Guns N’ Roses’ guitar icon Slash recently joined an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine during which he talked about the reason behind the issues between him and Axl Rose that resulted in his departure from the band.
Back in May 1991, Guns N’ Roses embarked on the ‘Use Your Illusion Tour’ which was followed by the release of ‘Use Your Illusion I & II’ albums in September. After Slash concluded the tour with the band, he began working on some new material for the follow-up album. However, Axl Rose and Duff McKagan rejected his new material.
Due to the pair’s lack of collaboration, Axl Rose’s changing behavior, the creative and personal differences between them, and the departures of Steven Adler and Izzy Stradlin, Slash left Guns N’ Roses in October 1996. After he left the band, the guitarist focused on his own music career and continued making music as a solo musician.
On December 29, 2015, rumors began to circulate about Slash’s return to Guns N’ Roses to headline 2016’s Coachella with the band. On January 4, 2016, these rumors turned out to be true, and the band was announced as headliners of the festival. So, Slash ended up returning to GN’R and embarked on ‘Not In This Lifetime… Tour’ with them.
In an interview by Rolling Stone, the interviewer Kory Grow asked Slash the best part about his return to Guns N’ Roses. The guitarist said that the best part for him is to get over the black cloud above him and Axl Rose as the issues between them were mostly caused by third parties. Moreover, the guitarist added that he couldn’t understand how they ended up in that mess when they first played together after all those years.
During the interview, Rolling Stone‘s Kory Grow asked Slash the following:
“Overall, what’s been the best part about getting back with GN’R?”
Slash then responded:
“I think the biggest thing was getting past this horrible black cloud that was perpetuating, having to do with me and Axl. We had a lot of issues born out of third-party stuff. It was very insidious, and the longer we didn’t talk, the more it got blown out of proportion.
But the more significant part was, when Axl and Duff and I first got into a room playing, it was just like this f*cking thing that I can’t even really verbally describe. It was like, ‘Whoa, that’s what that is.’ Then, just to go out and play together, it’s like, I wonder how the f*ck we got into that mess that we were in in the Nineties.”
In a previous interview, Slash had addressed his return to GN’R again, saying the thing that makes the band whole came together when he, Rose, and McKagan got back together on the same stage. So, it seems the guitarist is really glad to be back in the band.
