2018.12.11 - Classic Rock - "I'm so in the trenches as far as rock n' roll is concerned" (Slash)

"I'm so in the trenches as far as rock n' roll is concerned"

No kidding. Slash may be the busiest man in showbiz, with a new solo record and the Guns N' Roses reunion under his belt this year – plus film productions on the horizon, global tours...

Words: Dave Everley

Few people have been as omnipresent in 2018 as Slash. If the blockbusting success of the reconstituted Guns N’ Roses’ ongoing Not In This Lifetime tour – current takings: $480 million and counting – wasn’t enough, he also pulled double-duty with Living The Dream, his third collaboration with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators (his fourth solo LP overall). Despite that impressive workload, the man in the top hat is his usual supernaturally laidback self when it comes to casting an eye over the last 12 months.

How has 2018 been for you, Slash?

God, it’s been a great year. It’s been very busy, but busy in a very productive way. The year started out doing Guns N’ Roses stuff, then I started getting the Conspirators record together. Those two things have been the major focus of 2018.

That’s two pretty big things. Have you managed to have a holiday?

I haven’t had any time off, no. Tomorrow we go back on the road for the final leg of the Not In This Lifetime Tour and then next year I start back up with the Conspirators again. Outside of this conversation, this is the first day off I’ve had in a little while.

Sorry to disrupt your day off, then. If you had to boil it down to one moment, what’s been the high point of 2018?

Fuck, that’s a hard one. You know, I have to say Guns N’ Roses headlining Donington. There’s been a lot of high points on this whole Guns thing, but that was like coming full circle. We played 30 years ago, fourth or fifth down from the headliner. It was a massive gig with major ups and downs, ‘cos of the kids that got trampled [two fans were crushed when the crowd surged towards the stage during GN’R’s set]. That was just a huge high point and a huge low point all within 24 hours. To come back as a headliner there after everything we’ve gone through up until we got back together was a massive deal. I had a bunch of my family there. It was really cool.

The Guns N’ Roses reunion was always going to be successful. But did you ever anticipate just how successful it would be?

It depends on what you’re talking about when you say success. I never really thought about what Guns N’ Roses would be like as far as dollars and cents and that kind of thing went, so the success of it on that level was, ‘Okay, that’s pretty awesome.’

The real success of it was to get back in a room together after so much time apart. That black cloud of animosity that had perpetuated through the entire time that we were apart… to get past all that and get in a room together and play and have that magic instantaneously come back, and to realise that the reason that the band was ever considered great by anybody was the fact that there was actually a genuine chemistry that made some good fucking music was the success. And then to go out and play and to be so well received by so many people across the globe, that was a major thing that I will never, ever take for granted.

People still talk about rock being dead, but the success of the Not In This Lifetime tour – as well as the rise of Greta Van Fleet – shows there’s life in the old dog yet…

Well, I’m so in the trenches as far as rock’n’roll is concerned, it’s never really died for me. There’s always an audience for music that comes from the heart and is done sincerely and it’s done with a passion, for that.

But I do think it’s so diluted on a commercial level. It’s the same with any genre – you milk it for every last fucking penny and everybody’s jumping onto the bandwagon to try and get a piece of that, the whole reason for doing it gets lost. People pick up on it. They don’t know why, they don’t think about it but they can feel when there’s no spirit and it’s just not interesting any more. Rock’n’roll is built on all the fucking combustible human emotions coming to a head and letting it out there and expressing it, and people relate to that. I think that gets lost in translation in this industry.

Let’s talk movies. It’s been the year of the horror remake – Suspiria, the new Halloween. As a horror buff, is that a good thing, or should those films have been left as they were?

I haven’t seen the new Suspiria yet but I hear it’s really good. It’s not necessarily like the original, or trying to be Dario Argento’s version of it – but in its own right it’s supposed to be really cool. Halloween was a sequel to the original, 40 years later. I went and saw it, it was okay. Like, ‘Whatever…’ It was good for diehard Halloween fans. I can’t say that remakes are bad things, but too many tend to be kind of, ‘Come on…’ I think I’m just glad to see horror movies being the big thing right now. Not the slasher kind, but the real story-driven horror movies are seeming to make a comeback, which is nice.

