The Simpsons.

And the Simpsons right. [laughs]

Where the hell did that come from [laughs].

I think it was the married-with-children connection… I know what it was, your on the Spinal Tap record and they were on the Simpsons.

That's the most Spinal Tappish itself. Ok, I can understand that.

There's like some real loose thread there. When somebody calls you up and says, "Come down and play."

Very rarely does anybody call me and says, "Come down and play!" It's usually some sort of relationship I have with somebody. Most of these people I know, that I've played with. There's been, like the Michael Jackson thing, that was the one phone call and everything else it's just people I know, or I've come in contact with. You know, like we go and have a beer and then jam some day, It'll be on tape [laughs].

What was the jazz festival like, with Carole King?

That was fun. A hell of a lot of fun. A very different crowd. I've never played, I swear to God, it looked like springbreak. Everybody had like fluorescent orange and pink and blue caps on, shorts. It was wild. I've never played in front of a crowd like that. The crowd was really responsive and I went up and played three songs. And of them was the one I recorded with her and "Chains," which is an old song, and "Locomotion" with Aaron Neville singing. So I was like: "Wow." I was up there with no shoes, no shirt, leather pants, sunglasses. Like: "It's summertime, we're in New Orleans." It was fun. I didn't rehearse anything. Just went up there and winged it, as they say.

With Aaron Neville. What and inspiring voice.

Oh God, it was amazing.

--- now follows a one-and-a-half-minute long segment in the interview where Slash and the interviewer jokes around, and it is really hard to hear what they are saying, so I've cut that out. But they don't say anything important ---

I was listening to the banjo open on… I guess "Breakdown"…

"Breakdown," yeah.

Did you have to learn things…

I just had this idea that it should sound like that, so I tuned it like a guitar [laughs]. I don't know how to play banjo, are you kidding? I was in bed, sitting there trying to figure it out.

So it worked.

Yeah.

How do the arrangements come together? 'Cause there's so many really interesting…

Oh God. Every single song has a different story, from the most, like, really quickly written, simple arrangement, to songs that took forever to write, because our attention as band are pretty short., just like the average kid, I suppose. Like "November Rain" took forever just to get it into a certain however many minute format. I mean, it was like 20 minutes long when we first started playing it, and rehearsing it. And this was like more then two or three years ago. And we hadn't much time to get it together 'cause we were on the road. So, that one, finally we… just focused on it and made it to what it is. Like "Coma," I just wrote all the music from one end to the other. I don't know how, it was just the way I heard it... that arrangement. Axl adapted the lyrics to that. "Locomotive," which is a long… I'm thinking about the long ones. That was something that was, in order to fit the lyrics in, we take a little time out of here and time out of there to make the lyrics fit. "Your Could Be Mine." We wrote that during "Appetite…" and the arrangement never changed really. They're all different and it's hard to pin-point anyone particular scenario for an arrangement.

It's a hard process…

When it gets real hard, you don't wanna deal with it, 'cause you've burned out on it. If you hear something and it's inspiring, you go like: "Wait, wait. Ok, I know" and you hear it. That's one thing. But if you sit there and you like, drum it out over and over again, and it keeps getting to the same spot and you're not going anywhere, just let it along, 'cause it'll make you crazy and it wont make you wanna get involved with doing the song again later on.

Do you do "Coma" live?

Yeah. We don't do it that often. We just played it in Japan recently. It was really cool. It just comes out every so often.

It's such a powerful song.

We've opened with it a couple of times. [laughs] What the hell?

Wow.

"We're in a bad mood today, let's open with 'Coma.'"

When you're in a real good mood, what do you open with?

"Jungle" or "Nightrain."

As the show is going along, and things change, do the setlist get thrown out of the window?

We haven't had one. We haven't used a setlist in the last year.

So, who decides…?

After we've played one song and everything blacks out, we go: "What do you wanna do?" "I'm not ready for that." "Well, let's do this." "Ok, ok." Switch guitars and stuff for the following tune that we all decided on. Then after that song's over, we go back: "What do you wanna do?" "Should we do this now?" "Should we do that now?" It's really spontaneous.

What a nice refreshing thought.

Well, it's great when it works. But, when it doesn't work, it's equally bad, you know.

So it doesn't work when you can't decide?

You can't decide, or you might throw in an odd one that we haven't played in a while, and maybe everyone not knows it.

Or everybody thinks they know it. And it changes a bit, which still makes it good.

