SLASH (VELVET REVOLVER, ex-GUNS N' ROSES) spoke with Colin McKean from The Quietus recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

The Quietus: You were born in England. Your mum designed costumes for Bowie and your dad designed record covers for people like Neil Young. You'd have been a very small child at the time, but did you ever personally encounter Hendrix?

Slash: "I didn't, but my mom and dad were kind of rock n' roll people and my dad especially raised me on British rock music – y'know; THE KINKS, CREAM, THE YARDBIRDS, THE STONES and THE BEATLES.

So that was just the background of my childhood. I actually didn't become conscious of Jimi really until I moved to LA and all of a sudden it was Hendrix and THE DOORS, THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS, STARSHIP – that whole thing that was going on, and Jimi was just, y'know, he was exciting. He was the embodiment of that wild electric guitarist."

The Quietus: I wondered about the extent to which you're interested in the Hendrix myth – the mystique of his persona.

Slash: "I remember when I was a kid, probably about 13 or 14 years old, there was a Hendrix movie that used to play at weekends along with The Song Remains The Same and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Steve Adler and I used to sneak in on weekends and get stoned and watch those movies.

There's definitely a fascination with Hendrix' persona – his demeanour – which seemed very very cool. I don't think you could get too much cooler than Jimi Hendrix.

When I think about Jimi now I start to relate to what it must have been like to be a rock star in 1967/68. That must have been such a wild time because it was all so new and primitive and everybody was coming from such a different place mentally. There were political things that were having a massive influence on youth culture and the kids trying to take their lives and the future into their own hands.

The great thing about drugs back then to me was that it was something kids were doing because for one it was fun and it was an experience and it was sort of their own, and the fact that the adults hated it and The Man hated it – it didn't have the kind of taboo it does now, and there was all this experimentation because there was such a movement.

Jimi was at the forefront of that playing what was to become considered later as psychedelic guitar. It just must have been a trip being around then – being a musician and writing and creating records in that whole scene and that's something that fascinates me about artists of that period.

I was raised into that – I was a result of that culture. Being born in England to an English dad and a black mom is about as 60s as it gets. My grandparents were fucking floored!"

Read the entire interview here.