1
00:00:10,223 --> 00:00:15,186
(rock music)

2
00:00:24,737 --> 00:00:25,697
I just loved
the Sunset Strip,

3
00:00:25,905 --> 00:00:27,365
because it was fun,

4
00:00:27,574 --> 00:00:28,783
and there were a lot
of things going on,

5
00:00:28,992 --> 00:00:30,493
and there was a lot
of music going on.

6
00:00:30,702 --> 00:00:32,579
And I loved to come down
here with my parents,

7
00:00:32,787 --> 00:00:36,249
especially my dad,
and go to gigs

8
00:00:36,457 --> 00:00:37,750
and watch them set up.

9
00:00:37,959 --> 00:00:39,210
And then there was
something very exciting

10
00:00:39,419 --> 00:00:41,671
about that moment before
the band actually walked on,

11
00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,132
where all the gear was just
sitting there waiting to go.

12
00:00:46,801 --> 00:00:50,096
(police sirens)

13
00:00:57,687 --> 00:01:02,025
(soft music)

14
00:01:02,817 --> 00:01:03,776
My dad was telling me,

15
00:01:03,985 --> 00:01:05,612
"Yeah, well, you were
conceived in Paris."

16
00:01:05,820 --> 00:01:06,946
(laughs)

17
00:01:07,155 --> 00:01:09,157
And I guess my mom
and him met there

18
00:01:09,365 --> 00:01:10,658
and then went to England,

19
00:01:10,867 --> 00:01:11,993
and I was born in Hampstead.

20
00:01:12,202 --> 00:01:14,996
But my family, my British side
of my family lives in Stoke,

21
00:01:15,205 --> 00:01:16,623
so I lived there.

22
00:01:16,831 --> 00:01:18,833
And grew up there
for a little while

23
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:21,753
and went to school
and hung out in Stoke,

24
00:01:21,961 --> 00:01:25,423
and I think that was the last
years of stability I ever had.

25
00:01:25,632 --> 00:01:26,758
(laughs)

26
00:01:26,966 --> 00:01:29,385
And then moved to Los
Angeles with my dad.

27
00:01:29,594 --> 00:01:31,221
My mom was living
in L.A. at the time,

28
00:01:31,429 --> 00:01:33,681
and I've been here ever since.

29
00:01:33,973 --> 00:01:38,519
At the time, you
know, 1969, 1970,

30
00:01:38,728 --> 00:01:41,314
it was an interracial
couple, the hippie thing,

31
00:01:41,522 --> 00:01:44,025
it was a lot of interesting
things going on.

32
00:01:44,234 --> 00:01:48,571
I first met Slash in 1976
while I was in the fifth grade.

33
00:01:48,780 --> 00:01:50,949
What I first started
noticing special about Slash,

34
00:01:51,157 --> 00:01:54,077
was his talent for art.

35
00:01:54,285 --> 00:01:55,662
It was pretty exciting,

36
00:01:55,870 --> 00:01:57,455
and at that point we were
living in Laurel Canyon,

37
00:01:57,664 --> 00:01:59,791
so we were right in the thick

38
00:01:59,999 --> 00:02:04,170
of that huge sort of
Bohemian creative scene

39
00:02:04,379 --> 00:02:05,713
that was happening there.

40
00:02:05,922 --> 00:02:07,715
And my dad was
doing album covers

41
00:02:07,924 --> 00:02:10,468
for Jackson Browne,
and Joni Mitchell,

42
00:02:10,677 --> 00:02:12,887
and a lot of people
up there in the hills,

43
00:02:13,054 --> 00:02:14,597
and then my mom was doing

44
00:02:14,806 --> 00:02:16,015
clothes for all these
different entertainers.

45
00:02:16,224 --> 00:02:18,893
So, I mean, it was
like Linda Ronstadt

46
00:02:19,060 --> 00:02:20,311
and Joni Mitchell
were one of them,

47
00:02:20,561 --> 00:02:21,771
but then she was also doing

48
00:02:21,980 --> 00:02:24,274
like the Pointer Sisters, and
she was doing Flip Wilson,

49
00:02:24,482 --> 00:02:26,776
and all these different
kind of entertainers,

50
00:02:26,985 --> 00:02:28,736
so I was, it was a lot
of fun, sort of being

51
00:02:28,945 --> 00:02:30,863
raised in that chaos.

52
00:02:31,030 --> 00:02:33,533
I don't remember
him as a little kid,

53
00:02:33,741 --> 00:02:35,868
even though I do
know his dad, yeah.

54
00:02:36,035 --> 00:02:37,662
His dad, I remember his dad

55
00:02:37,870 --> 00:02:40,957
actually did a lot
of our photography.

56
00:02:41,207 --> 00:02:43,376
So that was kind of a tight-knit

57
00:02:43,584 --> 00:02:46,713
bunch of people back there
in Hollywood back then.

58
00:02:47,046 --> 00:02:49,048
When you look back
at the '60s and stuff,

59
00:02:49,257 --> 00:02:53,678
a lot of these individuals that
I was sort of raised around

60
00:02:53,886 --> 00:02:57,557
were really astute,
very intelligent, smart,

61
00:02:57,807 --> 00:02:58,933
very cool people.

62
00:02:59,100 --> 00:03:03,313
And it was a very inspired time.

63
00:03:04,063 --> 00:03:06,941
I think that's the
best way to put it.

64
00:03:07,108 --> 00:03:08,609
A lot of creativity going on,

65
00:03:08,818 --> 00:03:11,946
a lot of just brilliant
thinking happening.

66
00:03:12,113 --> 00:03:14,407
And, yeah, I enjoyed that a lot.

67
00:03:17,577 --> 00:03:18,828
All these young
comedians, you know,

68
00:03:18,995 --> 00:03:21,247
I mean Steve Martin
and Albert Brooks,

69
00:03:21,456 --> 00:03:22,790
all these guys were kids.

70
00:03:22,999 --> 00:03:25,335
They were all writing for
the Smothers Brothers show.

71
00:03:25,543 --> 00:03:29,004
I lived right next door to
Micky Dolenz, for the Monkees,

72
00:03:29,005 --> 00:03:31,132
and Frank Zappa
lived right under us.

73
00:03:31,341 --> 00:03:34,927
So all those writers, it
was like a pretty tight-knit

74
00:03:35,094 --> 00:03:36,804
kind of thing.

75
00:03:36,971 --> 00:03:38,931
But that's when I
first met his dad

76
00:03:39,140 --> 00:03:40,391
and everything like that.

77
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:45,521
My mom was doing
Bowie's wardrobe

78
00:03:46,230 --> 00:03:47,774
for a while there,
and then they became

79
00:03:47,982 --> 00:03:49,901
sort of an item,
in that sort of,

80
00:03:50,068 --> 00:03:52,070
in those days, in that
loosey-goosey kind of way.

81
00:03:52,278 --> 00:03:53,696
(laughs)

82
00:03:53,905 --> 00:03:55,365
He mentioned that
his mom had done

83
00:03:55,573 --> 00:03:57,784
some things for David Bowie

84
00:03:57,992 --> 00:03:58,868
and different people like that,

85
00:03:59,035 --> 00:04:00,953
so she was in the industry.

86
00:04:01,162 --> 00:04:02,705
Soon after that,
we started riding,

87
00:04:02,914 --> 00:04:04,832
fooling around with BMX bikes,

88
00:04:04,999 --> 00:04:07,877
and instantly he was a star.

89
00:04:08,044 --> 00:04:11,923
I took the bike thing,
the BMXing, pretty seriously,

90
00:04:12,131 --> 00:04:13,841
but there was a
funny dynamic to BMX,

91
00:04:14,008 --> 00:04:16,928
because we also used to
do a lot of freestyle

92
00:04:17,136 --> 00:04:20,556
and ride around, well,
all over Los Angeles.

93
00:04:20,765 --> 00:04:23,476
We would race our bikes
in the Valley on weekends,

94
00:04:23,684 --> 00:04:25,144
and when he'd go off a jump,

95
00:04:25,353 --> 00:04:27,397
there'd be flashes
going off from everyone,

96
00:04:27,605 --> 00:04:29,899
because he just had more style,

97
00:04:30,066 --> 00:04:30,942
he was a little quicker,

98
00:04:31,109 --> 00:04:32,360
and usually won his races.

99
00:04:32,568 --> 00:04:33,986
And then on the weekends,

100
00:04:34,195 --> 00:04:37,198
we would tow over Laurel
Canyon into the Valley,

101
00:04:37,407 --> 00:04:40,326
you know, just grab the sides
of cars and go over the hill.

102
00:04:40,535 --> 00:04:41,953
And there'd be, you
know, any time, anywhere

103
00:04:42,161 --> 00:04:44,705
from a half dozen to a
dozen of us all in traffic,

104
00:04:44,914 --> 00:04:46,290
and it was pretty insane.

105
00:04:46,499 --> 00:04:47,917
And then we'd ride
all the way out

106
00:04:48,084 --> 00:04:50,878
to Van Nuys, I guess it was,

107
00:04:51,045 --> 00:04:54,257
and compete, and they
had the weekend races,

108
00:04:54,465 --> 00:04:55,925
and then we'd ride
all the way back

109
00:04:56,134 --> 00:04:57,635
in the middle of the night

110
00:04:57,844 --> 00:04:59,387
and come home from
Laurel Canyon again.

111
00:04:59,595 --> 00:05:01,472
So part of it was very
sort of professional,

112
00:05:01,722 --> 00:05:03,433
and the other part of it was
just simple hell-raising.

113
00:05:03,683 --> 00:05:04,350
(laughs) Yeah.

114
00:05:04,684 --> 00:05:07,854
I was a skateboarder,
he was a BMX bike rider.

115
00:05:08,020 --> 00:05:10,731
Well, we met in
junior high school.

116
00:05:10,940 --> 00:05:14,026
I was running around
in my classroom.

117
00:05:14,235 --> 00:05:18,030
I ran in his classroom, and
his teacher had his finger

118
00:05:18,239 --> 00:05:19,991
in his face and was telling him

119
00:05:20,199 --> 00:05:22,410
he was going to be a loser
and a bum all his life.

120
00:05:22,618 --> 00:05:25,872
And that instant, I
realized I had somebody else

121
00:05:26,038 --> 00:05:26,998
that was just like me.

122
00:05:27,206 --> 00:05:30,126
I met Steve Adler
at the school one day,

123
00:05:30,334 --> 00:05:33,546
and he fell off a skateboard,

124
00:05:33,754 --> 00:05:35,381
and he looked like
he bit it pretty bad,

125
00:05:35,590 --> 00:05:37,967
and nobody was concerned
about him, (laughs)

126
00:05:38,176 --> 00:05:39,802
He was just laying
flat on his back,

127
00:05:39,969 --> 00:05:41,804
so I went over to
see if he was okay,

128
00:05:41,971 --> 00:05:44,599
and he and I struck
up a friendship,

129
00:05:44,807 --> 00:05:45,975
and it turned out
that his mother

130
00:05:46,184 --> 00:05:46,934
had kicked him out.

131
00:05:47,143 --> 00:05:48,227
He was living at Chatsworth,

132
00:05:48,436 --> 00:05:49,729
and his mother kicked him out,

133
00:05:49,937 --> 00:05:52,356
and he had been relocated
to his grandparents'

134
00:05:52,565 --> 00:05:54,525
in West Hollywood, so that's why

135
00:05:54,734 --> 00:05:56,235
he suddenly turned up.

136
00:05:56,444 --> 00:05:58,196
And I went over to his place.

137
00:05:58,404 --> 00:05:59,780
His grandparents
worked in a bakery,

138
00:05:59,989 --> 00:06:01,157
so they'd leave
early in the morning,

139
00:06:01,365 --> 00:06:02,909
and we'd ditch school and
go hang out at his place.

140
00:06:03,075 --> 00:06:07,538
And he had a Kiss
Alive II record,

141
00:06:07,747 --> 00:06:09,665
and he'd put that on this little

142
00:06:09,874 --> 00:06:11,167
piece-of-shit
stereo that he had,

143
00:06:11,375 --> 00:06:14,128
and he had a cheap little
electric guitar and an amp,

144
00:06:14,337 --> 00:06:15,963
and he would crank that
all the way to ten,

145
00:06:16,172 --> 00:06:18,591
turn the stereo to ten and
just bang on this thing.

146
00:06:18,841 --> 00:06:20,968
And that was exciting.

147
00:06:21,177 --> 00:06:22,929
He came over to my
house for the first time,

148
00:06:23,137 --> 00:06:24,805
and I put on my Kiss record,

149
00:06:24,972 --> 00:06:28,059
and I had a little guitar,
and I started playing it.

150
00:06:28,267 --> 00:06:31,479
I was actually doing like
two chords and one scale,

151
00:06:31,687 --> 00:06:34,440
and I just did all my
Ace Frehley positions

152
00:06:34,649 --> 00:06:38,653
and playing it really
loud, and he loved it.

153
00:06:38,861 --> 00:06:42,281
And he went from riding
BMX bikes to guitar.

154
00:06:42,490 --> 00:06:45,952
And my grandmother
had one in the closet

155
00:06:46,118 --> 00:06:48,496
at her apartment, and
she pulled it out,

156
00:06:48,704 --> 00:06:52,166
and it was a Spanish acoustic,

157
00:06:52,375 --> 00:06:54,168
and it had one string
on it, and that was it,

158
00:06:54,377 --> 00:06:56,671
and I started learning
riffs on the one string.

159
00:06:56,879 --> 00:06:58,673
A guitar with
one string, no less.

160
00:06:58,923 --> 00:07:00,258
You know, no wonder
he can master

161
00:07:00,466 --> 00:07:01,384
each string so amazingly.

162
00:07:01,592 --> 00:07:07,014
(electric guitar music)

163
00:07:08,266 --> 00:07:09,350
And that was really it.

164
00:07:09,559 --> 00:07:10,977
All of a sudden, I
was just completely

165
00:07:11,185 --> 00:07:15,731
absorbed in a guitar, I mean,
like a crazy person, you know?

166
00:07:15,940 --> 00:07:17,483
There was nothing else in life

167
00:07:17,692 --> 00:07:19,694
that was important
at that point.

168
00:07:19,902 --> 00:07:20,736
How old were you then?

169
00:07:20,945 --> 00:07:23,823
I was 14, 15 years old.

170
00:07:23,990 --> 00:07:24,949
That's quite old, actually.

171
00:07:25,116 --> 00:07:27,535
Well, like I
said, prior to that,

172
00:07:27,743 --> 00:07:30,538
I had no inclination to pick
up an instrument, you know?

173
00:07:30,746 --> 00:07:32,832
And his name, let's
start off with his name,

174
00:07:32,999 --> 00:07:34,625
how he got his name.

175
00:07:34,834 --> 00:07:38,754
He's been Slash since
we were 13 years old.

176
00:07:38,963 --> 00:07:43,843
An actor, a friend of ours,
his dad is a big actor,

177
00:07:44,510 --> 00:07:46,596
and he is the one who
gave him his name.

178
00:07:46,804 --> 00:07:48,389
His name was Seymour Cassel.

179
00:07:48,598 --> 00:07:50,141
His son was my best friend.

180
00:07:50,349 --> 00:07:55,271
And when we were in the
last year of junior high,

181
00:07:55,980 --> 00:07:58,691
the summer before
high school and stuff,

182
00:07:58,899 --> 00:08:00,651
we used to hang out at
Matt's all the time,

183
00:08:00,860 --> 00:08:02,403
and I guess Seymour
would see me,

184
00:08:02,612 --> 00:08:05,948
I mean this was a very
sort of old-school

185
00:08:06,115 --> 00:08:09,702
sort of rock and roll
household, you know?

186
00:08:09,910 --> 00:08:11,704
Very liberal. (laughs)

187
00:08:11,912 --> 00:08:13,623
And, I mean, we could ditch school

188
00:08:13,831 --> 00:08:14,832
and hang out at Seymour's,

189
00:08:14,999 --> 00:08:16,792
and as long as we
prune his pot plants,

190
00:08:17,001 --> 00:08:18,502
it was okay, you know?

191
00:08:18,711 --> 00:08:22,673
So I guess, you know, he'd
see me running around,

192
00:08:22,882 --> 00:08:24,800
and at some point I had
started playing guitar,

193
00:08:24,967 --> 00:08:26,844
and I was putting bands
together and this and that,

194
00:08:27,011 --> 00:08:28,721
and so I was always in a hurry,

195
00:08:28,929 --> 00:08:31,515
always sort of, you know,
never had time to sit and talk,

196
00:08:31,724 --> 00:08:33,934
and so he just got into the
habit of calling me Slash,

197
00:08:34,101 --> 00:08:35,519
because he always saw me
as this (whooshing sound)

198
00:08:35,728 --> 00:08:36,145
That went by, you know?

