Less than two weeks after Guns N’ Roses were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, Slash has offered his thoughts on the event.
Speaking with Rolling Stone from Europe, where he continues his worldwide promotion of the May 22 release of his sophomore solo album, “Apocalyptic Love,” the guitarist talked openly about his pre- and post-induction impressions.
“My whole thing was that I really, in my heart of hearts, wanted to have the whole original band get together and actually perform, which I sort of knew was wishful thinking,” explains Slash. “When the whole thing first came up, that’s basically what I wanted to do. It became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen. I was like, "Oh," and I was sort of disillusioned with the whole thing, but there was that commitment that was sort of made that I was going to go, and I thought Axl [Rose] was still going to go, and it wasn’t until the last minute that I heard that he wasn’t coming, and that’s when we all decided we were just going to go ahead and play anyway. Early on, when it was probably more confusing than necessary, I have to admit, I was like, "Oh f, I don’t really want to go to this if we’re not going to play," though I never said, "No, I’m not going to go." But it was sort of a black cloud for a few months there. Before that I thought we were just going to show up and not play, which is what I was resigned to.”
Of course, former GNR members did play the Rock Hall, performing a three-song set that featured “Mr. Brownstone,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City.” Watch the video here.
However, the decision to play came down to the wire.
“It was literally two days before the actual ceremony,” says Slash. “The day that the press release came out and Axl said he wasn’t coming, we had the Golden Gods awards, and it was in the dressing room there that Duff and I talked. We said, "OK, we’re just going to get together and play," and Duff goes, "We should get Myles." I was talking to Duff about who was going to sing, I thought Duff would sing, him and Gilby, but Duff said, "What about Myles?" It hadn’t occurred to me, really. I talked to Myles about it, he was apprehensive about getting put in that position, so at first, he turned it down, but finally he said, "OK, I’ll do it." We got it all together and we put together a little rehearsal the night before and did our thing.”
The Rock Hall experience has brought some closure for Slash.
“Yeah, I think it did that for all of us. I didn’t have any illusions or delusions of GNR getting back together for anything,” he says. “I maybe tried to see it happen for this one particular event, I didn’t have high hopes for that, I didn’t feel confident it was going to happen, but having done this one gig, and for the event itself, when it was all said and done, it really felt like closing the book on the whole thing.”
Read more with Slash at Rolling Stone here.
Guns N' Roses Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame – Cleveland, OH – April 14, 2012
