Eden Munro at Edmonton's VUE Weekly recently caught up with guitarist Slash (VELVET REVOLVER / ex-GUNS N' ROSES). The following is an excerpt from the story:

"It’s a guitar band only because the bulk of what you’re hearing as far as out in front instruments is a guitar—we don’t have, like, pianos and a horn section—but the bass and drums are probably as important if not more important than the actual guitars are.”

Slash laughs over the phone from a hotel room in Atlanta as he gets in a subtle dig at his old band, Guns N’ Roses while talking about his current group, Velvet Revolver. Guns hit the streets of LA back in the mid ‘80s as a down and dirty rock ‘n’ roll band, but by the end of Slash’s tenure as one of the group’s guitar players, singer Axl Rose had taken the ship’s wheel and turned the band into a three-ring circus complete with the aforementioned pianos and horn section, something that was a little more extravagant than Slash cared for.

After setting out on his own for a couple of albums with Slash’s Snakepit, a series of gigs with his own blues band and plenty of guest spots, the guitarist reunited with GNR bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum in 2002, and the trio hooked up with singer Scott Weiland and second guitarist Dave Kushner in 2003 to form Velvet Revolver. With the new band, Slash was happy to keep the sound free of clutter, leading to that reputation as a guitar band.

But for a guy who loves the guitar as much as Slash does—“I’m sort of a whack-job that way,” he chuckles, adding, “I pretty much live and breathe guitar playing and music and all that, so if I’m not actually holding a guitar, I’m thinking about it, and if I’m not thinking about it, I’m holding it”—he’s surprisingly happy to just lay back and let the others take the lead when the song calls for it.

Go to this location for the complete story.