199
00:08:37,396 --> 00:08:38,689
So he said as a joke,
"You're like a slash.

200
00:08:38,898 --> 00:08:40,816
"You're here and
then you're there."

201
00:08:40,983 --> 00:08:42,943
And he just like,
"Wow," you know?

202
00:08:43,152 --> 00:08:45,655
He just like picked up on
this, said, "That's cool,"

203
00:08:45,863 --> 00:08:47,865
and came up with,
just started saying

204
00:08:48,032 --> 00:08:49,200
that would make a
good stage name,

205
00:08:49,408 --> 00:08:50,826
and he started
calling himself Slash.

206
00:08:50,993 --> 00:08:52,495
And he's been
Slash ever since.

207
00:08:52,703 --> 00:08:56,290
Everybody called him Slash
except for his grandmother.

208
00:08:56,499 --> 00:09:00,586
There was this great
little music book that I found

209
00:09:00,795 --> 00:09:02,546
that had, it was like,
I think it was just

210
00:09:02,755 --> 00:09:04,590
“"How to Play Rock
Guitar", you know,

211
00:09:04,799 --> 00:09:05,925
which seemed pretty
intriguing at the time,

212
00:09:06,092 --> 00:09:07,885
and it had a little disc in it,

213
00:09:08,052 --> 00:09:09,845
and there was a picture
of Hendrix in there,

214
00:09:10,012 --> 00:09:10,763
there was a picture
of Clapton in there,

215
00:09:10,971 --> 00:09:12,640
and Mike Bloomfield, Jeff Beck,

216
00:09:12,848 --> 00:09:14,934
like all these guys
that I was really into.

217
00:09:15,101 --> 00:09:19,146
And I remember looking
at the tablature in there

218
00:09:19,355 --> 00:09:20,523
and figuring it out,

219
00:09:20,731 --> 00:09:22,400
and all of a sudden putting
these three notes together

220
00:09:22,608 --> 00:09:24,235
that sounded like
rock and roll to me,

221
00:09:24,443 --> 00:09:28,864
and it was like, you
know, that moment

222
00:09:29,031 --> 00:09:32,451
when the skies part and, "Ahhh."

223
00:09:32,660 --> 00:09:33,661
(laughs)

224
00:09:33,869 --> 00:09:35,204
You know, I mean I'll
never forget that.

225
00:09:35,413 --> 00:09:38,582
(guitar music)

226
00:09:38,958 --> 00:09:40,584
Of course, loved Motorhead.

227
00:09:40,793 --> 00:09:43,504
Went to see them at the
Hollywood Palladium, me and Slash.

228
00:09:43,713 --> 00:09:45,923
All I ever wanted to
do after I seen Elvis

229
00:09:46,132 --> 00:09:48,300
was to be a rock and roll star.

230
00:09:48,926 --> 00:09:51,887
And whereas the circumstances
have somewhat changed,

231
00:09:52,054 --> 00:09:52,930
I still love it.

232
00:09:53,139 --> 00:09:54,140
I love doing that.

233
00:09:54,348 --> 00:09:56,142
All my dreams came true now.

234
00:09:56,350 --> 00:09:57,852
Not many people can say that.

235
00:09:58,018 --> 00:09:59,562
Most people have
to work at a job

236
00:09:59,770 --> 00:10:02,356
they fuckin' despise
all their lives, right?

237
00:10:02,565 --> 00:10:05,693
And then you get a frickin'
wristwatch if you're lucky.

238
00:10:05,901 --> 00:10:08,612
I was very lucky to
get out of that.

239
00:10:08,821 --> 00:10:11,198
I worked in a
factory for a while.

240
00:10:11,407 --> 00:10:13,284
My stepfather got me
the job so he could

241
00:10:13,492 --> 00:10:15,077
keep an eye on me, you know?

242
00:10:15,286 --> 00:10:17,705
So he grew me there
till they fired me.

243
00:10:17,913 --> 00:10:18,706
(laughs)

244
00:10:18,914 --> 00:10:20,666
Fuck you, you know?

245
00:10:20,875 --> 00:10:21,917
I mean, he's more
excited than me,

246
00:10:22,126 --> 00:10:23,961
because I'm old now, you know?

247
00:10:24,170 --> 00:10:26,505
Tough to be an old
fuck, you know?

248
00:10:26,714 --> 00:10:28,924
But he's still
really enthusiastic.

249
00:10:29,091 --> 00:10:30,509
And I'm enthusiastic about it,

250
00:10:30,718 --> 00:10:35,639
but like, he's still a kid
in his enthusiasm, you know?

251
00:10:36,724 --> 00:10:41,103
At the same time, there
was the whole scene going on

252
00:10:41,312 --> 00:10:43,105
here on Sunset and
on Santa Monica,

253
00:10:43,314 --> 00:10:44,732
and that's what Steven was into,

254
00:10:44,940 --> 00:10:47,193
and at this point I think
he'd switched over to drums.

255
00:10:47,401 --> 00:10:49,195
And neither of us had any money,

256
00:10:49,403 --> 00:10:50,571
so he didn't have a drum kit,

257
00:10:50,780 --> 00:10:52,782
and I was, I think the
first electric guitar I got

258
00:10:52,990 --> 00:10:57,369
was a cheap Memphis
Les Paul copy.

259
00:10:57,578 --> 00:11:00,539
So I was already onto the
Les Paul from day one.

260
00:11:00,748 --> 00:11:02,333
And then finally
Steven and I ended up

261
00:11:02,541 --> 00:11:03,667
hooking back up together.

262
00:11:03,876 --> 00:11:06,378
He'd finally got a drum
kit, and at that point

263
00:11:06,587 --> 00:11:09,924
he started dragging me over
here and checking out bands

264
00:11:10,090 --> 00:11:12,760
and it started to
become sort of a habit.

265
00:11:14,512 --> 00:11:16,514
Well, we used to hang
out at this pizza place

266
00:11:16,722 --> 00:11:18,474
on Santa Monica and Sweetzer,

267
00:11:18,682 --> 00:11:19,850
and they had a juke box there,

268
00:11:20,017 --> 00:11:22,770
and we would play Van
Halen over and over.

269
00:11:22,978 --> 00:11:24,563
Over and over we
played Van Halen,

270
00:11:24,772 --> 00:11:29,568
Aerosmith, that
was pretty much it.

271
00:11:29,777 --> 00:11:33,447
Van Halen and Aerosmith over
and over and over. (laughs)

272
00:11:33,656 --> 00:11:36,367
(guitar music)

273
00:11:36,575 --> 00:11:38,118
Well, he told me a
story, that was funny,

274
00:11:38,327 --> 00:11:39,036
the first time we met actually.

275
00:11:39,245 --> 00:11:40,579
He saw me, when he was 13 years old,

276
00:11:40,788 --> 00:11:44,041
saw me play at the California
World Music Festival

277
00:11:44,250 --> 00:11:48,587
at the Coliseum here when my
band's first record came out,

278
00:11:48,796 --> 00:11:50,923
and we had a hit
song called Hold On,

279
00:11:51,090 --> 00:11:52,842
and he was in the audience,
and he remembers seeing me,

280
00:11:53,008 --> 00:11:55,177
and I thought that
was very amusing.

281
00:11:55,386 --> 00:11:58,889
And that was kind of a starting
point of our friendship.

282
00:12:00,266 --> 00:12:03,143
There were these
girls in the class

283
00:12:03,352 --> 00:12:06,605
that were full-on sort
of glam rocker chicks,

284
00:12:06,814 --> 00:12:08,732
and they were sort
of hot, you know?

285
00:12:08,941 --> 00:12:12,611
Too much makeup, leather
jackets, fingernail polish,

286
00:12:12,820 --> 00:12:16,240
jet-black hair, and they
were raving about this band

287
00:12:16,448 --> 00:12:17,700
Motley Crue.

288
00:12:17,908 --> 00:12:20,286
And so one day, and
they had flyers,

289
00:12:20,494 --> 00:12:21,787
and they would go out and
they would pass flyers.

290
00:12:21,996 --> 00:12:23,247
And I was like, you know,
a little bit jealous.

291
00:12:23,455 --> 00:12:25,708
I was like, "Fuck, why can't
I get some chicks to fuckin',"

292
00:12:25,916 --> 00:12:27,877
And I don't even have a
functioning band, you know.

293
00:12:28,043 --> 00:12:31,922
But anyway, so one day they
met Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee

294
00:12:32,131 --> 00:12:34,216
outside the school
giving them flyers,

295
00:12:34,425 --> 00:12:38,053
and they came down in their
full, sort of "rockstumes"

296
00:12:38,262 --> 00:12:39,805
(laughs) you know I
guess you call them.

297
00:12:39,972 --> 00:12:42,099
And that was the first
time I ever saw Nikki Sixx,

298
00:12:42,308 --> 00:12:44,935
and I actually went to the
gig that that flyer was for

299
00:12:45,102 --> 00:12:46,395
and saw Motley Crue
at the Whiskey,

300
00:12:46,604 --> 00:12:48,689
and they were just phenomenal.

301
00:12:48,898 --> 00:12:51,817
They were like, Nikki knew
how to take everything

302
00:12:51,984 --> 00:12:53,736
that was every kid's
fantasy, you know,

303
00:12:53,944 --> 00:12:57,239
as far as what they wanted
to see in a rock show

304
00:12:57,448 --> 00:12:59,575
from Alice Cooper
to New York Dolls

305
00:12:59,783 --> 00:13:03,746
to Marc Bolan and, you
know, to name a few.

306
00:13:06,248 --> 00:13:07,791
But Hollywood
was the place to go,

307
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:09,877
because there was a scene.

308
00:13:10,044 --> 00:13:11,670
It was a scene,
whether it was punk

309
00:13:11,879 --> 00:13:13,839
or this kind of the whole thing

310
00:13:14,006 --> 00:13:16,675
with like Rodney
Bingenheimer's English Disco

311
00:13:16,884 --> 00:13:18,135
and then you had Kim Fowley,

312
00:13:18,344 --> 00:13:19,887
and I started hanging
around with him.

313
00:13:20,054 --> 00:13:22,681
It was such a scene in
Los Angeles, you know,

314
00:13:22,890 --> 00:13:25,184
different eclectic
types of musicians,

315
00:13:25,392 --> 00:13:29,688
and I've always loved
the Los Angeles history,

316
00:13:29,897 --> 00:13:32,733
if you know what's happened
on Sunset Boulevard.

317
00:13:32,942 --> 00:13:34,068
And when I felt I was ready,

318
00:13:34,276 --> 00:13:35,861
I called Slash up, and I said,

319
00:13:36,028 --> 00:13:38,656
"Why don't you meet
me Sam and Sydney Park

320
00:13:38,864 --> 00:13:41,450
at like 8 o'clock,"
and I went down there,

321
00:13:41,659 --> 00:13:44,495
set my drums up,
and he came down.

322
00:13:44,703 --> 00:13:46,664
I played for him, and we said,

323
00:13:46,872 --> 00:13:48,290
"Okay, we're going to make it."

324
00:13:48,499 --> 00:13:49,792
You know, at some point,

325
00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,878
I remember him saying
there's this band called Rose

326
00:13:53,045 --> 00:13:56,548
or Hollywood Rose,
and the singer Axl,

327
00:13:56,757 --> 00:13:59,426
or Bill at the time, he
was going by Bill and Izzy,

328
00:13:59,635 --> 00:14:01,595
really love to get
them in my band.

329
00:14:01,804 --> 00:14:02,972
And then I had
an ad in the paper

330
00:14:03,180 --> 00:14:04,640
looking for a bass
player at one point,

331
00:14:04,848 --> 00:14:06,642
and it turned out to be Duff.

332
00:14:06,850 --> 00:14:07,935
And somebody told me about

333
00:14:08,143 --> 00:14:09,728
the Recycler Newspaper,
that's where you look

334
00:14:09,937 --> 00:14:11,814
for other musicians.

335
00:14:11,981 --> 00:14:14,733
But I went and met Slash
and Steve at Canter's.

336
00:14:14,942 --> 00:14:15,943
So we're sitting
at our booth,

337
00:14:16,151 --> 00:14:17,486
and we're sort of
watching the front door

338
00:14:17,695 --> 00:14:19,279
to see who this
character's going to be

339
00:14:19,488 --> 00:14:21,657
when he walks in,
and eventually,

340
00:14:21,865 --> 00:14:26,787
this literally 6'7" or 6'6" guy

341
00:14:27,037 --> 00:14:29,873
in a black and red
leather trench coat

342
00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:34,503
walks in with like spiky,
up-to-the-ceiling blonde hair,

343
00:14:34,712 --> 00:14:36,755
and I'm like, "That's
got to be him."

344
00:14:36,964 --> 00:14:38,799
I met them at Canter's.

345
00:14:38,966 --> 00:14:40,009
And they had long hair,

346
00:14:40,217 --> 00:14:41,927
and I had like short blue hair,

347
00:14:42,136 --> 00:14:46,515
but they were really like,
Slash had a girlfriend,

348
00:14:46,724 --> 00:14:48,726
that was really
like, sweet to me,

349
00:14:48,934 --> 00:14:52,521
and we hung out for probably
two hours at Canter's

350
00:14:52,730 --> 00:14:54,606
and just talked about music.

351
00:14:54,815 --> 00:14:58,444
And then we went back
to Slash's Mom's house,

352
00:14:58,652 --> 00:14:59,653
and he lived in the basement,

353
00:14:59,862 --> 00:15:01,572
and he had a snake,
and he picked up

354
00:15:01,780 --> 00:15:04,450
an acoustic guitar
and started playing.

355
00:15:05,492 --> 00:15:07,870
And I'd never, like,
I'd played with a lot

356
00:15:08,037 --> 00:15:11,707
of guitar players, good
ones, but Slash had

357
00:15:11,915 --> 00:15:14,334
like this, he was 19 years
old, and he was playing

358
00:15:14,543 --> 00:15:19,381
like kind of a really
smooth old blues guy.

359
00:15:20,466 --> 00:15:24,470
It like played with so
much age, so much depth

360
00:15:24,678 --> 00:15:26,346
to his musicality.

361
00:15:26,555 --> 00:15:28,849
I was kind of stunned, you know?

362
00:15:29,016 --> 00:15:33,520
And, so really, I mean,
Slash and Steve were

363
00:15:33,729 --> 00:15:36,690
the first two guys
I met here in L.A.

364
00:15:37,066 --> 00:15:38,317
(Slash): We went up to the bathroom

365
00:15:38,567 --> 00:15:39,985
and polished off
a bottle of vodka,

366
00:15:40,194 --> 00:15:41,779
and we've just been friends
ever since, you know?

367
00:15:42,196 --> 00:15:43,530
Yeah, it was just, you know,

368
00:15:43,739 --> 00:15:44,948
there was just a lot
of different people

369
00:15:45,157 --> 00:15:46,283
coming together then.

370
00:15:46,492 --> 00:15:47,785
Punk rock was over.

371
00:15:47,993 --> 00:15:50,370
There was sort of a, probably
a first wave of metal,

372
00:15:50,579 --> 00:15:54,958
Motorhead kind of changed
everything in 1980.

373
00:15:55,125 --> 00:15:58,003
Like, a lot of things that
weren't okay before 1980

374
00:15:58,212 --> 00:16:00,339
were suddenly okay.

375
00:16:00,547 --> 00:16:04,301
Slash took me to my first
Sunset Strip show, I guess.

376
00:16:04,510 --> 00:16:05,928
It was at the Troubadour.

377
00:16:06,136 --> 00:16:07,179
And it was Axl.

378
00:16:07,387 --> 00:16:09,389
It was L. A. Guns with Axl.

379
00:16:09,598 --> 00:16:11,475
Ironically enough,
Duff was living

380
00:16:11,683 --> 00:16:12,726
across the street from Izzy

381
00:16:12,935 --> 00:16:15,395
in this cheap apartment,
and so they met,

382
00:16:15,604 --> 00:16:19,441
and then Izzy and Axl
and Duff and Tracii Guns

383
00:16:19,650 --> 00:16:20,734
ended up having a band,

384
00:16:20,943 --> 00:16:23,570
and that ended up being
called Guns N' Roses,

385
00:16:23,779 --> 00:16:26,448
but prior to that, I'd
had a band with Axl

386
00:16:26,657 --> 00:16:28,659
called Hollywood Rose.

