2000.03.18 - The Courier Journal - Cut To The Chase (Slash)

by **Blackstar** Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:15 pm

Transcript:
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Cut to the chase

Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash let Justin Myles, a writer for Gear, visit his “pinball room" and ask questions. The result is a brief but pleasantly revealing peek inside the mind of a pretty strange guy.

"Which of your pinball machines is most precious to you?” Myles asked.

“If someone was to come in here and say you can only have two pinball machines or three, I'd probably say Jurassic Park, The Addams Family and, just for sentimental reasons, the Guns N’ Roses machine,” he said. “1 gave one to every guy in the band at the time, but I don’t play mine because I’m sick of hearing ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ over and over.”

Regarding the song “Obsession Confession” (from the soundtrack to the movie “Curdled”) which became a hit on adult contemporary radio, Slash said, “I played the jazz festival at the UCLA Amphitheater with, you know, what's that — sax player who’s so — popular now? You know, sells more records than anybody.”

“Well, there's Kenny G,” Myles offered. “He’s pretty' annoying.”

“Yeah, that’s him. ... We had a great time hanging out. We had the first film ... what do you call it?”

“Premiere?”

“Yeah, a premiere kind of thing, you know, the whole red-carpet deal. We went to a club and jammed and stuff like that and just drank a lot of tequila. The next morning they were all supposed to be on an airplane and they were all passed out in the — room. I got up and left, and they missed their flights.”

After a few comments about his experiences with snakes and influential associations with Minnie Ripperton and Joni Mitchell (friends of his mom’s), Slash addressed a question about his former band-mate Axl Rose.

“I haven’t spoken to Axl in almost five years,” he said, “and I have no interest in talking to him. He wouldn’t talk to me. No big deal, it just would be a waste of time. ... If Axl and I hadn’t been in a band together., we'd never have been friends. ... With Axl — even though we looked like the two frontmen — we really didn’t have that much of a personal relationship.”

Most bizarre of all, however, is the guitarist’s list of “favorite seduction albums," which includes the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” plus “One of the first three Jimi Hendrix records. Probably Erik Satie — he’s an old French composer which I don’t think anyone would be familiar with — a pianist. And AC/DC’s 'Highway to Hell,’ or Fear’s 'The Record....' ”

Erik Satie (who died in 1925) doesn’t know what he’s missing being in such fine company. Maybe our buddy Slash misunderstood the question.

— Paul Curry, special to The C-J