Slash: "I Wanted Axl to do a Solo Record"

Metal Hammer, November 1995

MH: Doing your own thing - as have Izzy and Duff, who have also done their own albums - has obviously been very beneficial for you in lots of ways. Do you think it might be good for Axl if he did something like that?

SLASH: I wanted him to. You have to know Axl to understand what I’m getting at.

Axl’s the kind of guy who over-thinks everything. Sometimes it’s fucking classic, and sometimes it’s just...whatever. And that’s cool.

But there was a point there where Axl goes: “I’m gonna do a solo record, and I’m gonna get Trent Reznor and Dave Navarro, and the drummer from Nirvana...” and so on.

And it’s like, he doesn’t even know half of these people. He’s just pulling them out of the sky. And I was like, “Cool! Do your thing. That way you’ll get it out of your system, and when you get back we’ll just be Guns N’ Roses.”

I wished he had done it, because then it would have really fucking taken some of the air out of the bullshit that we’ve been going through.

Source: Metal Hammer