387
00:16:29,993 --> 00:16:31,995
Recently, Aerosmith
used a drawing of mine

388
00:16:32,204 --> 00:16:34,414
for their gate
fold on the album,

389
00:16:34,623 --> 00:16:37,042
and it was a drawing that I did

390
00:16:37,251 --> 00:16:38,919
probably before I
picked up a guitar,

391
00:16:39,128 --> 00:16:40,254
when I was just a fan, you know?

392
00:16:40,462 --> 00:16:41,588
And when I did the drawing,

393
00:16:41,797 --> 00:16:43,715
I'd given it to a friend of mine

394
00:16:43,966 --> 00:16:47,427
who was a massive, like,
die-hard Aerosmith fan,

395
00:16:47,636 --> 00:16:49,596
and he'd printed up copies of it

396
00:16:49,847 --> 00:16:51,473
and gave them to
people, I guess.

397
00:16:51,723 --> 00:16:54,476
And one day I was working
in a guitar store,

398
00:16:54,726 --> 00:16:57,688
and I think he had
like blue creepers on,

399
00:16:57,896 --> 00:17:01,608
sparkly black pants, and
a pink leather jacket,

400
00:17:01,817 --> 00:17:03,652
and his hair was all
teased up, you know,

401
00:17:03,861 --> 00:17:06,196
but at the same time
not overdone, very cool,

402
00:17:06,446 --> 00:17:07,447
and he came in and he asked me

403
00:17:07,656 --> 00:17:08,740
"Do you have a copy of it?"

404
00:17:08,949 --> 00:17:10,576
And I said no, and
that was the first time

405
00:17:10,784 --> 00:17:12,578
I'd ever met Izzy.

406
00:17:12,953 --> 00:17:16,165
Yeah, then Izzy moved
across the street from me

407
00:17:16,373 --> 00:17:18,333
in Hollywood, and
he was kind of like

408
00:17:18,542 --> 00:17:21,920
the Johnny Thunders character,

409
00:17:22,087 --> 00:17:27,009
and Axl was this just
sort of really gifted

410
00:17:28,051 --> 00:17:30,137
savant of a singer, you know,

411
00:17:30,345 --> 00:17:33,140
like who sings like that?

412
00:17:34,474 --> 00:17:36,810
But everybody brought
these influences,

413
00:17:36,977 --> 00:17:40,981
everything from like
10cc and Nazareth,

414
00:17:41,190 --> 00:17:42,316
we all agreed on Motorhead,

415
00:17:42,524 --> 00:17:43,942
but we all agreed on
each other's music

416
00:17:44,151 --> 00:17:47,696
that we turned ourselves onto.

417
00:17:47,905 --> 00:17:50,782
The Saints from Australia
were a big influence

418
00:17:50,991 --> 00:17:55,412
and Magazine and Nazareth,

419
00:17:55,621 --> 00:17:57,289
I'd never really been introduced

420
00:17:57,497 --> 00:18:00,626
to the deep cuts on
old Nazareth records,

421
00:18:00,834 --> 00:18:05,255
and we all agreed on
Aerosmith and the Dolls.

422
00:18:05,464 --> 00:18:08,550
So I don't think we
looked at our differences,

423
00:18:08,759 --> 00:18:12,304
we just kind of like, the
stuff we had in common,

424
00:18:12,512 --> 00:18:17,184
we really, that
group of five guys

425
00:18:17,392 --> 00:18:19,937
really understood how to excel

426
00:18:20,103 --> 00:18:22,147
at the things we have in common.

427
00:18:22,356 --> 00:18:24,316
I think we were
the only five guys

428
00:18:24,524 --> 00:18:27,069
in L.A. at the time that
could've made up that band.

429
00:18:27,277 --> 00:18:29,488
Like, we couldn't
wait to go to sleep

430
00:18:29,696 --> 00:18:32,908
so we could wake up
and go rehearse again.

431
00:18:33,075 --> 00:18:34,743
It was that kind of excitement.

432
00:18:34,952 --> 00:18:36,495
So anyways, they
come to Canter's,

433
00:18:36,703 --> 00:18:38,580
A, to have a good meal,
which they haven't had

434
00:18:38,789 --> 00:18:41,917
in a little while, (laughs)
and to do a photo session,

435
00:18:42,125 --> 00:18:43,543
because they had just
booked some gigs,

436
00:18:43,752 --> 00:18:44,711
and they needed to make flyers,

437
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:48,757
so they took a photo
around the booth,

438
00:18:48,966 --> 00:18:51,468
and the look on that photo

439
00:18:51,677 --> 00:18:53,971
basically shows the
hunger in their eyes,

440
00:18:54,179 --> 00:18:55,722
and they know that
they're a band

441
00:18:55,931 --> 00:18:57,349
to be reckoned with,
and they're here

442
00:18:57,557 --> 00:19:00,978
to fuck up Los
Angeles and show them

443
00:19:01,186 --> 00:19:03,772
this is the way to do it.

444
00:19:03,981 --> 00:19:08,527
(rock music)

445
00:19:14,449 --> 00:19:16,201
He'd bring his
guitar over to my house,

446
00:19:16,410 --> 00:19:18,203
and we'd just sit
around and drink,

447
00:19:18,412 --> 00:19:19,705
and he was always
playing guitar,

448
00:19:19,913 --> 00:19:23,166
and kind of, I felt like
he was like a brother,

449
00:19:23,375 --> 00:19:24,334
like a little
brother or something.

450
00:19:24,543 --> 00:19:25,877
I really, really, I loved him.

451
00:19:26,044 --> 00:19:27,004
I loved his spirit.

452
00:19:27,212 --> 00:19:29,047
I loved how he was
like salt of the earth,

453
00:19:29,256 --> 00:19:31,883
and we really bonded over music,

454
00:19:32,050 --> 00:19:33,093
to be honest with you,

455
00:19:33,302 --> 00:19:34,678
and he told me about
this little band he had,

456
00:19:34,886 --> 00:19:37,222
Guns N' Roses, like
later when I went

457
00:19:37,431 --> 00:19:39,308
and checked them out, and
I really saw something

458
00:19:39,516 --> 00:19:42,436
magical happening, and
they were still playing

459
00:19:42,644 --> 00:19:46,273
the Roxy and Perkins Palace,

460
00:19:46,481 --> 00:19:48,900
but we were still pretty
much just hanging around,

461
00:19:49,067 --> 00:19:52,154
and they recorded
their first record,

462
00:19:52,362 --> 00:19:54,489
which actually Tom
Zutaut, who signed them,

463
00:19:54,698 --> 00:19:55,866
had asked me to produce it,

464
00:19:56,033 --> 00:19:57,784
but at the time I was so
strung out on heroin,

465
00:19:57,993 --> 00:20:01,371
I couldn't even fathom the
idea of leaving my house,

466
00:20:01,580 --> 00:20:05,375
much less taking on a
production of a band.

467
00:20:05,584 --> 00:20:07,627
I think I first
heard of Slash, I mean,

468
00:20:07,836 --> 00:20:08,920
clearly because
of Guns N' Roses,

469
00:20:09,087 --> 00:20:11,882
but then from Alice Cooper
songs too that he had played on.

470
00:20:12,049 --> 00:20:13,383
It was my comeback tour.

471
00:20:13,592 --> 00:20:18,055
It was my first time
ever playing Alice sober,

472
00:20:18,263 --> 00:20:19,931
because I had never
done it sober.

473
00:20:20,098 --> 00:20:22,559
So that was the very first show

474
00:20:22,768 --> 00:20:24,603
that Guns N' Roses
opened for us.

475
00:20:24,811 --> 00:20:29,024
I mean they made no
bones about the influence

476
00:20:29,232 --> 00:20:31,818
we had on them, you know,

477
00:20:31,985 --> 00:20:35,197
as one of the bands
they listened to

478
00:20:35,405 --> 00:20:37,240
when they were coming up.

479
00:20:37,449 --> 00:20:40,327
There was definitely a
mutual admiration society,

480
00:20:40,535 --> 00:20:44,206
because it's really exciting
to see a band like that

481
00:20:44,414 --> 00:20:48,543
that's really good, that's
really paid their dues,

482
00:20:48,752 --> 00:20:52,506
to see them go from
being like a club band

483
00:20:52,714 --> 00:20:55,258
to like, you know, they're on
their way to being headliners

484
00:20:55,467 --> 00:20:57,844
and selling records
left and right.

485
00:20:58,011 --> 00:21:00,597
There's a feeling
there that just never

486
00:21:00,806 --> 00:21:02,557
happens again in your career.

487
00:21:02,766 --> 00:21:04,518
And it was great to
be a witness to that.

488
00:21:04,726 --> 00:21:06,603
I just had an
experience with Joe

489
00:21:06,812 --> 00:21:09,439
that was really cool
where he presented me

490
00:21:09,648 --> 00:21:14,528
with an award in Cleveland
a couple days ago,

491
00:21:14,903 --> 00:21:18,865
and he was just so genuinely,
like his little sort of speech

492
00:21:19,032 --> 00:21:21,076
before I came out
to accept the award,

493
00:21:21,284 --> 00:21:24,663
was talking about his generation

494
00:21:24,871 --> 00:21:26,957
and how I came with the
next generation

495
00:21:27,124 --> 00:21:29,042
and guitarists
and all these very

496
00:21:29,251 --> 00:21:31,586
sort of complimentary
things that he said,

497
00:21:31,795 --> 00:21:35,924
but he was somebody
that when Guns N' Roses

498
00:21:36,133 --> 00:21:40,595
first opened for
Aerosmith in like 1988,

499
00:21:40,804 --> 00:21:43,807
you know, obviously this
guy was a huge hero to me,

500
00:21:43,974 --> 00:21:46,560
but when I met him,
very down-to-earth

501
00:21:46,768 --> 00:21:49,896
and really not so
much what his image

502
00:21:50,063 --> 00:21:53,483
that you got in magazines
and all that kind of thing,

503
00:21:53,692 --> 00:21:57,446
sort of changed my whole
perception of rock stars, you know?

504
00:21:57,654 --> 00:22:01,533
With Slash, I mean, his dad
was a well-known designer,

505
00:22:01,741 --> 00:22:03,660
and if you've got David
Geffen and David Bowie

506
00:22:03,869 --> 00:22:06,079
popping in and
out of your house,

507
00:22:06,288 --> 00:22:08,582
you know, that's not usual.

508
00:22:08,790 --> 00:22:10,584
Around the time
when I was a kid,

509
00:22:10,792 --> 00:22:14,463
when he was around, he
was just David, you know?

510
00:22:14,671 --> 00:22:19,551
And he was always cool, and my
dad and him got along great,

511
00:22:20,343 --> 00:22:22,637
and I used to love hanging
out at the Geffen offices

512
00:22:22,846 --> 00:22:24,556
when it was Asylum and before

513
00:22:24,764 --> 00:22:26,308
Geffen Records actually became.

514
00:22:26,516 --> 00:22:28,935
But then I didn't
talk to him for years.

515
00:22:29,144 --> 00:22:30,645
I guess he kept in
touch with my mom.

516
00:22:30,854 --> 00:22:33,190
We were bound and
determined to make sure

517
00:22:33,398 --> 00:22:36,568
that David Geffen didn't
know who Saul Hudson was...

518
00:22:37,611 --> 00:22:39,029
until he got to a
point where the record

519
00:22:39,237 --> 00:22:41,156
was sufficiently
successful that David

520
00:22:41,364 --> 00:22:44,034
started to want to
know who was involved,

521
00:22:44,242 --> 00:22:46,953
and then David's
sitting there and going,

522
00:22:47,162 --> 00:22:48,622
"This is Saul Hudson?

523
00:22:48,830 --> 00:22:50,457
"I know Saul Hudson.

524
00:22:50,665 --> 00:22:51,708
"What do you mean he's
in one of my bands,

525
00:22:51,917 --> 00:22:52,751
"on one of my labels?

526
00:22:52,959 --> 00:22:54,127
"How did that happen?"

527
00:22:57,380 --> 00:23:00,300
We wanted to avoid
a sense of nepotism.

528
00:23:00,509 --> 00:23:02,802
We wanted to avoid any baggage

529
00:23:02,969 --> 00:23:05,305
that might come with
that and play on that.

530
00:23:05,514 --> 00:23:07,849
He wanted to stand for
himself and stand on his own.

531
00:23:08,016 --> 00:23:10,185
So we kept that entirely quiet.

532
00:23:10,393 --> 00:23:11,770
At some point
around that time,

533
00:23:11,978 --> 00:23:13,730
he'd called my mom and said,

534
00:23:13,939 --> 00:23:16,149
"So, how's Tony," (my dad),

535
00:23:16,358 --> 00:23:17,692
"how's the kids?"

536
00:23:17,901 --> 00:23:19,611
Said "How's Saul doing?"

537
00:23:19,819 --> 00:23:21,613
Because he knew me by Saul.

538
00:23:21,821 --> 00:23:22,697
And he's like, "Well
you should know,

539
00:23:22,906 --> 00:23:23,782
"he's on your record label."

540
00:23:23,990 --> 00:23:27,285
And he's like, "He's
on our record label?

541
00:23:27,494 --> 00:23:29,746
"What band, what
artist is that?"

542
00:23:29,955 --> 00:23:31,456
And he goes, "Well
he's in Guns N' Roses.

543
00:23:31,665 --> 00:23:32,624
"His name's Slash."

544
00:23:32,832 --> 00:23:35,502
But I remember him saying

545
00:23:35,710 --> 00:23:37,671
"Yeah, I'm going to
fly out and see you."

546
00:23:37,879 --> 00:23:40,215
And his whole thing was to
come over and manipulate me

547
00:23:40,423 --> 00:23:42,342
into doing an edit of
Sweet Child O' Mine,

548
00:23:42,551 --> 00:23:44,678
because he knew we had
personal relations,

549
00:23:44,886 --> 00:23:46,054
which he never did get,

550
00:23:46,263 --> 00:23:48,640
and I remember him trying to
sort of massage me into this

551
00:23:48,848 --> 00:23:52,852
going, "Well, what are you
going to do with all the money?"

552
00:23:53,019 --> 00:23:55,188
And he didn't realize
who he was talking to,

553
00:23:55,397 --> 00:23:57,732
which it had no influence
on me whatsoever,

554
00:23:57,941 --> 00:24:00,485
because I have no, couldn't
give a shit about money.

555
00:24:00,694 --> 00:24:05,615
(rock music)

556
00:24:13,540 --> 00:24:14,791
So he never made a dent.

557
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:17,460
I'll always remember,
then we never did an edit

558
00:24:17,669 --> 00:24:18,878
for Sweet Child O' Mine.

559
00:24:21,172 --> 00:24:25,051
So we went to the show,
and we were hanging out

560
00:24:25,260 --> 00:24:29,598
backstage or whatever, and
some of the band came out

561
00:24:29,806 --> 00:24:32,309
to sigh some
autographs or whatever,

562
00:24:32,517 --> 00:24:36,021
and I think Axl came up to
me, or was signing autographs,

563
00:24:37,063 --> 00:24:40,317
and I handed him, slipped
him a little demo tape move.

564
00:24:40,525 --> 00:24:43,486
I remember him walking away,
and he handed it to his

565
00:24:43,695 --> 00:24:45,572
security guy, and his security
guy threw it on the ground.

566
00:24:45,780 --> 00:24:46,823
(laughs)

567
00:24:46,990 --> 00:24:47,949
That was awesome.

568
00:24:48,116 --> 00:24:50,744
Someone said, "Oh, yeah, in
the new Guns N' Roses video,

569
00:24:50,952 --> 00:24:55,081
Axl's lying on a table
shaking, talking to a therapist

570
00:24:55,290 --> 00:24:58,501
or something, and he's got
a Nirvana hat next to him,

571
00:24:58,710 --> 00:25:00,712
and we're like, "You mean
one of those baseball hats?

572
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:02,714
"The blue one with
the yellow writing?"

573
00:25:02,922 --> 00:25:05,425
"Yeah, he put it right there,
because he likes your band."

