Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash appeared to hint at Izzy Stradlin’s role in the band’s reunion not working out in a new interview with Chris Jericho on Talk is Jericho. Alternative Nation transcribed Slash’s comments.
Jericho mentioned that it would have been weird to fire all of the Chinese Democracy era GNR members.
Slash said, “That’s sort of a bigger subject considering all of the different things that went on during that period of trying to sort of figure all that out. All things considered, yeah, you’re right. When certain things that we were sort of trying to get sorted out didn’t work, Axl’s band that he had been working with for 15 years, I felt really comfortable with Richard [Fortus], Frank [Ferrer] was great. It wasn’t rocket science to keep all that together, when other stuff we were trying to do didn’t work out. I’m not going to get into all of that though.”
He later added, “Even in the 90’s we didn’t have the original lineup, so it wasn’t something we were going: ‘oh my god’ about.”
“Richard’s great. I don’t know all of the guys that played guitar with Guns prior to my coming back. I hadn’t met any of them. Richard was the first one at rehearsal, and we hit it off automatically. He’s one of those guys who is an amazing technician. He’s very knowledgable about guitar techniques, and all kinds of shit guitar. He’s rooted in the same kind of rock guitar and influences that I am, so we speak the same language.”
