128. The Axl-Slash Dynamic

I love Slash like a brother
and like brothers we fight.

We’re polar opposites;
two energies in collision.

It’s a star sign thing.
A yin and yang thing.

We’ve had so many run-in’s
it’s pretty much laughable.

The last time was during
a show in Dayton, Ohio.

I’d cut my hand open and
was backstage fixing it up

when I thought I heard him
take a pot-shot at me on the mic.

So I ran out with my bandaged
hand and I confronted him

in front of twenty thousand people.
I think I told him I’d kick his ass

and I actually meant it because
I knew I could, no contest.

Of course, I’d misheard so now
I was the dick and I apologised.

Slash just stood there, sloppy and
unflappable behind his Les Paul.

We carried on playing and
delivered another killer Guns show.

And that’s the root of our success:
the anger, interplay, the spark.

Well, anyway. That’s just one incident.
It wasn’t the worst. It won’t be the last.

But I think it illustrates your point -
the fact that we’re still just crazy fuckers.

67. Derivatives

Soon the scene is awash with
G N R derivatives; you can’t
move on The Strip for clones
of me or Slash. The other guys too.

Suddenly every hustler under the
age of 40 has grown their hair,
got some leathers. And the bands
…the bands are fucking terrible.

They’re everywhere, playing every
venue, banging the same strippers who
wouldn’t touch us in the past, getting
comped at all the clubs we’re barred from.

And the music – the music is bullshit:
lightweight, blow-dried, perfumed
plastic punk, over-wrought
and all over the radio and TV:

Mr. Big and Warrant
Winger and Tesla
Slaughter and Ratt
White Lion, Bad English ,

Cinderella and fucking
Poison. Sometimes I can’t
help but wonder: is this
shit our legacy to the world?