DO NOT ASK SLASH ABOUT THE THINGS YOU’RE HERE TO INTERVIEW HIM ABOUT
Good news for any musician who has ever been in Guns N’ Roses (and the band has had at least eighteen members by count): you probably made a lot of money and, if you were lucky enough to write some songs and record under the name, you are probably still making a lot of money. Congrats! Here’s the downside: people are going to ask you about GN’R for the rest of your life, especially if you were an original member. It’s just a fact. I’m sure it’s irritating, but like I said, you made a lot of money and may even be, like, super-famous, so, y’know, you kinda have to roll with the punches. I mean I’m sure Mark Hamill is tired of people asking him about fucking Star Wars after thirty-five years, but he seems pretty good natured about it because, oh yeah right, he got to be the fucking star of fucking Star Wars.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that these new rules for interviewing Slash, as revealed by The New Zealand Herald, are about 1.5% completely understandable, and 98.5% completely ridiculous:
- Guns N’ Roses is a topic that Slash can briefly touch on.
- You can briefly discuss the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame Induction – but only to the extent of the honour of that.
- You can’t talk about the ceremony itself and Axl not showing up and their performance etc.
- No questions about Axl whatsoever.
- No questions about a possible Guns N’ Roses reunion.
- No “on the road” stories or historic infamous type stories based around Guns N’ Roses.
- There has to be a focus on what he’s doing now and forthcoming events/plans.
Our buddy Bram at Metal Insider points out that these conditions are “something that most journalists would understand without being issued non-talking points,” which or may or may not be true, but I think is really beside the point — the point being that no one would be interviewing Slash at all if not for Guns N’ Roses, and it’s not as though questions about Guns N’ Roses and questions about his current work are mutually exclusive, so he should suck it up and just accept that answering questions about GN’R and Axl Rose are part of his job. Especially since he continues to play Guns songs as part of his live set. And has been wearing the same hat for more than two decades. And calls himself “Slash.” I mean, he’s barely a real person. It’s like one of the Care Bears escaped The Kingdom of Caring and is walking around with a fucking rainbow on his chest going “DON’T ASK ME ABOUT THE OTHER FUCKING CARE BEARS!!!”
-AR
