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Re: Joseph Bruce on Slash and Axl
Since there's a blatant lack of news, I thought I might aswell post it here but feel free to move it in the Original Band section...
This is from the book Behind The Paint, an autobiography of Joesph Bruce of Insane Clown Posse. Now I know that most of you probably hate that band and I admit
that I'm far from loving everything they put out, but the book itself is a pretty good book on the music industry and on how the band managed to go from selling 12 copies
to putting out a multi-platinum record with "The Great Milenko" in 1996, which features guitar playing by Slash on the track "Halls of Illusions".For those who don't know it, here is the track:
Anyway, here is an interesting passage of the autobiography :"Slash's entourage were all these wolf-looking dudes ( "wolf" is our word for metal heads or burnouts), just milling around in the control room for the two hours it took to get the mix up and ready.
Finally, somebody asked, "You ready, Slash?"
Suddenly, this guy with a ponytail and baseball cap, sitting way in the back said "Let's do this."Slash had been in the room the whole time. I didn't recognize him without his top hat. I felt like an idiot.
"Brother, I didn't even know that was you; I'm sorry man" I said.
"What's up," he said.
"Well, man, I appreciate you playing guitar on this record!" I said.
"Well man, I think the song's awesome, man. I really do. Me and my girlfriend were in the drive-thru of a fucking Wendy's man, and we were jamming that shit, you know. I love it man."
I was like, "Whoa, this is the shit! Slash likes my song! The chick he fucks likes it, too."
So Slash went into the room with his barge full of amps to play but he didn't want anybody hearing him. We all had to go out into the lobby while Slash did his thing.
[...]
I was starting to explain the Dark Carnival to Leif, for the movie thing, when Slash walked out of the studio and into the lobby.
"I'm done," he said.
"Fuck, man, I'm dying to hear it," I said.
"Oh, let 'em get a mix on it first," Slash insisted.
Leif jumped in. "Hey, Slash, how you doing? You remember me? Leif Garrett?"
Slash was like, "Yeah, I met you somewhere, blah blah blah..."
Suddenly I realized I was sitting there hanging out with Leif Garrett, listening to his Michael Jackson jack-off stories, while Slash from Guns N' Roses was playing on my record. I felt pretty fucking good. I couldn't wait to hit up Kinko's that night and write Joey [ Shaggy 2 Dope from ICP, who was in jail at the time ] about it all.
Then Slash turned to me. "I got a question, Joe. This song isn't about Axl, is it ?"
Wha?
"No, why would you think that ?"
"Well, 'Use Your Illusion,' 'Halls of Illusions' You guys are talking about people who beat their wife and kids ; you sure this isn't about Axl ?'
"No, it's not, man, really."
I realized then that Slash was a great guitar player, but he was completely out of his mind. Why the fuck would I write a song about Axl Rose ? What ?
Slash explained, "Oh, well, it just seemed like it as about him. Shit I wrote a whole fucking album about Axl Rose, and he never even knew it."
I just laughed. I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.
I kept thinking, "What album? Slash has a record out? Where ? Is he singing on it or something?"
I was steadily realizing how stupidand out of the industry we really were. Then Slash unzipped this bag, and pulled out a Riddle Box shirt.
"I wore your shirt last night on stage," he said. "It's the shit; I love wearing this shirt."
All I could think was, "Where were you on stage last night? Are you back in GnR again?"
Then he started talking to me about how much he hated Axl Rose. "Yeah, fuck that cocksucker..."
"Yeah, well, Slash, bro, this song ain't nothing to do with him," I said quickly.
Slash wasn't going to let it go. He looked me right in the eye.
"You a fan of Axl?" he asked.
Oh shit man. I was stuck, because I did like Axl. In fact, I'm a huge fan of the whole band, but fuck that. Axl ain't here hookin' up our album, so fuck him. I'm down with Slash; in fact, I would've even helped Slash jump that fucker, Axl, if he wanted me to.
"No. I'm a fan of the music of Guns 'n Roses," I said. "I've never met him or nothing."
"Yeah, well, he's a fucking asshole."
[...]
"So, Slash, bro, what do we owe you for this man, because you can't just do this for free."
"Just get me a pint of Wild Irish Rose; that's what you owe me." he said.
