today on larry king. live the legend meets slash original guns n roses was definitely my proudest moment and i have nothing but really great memories from a certain period but then there was a a shift. is there a possibility just the possibility that you might all get together one day that's the sixty four thousand dollars question plus i finally got to the point where i was i realize that it's not doing me any good i'm not enjoying it anymore it's too much of a responsibility to keep me high you know it's all ahead on larry king now. welcome to larry king our special guest the lads the legendary guitarist has sold millions

of albums both was a solo artist and with his former band guns n roses he's been named by time magazine as one of the best electric guitarists in the world second only to jimi hendrix and now he's branching out of the film as a composer and producer of the heart of film nothing left to fear it's out in select theaters and on demand now why why it is why horror films are movies have been my my favorite john ever since i was a little kid. huge fan and something that i followed pretty closely but as far as producing was concerned that wasn't something that i had any ambition for it was an opportunity that was handed to me by another producer based on my passion for harmony so they do buy a script or a book where he he had tons of them at his office so he's going to send you some scripts i didn't take him seriously at first and he goes i'll send you some scripts and over a period of time he sent me a ton of scripts and. and i had this aptitude for really getting into these scripts

and i asked me to pick out the ones that i lied to them you know trash the ones that i didn't like which ended up being the majority of them but we did enough with a very small handful of scripts i know to do good music and you go to do more than . global good why did you take up guitar. that's another thing i was and wasn't aspiring to do and then i just came out of nowhere when i was fourteen years old. a friend of mine. how to guitar this house and he put on a kid's record and started banging on this guitar through a little amplifier and it was just like this is exciting you know and so i think i was going to play bass was the idea but i took it very seriously from the get go so i went to a local music school and. no one no no i thought i was this i thought this was something i was going to do i was going to take it seriously to that point

but what happened was he was playing a guitar and playing some eric clapton stuff in the room when i walked in and he goes well would you know anything about bass and who would you want to play who were your influences i didn't know anything about anything and i didn't even know what the difference between a bass guitar an electric car were but as he was talking to me he was playing these clapton licks and i said that's what i want to do and it was that's a guitar and that's basically i shifted to guitar found an old guitar in the closet of my grandmother who gave up i think i picked it up quickly but i it's hard to say because i was so into it that there's no parameters there's no time you know you just spend spend all your time so into it that you're not thinking about whether you're picking it up quickly how do you get slash from salt hudson you know who seem work as well as actor yeah of course he called me slash that's where that came from it was a wonderful idea i still talk to him from time to time but i used to hang out at his house his best his son was my best friend and so whenever i went over there seymour used to call me. slashing to what i made what babe advanta such

a hit how did the how to guns n roses come about. that's a long story short. i mean basically the guy who turned me on to the guitar was steven adler so he became a drummer i was a guitar player and. axl and easy were an l.a. from indiana and came from seattle and we just had to go into different variations you know bands with axl and izzy with axl steve and i dance with steve and i anyway it just somehow molded the wall yeah it was the perfect combination of people i think i've always said that we were the only five people that could have made that there who made the bit it was a name that came from l.a. guns and hollywood rose so it was tracy guns and and axl rose it's a great name is a great great not always the band together i say probably from. i

want to see nine hundred eighty four and i was in until one thousand nine hundred six just for you one thousand nine hundred six twelve years you made a lot of money became famous why did you leave just a lot of. that's an even longer story basically you know what it was is axel took over the band and reformed it under guns n roses under his direction and i chose not to join that configuration simple as that so you formed another group there's a bunch of other bands since that ever regret leaving no. it was really something that it was one of those kind of things that it just had it happen the way that it happened and i think that was probably the smartest thing that big decision i ever met where do you play the other you told me just came back from france you played in france right where you put you play as a single you play with a group why have a band which is my solo project with myles kennedy and the conspirators is called

we so we do that but i jam a lot i do a lot of sessions and i like to jam with a lot of different people also so what are the how do you get the dates it was just pop up when you mean like you know you'll be hanging out with somebody another musician and opposite me in the studio and somebody that you respect and admire and you're like oh yeah i'm doing something so you know you want to get together and play on something and i just you know i'm always up for playing the field going into the rock n roll hall of fame that was a you know i was i was not that into the idea was longest time that is i said no exactly what it meant i wasn't even aware of the rock n roll hall of fame until. sometime in the late eighty's. and it's always seemed to me like well who runs it who's what's the criteria for getting into the rock n roll hall of fame how does how does that work and so i was shunned it as it was never something that

i was you know can't wait one day to be in this this this this. sort of pinnacle of rock n roll stardom kind of thing but then when the time came for us to actually be in there i knew it would be very very complicated trying to get us all together and i was really not into it but when the day finally came we went up there not all of us the original members were there some of us were there and it's actually it turned out to be a really memorable occasion and i've actually felt like we were being appreciated for our contributions musically and in and i was very proud walking away from it. but away with the whole when you went into the whole thing actual didn't show up right right i don't know are going you don't we haven't talked about really really long time it was a bad breakup. yeah i think so you know all things considered it was an on.

