Slash Quotes

The truth is, all we ever cared to do was top the bullshit hair metal bands that enjoyed undue success for their subpar existence.

As we mixed down the song “Rocket Queen,” Axl felt that the bridge needed something; some other element to elevate the drama. He suggested that Adrianna Smith, who was with us in the studio that day, fuck him in the live room so that we could record her vocals and layer them over the breakdown. We’d been drinking Jack pretty heavily all day, so it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I was all for it; I knew too well what she was capable of vocally — she had kept me up for the past three nights. So we lit up some candles for atmosphere, then she and Axl went out into the live room, got down on the floor by the drum riser, and we recorded Smith’s performance in all of its honest moaning and groaning. Enjoy it — it’s right there in the final mix. That breakdown said it all; I couldn’t think of a better song to close the album and I couldn’t think of a more telling slice of our lives at the time to hand to our fans.

and built a makeshift queen-size loft over the drum kit. It was as welcome an innovation as the flush toilet had been in eighteenth-century

There is a subconscious, emotional level that informs playing, and since I’m the kind of person who carries his baggage around internally, nothing has ever helped me tap into my feelings more.

I think that anyone who is a true junkie has an innate kinship with other junkies. Somehow I knew that we shared mutual interests; that addiction speaks to you. Without knowing it, you’re attracted to them.

I've always had to do things my way; I've gotten high my way, I've gotten clean my way, I've been in and out of relationships my way. I've taken myself to the edges of life my way. And I'm still here. Whether or not I deserve to be is another story.

Most of the girls who dated us back then were these innocent chicks whose lives were changed forever after one of us came into it for however long it lasted. We were like a vacuum back then that sucked people up and spit them out; a ton of people around us fell by the wayside that way. Some people died, not because of anything we did, but as a side effect of being too close to the flame. People would get attracted to our fucked-up weird life and just get it wrong and drown in our riptide.

It makes sense that the bands first show took place in Seattle because as much as L.A. was our address, we had as much in common with the average "L.A." band as Seattle's weather has with Southern California.

Everyone in the band wore their influences on their sleeves and there was not a bit of the typical L.A. vibe going on where the goal is to court a record deal. There was no concern for the proper poses or goofy choruses that might spell pop-chart success; which ultimately guaranteed endless hot chicks. That type of calculated rebellion wasn't an option for us; we were too rabid a pack of musically like-minded gutter rats. We were passionate, with a common goal and a very distinct sense of integrity. That was the difference between us and them.

I recognized my own creative voice filtered through those six strings, but it was also something else entirely. Notes and chords have become my second language and, more often than not, that vocabulary expresses what I feel when language fails me.

The guitar players that inspire me today are basically all the same guitar players that inspired me when I first started. That hasn't really changed, but additionally I think that Tom Morello, Jack White & Jerry Cantrell are great and are some of the really inspiring lead guitar players that have come out in the last 20 years.

Some people think I always wear the hat, but that's not true. Sometimes I don't wear the hat. It makes me laugh that some people think I always wear the hat, because obviously I don't wear the hat all the time. What about when I sleep or take a shower? I don't wear the hat then. Also, I don't wear the hat to go to Millets.

I'd like to dedicate this song real quick, and I'm not going to say anything offensive so that we can make it on TV. This song isn't dedicated to drinking or drug addiction [...]. It's basically about a walk in the park. This is something called 'Nightrain'.

As we all came to find out, back then and again and again, the worst thing that ever befell this band was having nothing to do and some money to spend.

He had reduced rock stardom to its roots: being a rock star is the intersection of who you are and who you want to be.