574
00:25:05,634 --> 00:25:09,554
And we couldn't
imagine this dude

575
00:25:09,763 --> 00:25:13,892
liking what we did,
because for the most part,

576
00:25:14,059 --> 00:25:17,520
like, we were the kids who
would get our asses kicked

577
00:25:17,729 --> 00:25:20,607
by the fuckin', like,
big rock and roll guys.

578
00:25:20,815 --> 00:25:23,443
They'd be like, "You're a
fuckin' punk little fag,"

579
00:25:23,652 --> 00:25:25,278
and they'd kick our
asses, you know?

580
00:25:25,487 --> 00:25:27,906
So we were like, "Well,
wait, how does that work?"

581
00:25:28,073 --> 00:25:28,740
You know?

582
00:25:28,948 --> 00:25:30,659
It was that transition.

583
00:25:30,867 --> 00:25:32,035
Something was happening.

584
00:25:32,243 --> 00:25:34,954
And I think, what I now realize

585
00:25:35,205 --> 00:25:38,500
is that in some way, we were
all playing rock and roll.

586
00:25:38,958 --> 00:25:40,752
(rock music)

587
00:25:41,086 --> 00:25:42,128
It got weird once.

588
00:25:42,337 --> 00:25:44,589
It got weird at the
MTV Awards in 1992,

589
00:25:44,798 --> 00:25:49,761
Axl and Kurt had a
little screaming match.

590
00:25:51,429 --> 00:25:55,141
Duff and Krist Novoselic
had a moment together.

591
00:25:55,350 --> 00:26:00,230
I was 23 years old and having
the fucking time of my life.

592
00:26:01,314 --> 00:26:04,484
Like, I was born for
chaos, so I thought,

593
00:26:04,693 --> 00:26:08,154
"Okay, great, let's do it."

594
00:26:08,738 --> 00:26:12,617
(rock music)

595
00:26:12,826 --> 00:26:13,785
I would say,
"Dude, when are you

596
00:26:13,993 --> 00:26:16,246
"going to change
those fucking pants?"

597
00:26:16,454 --> 00:26:18,540
"Oh, the only pair
I brought on tour."

598
00:26:18,748 --> 00:26:21,918
He'd wear the same pair
for a fucking year.

599
00:26:22,085 --> 00:26:24,421
And these were those
guys, you know?

600
00:26:24,629 --> 00:26:29,092
And the hat thing,
that came by accident

601
00:26:29,300 --> 00:26:30,635
from what he told me.

602
00:26:30,844 --> 00:26:33,596
I mean, he loved Alice Cooper
and all that, you know.

603
00:26:33,805 --> 00:26:35,306
Who'd worn that hat before?

604
00:26:35,515 --> 00:26:37,475
Marc Bolan?

605
00:26:37,684 --> 00:26:40,478
And he got the
hat and put it on,

606
00:26:40,687 --> 00:26:42,605
he liked the way it
looked on him, I guess,

607
00:26:42,814 --> 00:26:45,525
and people started
recognizing him,

608
00:26:45,734 --> 00:26:47,819
and he had his thing.

609
00:26:47,986 --> 00:26:51,948
It's like Lemmy, you
know, they got a uniform,

610
00:26:52,157 --> 00:26:55,243
and that's who they are,
and they wake up like that.

611
00:26:55,452 --> 00:26:57,454
Like I used to say fuckin'
Slash wakes up like that.

612
00:26:57,662 --> 00:26:58,455
(laughs)

613
00:26:58,663 --> 00:27:03,626
But he would fuckin'
wake up on the tour bus,

614
00:27:04,419 --> 00:27:07,297
same guy he was, you know,

615
00:27:07,505 --> 00:27:08,798
I remember the first
time I joined the band

616
00:27:08,965 --> 00:27:12,427
I went to get in the
shower after the show.

617
00:27:12,635 --> 00:27:14,137
And like, "What are you doing?"

618
00:27:14,345 --> 00:27:16,014
I'm like, "I'm
getting in the shower.

619
00:27:16,222 --> 00:27:18,141
"Gettin the gig
butt out," you know?

620
00:27:18,349 --> 00:27:21,186
And they're like, "Why?"

621
00:27:21,394 --> 00:27:22,771
(laughs)

622
00:27:22,979 --> 00:27:25,482
I mean, they were dirty,
filthy scoundrels, man.

623
00:27:25,690 --> 00:27:27,358
Dirty, filthy
fuckin' scoundrels.

624
00:27:27,567 --> 00:27:31,237
And I was wearing top
hats, you know, 1968, '67,

625
00:27:31,446 --> 00:27:36,367
you know, and I thought that,
I had a corner on the top hat.

626
00:27:38,661 --> 00:27:40,955
But, I mean, it was a top hat.

627
00:27:41,122 --> 00:27:42,248
Who cares?

628
00:27:42,457 --> 00:27:44,209
You know, I mean I, but
every time I saw Slash,

629
00:27:44,417 --> 00:27:45,543
I thought maybe he
wore it a couple times,

630
00:27:45,752 --> 00:27:46,503
and all of a sudden he
wore it all the time,

631
00:27:46,711 --> 00:27:48,463
and I went, "well,
okay, you can have it."

632
00:27:49,631 --> 00:27:51,299
And I looked
at him and I said,

633
00:27:51,508 --> 00:27:52,884
"What do you want from this?

634
00:27:53,885 --> 00:27:55,136
"What's your expectation?

635
00:27:55,345 --> 00:27:57,138
"What are you looking for?"

636
00:27:57,931 --> 00:28:00,683
And he sat back and he said
the most perfect thing.

637
00:28:00,892 --> 00:28:03,353
He said, "I want to
be recognizable."

638
00:28:05,063 --> 00:28:07,232
And I would say that's
a watershed moment

639
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:08,566
in my relationship with him.

640
00:28:08,775 --> 00:28:10,693
I would say that's the moment
where I sat back and went,

641
00:28:10,902 --> 00:28:12,570
"Okay, I'm dealing with
a really intelligent

642
00:28:12,779 --> 00:28:14,489
"live wire here."

643
00:28:14,697 --> 00:28:16,658
That's what he wants.

644
00:28:16,866 --> 00:28:19,828
He's not like Lars in
his autobiography, saying

645
00:28:19,994 --> 00:28:23,957
his dream come true was
the first orgy he was in.

646
00:28:24,123 --> 00:28:26,042
He's saying, "I want
to be recognizable."

647
00:28:26,251 --> 00:28:30,338
Joe Perry was more of
an influence on the image

648
00:28:30,547 --> 00:28:33,216
that Slash was, Joe
Perry always looked cool,

649
00:28:33,424 --> 00:28:35,343
and Slash was always
about being cool.

650
00:28:35,552 --> 00:28:39,097
I think he's going
to be an iconic figure,

651
00:28:39,305 --> 00:28:42,934
because he adopted a look
very quick, you know,

652
00:28:43,935 --> 00:28:47,230
like along with
"Slash," you know,

653
00:28:47,438 --> 00:28:51,609
like picking out a cool rock
and roll name very early on.

654
00:28:51,818 --> 00:28:55,572
To hold on to that and
hold on to that thing

655
00:28:55,780 --> 00:29:00,660
about rock and roll, I mean
he's made out of the stuff.

656
00:29:00,869 --> 00:29:02,328
I mean, you see the silhouette

657
00:29:02,537 --> 00:29:03,580
and the Les Paul
guitar, and you're like,

658
00:29:03,788 --> 00:29:05,206
we all know that's Slash.

659
00:29:05,415 --> 00:29:07,709
We came back from
that Appetite Tour.

660
00:29:07,917 --> 00:29:11,713
At least in my memory, there
was no Internet then, right?

661
00:29:11,921 --> 00:29:15,758
So you didn't know what
was going on in L.A.

662
00:29:15,967 --> 00:29:19,345
But we got back, I looked
at a Band Magazine,

663
00:29:19,554 --> 00:29:21,723
which was a magazine then

664
00:29:21,931 --> 00:29:23,474
that everybody
would advertise in,

665
00:29:23,683 --> 00:29:26,561
and everybody had
like, cowboy boots on,

666
00:29:26,769 --> 00:29:31,691
bandanas, ripped jeans,
leather vests, looked like us.

667
00:29:32,483 --> 00:29:35,904
I'm in London,
and I can't remember

668
00:29:36,070 --> 00:29:38,031
why I was over there,
but I see this fuckin'

669
00:29:38,239 --> 00:29:41,034
bus go by with fuckin'
Slash on it, right? (laughs)

670
00:29:41,284 --> 00:29:43,536
It's like "Guitar Hero!"

671
00:29:44,996 --> 00:29:46,706
And I call Slash and I go,

672
00:29:46,915 --> 00:29:50,501
"Dude, you're on the side
of a double-Decker bus!"

673
00:29:50,710 --> 00:29:52,795
He's like, "I know, I should've
asked for a lot more money."

674
00:29:53,004 --> 00:29:54,714
(laughs)

675
00:29:55,173 --> 00:29:57,550
Here we are at Velvet
Revolver shows, right?

676
00:29:57,759 --> 00:30:00,845
And I look out in the audience,
and I see a lot of kids.

677
00:30:01,012 --> 00:30:03,139
Like, long-haired little
15-year-old dudes,

678
00:30:04,015 --> 00:30:05,475
and then they come backstage,

679
00:30:05,683 --> 00:30:10,313
and they're like, "Hey,
Slash, we love you, man!"

680
00:30:10,563 --> 00:30:12,523
"Hey, kid, how'd you
find out about Slash?"

681
00:30:13,858 --> 00:30:15,276
"Guitar Hero."

682
00:30:15,526 --> 00:30:16,736
He's just sitting
in the corner,

683
00:30:16,945 --> 00:30:18,446
and we kind of didn't
really notice him,

684
00:30:18,655 --> 00:30:20,490
because he's so, like,
kind of blends in.

685
00:30:20,698 --> 00:30:22,992
And he just gets up with a
couple of beautiful women,

686
00:30:23,201 --> 00:30:24,911
and we were just so like,

687
00:30:25,078 --> 00:30:26,621
and he goes, "Hey,
who are you guys?"

688
00:30:26,829 --> 00:30:28,373
And we're like, and
it was as if Slash

689
00:30:28,581 --> 00:30:29,624
was standing and talking to you.

690
00:30:29,832 --> 00:30:31,000
We were all kind of
looking at him like,

691
00:30:31,209 --> 00:30:32,627
"We're from Canada." (laughs)

692
00:30:32,835 --> 00:30:34,128
You know, it's like, "Oh, wow!"

693
00:30:34,337 --> 00:30:35,546
He's like the mayor
of the Rainbow.

694
00:30:35,755 --> 00:30:36,923
He's just going around,
"Hey, how are you?"

695
00:30:37,131 --> 00:30:40,259
When the resurgence of
this Sunset thing happened,

696
00:30:40,468 --> 00:30:45,223
all of a sudden it was
hairspray, glam, big shows.

697
00:30:45,431 --> 00:30:49,686
Bands that weren't even great
bands were doing great shows.

698
00:30:49,894 --> 00:30:54,774
They were stuck in the
middle of that sea of shit,

699
00:30:55,191 --> 00:30:59,112
because there was so much
shit you had to wade through

700
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,156
in order to appreciate
what they were doing.

701
00:31:02,365 --> 00:31:04,742
I mean, most of those
bands had just become

702
00:31:04,951 --> 00:31:06,869
a parody of music.

703
00:31:07,036 --> 00:31:10,957
Bands like Poison,
bands like Warrant,

704
00:31:11,124 --> 00:31:15,044
bands like, you know that
were doing great shows.

705
00:31:15,253 --> 00:31:19,298
Cinderella, Bon
Jovi, Motley Crue.

706
00:31:19,507 --> 00:31:20,925
I mean every band had a look,

707
00:31:21,134 --> 00:31:24,178
and they were
attitude all the way.

708
00:31:24,387 --> 00:31:26,848
The Guns N' Roses
guys were trying

709
00:31:27,015 --> 00:31:29,809
to be their heroes, you know,

710
00:31:29,976 --> 00:31:33,062
whether it was Johnny
Thunders or Sid Vicious

711
00:31:33,271 --> 00:31:38,192
or Steven Tyler or John
Bonham, whatever it was.

712
00:31:38,401 --> 00:31:40,862
I mean, you know, it's
clear that their roots

713
00:31:41,029 --> 00:31:44,949
were in something
substantial and real.

714
00:31:45,116 --> 00:31:46,784
When people ask me
what about rock and roll,

715
00:31:46,993 --> 00:31:48,911
what is going on
in rock and roll?

716
00:31:49,078 --> 00:31:51,664
I say I can only name you
five rock and roll bands.

717
00:31:52,165 --> 00:31:54,792
I said this band, you
know, what Slash is

718
00:31:55,001 --> 00:31:57,295
and those Conspirators
are a rock and roll band.

719
00:31:57,503 --> 00:31:59,338
The Foo Fighters are
a rock and roll band.

720
00:31:59,547 --> 00:32:01,466
We're a rock and roll band.

721
00:32:02,633 --> 00:32:04,927
This band, The
Stripes, from Ireland,

722
00:32:05,136 --> 00:32:06,471
great rock and roll band.

723
00:32:06,679 --> 00:32:10,308
How the fuck is some kid
in Springfield, Virginia,

724
00:32:10,516 --> 00:32:13,936
going to relate to
some guy who's got

725
00:32:14,103 --> 00:32:16,355
more hair than your sister?

726
00:32:16,564 --> 00:32:18,399
And he's fuckin'
got more makeup on

727
00:32:18,608 --> 00:32:20,860
than your fuckin' mom.

728
00:32:21,027 --> 00:32:23,571
You know, if you have
a banjo and an accordion

729
00:32:23,780 --> 00:32:25,615
in your band, you're
not a rock band, okay?

730
00:32:25,823 --> 00:32:26,532
(laughs)

731
00:32:26,741 --> 00:32:28,826
How does that apply
to my fucking life?

732
00:32:28,993 --> 00:32:29,952
You know?

733
00:32:30,203 --> 00:32:31,829
I get it, man, if
I need to escape,

734
00:32:31,996 --> 00:32:33,122
I'll fuckin' take some acid.

735
00:32:33,331 --> 00:32:34,082
It's all good.

736
00:32:34,415 --> 00:32:36,459
And then grunge happened
after that, you know,

737
00:32:36,667 --> 00:32:38,544
which was just the opposite.

738
00:32:39,879 --> 00:32:43,549
There was a point when I
wanted to go to Seattle

739
00:32:43,758 --> 00:32:45,218
and take all the grunge bands,

740
00:32:45,426 --> 00:32:47,720
put them in buses and
take them to Disneyland.

741
00:32:47,929 --> 00:32:49,347
Music was kind of changing,

742
00:32:49,555 --> 00:32:51,724
and those guys were a big part
of that, I think, you know?

743
00:32:51,933 --> 00:32:55,561
And what happened in
Seattle happened after that

744
00:32:55,770 --> 00:32:58,606
as well as a musical
change kind of everywhere,

745
00:32:58,815 --> 00:33:04,612
and you know, to be that
lightning rod sort of a band,

746
00:33:04,904 --> 00:33:07,782
you know, I don't
think they expected it.

747
00:33:07,990 --> 00:33:12,829
(slow music)

748
00:33:19,585 --> 00:33:20,711
I could tell
you one great story

749
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:22,547
that he doesn't even
know, I don't think.

750
00:33:22,755 --> 00:33:27,635
On Hey Stoopid, I know
this about guitar players.

751
00:33:28,636 --> 00:33:30,513
When they first hear a song,

752
00:33:30,721 --> 00:33:33,724
their first impression is
their best impression of it.

753
00:33:33,933 --> 00:33:38,855
And I played, I said, "Why
don't we run this track,

754
00:33:39,355 --> 00:33:42,733
"and you just riff with
it and get a feel of it?"

755
00:33:42,942 --> 00:33:45,653
I told the engineer,
"Tape this."

756
00:33:45,862 --> 00:33:47,363
(laughs)

757
00:33:47,572 --> 00:33:49,782
We did 30 other takes,

758
00:33:49,991 --> 00:33:52,368
and at one point I went, "Oh
that last one was perfect."

759
00:33:52,577 --> 00:33:54,203
And it was like this,
and he was a little tired

760
00:33:54,412 --> 00:33:55,413
and everything at this point.

761
00:33:55,621 --> 00:33:57,999
We used the original.

762
00:33:58,207 --> 00:34:02,879
The run-through tape was the
exact perfect guitar solo.