it wasn't on the best of terms not is there a possibility just the possibility but you might all get together one day. you know i mean that's the sixty four thousand dollars question but it's not something that any of us have reached out to each other and said that we wanted to do that thus far so rather than be a pessimist and say you know it'll never happen and it's not like i'm harboring a lot of resentment. but it's just it's not something that we're all thinking about doing so if it happens when day it happens if it doesn't i don't think anybody's you know losing any sleep over it you have no regrets over no. you will hear songs played by guns and roses like they're on the radio covered all this on the radio all the time there was a there's a the you know on a positive note from the time that the band got together all the way up until a certain point it was the coolest greatest thing. as far as i'm concerned you could ever be involved with a great band very people and you know it's all that i have nothing but really great

memories from a certain period but then there was a this a shift. where just got to be very difficult and also we lost a couple key members and it was one of those kinds of kind of bands it was really founded on it's chemistry of the five original guys and so once that decimated. sort of never felt the same after that do you get better as a player i try. you know you know i love playing and i think the more i put the longer i've been doing this the more i love it so i would hope that along the way i'm picking up some progress you know a great audie shortstop playing the clarinet he said he stopped playing because there was nothing more to play but the model learned i don't think is a musician that's possible but you know i mean there are some fantastic musicians but to me it just seems like there's no end to what you can learn or at least come

up with there in the world of electric guitars wood les paul reich les paul is probably and. let's pose like the grandfather guitar for me invented the. i mean even a lot of great stuff that we still use to this day i don't think he even gets enough credit. by generations as they come along that they don't i mean i have to admit i didn't know les paul was so my grandmother told me and he was just unbelievable you know and so i played with him a bunch of time well did you know yeah and i remember the first summer played with les was at his club tuesdays in new york and this was in the late eighty's and i went up there all cock sure and everything's just you know sort of get up and jam and he wiped the stage with it so you know i used to i used to judge just how well i was i was how much better i was getting as a guitar player but how good my jams would last for getting you play a non electric guitar most of the time i mean really when i'm home i write mostly

on acoustic. because i just find that that's really the best it's the clearest and most honest sounding instrument for what it is that i'm doing no matter what the stylus you have a desire to just play country. which is a tall was invented yeah you know there's a lot of great country guitar players that actually have a lot of influence right right clark was somebody that i used all this lets go a lot you know chet act and so yeah i mean country definitely has an influence on me as a player i'm not much of a country songwriter for saying but i learned a lot of licks from country music now this world of fear and horror if you plan to do it fully going to make a lot of movies you're going to well i mean my first. you know something ever since i was a little kid i was always that guy that and this goes back i can't even remember not being it or. my parents turned me onto it my dad turned me on to.

literal you know like like literature you know. ray bradbury crap stuff like that and a lot of horror movies in england when i was born and then when i moved to the states my mom turned she was a real hard and it just always fascinated i was that kid that like frogs and snakes and dinosaurs and lizards and so how do we measure because this is the best time of year. when we come back in the movie by the way is nothing left to feel when we come back slash on this data rather cold today. it was a. very sorry state and. once again. we .

just say. look i'm a. psych to an active camp at guantanamo where patients are forced that the elderly man the first strike never turned the world's attention to the place that sometime jobs go

a lot of hard times. are. slim. cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. we're back on larry king now with the great slashes rock n roll dog. you know

that's awesome. a question that's been put to me a couple times i don't think rock n roll. ever dies it's more of an attitude you know it's me i think in the industry in the music business right now. a lot of what makes rock n roll great has been sort of snuffed out in popular music i think there's a lot of kids who are putting together bands all the time but you can't necessarily get a leg up in this business right now playing rock n roll you have to be playing top forty you have to have your first single has to be a hit or you know you're not going to get any backing to sort of further your career so it's a very sort of strange time right now but at the same time we go out and do these concerts you know i mean obviously amarok i'm out too and all the time and the fans are just as rabbit and just as into it as ever so i think i think we'll see some sort of creative revolution coming at some point not too far from anything like the

