Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Slash on Les Paul: He Single-Handedly Created Popular Music
It’s well known that Slash is a Les Paul guy, and in a recent Esquire feature the top hat-sporting, slick six-stringer explained his experience meeting and getting to know the musician and inventor.
“I used to think Les Paul was a guitar. I didn't know he was a real guy,” Slash said. “When I got to know him, I found out that if you're really obsessed, he was the guy you'd want to be like. He was always trying to find an answer for what he was looking for in his mind. If things didn't exist, he built them himself. He single-handedly created what I consider ‘popular music.’”
As for guitar playing, Slash says it simply comes naturally: “Guitar is the best form of self-expression I know. Everything else and I'm just sort of tripping around, trying to figure my way through life.”
He also touched on his highly publicized split with Axl Rose, insisting, “The split between Axl and I was a quiet one. But because there was so much attention on the breakup -- and are we going to get back together? -- it got built up into this monster that led to a kind of animosity that wasn't the focus for me. Neither one of us wants to be down each other's throats for no reason. At this point, I'm trying to put it to rest. So I try to avoid the subject.”
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Paul McCartney ‘Not a Popular Bunny’
Coming up on his 69th birthday and busily preparing for his wedding to girlfriend Nancy Shevell, Paul McCartney has also been looking back at the Beatles breakup.
According to the Huffington Post, McCartney realizes he was “not a popular bunny” with his Beatle cohorts at the time of the split. The terse “press statement” questionnaire he delivered containing news of his debut solo album, McCartney, was probably a mistake in retrospect.
"It's possible to read all sorts of other things into it, read all sorts of motives of mine into it, which is I think what happened," McCartney said. “For me, it was simply a way to answer some questions I might have been asked if I had done interviews.”
Looking back, he just wanted to get his new music released: “I've been accused of not thinking things through enough. I get enthusiastic about something and say I'd like to do it, so let's do it. And that's mainly a good thing, because you get things done. It can occasionally create difficulties because you don't think of the implications. And to me, I hadn't thought of the implications. I was just putting out an album of some stuff that I liked.
“If I had been entirely honest, I just would have said that John has folded the group. But I'm not sure that would have gone down well, either.”
Paul McCartney handled all the musician chores on his McCartney album, something he sees becoming the norm in 2011. “It's easier in retrospect to look back and say I was doing something that laid the ground rules for people to follow. When you think about it, that's how an awful lot of records get made now – people are in their bedrooms or their garages – because the equipment's better. So I was actually starting a bit of a trend, without knowing it or really intending to.”