763
00:34:03,045 --> 00:34:04,463
I brought in a
lot of guest players,

764
00:34:04,672 --> 00:34:07,758
Eddie Van Halen, Steve
Vai, Michael Landow

765
00:34:07,967 --> 00:34:09,218
on the other side of things.

766
00:34:09,427 --> 00:34:11,846
And I shook it up
with different guests,

767
00:34:12,013 --> 00:34:13,764
Edgar Winter, I got
old-school guys,

768
00:34:13,973 --> 00:34:15,141
I got new-school.

769
00:34:15,349 --> 00:34:17,685
I like to mix it all up
and see what happens,

770
00:34:17,894 --> 00:34:20,479
and I wrote a song specifically,

771
00:34:20,688 --> 00:34:23,441
actually with him in
mind to play on it.

772
00:34:23,649 --> 00:34:24,734
What I wish I wrote
with Stan Lynch

773
00:34:24,942 --> 00:34:26,694
the drummer in Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers, right?

774
00:34:26,903 --> 00:34:28,738
It was called Broken
Heart for Christmas.

775
00:34:28,946 --> 00:34:29,989
And he just can't, I said,

776
00:34:30,198 --> 00:34:31,824
"Would you come and play
on this song for me?"

777
00:34:31,991 --> 00:34:33,701
And he's like, he showed
up and he was great.

778
00:34:33,910 --> 00:34:36,621
He just did one take,
and I let it go.

779
00:34:36,829 --> 00:34:38,706
I mean, you know, when
you take a guy like Slash,

780
00:34:38,915 --> 00:34:41,709
you don't try to get
all microscopic on it.

781
00:34:41,918 --> 00:34:43,628
He goes, "What do
you want me to do?"

782
00:34:43,836 --> 00:34:45,421
I go, "Be you."

783
00:34:45,796 --> 00:34:46,714
And that's what he did.

784
00:34:46,964 --> 00:34:49,300
I was not a jammer, but
Slash would always get up

785
00:34:49,508 --> 00:34:50,551
and play with other people,

786
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:52,803
and one of the very first times

787
00:34:52,970 --> 00:34:55,139
that we ever did do that,

788
00:34:55,348 --> 00:34:57,141
I remember we played at
some teeny little club

789
00:34:57,350 --> 00:34:58,643
down by Santa Monica,

790
00:34:58,851 --> 00:35:02,146
and it was half his
band, half my band,

791
00:35:02,355 --> 00:35:04,273
and we did a Sex Pistols song.

792
00:35:04,482 --> 00:35:09,362
(slow music)

793
00:35:09,946 --> 00:35:12,573
The phone rang, and
my mom comes in the room,

794
00:35:12,782 --> 00:35:17,453
she says, "There's someone
on the phone named SLUSH."

795
00:35:17,662 --> 00:35:20,790
I was really up
against the wall,

796
00:35:20,998 --> 00:35:22,750
and we needed to find somebody.

797
00:35:22,959 --> 00:35:24,919
I started thinking about
who's the best drummer

798
00:35:25,086 --> 00:35:29,966
that I'd seen in a band ever.

799
00:35:30,508 --> 00:35:31,342
(laughs) You know?

800
00:35:31,550 --> 00:35:32,802
I said, "What's going on?"

801
00:35:32,969 --> 00:35:37,181
And he says to me, "We're
looking for someone

802
00:35:37,390 --> 00:35:38,849
"to play on the record.

803
00:35:39,016 --> 00:35:41,769
"Stevie Adler's in treatment,

804
00:35:41,978 --> 00:35:44,563
"and we're trying
to get him together

805
00:35:44,772 --> 00:35:47,066
"enough to do a tour at least."

806
00:35:47,275 --> 00:35:49,735
Because at that time,
Appetite for Destruction,

807
00:35:49,944 --> 00:35:52,989
they'd spent about four
years trying to figure out

808
00:35:53,197 --> 00:35:54,824
how to spend all their
money doing drugs.

809
00:35:54,991 --> 00:35:56,158
(laughs) No, I'm just kidding.

810
00:35:56,367 --> 00:35:58,577
He came down, and we
started working together

811
00:35:58,786 --> 00:36:01,831
and just became
really good friends,

812
00:36:01,998 --> 00:36:05,960
and obviously we went on
to tour together for years

813
00:36:06,168 --> 00:36:07,503
and went on to do
Velvet Revolver,

814
00:36:07,712 --> 00:36:08,921
and we're still
really good friends.

815
00:36:09,088 --> 00:36:11,299
Me and Slash
wrote this record

816
00:36:11,507 --> 00:36:12,967
which became the
first Snakepit album.

817
00:36:13,175 --> 00:36:15,219
It was actually me
and him together.

818
00:36:15,428 --> 00:36:17,388
And we were really
close, you know?

819
00:36:17,596 --> 00:36:18,723
And I would be
able to talk to him

820
00:36:18,931 --> 00:36:20,891
and be brave enough
to show him something

821
00:36:21,058 --> 00:36:22,810
that I had an idea
on the guitar,

822
00:36:22,977 --> 00:36:25,021
and he'd be like,
"Oh, okay, man."

823
00:36:25,229 --> 00:36:27,231
You know and I'd be
like, "Okay." (laughs)

824
00:36:27,940 --> 00:36:31,944
And Slash says, "I want
to do a fuckin' record

825
00:36:32,111 --> 00:36:33,946
"with this material."

826
00:36:34,113 --> 00:36:36,449
And I'm like, "Yeah,
fuckin' let's do it!"

827
00:36:36,657 --> 00:36:37,742
(laughs)

828
00:36:37,950 --> 00:36:40,494
You know, it's like, "Come on!"

829
00:36:40,703 --> 00:36:41,954
And I go, "What are
we going to call it?"

830
00:36:42,163 --> 00:36:43,706
And he's like, "We're
going to call it Snakepit."

831
00:36:43,914 --> 00:36:44,457
It was Snakepit.

832
00:36:44,665 --> 00:36:45,958
Good name.

833
00:36:46,125 --> 00:36:47,877
I had ended working with Guns

834
00:36:48,044 --> 00:36:49,045
where I had done a
thing called Snakepit

835
00:36:49,253 --> 00:36:50,463
where I got to sort of go back

836
00:36:50,671 --> 00:36:52,840
and just sort of
simplify everything

837
00:36:53,007 --> 00:36:55,343
and just play in these
raw little places.

838
00:36:55,551 --> 00:36:58,471
And it was just, it was
really, it was a lot of fun.

839
00:36:58,679 --> 00:37:00,139
It was a huge shot
in the arm for me,

840
00:37:00,348 --> 00:37:03,309
but it was also giving
a perspective on things.

841
00:37:03,517 --> 00:37:05,853
You know, we would
record all this material

842
00:37:06,020 --> 00:37:06,937
before we ever had a singer,

843
00:37:07,146 --> 00:37:08,064
so we had an idea of how

844
00:37:08,272 --> 00:37:10,441
to sort of do sections of riffs,

845
00:37:10,649 --> 00:37:12,318
and, "Okay, we're going
to do that 16 times,"

846
00:37:12,526 --> 00:37:16,238
and we would say, "Here's
a chorus, blah blah blah."

847
00:37:16,447 --> 00:37:20,493
So we did those records
Use Your Illusion I and II

848
00:37:20,701 --> 00:37:23,996
all instrumentally, and
the first Snakepit album

849
00:37:24,205 --> 00:37:27,083
all instrumentally,
and then we set out

850
00:37:27,291 --> 00:37:28,834
in search of a singer,

851
00:37:30,086 --> 00:37:32,296
and I was actually
in New York when

852
00:37:32,505 --> 00:37:34,048
he picked the singer
that he put on the album,

853
00:37:34,256 --> 00:37:36,592
which we had a little
bit of a squabble about.

854
00:37:36,842 --> 00:37:38,552
I didn't really
care for it much.

855
00:37:39,428 --> 00:37:40,513
And I remember I got very drunk

856
00:37:40,721 --> 00:37:43,015
and drove over to his house
and climbed over his fence.

857
00:37:43,224 --> 00:37:44,517
(laughs)

858
00:37:44,725 --> 00:37:46,477
He wouldn't let me in.

859
00:37:46,685 --> 00:37:49,063
I was like, "Fuckin' I'm
coming in there, man!"

860
00:37:49,271 --> 00:37:50,523
He was like, "No, you're not."

861
00:37:50,731 --> 00:37:51,482
And I'm like, "Fuck yes I am."

862
00:37:51,690 --> 00:37:53,734
So I climbed over his fence,

863
00:37:53,943 --> 00:37:56,320
and it had like, you know,
these little spikes on the top,

864
00:37:56,529 --> 00:37:58,447
and I remember I slipped,

865
00:37:58,656 --> 00:38:00,533
and my fuckin' jacket, I
had this leather jacket,

866
00:38:00,741 --> 00:38:03,369
got caught, and I was like
hanging off his fence.

867
00:38:03,577 --> 00:38:06,163
And he came out and said,

868
00:38:06,372 --> 00:38:08,332
"Oh, fuck, man,
come on," you know,

869
00:38:08,541 --> 00:38:11,419
he's, Slash is very low-key.

870
00:38:11,627 --> 00:38:13,462
"Come in here, man,
have a drink," you know.

871
00:38:13,671 --> 00:38:15,172
At the end of
Velvet Revolver,

872
00:38:15,381 --> 00:38:20,302
when we saw it going
south with Scott,

873
00:38:21,762 --> 00:38:23,180
there was a band,
we were, you know,

874
00:38:23,389 --> 00:38:26,517
Slash got himself out
of a pretty dark spot

875
00:38:26,767 --> 00:38:28,561
right in between
those two records,

876
00:38:28,769 --> 00:38:30,312
and he was just ready to play,

877
00:38:30,521 --> 00:38:33,065
and when it started
going south with Scott,

878
00:38:33,274 --> 00:38:37,903
I could see like if
Slash had to stop playing

879
00:38:38,070 --> 00:38:40,573
and us go on another
year-and-a-half long

880
00:38:40,781 --> 00:38:42,116
search for a singer.

881
00:38:42,324 --> 00:38:46,078
After the sort of
rock and roll turmoil,

882
00:38:46,287 --> 00:38:47,621
if you will, of Velvet Revolver,

883
00:38:47,830 --> 00:38:49,498
because we got into ourselves

884
00:38:49,707 --> 00:38:51,917
into another situation
with another singer,

885
00:38:52,084 --> 00:38:54,879
(laughs) I was
like, "What are we,

886
00:38:55,045 --> 00:38:56,964
"guys that like to
marry strippers?

887
00:38:57,173 --> 00:38:58,215
"What is this?"

888
00:38:58,424 --> 00:38:59,717
You know, (laughs)
it's like you know

889
00:38:59,967 --> 00:39:02,219
what you're going to get when
you get into it, you know?

890
00:39:02,428 --> 00:39:03,554
What the fuck?

891
00:39:03,804 --> 00:39:06,432
I mean, we knew the guy
was a piece of work,

892
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,478
but those kind of crazy
fuckers make great front men,

893
00:39:10,686 --> 00:39:12,521
you know what I mean?

894
00:39:12,730 --> 00:39:14,982
And when we signed
up for the deal,

895
00:39:15,191 --> 00:39:19,278
it was like this is going
to be fuckin" crazy.

896
00:39:19,487 --> 00:39:20,738
(laughs) Okay, here we go.

897
00:39:20,946 --> 00:39:21,655
(laughs)

898
00:39:21,864 --> 00:39:24,366
And you know, it lasted
a good amount of time

899
00:39:24,575 --> 00:39:25,784
before it imploded.

900
00:39:25,993 --> 00:39:27,912
Myles was a guy that we found

901
00:39:28,078 --> 00:39:31,415
for Velvet Revolver, but
it was an altar bridge,

902
00:39:31,624 --> 00:39:33,667
and Myles, just the
nicest guy in the world,

903
00:39:33,876 --> 00:39:35,669
he's like, "Man, I would
love to be in your band,

904
00:39:35,878 --> 00:39:38,380
"but I'm in a full-time
band, and I would feel

905
00:39:38,589 --> 00:39:41,926
"like I'd be kind of chopping
them below the knees."

906
00:39:42,092 --> 00:39:47,014
Velvet Revolver, I think
it was the summer of 2002,

907
00:39:47,723 --> 00:39:49,850
that was the first time
we spoke on the phone.

908
00:39:50,017 --> 00:39:53,521
And I think I was just
a name that had come up,

909
00:39:53,729 --> 00:39:56,899
and I know they'd sent
out quite a few demos

910
00:39:57,066 --> 00:40:00,194
to a few people, and
they sent me one.

911
00:40:00,402 --> 00:40:03,614
And I worked on it
for about two weeks.

912
00:40:03,822 --> 00:40:04,990
They were like four songs,

913
00:40:05,199 --> 00:40:08,619
and so it's kind
of a long story,

914
00:40:08,827 --> 00:40:11,664
but I basically pulled
out, never sent it back.

915
00:40:11,872 --> 00:40:15,960
I just felt like
at that point I was

916
00:40:16,126 --> 00:40:17,836
the wrong guy for the job.

917
00:40:18,003 --> 00:40:22,925
I'd spent five years with
my band the Mayfield Four,

918
00:40:23,259 --> 00:40:26,637
and I think I just, I was
a bit crestfallen, (laughs)

919
00:40:26,845 --> 00:40:28,847
And I was a bit disillusioned
with the music industry,

920
00:40:29,014 --> 00:40:31,308
and something of that magnitude,

921
00:40:31,517 --> 00:40:34,019
especially, you know,
with those guys,

922
00:40:34,228 --> 00:40:36,939
I was like, "Eh, I don't
think this is the right thing

923
00:40:37,147 --> 00:40:40,317
"for me at this point in my,
at this juncture," as they say.

924
00:40:40,526 --> 00:40:41,944
One of our most
favorite tours,

925
00:40:42,152 --> 00:40:44,947
let's put it that way, was
touring with Velvet Revolver,

926
00:40:45,114 --> 00:40:48,576
you know, and when we
were kind of coming out

927
00:40:48,784 --> 00:40:49,952
with Black Gives Way to Blue,

928
00:40:50,119 --> 00:40:52,997
so, we spent a lot of
time together on that.

929
00:40:53,956 --> 00:40:59,003
(rock music)

930
00:41:04,758 --> 00:41:07,928
He crashed a
Pathfinder on Sunset,

931
00:41:08,929 --> 00:41:11,348
rolled it over about ten times.

932
00:41:11,557 --> 00:41:12,933
(crashing sound)

933
00:41:13,976 --> 00:41:15,060
Like that.

934
00:41:15,269 --> 00:41:17,062
And you know, typical Slash
back in the day, you know?

935
00:41:17,271 --> 00:41:19,898
If you recognize him like that.

936
00:41:20,065 --> 00:41:21,025
He'd drive home drunk.

937
00:41:21,233 --> 00:41:22,776
One night he got pulled
over by the cops.

938
00:41:22,985 --> 00:41:23,902
Cops got him out of the car.

939
00:41:24,069 --> 00:41:25,654
He's fuckin' barely standing up.

940
00:41:25,863 --> 00:41:28,949
"Hey, Slash, can we take
our picture with you?"

941
00:41:29,158 --> 00:41:30,784
(laughs)

942
00:41:30,993 --> 00:41:33,662
Fuckin' cops like
this with Slash.

943
00:41:33,871 --> 00:41:36,915
"Now just get home now."

944
00:41:37,082 --> 00:41:40,044
You put that guy back
in the fucking car?

945
00:41:40,252 --> 00:41:41,253
Are you kidding me?

946
00:41:41,462 --> 00:41:43,172
(laughs)

947
00:41:43,380 --> 00:41:45,341
You know, fringe
benefits of the hat,

948
00:41:45,549 --> 00:41:46,425
you know what I mean?

949
00:41:46,634 --> 00:41:51,096
(rock music)

950
00:41:51,305 --> 00:41:52,514
I think one of
the best things

951
00:41:52,723 --> 00:41:55,934
that's happened to him
is his heart problem.

952
00:41:56,977 --> 00:41:59,313
He wears a pacemaker.

953
00:41:59,521 --> 00:42:04,234
And that has obviously
changed his playing field.

954
00:42:04,443 --> 00:42:11,443
Slash and I both struggled
with outside things,

955
00:42:12,076 --> 00:42:17,081
drugs and alcohol and
both lived through it,

956
00:42:17,873 --> 00:42:20,209
which is kind of
incredible in itself.