If you say so. [laughs]

Is it strange to think that where you find out all these things, and people know so many things about you, is it odd to think that there are just, like millions of kids out there that know, I bet they know you have snakes, or know who you are?

The whole thing's been really weird. I mean, I had like… When it starts to hit you on a personal level, you know, when it starts to come out, then all of a sudden, reality of you don't have any real privacy, and all that. That's strange realization to have to try and grasp. I don't complain about it too much. I've been complaining about it a lot lately because it's really just hit me recently. Like in the last couple of months. Where the band's been big for a long time, but I just never put myself in that... saw myself in that light. As being any kind of, you know, pseudo-celebrity type. And so this just really hit me in the face recently. It was sort of a chock, because it hit me really hard. It was just like: "Fuck, I can't really do this, I can't go there." You have to think about what you're doing when you walk out the door. That kinda shit.

Did something happen?

Just a bunch of shit that all happened at once.

And it made you realize…

It's always when you've been on the road for a while and you come home and you don't think that's anything's different, and you find out that it really is. I mean, you don't walk around the streets going: "Somebody's looking at me." So, when you find out that you're walking down the street, not thinking that people are calling other people and saying where you were. I mean, that's like a morbid fucking situation to be in. And like I said, I don't usually complain about it, because, you know, everything I've been through has been a small price to pay for what I get away with, you know. But then to find that I don't really get away with anything. [laughs] That's what pissed me off. [laughs]

Do you read any of the thousands of articles or reviews…

I don't read anything. Why? Why bother?

Are you aware of the image, what people think of… I mean, you're definitely a band that does everything their own way and… I mean, does the whole thing seem like: "Yeah, part of it's right, but it's…"

Well, you know, certain things come out, people makes you aware of certain articles or, I go to get some cigarettes. You know, from a newsstand, and I see a cover with my face on, and go "ok." Then you feel like a real idiot, 'cause the guy selling you the cigarettes is looking at you looking at yourself in a magazine. I mean, he knew who you were when you were walking up there to get the cigarettes. Which you try and walk in like you're just anybody. And you'll flip through it. But I've never do anything but look at the pictures. [laughs] I mean, who's got time to sit there and read like a page of garbage, on some band, you know. The Guitar Player ones I'll read. That's it. Axl's Rolling Stone cover, because I knew what a big deal that was. That was something I read. Every so often that you have a series article that you do… an interview that you do that you vent out a lot of stuff, personal stuff. So you gonna see how that come out. But for the most part, no, I don't read anything.

What did you think of the Rolling Stone cover story?

Axl's?

Yeah.

I was just glad he got it off his chest. He had a lot going on and… I mean, to do it in Rolling Stone… I think he really needed that Rolling Stone has. Which is a hell of lot of people, a lot of different… sides of the spectrum, as far as people go. It was great for him to do that, because people really misunderstand him. So it's cool. For me, I could say anything. [laughs] I mean, it's a different kind of scene. I mean, I don't usually get that serious, you know, regardless of how serious things are. It's hard for me to sit down that long and share it with anybody else.

--- now follows a 10 second long segment in the interview where Slash and the interviewer jokes around, and it is really hard to hear what they are saying, so I've cut that out. But they don't say anything important ---

I was actually going to mention this guy I was hanging out with in the bar today, who was just hilarious. He's an Irish guy. I forgot to mention him. I told him to listen to the radio. He's probably pissed.

We'll put him in. Is he a new friend?

Yeah, his name is Mike. He's a musician and plays, like wind instruments in sort of a off the wall orchestra, form of type thing, for plays and movie soundtracks and all that stuff. I sat there and listened to some of his stories that, in their own way, were, like, amazingly similar to mine. Anyway, but he's an Irish guy. He get up and physically makes his jokes and stuff. He's hilarious.

I was amazed that you've never played Paris before.

I was amazed that we've never played Paris before.

How'd that happen?

I don't know. We just kept going back to Texas. That's all I can remember. Like, Texas. Texas is great. But there's all these places that we haven't played. I actually wanted to play Hawaii. 'Cause we've never played there. It's a lot of places that we haven't been to. Now that we're headlining, we actually have control about where we play. So there was a lot of speculating about where we were gonna go that we hadn't been before, and we just played Oklahoma. The option was Oklahoma or Texas. I was like: "Why would we go back to Texas?" We've never been to Oklahoma. Which turned out to be a really good gig. I guess you have to pay attention to that stuff, 'cause you can fall into a pattern and just go around in a circle.