If they could remake one old horror movie, which one would it be?

I’d rather see a great new, original story than to see anything remade. If the movie was really great when it first came out, it doesn’t really need to be remade. I was toying around with the idea of bringing Death Train back, because it was a movie with a great concept but I don’t think it was fully realised in the original version.

I guess if people aren’t even aware that it’s a remake, but somebody was inspired enough to make a better version than the original, it could be cool, maybe. But I’d personally rather see a really good original story.

You’ve produced a couple of horror movies. Have you got anything in the pipeline?

I’ve got a couple of film productions that are finally looking for production dates. I can’t say what they are at the moment. But I did just close a deal on a Stephen King story called Little Green God Of Agony, which looks like it should be going into production at some point next year or maybe the year after that.

Rock biopics are big news right now. Bohemian Rhapsody has been stupidly successful, and they’re finally making Motley Criie’s The Dirt. When can we expect Slash: The Movie?

Never. I very much doubt it. I cringe at the idea that some actor is going to play my thing. I'm interested in seeing the Queen movie for sure, and also the Motley movie. But me? Nah. I'm not a big fan of that. I've been approached about it a few times. But I don't feel comfortable with that.

Is it true that you originally wrote the song The One You Loved Is Gone from Living The Dream for The Walking Dead?

Yeah. I’ve been friends with [executive producer/ director] Greg Nicotero and a couple of the cast members over there for a while. At one point they didn't really have any outside music, other than the theme. So I whipped up this demo on my phone, and Myles put this lyric to it and I said, ‘You guys should put some original music in the thing.’ They were, like, ‘Well, we haven’t really been doing that.’ Later on they started doing some folky kind of stuff, but my thing never came to fruition. I thought the idea was good, so we revisited it when we went into the studio to do the album.

We lost former Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul this year. You were good friends. What’s your best memory of him?

Vinnie was just always fucking great to be around. There’s not just one particular thing. He was such an uptempo, positive, pleasant guy to hang out with; he wasn't trying to put up any rock'n'roll cliché image or trying to act a role, or any of that kind of stuff. He was just a fun guy, and genuinely happy and pleasant to be around. He was always been like that, every time I'd ever seen him. We’d be playing a gig and if he happened to be anywhere nearby, he'd definitely be there. It was just super-sad to get that news. And then it takes you back to Dimebag, and how you lost both of these really great siblings in the span of a few years. It’s kind of depressing. I miss him, but the memories of him are solid. He was an awesome guy.

Did those boys drink as much as their reputation suggested?

Why do you think I liked to hang out with them? That was part of the charm.

We should talk about the real world. Things are getting crazier by the day. How do you stay sane?

I don't talk about politics much, and I definitely don't get up and start advocating one way or another, but it takes up a lot of your mental space watching all of this shit going down, wondering, ‘What the fuck?’ and where it's all headed. It’s a kind of chaos that’s going on, when you look at it. The only way to hold onto any kind of personal sanity is to just make sure you’re grounded.

Classic Rock is 20. Can you remember what life was like before it?

Everything sucked and the future was bleak. And Classic Rock came along and changed all of that. [Laughs] No, you had very few good rock magazines to be able to pick up and actually read. So when Classic Rock came out, it was a great. It covered genuine rock'n'roll bands - not just what was happening in the Top 40, but real bands that rock'n'roll enthusiasts like myself appreciated.

You’ve probably been on the cover of Classic Rock more than any other artist.

Is that the case? I did not know that. I'm seriously honoured. Of all the magazines to be able to grace the cover of, that's fucking awesome.

So what does 2019 hold for Slash?

2019 really is about doing a global trek with the Conspirators that goes on and off all through to next August. And then whatever Guns N' Roses stuff we have. I'm not really sure what that is, but hopefully in between there'll be some of that.

I’ve got £10 in my pocket. Should I go down to the bookies and put it on there being a new Guns N’ Roses album next year?

[Laughing] I would never make a bet like that on Guns N’ Roses.

Slash Feat. Myles ‘Kennedy & The Conspirators play the UK in Feb '19 and Download in June.