957
00:42:20,417 --> 00:42:26,799
And we've had a lot of friends
of ours fall by the wayside

958
00:42:27,132 --> 00:42:28,801
on the way here.

959
00:42:28,967 --> 00:42:32,304
I believe if he would've
tried to stick around

960
00:42:32,513 --> 00:42:35,140
in Guns N' Roses when
Axl was in charge of it

961
00:42:35,349 --> 00:42:38,811
back in 1996, I truly
think he'd be dead.

962
00:42:38,977 --> 00:42:43,941
Guy said, "Back in 1985,
they caught Slash out here

963
00:42:44,483 --> 00:42:46,819
"totally naked running
through the golf course.

964
00:42:46,985 --> 00:42:48,821
"He was staying right
there in that room,

965
00:42:48,987 --> 00:42:50,322
"and he was on acid,

966
00:42:50,531 --> 00:42:51,865
"and he didn't know where
he was and all that."

967
00:42:52,032 --> 00:42:53,951
(laughs)

968
00:42:54,159 --> 00:42:57,037
That Slash was not
going to survive

969
00:42:57,246 --> 00:42:58,622
to play what he's playing now.

970
00:42:58,831 --> 00:43:02,376
Well, he's just at a
different answer than me.

971
00:43:02,584 --> 00:43:03,627
(laughs)

972
00:43:03,836 --> 00:43:06,755
You know, he never
even bought me dinner.

973
00:43:06,964 --> 00:43:10,884
And he's got a
pacemaker, you know.

974
00:43:11,051 --> 00:43:12,761
So he came over to sympathize

975
00:43:12,970 --> 00:43:15,639
and point out what
you shouldn't do,

976
00:43:15,848 --> 00:43:18,350
like, I shouldn't
fibrillate, apparently,

977
00:43:18,559 --> 00:43:20,936
or it goes "vroom!" (laughs)

978
00:43:21,145 --> 00:43:23,689
He wouldn't go
to the hospital.

979
00:43:23,897 --> 00:43:25,524
I don't know if you
know the story or not,

980
00:43:25,733 --> 00:43:28,694
but it was a tour
manager that punched him,

981
00:43:28,902 --> 00:43:30,696
knocked him out,
and dropped him off

982
00:43:30,904 --> 00:43:33,866
at the hospital in Pittsburgh
after he spoke to me.

983
00:43:34,032 --> 00:43:36,285
And I showed up,
and we were there,

984
00:43:36,493 --> 00:43:37,703
and the doctor looked at me,

985
00:43:37,911 --> 00:43:39,204
and we weren't married
yet at the time,

986
00:43:39,413 --> 00:43:41,749
and he said, "I'm sorry, but
he's got either six days,

987
00:43:41,957 --> 00:43:45,169
"six weeks, or six months.

988
00:43:45,377 --> 00:43:48,881
"And there's not
much we can do."

989
00:43:49,047 --> 00:43:51,383
So, we did everything
that they possibly could.

990
00:43:51,592 --> 00:43:52,885
This was in Pittsburgh.

991
00:43:53,051 --> 00:43:54,553
We were there for a few weeks,

992
00:43:54,803 --> 00:43:56,513
and then we flew back to L.A.,

993
00:43:56,764 --> 00:43:57,931
went to another hospital.

994
00:43:58,098 --> 00:44:00,601
They wanted to give
him a heart transplant.

995
00:44:00,809 --> 00:44:05,314
I'm not one to follow direction

996
00:44:05,522 --> 00:44:10,444
or listen to even doctors that
much, to tell you the truth,

997
00:44:10,819 --> 00:44:12,821
and we left that hospital,
went to another hospital

998
00:44:12,988 --> 00:44:15,199
where they gave him
the defibrillator,

999
00:44:15,407 --> 00:44:18,327
and he was playing
with Michael Jackson,

1000
00:44:18,535 --> 00:44:19,995
and the pyrotechnics went off,

1001
00:44:20,204 --> 00:44:22,623
and he thought he
was getting blasted

1002
00:44:22,831 --> 00:44:24,583
or shocked from all
the pyrotechnics.

1003
00:44:24,792 --> 00:44:26,251
He didn't realize that it was

1004
00:44:26,460 --> 00:44:28,045
the defibrillator going off,

1005
00:44:28,253 --> 00:44:29,797
because the doctors
didn't set it properly.

1006
00:44:29,963 --> 00:44:32,674
They didn't realize how fast
his heart rate would go.

1007
00:44:32,883 --> 00:44:34,718
So the thing's firing on him.

1008
00:44:34,927 --> 00:44:36,470
He's like, "Whoa, I
thought, you know,

1009
00:44:36,678 --> 00:44:38,013
"those pyrotechnics,
were they that hard?

1010
00:44:38,222 --> 00:44:40,599
"Because I felt like
they were blasting me."

1011
00:44:40,808 --> 00:44:42,351
When we got back to L.A.,

1012
00:44:42,559 --> 00:44:44,102
we went to have it read,

1013
00:44:44,311 --> 00:44:46,480
the doctor says that
it was going off.

1014
00:44:46,688 --> 00:44:48,857
Coming back from all
that's pretty impressive.

1015
00:44:49,024 --> 00:44:49,983
And he's still there, you know,

1016
00:44:50,192 --> 00:44:51,527
he's a very well-read guy.

1017
00:44:51,735 --> 00:44:52,861
He's reading war novels when
he's not playing guitar.

1018
00:44:53,028 --> 00:44:54,279
(laughs)

1019
00:44:54,488 --> 00:44:58,200
And then in 2008,
I started realizing

1020
00:44:58,408 --> 00:44:59,618
I needed to get sober.

1021
00:44:59,827 --> 00:45:02,579
I don't know who to call.

1022
00:45:02,788 --> 00:45:06,583
Slash had quite a few
years being sober,

1023
00:45:06,834 --> 00:45:08,377
and he's always been
here to help me,

1024
00:45:08,585 --> 00:45:12,464
and actually Dr. Drew
called Slash for me,

1025
00:45:12,673 --> 00:45:16,468
and we met, and I got
to apologize to him

1026
00:45:16,677 --> 00:45:17,803
for all the things
that happened,

1027
00:45:17,970 --> 00:45:21,890
he apologized to me, and
he's helped me, you know,

1028
00:45:22,057 --> 00:45:23,642
get through some hard times.

1029
00:45:23,851 --> 00:45:25,227
I remember when (laughs)

1030
00:45:25,435 --> 00:45:27,145
like I asked him to go
out with me one night,

1031
00:45:27,354 --> 00:45:28,814
I remember when I called him,

1032
00:45:28,981 --> 00:45:32,025
and he just had his first kid.

1033
00:45:32,234 --> 00:45:34,903
I said, "Come on, Slash,
meet me at Crazy Girls."

1034
00:45:35,070 --> 00:45:38,574
He goes, "I'm
babysitting tonight."

1035
00:45:38,782 --> 00:45:41,243
And right then I was
like, "It's over."

1036
00:45:41,451 --> 00:45:43,453
First of all,
I never imagined

1037
00:45:43,662 --> 00:45:47,165
that I'd be a father
living in Los Angeles,

1038
00:45:47,374 --> 00:45:49,251
but I sure as shit
never imagined

1039
00:45:49,459 --> 00:45:52,629
that I'd be playing a
school fundraiser with Slash

1040
00:45:52,838 --> 00:45:55,549
in front of the
principals and the parents

1041
00:45:55,757 --> 00:45:58,927
of a kindergarten. (laughs)

1042
00:45:59,094 --> 00:46:01,847
Just when I thought life
couldn't get any fuckin' weirder,

1043
00:46:02,014 --> 00:46:05,267
I'm fucking jamming
a Stones song

1044
00:46:05,475 --> 00:46:08,270
with a bunch of mothers
from the preschool

1045
00:46:08,478 --> 00:46:10,105
dancing barefoot in front of me.

1046
00:46:10,314 --> 00:46:11,523
That's one thing that I think

1047
00:46:11,732 --> 00:46:15,277
that guys like Slash
have it in their favor.

1048
00:46:15,485 --> 00:46:18,238
They've seen a lot of people
in the business, you know,

1049
00:46:18,447 --> 00:46:20,532
that have turned
it into a career

1050
00:46:20,741 --> 00:46:22,284
and may have been able
to live through it,

1051
00:46:22,492 --> 00:46:25,412
and see that there
is a possibility

1052
00:46:25,621 --> 00:46:26,455
if you play your cards right,

1053
00:46:26,663 --> 00:46:28,123
you can actually have a career.

1054
00:46:28,332 --> 00:46:30,208
You can actually raise
a family around it.

1055
00:46:30,417 --> 00:46:32,085
You can actually
have a real life

1056
00:46:32,294 --> 00:46:36,214
and still be that
crazy, rebellious,

1057
00:46:36,423 --> 00:46:39,885
very close to being
madman on stage

1058
00:46:40,052 --> 00:46:43,680
that you have to be, to
be what rock and roll is.

1059
00:46:43,889 --> 00:46:48,560
I think now,
family is important.

1060
00:46:48,769 --> 00:46:51,688
You know, people say that
when the kids are small,

1061
00:46:51,897 --> 00:46:53,941
it's the harder time,
but we both tend

1062
00:46:54,149 --> 00:46:54,942
to disagree with that.

1063
00:46:55,150 --> 00:46:56,193
Now that they're getting older,

1064
00:46:56,401 --> 00:46:59,154
the demands are
higher with them.

1065
00:46:59,363 --> 00:47:01,865
So I think the future holds,

1066
00:47:02,032 --> 00:47:05,535
or well at least hopefully
my future holds (laughs)

1067
00:47:05,744 --> 00:47:08,622
For Papa to be around
a little bit more,

1068
00:47:08,830 --> 00:47:10,457
as we call him, the Curly Daddy.

1069
00:47:11,208 --> 00:47:12,709
I think he's really,

1070
00:47:12,918 --> 00:47:15,671
he's got one of the best bands
I've ever heard behind him,

1071
00:47:15,879 --> 00:47:17,464
he can't go wrong.

1072
00:47:17,673 --> 00:47:20,926
And he's got that guy
singing for him, you know,

1073
00:47:21,969 --> 00:47:23,553
what's his frickin'?

1074
00:47:23,762 --> 00:47:26,682
Myles, he's a frickin'
great singer, man.

1075
00:47:26,890 --> 00:47:28,517
Unworldly, really.

1076
00:47:28,850 --> 00:47:31,436
This is a cohesive unit
at this point, you know.

1077
00:47:31,687 --> 00:47:32,980
I think Myles is
a killer singer,

1078
00:47:33,188 --> 00:47:34,356
and they write great
songs together,

1079
00:47:34,606 --> 00:47:35,941
there's a great chemistry.

1080
00:47:36,233 --> 00:47:40,445
And he seems to be, I think
he's going to eclipse his past.

1081
00:47:40,654 --> 00:47:44,157
I think he found the great
lineup finally, you know,

1082
00:47:44,366 --> 00:47:47,577
I've seen him go through
different itinerations, you know?

1083
00:47:47,786 --> 00:47:51,039
And this time, I think
he's really nailed it.

1084
00:47:51,248 --> 00:47:52,666
He's got a great singer,

1085
00:47:52,874 --> 00:47:56,503
and they've got between
them, I think they've got

1086
00:47:56,712 --> 00:47:59,923
a long way to go, they've got
a lot of music inside them

1087
00:48:00,132 --> 00:48:02,384
that, you know, when
they start writing more,

1088
00:48:02,592 --> 00:48:07,472
I think they're going to,
I hope they stay together,

1089
00:48:07,681 --> 00:48:08,765
because they're really good.

1090
00:48:08,974 --> 00:48:11,518
And I think the guys
that he has playing with him

1091
00:48:11,727 --> 00:48:14,563
are a really good
band, and I think

1092
00:48:14,771 --> 00:48:16,106
it's a very comfortable
thing for him,

1093
00:48:16,314 --> 00:48:19,109
and that's really probably
what's most important, you know?

1094
00:48:19,317 --> 00:48:21,528
And he's making music
that he likes to play.

1095
00:48:21,737 --> 00:48:23,822
It's still what gets him
up out of bed every day.

1096
00:48:23,989 --> 00:48:25,490
He loves the guitar.

1097
00:48:25,699 --> 00:48:27,117
He loves rock and roll.

1098
00:48:27,325 --> 00:48:28,952
And to me that's very pure,

1099
00:48:29,119 --> 00:48:31,705
and I think that that's,
and I think people see that.

1100
00:48:31,913 --> 00:48:33,248
I think that's what they feel,

1101
00:48:33,457 --> 00:48:35,667
and that's why
he's where he's at,

1102
00:48:35,876 --> 00:48:37,210
that's why he's Slash.

1103
00:48:37,419 --> 00:48:39,046
You're not going to take
that guitar out of his hand.

1104
00:48:39,254 --> 00:48:40,922
You're not going to
pry it out of his hand.

1105
00:48:41,089 --> 00:48:42,799
Nothing's going to
make him stop playing.

1106
00:48:42,966 --> 00:48:45,844
So whether it's Guns N'
Roses if that happens,

1107
00:48:46,011 --> 00:48:47,471
or what he's doing now,

1108
00:48:47,679 --> 00:48:49,097
or some other version of it,

1109
00:48:49,306 --> 00:48:50,515
he's always going to do that,

1110
00:48:50,724 --> 00:48:54,102
and that is a gift to the fans,

1111
00:48:54,311 --> 00:48:57,439
and that is honesty,
and we don't get a lot

1112
00:48:57,647 --> 00:48:59,191
of honesty in this
business, you know?

1113
00:48:59,399 --> 00:49:01,359
A lot of people doing
it for the money,

1114
00:49:01,568 --> 00:49:03,487
a lot of people doing it for
this reason and that reason.

1115
00:49:03,695 --> 00:49:05,238
He is only doing
it because he loves

1116
00:49:05,447 --> 00:49:07,866
that goddamn Les Paul
to death, you know?

1117
00:49:08,033 --> 00:49:09,576
Probably doesn't love anything

1118
00:49:09,785 --> 00:49:11,870
as much as he loves
that Les Paul.

1119
00:49:12,245 --> 00:49:13,997
You know, music
is his mistress.

1120
00:49:14,206 --> 00:49:15,499
It's number one.

1121
00:49:15,707 --> 00:49:18,919
(guitar music)

1122
00:49:19,127 --> 00:49:20,879
I had this '59 Les Paul,

1123
00:49:21,046 --> 00:49:23,965
and I sold it for
Christmas money,

1124
00:49:24,174 --> 00:49:26,927
and then I just kind of
counted it gone, you know?

1125
00:49:27,135 --> 00:49:30,597
And then after the
band got back together,

1126
00:49:30,806 --> 00:49:32,849
I got a call from a Johnson,

1127
00:49:33,016 --> 00:49:36,978
he said, "I heard that this
guitar might possibly be yours."

1128
00:49:37,187 --> 00:49:38,230
He described it
to me, and I said,

1129
00:49:38,438 --> 00:49:39,940
"Yeah, that sounds
like the one."

1130
00:49:40,107 --> 00:49:43,193
And he asked if I
wanted to buy it back.

1131
00:49:43,401 --> 00:49:45,654
I didn't have the
bread at that point.

1132
00:49:45,862 --> 00:49:47,072
I guess he went on to sell it,

1133
00:49:47,322 --> 00:49:50,200
and I lost track
of it for years.

1134
00:49:51,701 --> 00:49:53,120
I started making enough money

1135
00:49:53,328 --> 00:49:56,123
where I was able to kind of
fill in my collection again,

1136
00:49:56,331 --> 00:49:58,667
and I was thinking maybe
I could find that guitar.

1137
00:49:58,875 --> 00:50:01,795
So we searched around,
and I spread the word,

1138
00:50:01,962 --> 00:50:04,673
and one day at
rehearsal, Brad said,

1139
00:50:04,881 --> 00:50:06,216
"Oh, I know where
that guitar is."

1140
00:50:06,424 --> 00:50:09,719
And he showed me a copy
of Guitar Player magazine

1141
00:50:09,928 --> 00:50:12,139
I think it was, and
the center spread

1142
00:50:12,347 --> 00:50:14,558
was Slash's guitar collection,

1143
00:50:14,766 --> 00:50:17,018
and right in the middle
of it was that guitar.

1144
00:50:17,227 --> 00:50:19,396
So I got on the phone with him,

1145
00:50:19,604 --> 00:50:22,065
and he said, "Oh, man,
I knew I was going

1146
00:50:22,274 --> 00:50:23,316
"to get the phone call."