era that the sunset strip was in the eighty's. yeah. you never know if there's no scene in los angeles when it comes to music right now so closely you know when in the eighty's there was definitely a scene in the seventy's there was in the sixty's there was the scene right now there's no scene where did you father do my dad as a graphic designer is it what he's an artist but positionally yeah and professionally he was a graphic designer he said to album covers really so he did a lot of stuff for shelter records back in the day and what about your clothes designer for entertainers we went in sort of raised in this in this world you know they all left england together everybody my mom is american and she met my dad in france and i was i was conceived in france and so born in england where my dad was born by then was just one brother what does he do he's an artist and we've so everyone's in the world of everybody's and some sort of creative communications

your autobiography is filled with tales of drugs and guns and search ever regret that whole era i have i have no regrets i actually you know don't believe any in any kind of regrets i mean i think things that happen that you don't necessarily appreciate that you think the things that you've done that were stupid are all part of life you know as long as you have hurt anybody or killed anybody should be aren't given the why you did it the other people who were in drugs and richard dreyfus told me was there's no way to tell you while i'm successful why did i do this i don't there was a period there when when i really enjoyed it you know i i have won't lie about that . i mean i i don't i don't necessarily miss it i think i did it to the hilt and i just did you quit i just finally got to that point where it took a long time but i finally got to the point where i was i realize that it's not doing me any good now i'm not enjoying it anymore it's too much of

a responsibility. me high you know when i'm not even getting. yeah i quit smoking right out of touch with shoes while i was smoking like three packs a day and stuff but i was fortunate enough to get. pneumonia one point you know you start smoking so much that half the time you don't even enjoy it it's just a thing that you do it's a mechanical and so during that period of pneumonia like for two weeks i couldn't i couldn't even breathe i tried to smoke it in oregon so after that was over i had my cigarettes on the nightstand or my lighter and i was all excited and and it occurred to me that i was over the hump and so if i was going to quit that was the time or the hard to stop that there's your u.r.l. that makes sense and my mom had just died from from cancer. from basically lung cancer from smoking so why did you decide to have your head that way as i would have been it was me as

a would you know it when you were kids. do you know why. when i was you know i was born in the sixty's my parents never thought it was necessary for me to cut my hair so i was pretty much always had long hair except for i remember a couple summers where i just got frustrated and cut it is easy to manage. what you get is what is needed to you. know i call it the shower and then i just go like in this styling it. so it's just sort of i spend very little time on the whole you know sort of like style and. what as you it's hard to look at just so some to what made you a great guitars what do you do those didn't or don't see the great that's an adjective that other people have applied to me which are very humble and and think full for a bit as a guitar player myself and knowing a lot about guitar and

a lot about other guitar players and so on it's something that's way more a work in progress i think i have a talent for it and i feel for it and i have my moments you know where where i really feel like ok this is. you can play sometimes and really express yourself and that's why you do it but i don't i wouldn't ever call myself a lair and so when i'm working on. it's just the what do you lead you well it's just you know the thing about guitar playing is is being able to. feel and hear notes while you're playing and to be able to execute it you know instantaneously and the right notes and the notes that you want to hit and being able to find them on the neck and so on i mean it's really hard to verbal to explain all of the nights where you don't get it oh yeah you know i mean when you have when you have a night where everything just happens it's like in the cosmos where everything just falls into place that's what you're chasing for the better you get the more of

those nights you have it so at least when you have an off night lease you can play well enough that people don't necessarily notice that's that's something that that happens on a regular basis and what you're trying to do this just have those amazing nights is sort of like with drugs like you chasing that high all the time it's a little bit different application. the great guys you stern told me though that on nights when he felt he wasn't his best because like the better well it happens happens there be some nights where you just you just have this sort of devil may care kind of attitude and you may not you might not hit all the notes you're trying but the attitude was there maybe to the expressiveness of it and all of them social media questions for slash in a minute but. kids nine and eleven today know about their famous father they know you're famous they know i'm famous i think they've gotten used to that fact i don't think they understood it at first but at this point they realize that for whatever

