SLASH On State Of Music Industry: 'Now It's All About Commercial One-Hit Wonders'

In a brand new interview with Rolling Stone India, former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash was asked if there are any young rock and roll bands that he really likes. He responded: "We've played with [U.K. rock trio] RAVENEYE in the past and they're really good."

He continued: "When we pick an opening band for a tour, usually I listen to everything first and see who it is that we want to take. So I am very aware of what everybody is doing. There are some bands that I like a lot, and there are some band that are developing and just need to keep working at it. There's couple of out there."

Slash went on to say: "On a commercial level, rock and roll is all safe, but underneath all that, there is a great hardcore young movement that is doing rock and roll in earnest. It's just that the way the business is right now, it's so corporate that none of these bands will get a shot to do what I got to do, you know? Be discovered in a club and have an A&R person develop the band and get them ready to go into the studio and make a record. And then make a second, third record 'till they really come into their own. Now it's all about commercial one-hit wonders, and it's a whole different industry now. But there's a lot of great rock and roll bands out there that have to go the way it should be done; for the passion and not for the money. It's not for the glamor of it but because you love it. A lot of people are doing it because they have an agenda."

Asked if he thinks that there are a lot of talented artists out there today who have the potential but won't get the kind of opportunities that he did back in the day, Slash responded: "This is a complicated question. I mean, somewhere along the way, people just played music for the love of playing music and somebody else recognizes that you can make money from it, and it's been a developing thing to the point where, in the '90s, music business was making so much money that it was bigger than the movie industry, bigger than any of the entertainment industries. There's the business and there's the music. I was raised in the business and I remember seeing how there were clashes between people — this is the way to make money and da da da… there was so much money involved. And then the Internet came along and just fucked the whole thing up. So now the industry is struggling to figure out how to make money off of it and artists have actually gone to the point of conforming to the industry — how they can make money — so they're all working together. I think there's still this whole creative side that hasn't changed which doesn't really want to fit into that category, but it's hard to make a living. So a lot of people do that by playing clubs. But it's just harder, the opportunities are different from when I started."

Slash's third solo album, "World On Fire", sold around 29,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 10 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores on September 16, 2014 via Slash's own label Dik Hayd International distributed through Roadrunner Records (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America).

"World On Fire" is the second album to feature Slash's regular backing band, MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS, and follows up 2012's "Apocalyptic Love", which sold around 38,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 4 on The Billboard 200 chart.

On Slash self-titled solo effort he employed a different vocalist on each track, before settling on ALTER BRIDGE member Kennedy for both touring and eventually recording.