1147
00:50:23,525 --> 00:50:26,027
And, "Oh, shit,
don't ask me that.

1148
00:50:26,236 --> 00:50:27,737
"Let me think about it."

1149
00:50:27,946 --> 00:50:29,781
And, you know, of course I
never got a phone call back,

1150
00:50:29,990 --> 00:50:31,700
and then I called him again,

1151
00:50:31,908 --> 00:50:33,326
and it got to the point where

1152
00:50:33,535 --> 00:50:35,787
our conversations got
farther and farther apart,

1153
00:50:35,996 --> 00:50:39,583
and I said, "This is getting
in the way of our friendship."

1154
00:50:39,791 --> 00:50:41,710
I'm not going to ask
you ever again for it.

1155
00:50:41,918 --> 00:50:45,088
If you ever feel like
selling it back to me,

1156
00:50:45,297 --> 00:50:48,925
you know, fine, but at
least I know where it is,

1157
00:50:49,134 --> 00:50:51,219
and I'm happy about
that, you know?

1158
00:50:51,428 --> 00:50:54,764
More years went on, and
then I had my 50th birthday,

1159
00:50:54,973 --> 00:50:57,809
my guitar tech walks
up with the Les Paul.

1160
00:50:57,976 --> 00:51:01,438
And he said, "Slash
wants you to have this."

1161
00:51:01,646 --> 00:51:06,359
And I was speechless,
you know, for a while,

1162
00:51:06,568 --> 00:51:09,279
and then I picked it up,
and it was like, "Wow.

1163
00:51:09,487 --> 00:51:10,572
"It feels just like
I remember it."

1164
00:51:10,780 --> 00:51:14,534
And that was it, you know?

1165
00:51:14,743 --> 00:51:16,286
And I called Slash
up and thanked him,

1166
00:51:16,494 --> 00:51:19,456
and it was like I
was still blown away,

1167
00:51:19,664 --> 00:51:21,458
I'm still blown away
by it, you know?

1168
00:51:21,666 --> 00:51:24,836
But it really shows, you know,

1169
00:51:25,045 --> 00:51:27,297
he's just got such a huge heart.

1170
00:51:32,093 --> 00:51:37,057
I think it's time to
set this world on fire.

1171
00:51:37,432 --> 00:51:42,395
I think it's time to
push it to the edge.

1172
00:51:43,230 --> 00:51:48,193
(guitar music)

1173
00:51:53,531 --> 00:51:55,283
I've always
been an analog guy.

1174
00:51:55,492 --> 00:51:58,495
The sound of drums and guitars

1175
00:51:58,703 --> 00:52:03,625
just sound better on
tape than digital.

1176
00:52:04,125 --> 00:52:05,961
(guitar music)

1177
00:52:06,628 --> 00:52:09,506
But I also like having to go
in there and actually perform

1178
00:52:09,714 --> 00:52:10,882
this song from one
end to the other

1179
00:52:11,049 --> 00:52:15,303
without any interruptions,
which a lot of producers

1180
00:52:15,512 --> 00:52:19,099
and a lot of bands
nowadays don't do.

1181
00:52:20,517 --> 00:52:22,602
And with tape you find
yourself, you're listening,

1182
00:52:22,811 --> 00:52:24,396
like you were actually
sitting between the speakers.

1183
00:52:24,604 --> 00:52:25,563
I can't see where
the kick drum is,

1184
00:52:25,772 --> 00:52:27,357
I don't know if
he's pushed behind

1185
00:52:27,565 --> 00:52:30,360
like within a frame or two.

1186
00:52:30,568 --> 00:52:32,070
Does it feel good?

1187
00:52:32,279 --> 00:52:33,405
Does it sound good?

1188
00:52:33,613 --> 00:52:36,533
That's all you have to go by.

1189
00:52:38,827 --> 00:52:42,372
So for me, I have
to be able to work

1190
00:52:42,580 --> 00:52:47,544
with guys that we have
some like-minded energy,

1191
00:52:47,752 --> 00:52:48,420
you know what I mean?

1192
00:52:48,628 --> 00:52:49,838
It's all sort of got to be,

1193
00:52:50,005 --> 00:52:53,591
everybody's got to be into
that sort of same concept.

1194
00:52:54,467 --> 00:52:55,468
And once I have that foundation,

1195
00:52:55,677 --> 00:52:57,929
that's what I can expand on.

1196
00:52:58,138 --> 00:52:59,139
So I don't like to be like,

1197
00:52:59,347 --> 00:53:00,640
"Okay, here.

1198
00:53:00,849 --> 00:53:01,933
"Here's all the parts.

1199
00:53:02,100 --> 00:53:03,476
"Learn this, learn that."

1200
00:53:03,727 --> 00:53:05,812
"Or you can record it
over there at your house.

1201
00:53:05,979 --> 00:53:09,024
"I'll send you, you know,
the tracks or whatever."

1202
00:53:09,232 --> 00:53:12,986
I love what happens, the
sort of combustible energy

1203
00:53:13,194 --> 00:53:14,487
that happens when you
get the right type

1204
00:53:14,696 --> 00:53:15,905
of players together.

1205
00:53:16,072 --> 00:53:18,491
The first step to
putting the record together

1206
00:53:18,700 --> 00:53:19,784
is to go and jam those songs out

1207
00:53:19,993 --> 00:53:22,203
for an extensive amount of time,

1208
00:53:22,412 --> 00:53:23,538
just to get
comfortable with them.

1209
00:53:23,747 --> 00:53:26,333
So before we even started
to officially record,

1210
00:53:26,541 --> 00:53:28,418
which was in the
last couple weeks,

1211
00:53:28,626 --> 00:53:31,504
it was basically October,

1212
00:53:31,713 --> 00:53:36,134
which was about four months ago,

1213
00:53:36,343 --> 00:53:37,927
where we started to just get

1214
00:53:38,094 --> 00:53:40,847
in the studio and
work on those songs,

1215
00:53:41,014 --> 00:53:43,433
so, not a lot of bands
do that anymore,

1216
00:53:43,641 --> 00:53:47,103
is actually to go and flesh
those songs out for a while

1217
00:53:47,312 --> 00:53:50,523
before you actually
press record.

1218
00:53:50,732 --> 00:53:52,442
You know, you
hope that when you

1219
00:53:52,650 --> 00:53:54,527
press that red button,

1220
00:53:54,736 --> 00:53:56,780
that you're bouncing
off of each other

1221
00:53:56,988 --> 00:53:59,157
making this amazing
racket together

1222
00:53:59,366 --> 00:54:00,492
that it's being captured,

1223
00:54:00,700 --> 00:54:02,535
and it's not about, "Now
we have to kind of sand off

1224
00:54:02,744 --> 00:54:04,621
"all the edgy points on that

1225
00:54:04,829 --> 00:54:08,583
"and make it kind of palatable
for just the general public."

1226
00:54:08,792 --> 00:54:10,877
It's supposed to be
a specialized thing.

1227
00:54:11,044 --> 00:54:13,588
What we do is specialized for
people who dig what we do.

1228
00:54:14,047 --> 00:54:16,674
I feel like, you know,
now it's the sophomore record

1229
00:54:16,883 --> 00:54:18,510
of the Conspirators,
you can definitely feel

1230
00:54:18,718 --> 00:54:21,096
the band vibe, you know,

1231
00:54:21,304 --> 00:54:23,056
everybody's gelling together,

1232
00:54:23,264 --> 00:54:25,934
and that's just, you
know, it's apparent.

1233
00:54:26,101 --> 00:54:28,186
You can definitely
hear it on this record.

1234
00:54:28,561 --> 00:54:30,688
A lot less here and
more here. (laughs)

1235
00:54:30,897 --> 00:54:32,816
Which for me sometimes
is kind of a challenge,

1236
00:54:32,982 --> 00:54:34,317
because sometimes you
tend to get a little,

1237
00:54:34,526 --> 00:54:35,610
you want to get a
little too cerebral,

1238
00:54:35,819 --> 00:54:36,528
and you got to remember

1239
00:54:36,736 --> 00:54:37,821
this is a rock and roll band,

1240
00:54:37,987 --> 00:54:39,656
and I think a lot of what
Slash does is from the hip,

1241
00:54:39,864 --> 00:54:42,742
and I, to keep it,
congruent, I need to remember

1242
00:54:42,951 --> 00:54:45,286
that as a lyricist as well.

1243
00:54:45,495 --> 00:54:46,704
You know, when I
make a studio record,

1244
00:54:46,913 --> 00:54:49,666
it's great, but it's all
sort of a means to an end

1245
00:54:49,874 --> 00:54:51,751
which is to go out and perform,

1246
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:55,713
so I'm really more of a live
artist than a recording artist.

1247
00:54:55,922 --> 00:54:58,550
Sometimes, as you get a
little bit more successful,

1248
00:54:58,758 --> 00:55:00,218
you start playing at
these bigger places,

1249
00:55:00,427 --> 00:55:03,388
and that's great, but I like
to be able to break it up

1250
00:55:03,596 --> 00:55:04,806
and still be able to play

1251
00:55:04,973 --> 00:55:09,436
in these really sort of
small, loud, sweaty venues,

1252
00:55:09,644 --> 00:55:14,524
and for the release of this
new record World on Fire,

1253
00:55:14,732 --> 00:55:16,609
I thought it'd be great to do

1254
00:55:16,818 --> 00:55:18,862
like, three of them
in a row, you know,

1255
00:55:19,028 --> 00:55:21,781
the main ones that
I got my start in.

1256
00:55:22,824 --> 00:55:26,828
(engine revving)

1257
00:55:27,829 --> 00:55:32,834
(rock music)

1258
00:55:56,232 --> 00:55:58,776
Last night in paradise

1259
00:55:58,985 --> 00:56:02,947
I can feel it down in my bones

1260
00:56:03,114 --> 00:56:04,782
Left the good Lord behind

1261
00:56:04,991 --> 00:56:06,784
Now I die on the vine

1262
00:56:06,993 --> 00:56:11,915
Waiting for my redemption song

1263
00:56:12,999 --> 00:56:15,960
I am never safe

1264
00:56:16,961 --> 00:56:20,924
Just a walking bomb

1265
00:56:21,090 --> 00:56:25,011
In a midnight rage

1266
00:56:25,220 --> 00:56:26,804
And I'm gone

1267
00:56:26,971 --> 00:56:31,935
I'm getting off
this wicked stone

1268
00:56:33,978 --> 00:56:35,313
For some reason
I always loved

1269
00:56:35,522 --> 00:56:38,274
being able to go back and play

1270
00:56:38,483 --> 00:56:41,236
at any one of these
clubs, you know?

1271
00:56:41,444 --> 00:56:45,406
I like being in a
sort of that intimate,

1272
00:56:45,615 --> 00:56:48,451
you know, toe-to-toe
environment.

1273
00:56:48,660 --> 00:56:50,537
When I was a kid,
I remember making

1274
00:56:50,745 --> 00:56:51,871
the pilgrimage down here.

1275
00:56:52,038 --> 00:56:55,917
It was summer 1988, and
I was reading all about

1276
00:56:56,084 --> 00:56:57,460
everything that was
happening down here,

1277
00:56:57,669 --> 00:56:58,753
and I convinced my cousin

1278
00:56:58,962 --> 00:57:02,966
to try and get me into
some of these places.

1279
00:57:03,174 --> 00:57:07,095
And I remember going
to the Troubadour first

1280
00:57:07,303 --> 00:57:08,972
and just peeking in
and being like, "Wow,"

1281
00:57:09,180 --> 00:57:10,265
and there was hardly anybody,

1282
00:57:10,473 --> 00:57:12,183
it was like a Tuesday
night or something,

1283
00:57:12,392 --> 00:57:13,851
and there was almost
no one in the venue,

1284
00:57:14,018 --> 00:57:14,894
and we went up to the Roxy,

1285
00:57:15,061 --> 00:57:17,230
and I mean it was
really cool for me,

1286
00:57:17,438 --> 00:57:19,857
just because I'd heard
so much for so long.

1287
00:57:22,735 --> 00:57:24,862
And then, of course, the
Whisky A Go Go was happening,

1288
00:57:25,029 --> 00:57:29,909
and then we'd all kind of
saunter up Sunset late night,

1289
00:57:30,076 --> 00:57:31,077
about 2 in the morning, head into

1290
00:57:31,286 --> 00:57:32,787
the Rainbow parking lot.

1291
00:57:32,996 --> 00:57:36,874
You were at the Roxy
or you were at the Whisky

1292
00:57:37,041 --> 00:57:38,668
or the Rainbow.

1293
00:57:38,876 --> 00:57:40,503
I remember when Van
Halen first came out,

1294
00:57:40,712 --> 00:57:43,881
and there was bands
like Exciter playing

1295
00:57:44,048 --> 00:57:46,801
at the Starwood, you know,
Nikki Sixx's old band London.

1296
00:57:46,968 --> 00:57:48,052
There was this whole
scene, but there was also

1297
00:57:48,261 --> 00:57:51,139
sort of burgeoning
punk scene developing

1298
00:57:51,347 --> 00:57:52,432
as well at the same time.

1299
00:57:52,724 --> 00:57:55,935
But I love the whole
dirty underbelly scene

1300
00:57:56,144 --> 00:57:57,604
that was happening
in Los Angeles.

1301
00:57:57,812 --> 00:57:58,813
I had a band called London

1302
00:57:58,980 --> 00:58:00,773
and kind of started to make

1303
00:58:00,982 --> 00:58:02,275
a little bit of a stink around.

1304
00:58:02,483 --> 00:58:03,484
We were kind of
like the only band

1305
00:58:03,693 --> 00:58:05,486
that kind of had
a little bit of a

1306
00:58:05,695 --> 00:58:09,073
New York Dolls, Hoople vibe

1307
00:58:09,282 --> 00:58:13,786
but played this kind of
little bit poppier stuff.

1308
00:58:13,995 --> 00:58:14,829
It wasn't like, you know,

1309
00:58:14,996 --> 00:58:16,080
some of these television shows

1310
00:58:16,289 --> 00:58:17,582
where you see all these guys

1311
00:58:17,790 --> 00:58:19,250
they're rolling up on
Harleys and, you know (laughs)

1312
00:58:19,459 --> 00:58:21,419
They've got like the
kaiser helmets on (laughs)

1313
00:58:21,628 --> 00:58:26,549
And shit like that, but this
was just a whole different

1314
00:58:27,383 --> 00:58:28,676
kind of a scene.

1315
00:58:28,885 --> 00:58:30,595
That was when I
really got my first taste

1316
00:58:30,803 --> 00:58:31,929
of what a real rock
star looks like.

1317
00:58:32,096 --> 00:58:35,725
I saw Roger Taylor pull up
in a Rolls Royce, from Queen.

1318
00:58:35,933 --> 00:58:36,934
He got out with two girls,

1319
00:58:37,143 --> 00:58:39,771
and he was wearing
like a Savile Row suit,

1320
00:58:39,979 --> 00:58:42,607
you know, holding a
glass of champagne.

1321
00:58:42,815 --> 00:58:45,526
And I was like, "Man, that,
looks like he's having

1322
00:58:45,735 --> 00:58:46,986
"a pretty good life."

1323
00:58:47,195 --> 00:58:52,116
(rock music)

1324
00:58:56,996 --> 00:59:00,583
Kill the ghost

1325
00:59:00,792 --> 00:59:05,004
That hides in your soul

1326
00:59:05,213 --> 00:59:09,634
Rock 'n' roll

1327
00:59:09,842 --> 00:59:14,764
Rock 'n' roll

1328
00:59:17,975 --> 00:59:19,435
He's a very quiet person.

1329
00:59:19,644 --> 00:59:21,187
He's not somebody
that's very outgoing,

1330
00:59:21,396 --> 00:59:22,689
and there's a certain veil

1331
00:59:22,897 --> 00:59:25,316
that he kind of has
on all the time.

1332
00:59:25,525 --> 00:59:27,402
And then when you hear him play,

1333
00:59:27,610 --> 00:59:30,196
it all comes pouring out.

1334
00:59:32,824 --> 00:59:34,409
He doesn't like to talk,

1335
00:59:34,617 --> 00:59:36,202
and he doesn't like to talk
about himself in all things,

1336
00:59:36,411 --> 00:59:37,787
and you realize, well,
he's a great talker,

1337
00:59:37,995 --> 00:59:39,372
and there's a lot of things

1338
00:59:39,580 --> 00:59:41,582
that you could learn about
him talking about himself,

1339
00:59:41,791 --> 00:59:44,293
but it all comes out in
guitar playing instead.

