Slash Interview - Time Out Dubai

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Slash Interview - Time Out Dubai

« on: February 28, 2008, 04:58:37 PM »

Time Out Dubai

Slash interview

By Matt Pomroy, February 25 2008

This month, Saul ?Slash? Hudson will play in the UAE with his band Velvet Revolver. He spoke to Time Out about cheating death, not being let into Guns N? Roses gigs, becoming a dad and why grunge never overtook hard rock.

The man talking to me now should, by rights, be dead. In fact, he should have probably have hit the coroner?s slab more than a few times, but somehow he?s stayed off the Reaper?s list. This isn?t just his second act, it?s his 13th. Lucky for some?

?Oh yeah, there are moments when I stop and think of that, I definitely feel like I?m blessed because I?m still here,? Slash says, and then adds with a deep chuckle, ?and I really had every reason to not be.?

He has no idea how he managed to beat those odds: ?Either someone?s been looking out for me or it?s just sheer luck, but because of that I decided that I should probably stop taking it for granted. That I should put my nose to the grindstone and do what my whole purpose for being here is.? He laughs again. His laugh sounds just like the late comedian Bill Hicks, and his voice is clear, lucid and sharp. He?s no mumbling Ozzy Osbourne, which is surprising, all things considered. But this is a story of redemption. This is a tale of a man who is outrageously talented, but for years he seemed to have, well, an appetite for destruction. Yet somehow he lived through it all and is now one of the few living rock icons, rather than one of the many dead ones. It started back in the decade that hard rock almost forgot.

In the mid 80s the music scene was frankly a disgrace. It was a world where Wham! roamed free and Australian soap actors with recording contracts were respected by people young enough to know better. Rock was largely reduced to the glamandrogyny of bands like Poison, W.A.S.P, Twister Sister and so on. But Guns N? Roses was different. They were the real deal, insofar as their scuzzieness wasn?t put on for effect, that?s just how they were. They never seemed to fit in with the LA scene, not just because none of the band were originally from Los Angeles, but because they were better than that ? at least musically. Along LA?s Sunset Strip, lots of bands were (often literally) in the gutter but one of them was looking like stars. ?As soon as the 80s started there was not a lot going on to be influenced by,? Slash says, recalling the time. ?Everything that inspired me was the stuff I listened to while growing up, and there was a dramatic shift in the 80s ? Guns N? Roses was a proponent of change. We were a result of what the 80s was all about and the antitheses of it.?

They formed in 1985, and by the end of the ?88 they were American rock?s officially sanctioned public enemy number one. Politically incorrect, sleazy, debauched, toxic, liberal-baiting, hated by parents and all the other things that make a perfect rock band. And there behind a Gibson Les Paul, under a top hat and a mop of black curls stood a somewhat bemused guitarist, who had become the coolest member of the coolest band on earth. That?s pretty cool.

?We got to a point where it was really huge and it was fun in lots of ways, and in a lot of ways it was very overwhelming. But I enjoyed it, especially given where we all came from, which was basically nothing, to becoming this huge band on a global level.?

1987 debut album ?Appetite For Destruction? sold a staggering 20 million copies. Released 21 years ago, it still sells a stunning 9,000 copies per week worldwide and is one of the greatest albums ever made. On the back of the album came the huge tours and the wild living. The tales of debauchery are enough to fill a book. So he did, and his book ? simply titled Slash ? is a litany of rock and roll living that would make most of the bands today look like The Tweenies. Along with the rooms of women, parties and class-A substances, Slash reportedly drank a bottle of Jack Daniels every night for 1,825 days in a row, until eventually his tongue rotted and turned black, remaining that way for over two years. He was known to head off so he could ?unwind? and would just disappear. Friends used to leave notes in his pocket with a phone number so that, when he passed out, (almost always ?when?, rarely ?if?), the person who found Slash could call this number and someone will go and collect him.

?It had its moments where it became a little excessive,? he says chuckling at the knowing understatement. ?Luckily there was always some semblance of clarity which basically won out in the end. When I was working I never felt as destructive as when I wasn?t working, and that was my problem ? I figured that one out over the years.?

In 2001 his heart became inflamed from the abuse and doctors gave him 12 weeks to live, so a change was needed ? he cut down to just one bottle of wine a day. These days, he?s totally clean and doesn?t even drink, but he can?t pin point a moment of clarity that led to quitting everything about two years ago: ?It was a lot of things. Having kids was a lot to do with it, and also it was just getting old and dull. And there was this drive to continue making music and that sometimes gets clouded by some of the, y?know, extra curricular activities.?

That drive to make the music sometimes got lost in the perception of the band among all the wild living, and by extension, the man. ?That was always my first and foremost love when it came down to it,? he states, and that was one of the reason behind his decision to quit Guns N? Roses in 1996.

?It was a huge relief when I made that decision. From the early ?90s onwards it was a very stressful situation, so I relieved myself of that burden, but then it was a hell of a lot of work to keep that all going, because from then I was out on my own. It?s a tough business, I learned a lot about it, and I learned that without the umbrella of the whole Guns N? Roses name, I needed to be a bit more alert on a regular basis to stay afloat ? it was slow learning.? So if the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom what was the one thing, Slash learned from his time in the biggest band on earth? ?The one thing I learned? To take charge of everything to do with my career? and really not to trust anybody.? He formed his side-project, The Snakepit, playing a handful of dates, and then became an in-demand session guitarist. An (ex)Gun for hire, playing with people ranging from Alice Cooper and Insane Clown Posse, to Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and even Michael Jackson.

Despite the acrimony and stress at the end of the Guns N? Roses days, it?s still a band he rightfully defends. The perceived wisdom is that Nirvana and the Seattle grunge scene overtook hard rock (and bands like Guns N? Roses) in the early 90s, but Slash laughs incredulously when I suggest this: ?That?s pretty much a line of bulls*** right there, that never happened. Basically the band broke up right around the time that all that was happening, and a lot of the grunge bands ? who are majorly influenced by Guns N? Roses ? all of a sudden thought they?d taken over. But we just broke up and it had nothing to do with what was going on [with grunge], because in 1994 we were still the biggest stadium band, so it didn?t really have any effect on us.?

After finishing the American leg of the world tour last month, Velvet Revolver were scheduled to play in Australia before coming to Dubai, but singer Scott went into rehab. It?s something that Slash and Duff (a man whose pancreas eventually exploded in 1994 after reportedly drinking an average of 20 bottles of wine a day) can relate to. ?He?s in rehab so I think he?s doing OK,? Slash says. ?We helped him in the very early days, and we are always there if he needs support, but at this moment he?s being taken care of.? He?ll be ready and fresh for Desert Rock, although Slash admits he knows little of Dubai. ?I know of a lot of people going over to Dubai, but my wife and I were talking about it last night, and we didn?t even know that rock was popular over there.? He soon will do.

Edited to fit - complete interview here:

http://www.timeoutdubai.com/dubai/features/review.php?id=2544


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