With all the attention surrounding the film Rock Of Ages, Sia Michel from NYTimes.com spoke with ex-GUNS N' ROSES bassist Duff McKagan, POISON singer Bret Michaels and former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach who reminisce about the glory years of the '80s hair band era. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Bret Michaels on the Sunset vibe: "Imagine it being one big insane frat party, like an over the top Animal House toga party, but it happened all the time, almost nightly. We’ve seen nakedness, debauchery, sex, drugs, everything you can think of. Everything crazy that you could do, every crazy thing that could be done was done. Most of the bands that came there were small-town kids that had no clue and got to Hollywood. It’s like when you go to Vegas, it unleashes this primitive animal instinct to party."

Bret Michaels on Misperceptions About The Era: "They solely want to wrap it up as a fashion statement and throw it out. But when you listen to the musicians who played then — Slash, Zakk Wylde, the songs that we wrote — we really spent time learning our craft. Something stood the test of time."

Sebastian Bach on hair nation: "I am the man who put the hair in hair metal. I also headlined Broadway musicals. I acted in millions of TV shows. I didn’t get to star in Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway because of my haircut. My voice has gotten me everything in my life, not my hair."

Sebastian Bach on Misperceptions About The Era: "People get it wrong that metal was based on image more than music, because a lot of this music has passed the test of time really well. What is music for? It’s to make you feel good. I think this music definitely succeeds in doing that."

Duff McKagan on first Guns gig: "There were three people there [at the Troubadour], and one of them was our friend, and one was one of our girlfriends, and the other was the girlfriend’s friend. But we believed in ourselves from the first chord we played together. Later I remember us reopening the Whisky, which had closed (before I moved to Los Angeles). It was a bummer that I never got to go. When they opened it back up, we were picked as the band, and we played two shows. That was really fun for me to be able to go in there for the first time ever. That’s one of those gigs that they can’t take away from you."

Duff McKagan on Misperceptions About The Era: "What people don’t realize is that a lot of the bands I saw worked really hard, and maybe the reward at the end of the night was getting [wasted] or hooking up. All (Guns) ever did was work. We worked our day jobs in the morning, then we just worked on our band, we slept a couple hours a night. That was it."

Read more at NYTimes.com.