1992.08.29 - Super Channel - Interview with Slash in guitar shop in New Orleans

Transcript:
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Female interviewer: We are here because… why? Go ahead.

Male interviewer: Slash has the biggest comic book collection in the world.

Female: That’s why we are in-

Male: We’re in the guitar shop, we’ll talk about guitars today – I mean, as well.

Slash: Archie…

Female: 400 copies, and we came to the guitar store to talk about it. No, we’re just kidding-

Male: I heard you’re covering an Archie song on the next record?

Slash: Um, it’s already done, produced, Michael Jackson is singing on it (laughs).

Male: Was it Sugar Sugar or (?)? Name four Archie songs. I mean, get serious, kids.

Female: (Laughs) Only they can do it.

Slash: I played on his record and he said, “Do me a big favor and play on my Archie cover” (laughs).

Male: You know, the situation is, I think, as we came down here to talk about guitars, because Slash is, like, this guitar dude (?)

Female: Wait. He’s like- Slash is like the head guitar dude of the universe.

Slash: (?) this guitar that I bought before the tour started.

Male: Hey, there’s the guitar right here!

Slash: Before the tour started, I bought it and I left it here. (?)

Male: Oh my gosh, this is a gorgeous guitar.

Female: This is your guitar.

Slash: Yeah.

Male: It’s a Slash guitar.

Female: What kind of guitar is it?

Slash: It’s a 57 Gold Top and it’s got the original PAF’s, which are pretty rare, they didn’t… they usually have subpar pickups like…

Male: P-90s…

Slash: Yeah, P-90s, sort of like those, yeah. Anyway, so Albert, the guy who owns this place, called me up about this guitar and I bought it. I had to have it. I have no use for it, really.

Female: You have no use for this guitar?

Slash: No, I’ll play it when I’m in the studio, but otherwise it’s going to spend most of its time in a case in a vault with all my other guitars.

Female: That’s really sad!

Slash: I’ve got 60 of them.

Female: That’s really sad.

Slash: You can’t take them on the road. They’re too valuable.

Female: How much would a guitar like this cost to someone, say, like me?

Slash: About 15 - 15 grand.

Female: 15 grand.

Slash: Yeah.

Female: $15,000.

Slash: I’m a guitar freak. I don’t buy anything else but guitars.

Female: So you collect them.

Slash: Yeah.

Female: How many guitars do you own?

Slash: 60.

Female: Did you teach yourself how to play?

Slash: Pretty much. I had a guitar teacher. When I first started I didn’t know anything about guitars – I mean, I didn’t even know how many strings are. You know, it’s just this thing that I decided I wanted to do. So I went to a guitar teacher and their way of doing it was, like, piano scales. So, after about three or four tries at Mary Had A Little Lamb, I quit and went on to, like, learning from Zeppelin records, and Aerosmith records, and all that kind of stuff.

Male: Slash got his first-

Slash: Les Paul.

Male: Plain top.

Slash: Yeah.

Male: Which was… I guess from me.

Slash: Yeah.  

Male: High five.

Slash: I was (?) and I have to say it.

Male: And he paid me off in full. He only took three years to pay it off.

Slash: (Laughs).

Male: It was about… let’s say it was about $8,000 or $9,000. Correct?

Slash: It was eight fifty.

Male: $8,500.

Slash: Right.

Male: $8,500. That same Les Paul today is about $35,000 to $45,000. And the reason being-

Slash: I don’t have it.

Female: You don’t have it?

Slash: No. I sold it back to him because Axl knocked it off the stage and broke it, and I said (pretends crying) “I don’t want it anymore.”

Male: When a guy like Slash, obviously with his status with Guns N’ Roses, etc., picks up a guitar, that’s worth $10,000 and every kid in the world says, “Mom, dad, I want a guitar, I want a Les Paul, I want it,” it drives up the prices. And the prices on Les Paul’s right now, since Slash started, probably have tripled or even quadrupled and it’s attested-

Slash: I can’t even buy a guitar anymore.

Female: (Laughs) You can’t buy a guitar anymore.

Male: (?)

Female: (Laughing) It’s getting sadder by the minute, doesn’t it, kids? (To Slash) Did you ever think you’d be doing this?

Slash: No, I just worked towards getting from one point to the other, like, you know, moving forward.

Female: Did you think you’d have all the guitars you dreamed about when you were… Did you dream about guitars when you were a kid?

Slash: Well, I’m such a fanatic that I assumed at some point in time I’d be able to get a hold of this particular guitar, this particular model or something.

Female: Okay, well, there you have it from Slash the fanatic and Howie the… I don’t know what.

Male: Idiot (laughs).

Female: Yeah, Howie the idiot. And we’ll see you next time from somewhere. Bye.

Slash: See ya.

Male: See ya.

I don't know the exact date of the interview, but I assume it was recorded when GN'R played in New Orleans in 1992 (although they had played another show in Louisiana in January 1992).