SLASH On AXL ROSE: 'I Try Not To Sit There And Say Derogatory Things About His Personality'

Legendary guitarist Slash (GUNS N' ROSES, VELVET REVOLVER) took part in a very special "celebrity interview" this morning (Thursday, March 11) at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as part of Canadian Music Week. According to Jane Stevenson of the Toronto Sun, Slash was surprisingly complimentary of his onetime bandmate and GN'R's lead singer, Axl Rose, during the chat with CNN anchors and real-life couple John Roberts and Kyra Phillips.

"You have to attempt to understand him as a human being and where he's coming from," said Slash.

"I see things very black and white. That's just me. And that doesn't necessarily mean that that's right. And he sees things in a very colorful kind of way, and I can't really knock it, 'cause that's just him. So I try not to sit there and say derogatory things about his personality, because it's his personality that makes him so fucking great, and just difficult to deal with."

On his upcoming solo debut album, "Slash", due in stores April 6:

Slash: "Working side by side with Ozzy [Osbourne], which is a voice that I had been listening to since my early rebellious days, taking acid and being 13, and listening to 'Iron Man' and shit, was a really great experience."

On the fact that he has only been sober for three-and-a-half years, despite being a married father of two young boys — aged five and seven:

Slash: "When Perla [Slash's wife] announced that she was pregnant, I was loaded on Oxycontin going to an AEROSMITH gig, and I was out-of-my-mind high that night. And I was like, 'Okay, so now it's time to start taking care of this issue,' but I thought I could juggle it, which I did up until about three-and-a-half years ago. So really the sobriety thing is relatively new, and it's almost like you could fall off any second. But I've been holding on to it because I want to be attentive to the responsibilities that I have, and also because after years and years of doing it, it starts to get old."

On Michael Jackson's drug-related death:

Slash: "It's sad that he's not here ... When all that stuff happened in 2001 or whenever it was, he got all of those (accusations) and stuff, the one thing that Michael really wanted, and the one thing that made him happy, was he wanted everybody to like him. And so all of the sudden he was completely ostracized, pretty much by North America, for all these accusations (even) though he was acquitted, and it sort of just killed him."

Read more from the Toronto Sun.