1340
00:59:44,502 --> 00:59:45,336
His voice is guitar.

1341
00:59:45,545 --> 00:59:46,337
He doesn't like to sing it.

1342
00:59:46,546 --> 00:59:47,463
He wants to play it.

1343
00:59:47,672 --> 00:59:49,090
And I think that's cool too.

1344
00:59:51,843 --> 00:59:54,429
That's something that
obviously was inside him

1345
00:59:54,637 --> 00:59:55,722
long before he
picked up a guitar.

1346
00:59:55,930 --> 00:59:57,140
The guitar was just sort of

1347
00:59:57,348 --> 00:59:59,016
an extension of him in a sense.

1348
00:59:59,225 --> 01:00:00,393
He had great parents that had

1349
01:00:00,601 --> 01:00:02,311
good record collections.

1350
01:00:02,562 --> 01:00:06,107
Unfortunately, my
folks had Liberace.

1351
01:00:06,774 --> 01:00:11,070
(soft music)

1352
01:00:29,505 --> 01:00:30,923
We would play the
Troubadour once in a while,

1353
01:00:31,090 --> 01:00:33,718
like really low
on a Monday night,

1354
01:00:33,926 --> 01:00:35,845
the opening band
on a Monday night,

1355
01:00:36,012 --> 01:00:37,305
and started moving up there.

1356
01:00:37,513 --> 01:00:40,433
Putting out the
flyers and that,

1357
01:00:40,641 --> 01:00:41,768
so they have to go out.

1358
01:00:41,976 --> 01:00:43,811
What's the best place you
can get your flyers out,

1359
01:00:43,978 --> 01:00:45,313
the Rainbow, isn't it?

1360
01:00:45,521 --> 01:00:46,689
You know?

1361
01:00:46,898 --> 01:00:48,191
I mean it's still the
best club in Hollywood,

1362
01:00:48,399 --> 01:00:49,567
as far as I know.

1363
01:00:49,776 --> 01:00:54,655
(rock music)

1364
01:02:24,495 --> 01:02:27,582
He's still, if you see
him sitting around somewhere

1365
01:02:27,790 --> 01:02:31,460
or anywhere where he's
not actually on a camera

1366
01:02:31,669 --> 01:02:32,837
or doing something
that he has to do,

1367
01:02:33,004 --> 01:02:34,422
he's got a guitar in his hands,

1368
01:02:34,630 --> 01:02:37,508
and he's constantly
rolling, you know?

1369
01:02:37,717 --> 01:02:39,677
And it's really impressive.

1370
01:02:39,886 --> 01:02:41,554
That's his bliss.

1371
01:02:41,762 --> 01:02:42,722
He's following his bliss.

1372
01:02:42,930 --> 01:02:44,557
When he plays guitar,
it seems to me

1373
01:02:44,807 --> 01:02:46,684
like that's when he's happiest.

1374
01:02:46,893 --> 01:02:49,520
The thing that is
still true to this day

1375
01:02:49,729 --> 01:02:51,898
about Slash is you
very rarely see him

1376
01:02:52,064 --> 01:02:54,025
and he doesn't have
a guitar in his hand.

1377
01:02:54,233 --> 01:02:56,444
Any time I see him, I've
even told him that as a joke,

1378
01:02:56,652 --> 01:02:58,195
I'm like, you know, if
he's going to come over,

1379
01:02:58,404 --> 01:03:00,281
I'm like, you know, "Are you
going to drive and play guitar

1380
01:03:00,489 --> 01:03:01,365
"at the same time?"

1381
01:03:01,574 --> 01:03:01,949
You know?

1382
01:03:02,158 --> 01:03:02,909
And it's true.

1383
01:03:03,075 --> 01:03:04,744
He loves playing guitar so much.

1384
01:03:04,952 --> 01:03:07,455
And that's why he's continued
throughout the years

1385
01:03:07,663 --> 01:03:08,956
to get better and
better and better,

1386
01:03:09,165 --> 01:03:10,166
because that's what he does.

1387
01:03:10,374 --> 01:03:11,584
That is who he is.

1388
01:03:11,792 --> 01:03:13,419
He's a guitar player.

1389
01:03:13,628 --> 01:03:15,379
I mean, I've known
him how long now?

1390
01:03:15,588 --> 01:03:18,049
30 years.

1391
01:03:18,257 --> 01:03:23,179
And nine out of ten times
when we're together,

1392
01:03:23,596 --> 01:03:25,097
he has a guitar in his hand.

1393
01:03:25,306 --> 01:03:29,644
He's always playing, always
working on something.

1394
01:03:29,852 --> 01:03:32,104
So he's probably the, I mean
he's the hardest-working

1395
01:03:32,313 --> 01:03:34,690
guitar player that I know,

1396
01:03:34,899 --> 01:03:37,068
as far as like what
work he does at home

1397
01:03:37,276 --> 01:03:39,820
or backstage before a show

1398
01:03:39,987 --> 01:03:42,698
or in his hotel
room or on the bus,

1399
01:03:42,907 --> 01:03:44,575
he's always playing.

1400
01:03:44,784 --> 01:03:46,494
And I look at Slash,
and Slash has that,

1401
01:03:46,702 --> 01:03:48,287
like he's got
rhythm, and he's got,

1402
01:03:48,496 --> 01:03:49,622
he'll go off, and you can tell

1403
01:03:49,830 --> 01:03:51,666
it's just coming from
right there, you know?

1404
01:03:51,874 --> 01:03:53,125
And it's all in the hands.

1405
01:03:53,334 --> 01:03:55,086
It's not in like some
pedals on the floor.

1406
01:03:55,294 --> 01:03:56,545
It's like all right there.

1407
01:03:56,754 --> 01:03:58,881
When you see someone
really doing that,

1408
01:03:59,048 --> 01:04:00,758
like, "Wow!

1409
01:04:00,967 --> 01:04:03,427
"That's why he is
the guy that he is."

1410
01:04:03,636 --> 01:04:04,345
You know?

1411
01:04:04,553 --> 01:04:05,888
It's not the hat and the glasses

1412
01:04:06,055 --> 01:04:07,598
and the smoke or whatever.

1413
01:04:07,807 --> 01:04:10,393
It's like all right
there in his hands.

1414
01:04:10,601 --> 01:04:12,395
You couldn't ask for
a better guitar player.

1415
01:04:12,603 --> 01:04:14,522
I mean, he's played on a couple
of our albums, you know?

1416
01:04:14,730 --> 01:04:17,316
And he's been every
time, you know?

1417
01:04:18,484 --> 01:04:20,945
We're going to do another
song off the brand new record.

1418
01:04:21,112 --> 01:04:22,655
This is called Meant to Fly.

1419
01:04:22,863 --> 01:04:27,743
(slow rock music)

1420
01:04:47,805 --> 01:04:50,558
Mama, don't you cry

1421
01:04:50,766 --> 01:04:53,644
Don't you worry

1422
01:04:53,853 --> 01:04:58,774
I cannot stay here any longer

1423
01:04:59,900 --> 01:05:01,694
I wouldn't be being honest

1424
01:05:01,902 --> 01:05:04,071
if I didn't say sometimes
when I see him playing,

1425
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,825
I'm like, "For fuck's
sake, we should be playing

1426
01:05:07,992 --> 01:05:11,370
"together, somehow, again."

1427
01:05:11,579 --> 01:05:13,831
But this is his path right now,

1428
01:05:13,998 --> 01:05:18,919
and I appreciate that, and
support him in every way,

1429
01:05:19,086 --> 01:05:23,758
without resentment or jealousy
or anything like that.

1430
01:05:24,592 --> 01:05:26,177
I check in with him, you know,

1431
01:05:26,385 --> 01:05:28,763
make sure he's doing okay.

1432
01:05:28,971 --> 01:05:31,766
And he's busy.

1433
01:05:31,974 --> 01:05:33,225
I just went and jammed with him

1434
01:05:33,434 --> 01:05:35,561
outside of Seattle
a couple weeks ago.

1435
01:05:35,770 --> 01:05:37,313
They opened for Aerosmith.

1436
01:05:37,772 --> 01:05:40,858
You know, I played
drums on one song

1437
01:05:41,025 --> 01:05:44,612
on his last solo record,

1438
01:05:44,820 --> 01:05:48,616
and he asked if I'd
come in and sing a song,

1439
01:05:48,824 --> 01:05:50,242
I said, "Oh, man, you don't
want me singing a song.

1440
01:05:50,451 --> 01:05:51,619
"Can I play drums?

1441
01:05:51,827 --> 01:05:52,953
"I'll come in and play drums."

1442
01:05:53,162 --> 01:05:54,163
He said, "Okay.

1443
01:05:54,371 --> 01:05:56,540
"There's an instrumental track."

1444
01:05:56,749 --> 01:05:58,125
So I come to the studio,

1445
01:05:58,334 --> 01:06:00,878
Eric Valentine's
producing, Duff was there,

1446
01:06:01,045 --> 01:06:03,297
Slash was there.

1447
01:06:03,506 --> 01:06:06,842
We sat down, listened
to a demo of it,

1448
01:06:07,009 --> 01:06:08,928
said okay, walked
out of the room,

1449
01:06:09,136 --> 01:06:11,514
the instruments were set up,

1450
01:06:11,722 --> 01:06:16,644
ran through it one time, hit
record, did it one more time,

1451
01:06:17,478 --> 01:06:19,730
and that was the take.

1452
01:06:19,939 --> 01:06:24,860
But to watch Duff and
Slash sit and talk about

1453
01:06:25,778 --> 01:06:28,197
the song together as we were
getting ready to record,

1454
01:06:28,405 --> 01:06:29,448
"No, you do this part.

1455
01:06:29,657 --> 01:06:30,783
"Okay if you do that,
then I'm going to,

1456
01:06:30,991 --> 01:06:32,827
"in this part I'll
lay back and then

1457
01:06:32,993 --> 01:06:34,120
"we got to build that thing up,

1458
01:06:34,328 --> 01:06:35,579
"and make sure that
part goes four times,"

1459
01:06:35,788 --> 01:06:37,748
and I'm sitting there behind
the drum set thinking,

1460
01:06:39,250 --> 01:06:44,171
"Am I watching like a Guns N'
Roses documentary right now?"

1461
01:06:44,421 --> 01:06:44,880
(laughs)

1462
01:06:45,047 --> 01:06:47,633
Like I felt like I was watching

1463
01:06:49,718 --> 01:06:55,683
something like history happening
in front of me, you know?

1464
01:06:55,975 --> 01:06:58,477
I mean I look at
musicians and music

1465
01:06:58,686 --> 01:07:05,192
as important as any politician
or any pope, you know?

1466
01:07:05,568 --> 01:07:08,904
The music and the songs that
these people make together

1467
01:07:09,071 --> 01:07:11,740
go on to influence
people or inspire them

1468
01:07:11,949 --> 01:07:13,951
to change the world.

1469
01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:17,580
Generations of people
are changed by two people

1470
01:07:17,788 --> 01:07:20,541
sitting together
and writing a song.

1471
01:07:20,749 --> 01:07:22,000
And as I sat there and watched

1472
01:07:22,001 --> 01:07:23,335
the two of them do that,

1473
01:07:23,544 --> 01:07:27,798
I thought, "I get to witness
something really special."

1474
01:07:27,965 --> 01:07:30,885
This is like history being made.

1475
01:07:31,051 --> 01:07:33,179
Regardless if
Gene Simmons says

1476
01:07:33,387 --> 01:07:37,808
rock and roll is dead. (laughs)

1477
01:07:37,975 --> 01:07:40,102
If you listened to him,
we'd all be fucked.

1478
01:07:42,730 --> 01:07:44,607
You know, so it's
like no, rock and roll

1479
01:07:44,815 --> 01:07:47,610
is not dead, Gene, let
me explain it to you.

1480
01:07:47,818 --> 01:07:52,323
First of all, rock and roll
was never about making money

1481
01:07:52,531 --> 01:07:56,035
and, you know, fuckin'
building golf courses

1482
01:07:56,243 --> 01:07:58,204
or whatever the
fuck else you do.

1483
01:07:58,412 --> 01:08:01,332
Rock and roll was always about

1484
01:08:01,540 --> 01:08:06,420
that celebration of rebellion,

1485
01:08:06,712 --> 01:08:09,089
the celebration of life,
the celebration of being

1486
01:08:09,298 --> 01:08:13,135
an individual,
freedom, freedom to be

1487
01:08:13,344 --> 01:08:16,222
exactly who you are
whenever you want.

1488
01:08:16,430 --> 01:08:19,225
You don't listen to The Man.

1489
01:08:19,433 --> 01:08:20,684
That's rock and roll.

1490
01:08:20,893 --> 01:08:24,647
Rock and roll is
a sense of being.

1491
01:08:24,855 --> 01:08:26,732
It's who you are, you know?

1492
01:08:26,941 --> 01:08:30,110
And you look at guys like Slash,

1493
01:08:30,319 --> 01:08:31,445
and you look at Lemmy,

1494
01:08:31,654 --> 01:08:33,948
and you go, "Those guys,
those are those guys."

1495
01:08:34,114 --> 01:08:37,660
I was driving down Sunset
Boulevard the other day,

1496
01:08:37,868 --> 01:08:40,329
and I have these
moments where, you know,

1497
01:08:40,537 --> 01:08:41,830
I just am like, "Wait a minute.

1498
01:08:41,997 --> 01:08:43,832
"I came here on
a Greyhound bus."

1499
01:08:43,999 --> 01:08:46,794
I was driving down
Sunset, and, you know,

1500
01:08:46,961 --> 01:08:48,796
I've had an amazing career,

1501
01:08:48,963 --> 01:08:51,590
and I'm in my Ferrari,
and the top was off,

1502
01:08:51,799 --> 01:08:53,676
and the street's
the same, you know?

1503
01:08:53,884 --> 01:08:57,596
Everything's the same, just
the years have ticked by,

1504
01:08:57,805 --> 01:09:00,516
and I drove by Guitar Center,

1505
01:09:00,766 --> 01:09:02,184
and there was a picture of Slash

1506
01:09:02,393 --> 01:09:03,477
on the side of Guitar Center,

1507
01:09:03,686 --> 01:09:06,772
and I thought to
myself, you know,

1508
01:09:06,981 --> 01:09:09,733
"He's going to be doing this

1509
01:09:09,942 --> 01:09:12,486
"like the way B.B.
King is doing this,

1510
01:09:12,695 --> 01:09:17,574
"he's going to be doing this
into his 60s and 70s and 80s.

1511
01:09:17,783 --> 01:09:18,951
It's what he's gonna do.

1512
01:09:19,285 --> 01:09:23,956
(rock music)

1513
01:09:47,187 --> 01:09:48,522
Okay, the most
important question,

1514
01:09:48,731 --> 01:09:50,107
when did you get the haircut?

1515
01:09:50,316 --> 01:09:53,444
(laughs)

1516
01:09:55,029 --> 01:09:57,072
And action!

1517
01:09:58,532 --> 01:10:01,368
I love you Slash.

1518
01:10:01,577 --> 01:10:02,619
(laughs)

1519
01:10:02,828 --> 01:10:03,620
Yeah, anything
you want to tell him?

1520
01:10:03,829 --> 01:10:04,621
I love you!

1521
01:10:04,830 --> 01:10:05,581
I miss you!

1522
01:10:05,789 --> 01:10:06,582
When are we going
to go to lunch?

1523
01:10:06,790 --> 01:10:08,334
You work too much!

1524
01:10:08,542 --> 01:10:10,002
Stay home for a little bit.

1525
01:10:10,210 --> 01:10:11,503
(laughs)

1526
01:10:11,712 --> 01:10:12,838
You're loved.

1527
01:10:13,005 --> 01:10:14,506
(laughs)

1528
01:10:15,507 --> 01:10:20,179
You know, but uh,

1529
01:10:20,387 --> 01:10:23,682
now I don't remember
what the question was.

1530
01:10:25,726 --> 01:10:26,727
What was the question?

1531
01:10:26,935 --> 01:10:28,312
I don't know! (laughs)

1532
01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:29,521
The story of my fuckin' life.

1533
01:10:29,730 --> 01:10:30,606
"Wait, what was the question?"

1534
01:10:30,814 --> 01:10:35,736
(rock music)