So Billy got him a pint of Wild Irish Rose from across the street, and Slash drank it down right in front of us. His throat must be like iron. He finished it off like it was warm Kool-Aid. Slash was a drinking ninja. He could gargle toxic waste with exploding jumping jacks, and not even be faded.
"You guys wanna go over to the titty bar across the street ?" he asked. "That's where I'm headed!"
"No," I said, "we're gonna be mixing the song right here."
Fuck man !!! I couldn't stop thinking about how stale I was for flying my girl out there that day. I could have been fuckin' plastic titties with Slash, and drinking wine out of his big-ass top hat.
"Okay, cool. I'll see you guys later, then," Slash said, and shook both my hand and Billy's.
Then he looked my girl right in the eye, and gave here a double squeeze. YES !!! How fresh was that ? Now that's a fuckin' rock star!
As Slash left with his Wild Irish buzz and his ponytail, my girl whipped around, and asked, "Did you see that? He did, like, a double squeeze, and felt my hand all up!"
I was just like, "Yes! Slash!"
[...]
Next morning, Slash woke me up with a call to the hotel.
"Hey, Joe, man, turn on the fucking radio; I'm about to do an interview. I'm going to plug you guys."
I thought that was cool as fuck. Slash was cool as fuck. Just another morning in LA. In Detroit, we'd send a bitch back to her parents' car ( if it was still there) and go out for breakfast. Here we were getting wake-up calls from Slash, plugging us on the radio. Too fucking weird.
Then at the studio Slash called again, to see how the mix turned out. I told him we didn't have it done yet. Later, he called back just to chat, like we were these old pals.
"Check this out, I'm doing this, blah blah blah." he'd say.
Pretty soon, he'd just be going on and on about his life.
"Man, Joe. I don't know what to put in my house." he said.
"What are you talking about, Slash ?"
"I got a big, empty house, man. What the fuck should I put in it?"
Like I was going to give Slash advice on interior decorating. We hung up. Then he called back ten minutes after that.
"Hey, Joe, I want to be in the video."
"I don't even know if this song is gonna be the single," I told him, "but if it is, helly yezzy we want you in the video, too!!!"
"Well, when are you guys going on tour? I want to play it live."
Like we were going to ask Slash to be in our band! Like we even had a band. Even though we didn't have a band, I still thought about asking him to join ICP.
I turned to Mike E. Clark. "If Slash calls back, tell him I'm not there."
That was a stale move, but we had so much work to do, it was crazy.
Thanks to The Glow Inc. from MyGN'R Forum.
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Joseph Bruce on Slash and Axl
What a boring pile of crap. The guy doesn't have a brain, for sure.
Re: Joseph Bruce on Slash and Axl
I thought it was a pretty funny read.
Sorry.
Re: Joseph Bruce on Slash and Axl
no thats fine....i didnt even know Slash was on an ICP album....its always interesting to see another gnr reference...especially from that time frame
thanks for posting, i was just more i wanted to find that book to see if they really wrote about Slash....would you really read a book written like that? a kid in grade nine would be able to write more coherently
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Joseph Bruce on Slash and Axl
What's with the harshness? I enjoyed reading that and was really glad it was posted as i'd have never found it on my own.
Not sure i'd agree with the way Joseph Bruce is painting slash, but the way it's written he's making himself look just as bad in my opinion.
If there's any truth to it it's interesting for a few reasons. It's another example of slash going in alone to a studio and ripping out some stuff fast and alone (he nailed that alice cooper track recently in a few hrs apparently), and more over, it's clear slash is somewhat lost at the time, and looking to relate to people.
was 1996 that period where Slash was looking at rejoining guns and then it all went wrong again? I'd expect he'd be pretty upset at the time.
The sad part to me is that they were never able to get past the issues. Like i had a friend who fucked me around really bad in 1997, and we didn't speak for years, but these days we're able to remember why we were friends before that. Now clearly that's not what Axl and Slash are able or want to do, but it is sort of sad on a human level i think.
Re: Joseph Bruce on Slash and Axl
The ICP guys were on the Stern show last week. They're good guests. Crazy mofo's with whacked out stories. I'm not a fan of the band, I actually don't think I've ever heard more than a minute of their music, but they give entertaining interviews.
