Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash recently discussed how royalty payments have gotten far worse in a new television interview. Alternative Nation transcribed his remarks about what the internet and streaming has done to the music business.
“This is a longer story than we have time for, but the whole streaming thing if you remember in the late 90’s, early millennium or whenever it was, when everyone was doing the file sharing thing, the internet basically killed the music industry. So now we’ve basically come out of it with these streaming services, but they don’t pay anywhere near the royalties that buying a CD or record pays. It’s definitely hurt the music business in a big way. It’s easier for the customers, but it’s definitely not doing any favors for the actual artists.”
Slash recently revealed who is ‘back’ with Guns N’ Roses. Slash later discussed how he found Myles Kennedy to front the Conspirators, “I jam a lot, and you meet people, I do a lot of sessions, and you meet people, and you remember people that you play with that you feel really comfortable playing with, or you thought were really good. I’ve been doing this a long time, so I know a lot of musicians.
For me personally, I’m looking for people who have a natural gift for the rock and roll feel. One of the great things about the Conspirators is I didn’t know any of them. I did not see it coming. I worked with Myles on my first solo record, and I had never heard him sing before. I heard a lot about him, and I called him up and asked if he wanted to sing a song on my solo record with all of these different singers.
He sang on the solo record, and he was amazing, So we ended up doing two songs on that record. Then I was like, ‘I have to do a tour to support this record, and I can’t bring all of these different singers on the road with me, would you like to do it?’ Because I knew that he had the type of range that he could do all of that different material, and then also Velvet Revolver, Guns N’ Roses, and Snakepit songs.” Slash was told to quit before a Guns N’ Roses tour.
