman pushed me and your coat spilled the whole glass...

• Why do you regret one glass, when you have enough money to buy the whole distillery?
Axl: Who said "money"?
Slash: Man, let's talk about anything but money. Of course, I like to travel around the world, I like to play concerts, I'm glad that we made a good record and I'm happy with the success. If we should talk about the role of money in all this, then I won't give you a single smart answer, because I don't know how to handle money at all...
Axl: Two weeks ago, we received the first big money from the record. Each of us got sixteen thousand dollars, and it was the biggest cash I've ever seen in my life! However, until today I have spent barely five hundred greenbacks…
Slash: When I cashed the check, I honestly asked myself: What should I do with this money?! And I still don't know the answer...

• You do not know?!
Slash: I don't know! Even you wouldn't know what to do with it, if you got it!

• Me?! First I would buy a house in Los Angeles...
Slash: I already have that.

• Then I would buy a good car...
Slash: And I already have that..

• And then I would start my own Heavy Metal magazine, then establish my record label, then buy a yacht, then...
Axl: Jesus, Rockefeller would fall on the beggar's stick with you! It just confirms my theory that women are couple wrecking machines. If you gave them twenty cards in the morning, they'd write them all down by nightfall. Slash: It seems I was born in a tank top, jeans and cowboy boots, and I'm sure I'll die wearing them! Give me a roof over my head and some drinks and I'm happy and content for the rest of my life. Money, anyway, only brings problems...

THE MOST POISONOUS "POISON
• Slash, is it true that you were supposed to play the guitar in the band Poison?
Slash: Yes, I was the best at the audition, but I refused to join them, because they asked me to dye my hair blue and wear "barbie" make-up. I mean, I'm aware of the fact that you have to be a professional if you want to succeed, but I still wasn't ready to look like a transvestite.
Axl: Poison never forgave him for that, so they took advantage of the whole band, during gigs in clubs.
Slash: Before we signed contracts, we played together in smaller clubs in California. Sometimes they played first, and sometimes we - the audience didn't care at all, because she didn't smoke our music or theirs, but came to the club so as not to sit at home. However, whenever the Paulsons played first, Bret Michaels (Poison's lead singer) would end the show by shouting that they were having a big party that everyone was invited to, but that those who wanted to go had to go with them immediately because Poison's bus was leaving for ten minutes. Of course, people didn't need to be told twice and we would have stayed to play for the two or three lost cases, who were too drunk to get up from their chairs, let alone get to the bus!
Axl: They are bill masters of low kicks and dirty and mean rigging. They got on my nerves in a creepy way, although I knew they were doing it all out of self-doubt. But the biggest bummer came when we both signed contracts when C.C. DeVille (Poison's guitarist) started wearing a top hat!
Slash: You know, I'm not saying I'm the first rock'n'roller to wear a top hat on stage, but C.C. is the type of guy who probably didn't even know what a top hat was until he saw it on me... I met him one night in the "Rainbow" club and just whispered to him: "If I see you wearing a top hat on stage one more time, I will shoot you." Man, if you only saw how pale he was. (Laughs)
Axl: Slash is not a brawler at all, but there are situations when you have to somehow scare various jerks...
Slash: Let's face it, I don't own a gun! Even if someone put it in my hands, I wouldn't know how to use it!

• Speaking of which, what does Guns N' Roses mean?
Axl: Literally translated it means "Guns and Roses". However, Guns N' Roses is also the name of the Los Angeles group "Hell's Angels", Sicilian slang for a hitman ("First we'll send you guns, then we'll shower you with roses..."), street slang for a macho guy and a sexy girl. However you understand that name, we will agree with you!

• How do you explain all this success, not to mention hysteria?
Axl: I think the secret is that our record company only recently revealed that the word "fuck" is mentioned on the record more than twenty-five times! (Laughs)
Slash: Every day, someone from the record company tells me: "Today thirty-five thousand copies of the album "Appetite For Destruction" were sold, the single "Sweet Child O' Mine" is number one on the American charts, "Power Hour" dedicated to you half an hour etc. However, I don't pay any attention to it, because if I thought about it I would die of fear! The worst thing that can happen to you is that you become fashionable and aunts buy your nephews your record for their birthday. We're a band that plays "take it or leave it rock'n'roll" and as long as someone likes it, we're happy! I think people like us because they see that we are not fools and that we live the real life of rockers.

• Most people consider such a life to be debaucherous...
Axl: I don't like the idea of chicks looking for me just because I sing in a band. All the girls I've had so far have no idea that I'm famous.
Slash: I'm basically a studious guy, but I often go wild on tour. I party until six in the morning, and then I realize that the only fish left are real scorpions. Then I resort to an old trick - I take one of them into the room and drink it until it starts to feel good... Of course, I hate myself in the morning...

• Have you ever thought...
Slash: So I could get AIDS? I knew you'd ask me that... I used to stick to the motto: live every day like it's your last, but today a small voice keeps whispering in my ear: "Slash, watch what you're doing - if you touch this chick, you're playing roulette with a life of its own! I know AIDS is a dangerous thing, but then again, I can't imagine myself wearing a condom! The last time I used it - it broke! The thing that scares me the most about AIDS is the fact that when Dave Lee.. or Gene Simmons or David Coverdale or I die of AIDS, everyone else will follow me to the grave! Because we all play in the same cities, go out to the same clubs and probably sleep with the same chicks. AIDS hasn't killed a single rocker yet. But, when one dies from her, a hundred of them will follow his example! I think it will be recorded in the history books: In 1989 and 1990, all the rock stars died.

• What if Guns N' Roses turned out to be just a star that shone once and then slowly began to fall?
Slash: I don't think about the future at all. The five of us love each other too much as friends to worry about anyone leaving the band. The only thing that scares me is the possibility of some terrible accident happening to one of us, which would separate him from the rest forever. In that case, I would break up the band immediately. Put me and W. Axl Rose in a band with three academic musicians, people with absolute hearing, and we sound like a deaf brass band. However, with Steven (drummer), Duff Rose (bassist) and Izzy (rhythm guitarist) we sound the best in the world. Whatever you call that factor, it only works when the five of us are on stage. That's how it was until now, that's how it is and that's how it will be!

Jadranka Janković is a famous hard rock journalist from former Yugoslavia, later Serbia. On one occasion, in video interview, she talked about private party after Guns n' Roses performance and previously signed a contract not to talk about it publicly

The quotes from Slash mainly come from this interview: https://www.a-4-d.com/t3223-1988-07-30-kerrang-ramblin-rose-slash

It is weird that the Kerrang! article doesn't contain the Axl quotes. So either for unknown reasons, Kerrang! decided to write an article based on an interview of both Axl and Slash, but only kept the Slash parts, or the Axl quotes come from another interview and Pop-Rock have merged them together to make it seem like an interview with both of them. I believe the former to be more likely, that at some point both Axl and Slash did an interview with someone, perhaps Jadranka Janković, and then this original interview gave rise to the Kerrang! article (from July 1988) and the Pop-Rock article (from January 1989).