Slash speaks to Sunday Mercury about Stoke-On-Trent, Fergie, Donington and talk of a Guns N'Roses reunion

Nov 21 2010 by Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

“So when I came up with a song that required a woman’s touch, it was natural I should call.

“We’re going to work together again. There was another song we cut during the sessions for the album, and she liked it so much that she plans to use it on a solo album of her own. It’s going to be a real rock and roll album, and I’ll be delighted to play on it.”

There’ll also be another solo album, with Alter Bridge frontman Myles Kennedy handling all the vocals, and a summer UK tour which will sadly not include a return to Donington Park.

“I’d love to play Donington again but we have a tour in August with the solo band and I think Download comes a little too early.

“I’ve played there four times with four different bands [Guns N’ Roses, Slash’s Snakepit, Velvet Revolver and Slash] and it really is the best gig of them all.

“That festival is really important to me. In fact, UK gigs in general are important. The British fans are the ones you really need to win over, and they’ve been supportive ever since the early days.”

It was at the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington in 1988 that two fans were trampled to death close to the front of the stage as Guns N’ Roses played what was at that stage their biggest gig.

“The audience was crazy, just this sea of surging people,” he says. “Axl stopped the show a couple of times and pleaded with the fans to take two steps back. We thought it was sorted, but it wasn’t.

“We had no idea that anyone was actually hurt, let alone killed. After we’d done the gig, and we were celebrating in a nearby pub, our manager came in and told us the news. It was horrible.

“What had been cause for celebration had become a tragedy.”

Talk inevitably turns to the growing gossip about a Guns N’ Roses reunion. Bassist Duff McKagan, who appears with Slash in supergroup Velvet Revolver, jammed with Axl Rose’s version of Guns in London this month.

Drummer Steven Adler, having seemingly overcome his demons, plays on the Slash solo album.

And with auditions for a new Velvet Revolver singer so far fruitless (although there’s apparently a very big name trying out soon) is the time right?

“You know, I get so sick of that question, although I guess people will always ask it,” says Slash.

“I’m okay with anything to do with Guns N’Roses prior to 1995 but since then I have no interest.

“There’s just too much negative energy involved. So no, absolutely no comment. Let’s move on...”