Guns N’ Roses are currently on a world tour, taking Europe and South America and making plenty of new friends along the way.
The band have been plagued with controversy throughout their lifetime, but as they enter the twilight years of their career, fans are again embracing the hard rockers. Many of those who will watch on in Brazil this September might not remember the Guns N’ Roses heyday, but the songs are as familiar to them as if they were released yesterday. Their first album, Appetite For Destruction, is a classic, revered worldwide as their finest works, but guitarist Slash made a surprising admission this week; he’s never owned a copy.
“Well, you have to understand — I mean, it’s like this for all the records I do — I don’t collect any of it,” he said in an interview with Blabbermouth. “If you came to my house, you’d be hard-pressed to know I was in a band. Or at least any band you had heard of. I mean, there are instruments around, but I don’t have any, like, souvenirs or anything special from the releases over the years.
“I don’t think I’ve ever owned the Appetite For Destruction record. And even if I did, I didn’t live anywhere, so I wouldn’t have any place to put it. Granted, I did have a lot of records I’ve kept. But I just never was one to sort of really collect records of the bands that I’m actually in. Does that make sense?”
It does make sense, but luckily for Slash’s accountant, plenty of people own a copy; it’s sold more than 30 million worldwide since its release in 1987, and songs such as Sweet Child O’ Mine and Paradise City have gone on to be all-time classics. Indeed, they’re songs that have leapt off the vinyl and into digital media.
This is evident in Burnout Paradise, which used Paradise City as its lead track. Other titles, such as the Foxy Games online slot Guns N’ Roses, feature the band’s music, iconography, and branding. It’s not alone; big titles such as Madden NFL 15 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas have helped bring their music to a new generation born long after the 1987 release of Appetite.
That constant exposure meant the band’s support didn’t drop off in the 14 years it took to put out Chinese Democracy. Slash could be forgiven for not having a copy of that; he left in 1996 and rejoined in 2016. Since then, they’ve performed live shows and teased new material, but as yet, an album hasn’t been released.
Instead, there has been new music; the single Absurd and an EP, Hard Skool, released in February. Hard Skool featured the eponymous song, Absurd and live versions of the classics Don’t Cry and You’re Crazy. Of course, it’s unlikely Slash would listen to this either, a point he explains almost as succinctly as he plucks a riff.
“If you put on music in general, you kind of get sucked into it. But if it’s your own material… it’s like if you’re at a gathering or something and they were to put your record on, it’s sort of funny. You don’t really want to walk in somewhere, and they’re playing it.”
With the popularity of Appetite For Destruction and the constant use of Guns N’ Rose tracks in games and films, Slash must get that funny feeling a lot, even if he doesn’t get it at home!
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Guns N’ Roses Legend Makes Surprise Appetite Admission first appeared on
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