SLASH On 'Chinese Democracy': 'It's A Great Statement By AXL'

September 5, 2008

VanityFair.de recently conducted an interview with VELVET REVOLVER/ex-GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash. Amn excerpt from the chat follows.

VanityFair.de: What do you think "Chinese Democracy" — the album your former colleague Axl Rose has been working on for ten years now — will sound like?

Slash: To tell you the truth: I already listened to it. At first I thought that I would never listen to it until it's released, but someone handed it to me and I was in my car and I was like, "Okay, let's give it a try." So I listened to it: It's a really good record. It's very different from what the original GUNS N' ROSES sounded like, but it's a great statement by Axl. Now you understand where he was heading all this time. It's a record that the original GUNS N' ROSES could never possibly make. And at the same time it just shows you how brilliant Axl is. So it was a relief for me to actually hear it.

VanityFair.de: Many of the songs already leaked to the Internet and a blogger was arrested by the FBI recently, because he published the material on his website…

Slash: All the Napster stuff and all these people who talk about illegal file sharing killing the record business and taking money out of the artists' pockets! It may be true. But Napster was just a reaction to the record business not catching up with the development of the Internet. Napster was inevitable. But when somebody takes somebody's work and releases it prematurely just to become famous, it's an incredibly selfish and criminal thing to do. A record is a piece of art. And it shouldn't be released until the creator decides to release it — and I don't care how long it took to make it.

VanityFair.de: Do you use the internet yourself?

Slash: I'm an old-school guy. I only got a laptop within the last five years — and I hate it. The only new piece of technology I use on a regular basis is my Blackberry. I became addicted to it. No wonder it's often called "Crackberry."

Read the entire interview at VanityFair.de.

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