it is that i do see people seem to seems to attract a lot of like would you do they do they like what i do when i'm doing concerts because then they get to see me jump around which is something i don't do it on and i love that good father i think so and try you work with michael jackson and reality. was michael like michael was great. one of them one of the most amazing natural god given talent i've ever been in the presence you play but i did yeah we did a lot of shows together in the i guess it was in the early early ninety's and actually all the way up until. two thousand which it was easy to play for great yeah very natural. he would just let me do my thing and i would just accompany whatever he was doing and i felt very it just flowed and we have social media questions called spot on instagram wants to know what is the one roof you've heard recently you wish you had written. i can think of one riff you know whenever i hear

a great riff that somebody else wrote somebody else wrote it i'm not going to sit there and wish i wrote it. lotus music bravo on instagram what advice would you give your younger self about following your passion. that's a good question. and you know it's really all up to experience you know i only know what i know now from having gone through what i've gone through up until now so there's a lot of things i could've told myself way back when but i don't think i would have properly understood it and it was a little wolf on facebook what you're here care routine and you guys with stories other just. think it is going to go that's a. job run on facebook wants to know do you ever worry about your creativity dying up how do you seek out new inspirations i crying up yeah i think anybody who writes specially that writes professionally has those moments where you have

writer's block and you think it's that's over that's the end and how the end you just have to sort of go with it and the only thing you can do is be optimistic about it and go this is just one of those periods maybe even just put the guitar down for a little while think about something else again go if you only knew just quick questions if you could collaborate with one person dead or alive who would be dead or alive it would have to be keith and i would love to jam with you beatles the rolling stones a rolling stone the guy favorite guns n roses song. that's a tough one i always say paradise city because to me that was like essential guns n roses had all the elements and greatest guitar solo of all time. well can you hear me knocking by the stones and me taylor's guitar solos always been one of my favorites i don't know if it's best of all time it's what comes to mind at the moment guitar solo you haven't nailed yet. is far

somebody else's or yours others yeah anything i'm working on a new record now so there's going to be a lot of guitar solos i haven't done yet that i'm looking forward to do. you have a surprise or so i do i those are those are those moments that you're striving for when you surprise yourself to produce creative achievement. is creative and she even i'd have to say you know the original guns n roses was definitely my proudest moment favorite horror film of all time the omen the original omen gregory yeah that's it that's that's what i want to do when i as as a producer i want to be able to achieve take a little kid and take them up into the woods and make you know that kind of epic theatrical drama slash form and what's on your i pod right now because europe which is a french heavy metal band if you were in the business in what would you be i would be an artist definitely but a first good you have a kist i do always the name christiane was that in l.a.

a we i was probably the see this is night i was like eight years old where did it occur in her house. you know and announcer parents. and she was the aggressor i have to say she was the one that's on the outer fringe because she french just you know eight. where is crystal no i have no idea. but if she's watching this show i remember her parents' names and so funny with it being in virginia king and next couple king and virginia wow do you ever think of hanging it up no you know. i would like i said the more i do this the more i love it so i can imagine not doing it. do you ever not want to go on stage no i mean you know what with the grind that comes with touring and everything that was that an hour and a half two hours you have on stage is the only thing to look for. there's

a moment there when that happens right you may not be feeling great but when you walk out that's that's when it all comes together you can be sick you can be fifty's you can be whatever but soon as you get on the stage it's like you all that falls away and you can thank you man i can see the great slash the film nothing left to fear you can catch it out in select theaters and on demand the soundtrack is also exclusively on pledge music dot com backslash slash and remember you can find me on twitter at kings things and i'll see you next time. people are interested but he has something to say everybody has a story. up kind of person want to sit next to on an airplane. i mean there's

always in the waters and. that's whether it's a ballet dancer a ballplayer president things that are curious to me it's just things i think about . them are not a. i know c.n.n. m s n b c news have taken some not. but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's close and for the truth of the night thank. you for goods because one whole attention and the mainstream media work side by side the joke is actually on here. coming up. at our teen years we have to print press. because the news of the world

just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not how. you guys talk to the jokes i will hand over the stuff that i've got. i'm. a side that i think corporation kind of can. do and the banks try to get. all about money and i'm actually sick for politicians writing the laws and regulations that bankers have. here is just too much. of a diety. outing

folks welcome the breaking of the sat i'm out of time you know i was going to fork over half a million dollars to obama in the last election just for the hell of it and then i didn't because i'm not bill maher but now i'm full of regrets because you see if i did donate a large sum of money to the drone king i could have been in the earth could have a fairly obama's thank this campaign finance or by awarding them with highly coveted in basket or ships we expect those chosen for these important positions are qualified and have some expertise in international relations or at the very least while traveled and flew into the language about respective state and the us.