SLASH Talks About 'Guitar Center Sessions, 'Reckless Road'

ARTISTdirect editor Rick Florino conducted an interview with VELVET REVOLVER/ex-GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash right before Slash's "Guitar Center Sessions" (see video below) Wednesday night (September 3) in Northridge, California. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

ARTISTdirect: Would you say your session for Guitar Cente and the release of [the book] "Reckless Road: Guns N' Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction" will bring fans closer to your music than ever before? Do you feel like there's a correlation at all between them?

Slash: With the "Sessions" thing, I was actually reluctant because I didn't know what it was going to be like. I still don't really know what I'm going to do [Laughs]. If you can interact with people and if they're even interested, they can hear whatever I have to say as directly as possible this way. It seems cool to go out and provide that. I'm so used to being supplemented in fucking print articles or on the Internet. Things turn bassackwards and such. The closer that you can get to your audience the better. As far as "Reckless Road" goes, that's not my book at all. It's Marc Canter's book. It's a GUNS N' ROSES book, and he's been my friend since time began. That's his pictorial history that he had and he wanted to release and that he's supporting.

ARTISTdirect: You get so much closer to your audience with both though.

Slash: When I was a kid, for any of my favorite bands, you couldn't find something that was behind-the-scenes. When LED ZEPPELIN first came out, they had their publicity shots. No one either allowed it or no one cared enough to get all the behind-the-scenes footage of their first rehearsals or this, that or the other thing. It's the same for a lot of my favorite bands. I don't think anybody's got a pictorial history that comprehensive of when a band first started as we do with "Reckless Road". So it's really cool.
ARTISTdirect: It's important for kids to experience that natural, creative process in something like your session here because it's been lost on a lot of the young audience. People still go back to LED ZEPPELIN and GUNS N' ROSES because the music was natural.

Slash: I think the roots of what it's all about have been so diluted in this industry. I think it's easy to forget why anybody does anything. The funny thing is, people are focused on trying to make a lot of money based on this process that doesn't necessarily work. There's an army and a legion of kids out there that are dying to do the real thing, and the industry won't give it to them. The kids have to get it in Guitar Hero now, which is fine — at least there's an outlet. It seems like they go, "Maybe we need to rethink this." They're just so pigheaded. Eventually the people take over, and they'll change the business. That's probably what's going to happen next. Hopefully.

Read the entire interview from ARTISTdirect.