Simon Rushworth
On the day Axl Rose launched a lawsuit against the creators of Guitar Hero for using a cartoon of Slash, his ex-band mate has revealed the divisions between the two former Gunners run deeper than ever. But the axe hero told rushonrock: “It doesn’t make me sad.”
Axl is suing the makers of Guitar Hero to the tune of £13m – maintaining he only allowed Activision to use GnR’s landmark Welcome To The Jungle track if the game omitted any reference to Slash. In fact the guitarist became the face of the smash hit game and his new band, Velvet Revolver, have become mainstays of the franchise.
Rose’s move has reopened 14-year-old wounds just weeks after he appeared on stage with fellow former Gunner and VR bass player Duff McKagan at a GnR show in London – seemingly paving the way for some kind of reconciliation. With McKagan, maybe.
“I’ve been asked about my reaction to Duff getting up on stage with Axl last month quite a lot,” said Slash. “It’s something I wasn’t really interested in. It was surprising in an ‘oh, really?’ kinda way when I first heard about it. But it’s not a big deal.
“I think the major issues relating to Guns N Roses seem to be between he and I. The problems between Axl and the other guys are more to do with fucking lawsuits and other stuff that’s going on.
“It’s not necessarily deep down personal. But the stuff between Axl and I seems to be personal – not for me but from his end it seems pretty heavy. It doesn’t make me sad. I’ve been gone from GnR for 14 fucking years!
“In order for me to quit something that was so important to me and something that was such a major part of my whole make-up I had to think about it pretty seriously. So I never really ever looked back. And I never even thought about it until Velvet Revolver came along and me and Duff did a press tour.
All I was inundated with by journalists at that time was questions about Guns N Roses. Prior to that I never talked to anyone about it. After that a lot of bitter stuff came out. There were a lot of people feeding off a lot of nehgative shit and at the end of the day it’s not even that big a deal. If I’m asked questions about GnR or Axl I’ll answer them and say whatever.”
So there you have it. From the man himself. Look out for more exclusive access to Slash on rushonrock very soon…