"That's something that happened," Slash said this week from his L.A. home. "I was blindsided by it, more or less a legal faux pas. I don't know what he's gonna do, as far as that goes. But I'd be lying to say I wasn't a little bit peeved at that. It'd be one thing if I quit altogether. But I haven't, and the fact that he can actually go and do that without the consent of the other members of the band ..."

At the moment, Slash is on the road with Slash's Blues Ball and, incredibly, on adult contemporary/new age radio with "Obsession," a song for a movie soundtrack. More on that in a minute.

As usual, though, Guns N' Roses future--and its present--is uncertain. Despite the name and personnel controversy--Axl is reportedly holed up with other musicians writing the next Guns album--Slash insists it's all overblown. "For some strange reason, Guns N' Roses is like the catalyst for controversy, even before we had any kind of record deal," Slash said. "We were always the band in town that everybody liked to make up stories about. It's more of the same, only on a bigger scale.

"Axl and I have just not been able to...

Axl and I have just not been able to have a meeting of the minds of such that we can actually work together," Slash admitted. "We've been through this a dozen times. It seems like a big deal now, but to me it's more of the same. I haven't really gone anywhere. I haven't officially quit the band. It's just that we're not seeing eye to eye on where Guns should be going. It's just such a pain in the ass."

His plan, he said, is to wait, "let the smoke clear and maybe we can talk about it later, rather than try and force something unnatural and have everyone go 'We waited around all this time for THIS?' Axl's whole visionary style, as far as his input in Guns N' Roses, is completely different from mine. I just like to play guitar, write a good riff, go out there and play, as opposed to presenting an image."

Meanwhile, Slash's got his own record to make. A second Slash's Snakepit album will be recorded as soon as Slash's home studio is finished. And with "Obsession" from the Curdled soundtrack (executive producer Quentin Tarantino) hitting the number four spot on L.A.'s "The Wave" AC radio station, he's having to get used to rubbing musical elbows with the likes of Kenny G.

"To tell you the truth, I haven't really grasped that whole medium of music where you end up on The Wave," Slash said, explaining that a friend at Miramax sent him some rough cuts of films to look at. He said he came up with a quick instrumental for Curdled, which he described as "a movie about a serial killer, but it's funny at the same time...

"I wrote this song for the movie soundtrack and that was basically it. I don't know exactly how to receive No. 4 in the adult-contemporary charts. Obviously that's a little left-field for me."

But Slash is willing to try just about anything, from recently sitting in with Boz Scaggs to movie scores. "The whole point is I don't have any big statements to make," Slash said. "I just like playing."