In a new USA Today interview, Slash discussed reconnecting with Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose in 2015 following a 19 year long feud following Slash’s 1996 exit from Guns N’ Roses.
Q: I understand that it was Axl who reached out to you a few years ago, after a couple decades of not speaking. Was that cathartic?
Slash: It was nice that it happened. I don’t know if I would have had the wherewithal to call him, just because I’m introverted and it might have been hard for me. Not during that initial phone call, but after that, it was really good to be able to get rid of some of the negative baggage that we’d been carrying around for a long time. It’d been 20 years of not talking and letting this bad blood continue to be perpetuated by the media. It turned into something way bigger than what was really going on, so it was good to get past that.
Q: Do you regret waiting so long to make amends?
Slash: Things happen as they happen. I make it a point of not having any regrets.
Q: Revisiting GNR’s catalog on tour, is there one fan favorite that you get sick of playing live?
Slash: No. Our approach to our material has a very devil-may-care thing to it, where you can make up (expletive) in the middle of songs. You just keep it interesting. It sounds the same to (audiences), but the way I’m playing it is different and that keeps me occupied. “Paradise City” is a song that you can play in a lot of different ways. So I’ve never fallen into that rut of resenting having to play a song every single night.