I think of you as one of the touringest band…

Somehow that seems funny. [laughs] I was watching MTV, like, I think it was yesterday. I was flipping through channels, because I'm not part of the MTV on-ins, and flipping through channels, and I see my face on TV and in side of this news thing that they were doing. They go: "Band on this marathon tour." I was like: "Marathon tour?" OK, well we're gonna go out for two years. But, we're gonna stop home for six months. [laughs] I mean, some bands just tour every single day, for a really long period of time. We go out in these big chunks and we come home for a couple of weeks and go back out. You know, come home for a month and go back out, you know.

Makes it easier to deal with…

Well, you start to loose perspective. Because, like I said, since we don't do the same show every night and because every show is really seriously hear-felt, we don't go on and fake it. We just go up there and go through the motions. Every gig is like emotionally and physically straying, you know. So, you have to keep that motivation together. So you stop for a little bit and then turn around and go back on and keep it all fresh, and when it starts to get old, stop a little bit and…

When you get off the stage, do you have to go out and…

No. See, that's my problem. We're all individuals. Everybody has their own way of dealing with it. Mine happens to be like, as soon as we get off, I have to keep the pace up, or it drives me crazy. I think I'm addicted to it, more or less. It's like a drug for me. 'Cause I'm really depressed when I realize that I'm not going anywhere. Whereas some of the guys really like to come home and just hang out and quiet down for a while. So it's an individual thing.

You're gone. [laughs]

I've been gone. [laughs]

Been gone for all these years.

Yeah.

Before you went in to do the two albums, did you always knew it was gonna turn into two?

That was on of the these things that we we're gonna do that certain amount of material. And that was just the way that we were gonna do it. And it was a matter of trying to figure out a system… We didn't wanna put out a double record. Like, Guns N' Roses second album is like 50 dollars. [laughs] Like: "Who the fuck do we think we are?" So, that was my little thing, we do one with one color cover and another color on one. And you can pick and choose.

Does it seem like one record to you? Or does it seem like two real different…

To tell you the truth, I don't even think about it. We set up the order of the songs for each one and just said: "OK."

Go for it.

I think we had the whole band write up their personal list of what they thought the order would be and then we all came together with one, were we sort of put them together and came up with one.

Did it vary much at the beginning?

Oh yeah. Kidding? [laughs] It's funny now when I think of that.

Like, they had nothing in common. There's no rhyme or reason here.

Somehow we came up with a master list.

When everybody's together in the band, is someone in charge of thing's moving along?

We all have our own particular little things that we do. You know, that we do best. Like, on a creative level, having to do what the band is doing, it's really between Duff and Axl and I. Because none of the other guys are actually original. Although Matt's come in and we sit down and listen to what he has to say about stuff. You know, Axl has his thing and I more or less like, the day-to-day stuff because I'm always there. Like: "Give me something to do!" So I get into that. Duff has his thing and we just fall into it naturally so there's not a lot of debating as to who does what.

You like to keep your hands in everything that's going on.

Hands, feet. [laughs]

All body parts just thrown in and making contact at all time. When the various personnel changes happened, was it easy to adjust to the new members, or?

Well, we were lucky. I mean, for all the so-called hardships that we've been through and obstacles that have been thrown at us, that we had to bury to get us through, we were lucky in the sense that the biggest obstacles that we had to deal with were trying to find someone to fit into the band. And then, both happened really quickly. So it was just another obstacle thrown our way and that's a big test that we have to deal with on a constant basis. We don't know why and it's really screwed and we wine all the time and when the line-up changes happened it was like: "Oh great." You know, and the new members, Matt and Gilby came really quickly and fit in really well and it was really natural. I was like: "Ok, I'm gonna take that for granted."

Does it seems sometimes that things are getting thrown at you?

Oh, constantly. I mean, to the point where every time my phone rings, my heart starts beating. It's like, all depends on the tone of the voice on the other end. Like: "What's wrong?" 'Cause I'm totally gun-shy anyway. Like: "What? What you're gonna tell me? Is it bad?" I mean, it's constant.

Like somebody says something and you say: "What's wrong?"

Yeah.

Not: "What's right?"

Yeah. I mean, I'm a total optimist but to answer the phone and go: "What's right?" is not my first reaction. [laughs]