Slash: ‘It’s All About Commercial One-Hit Wonders These Days’

[Funky.Monkey]

Slash: ‘It’s All About Commercial One-Hit Wonders These Days’

Nov. 7th, 2015

Any young rock & roll bands that you really like?

We’ve played with [uK rock trio] RavenEye in the past and they’re really good. When we pick an opening band for a tour, usually I listen to everything first and see who it is that we want to take. So I am very aware of what everybody is doing. There are some bands that I like a lot, and there are some band that are developing and just need to keep working at it. There’s couple of out there. On a commercial level, rock & roll is all safe, but underneath all that, there is a great hardcore young movement that is doing rock & roll in earnest. It’s just that the way the business is right now, it’s so corporate that none of these bands will get a shot to do what I got to do, you know? Be discovered in a club and have an A&R person develop the band and get them ready to go into the studio and make a record. And then make a second, third record till they really come into their own. Now it’s all about commercial one-hit wonders, and it’s a whole different industry now. But there’s a lot of great rock & roll bands out there that have to go the way it should be done; for the passion and not for the money, it’s not for the glamor of it but because you love it. A lot of people are doing it because they have an agenda.

So you think that there are a lot of talented artists out there today who have the potential but won’t get the kind of opportunities that you did back in the day?

This is a complicated question. I mean, somewhere along the way people just played music for the love of playing music and somebody else recognizes that you can make money from it, and it’s been a developing thing to the point where, in the Nineties, music business was making so much money that it was bigger than the movie industry, bigger than any of the entertainment industries. There’s the business and there’s the music. I was raised in the business and I remember seeing how there were clashes between people – this is the way to make money and da da da… there was so much money involved. And then the Internet came along and just fucked the whole thing up. So now the industry is struggling to figure out how to make money off of it and artists have actually gone to the point of conforming to the industry – how they can make money; so they’re all working together. I think there’s still this whole creative side that hasn’t changed which doesn’t really want to fit into that category, but it’s hard to make a living. So a lot of people do that by playing clubs. But it’s just harder, the opportunities are different from when I started, and definitely from when John McLaughlin started.

http://rollingstoneindia.com/slash-interview-its-all-about-commercial-one-hit-wonders-these-days/

[Little EMO Annie]

Great article and very truthful statements by Slash. The internet really did change things. there was a really good documentary on PBS years ago when Velvet Revolver came out called The Day the Music Died or something like that. It said pretty much the same thing. Was very interesting and kinda sad. People are missing out on alot of great music.

[The Glow Inc.]

It might be almost impossible getting a huge label supporting you, but getting your music "out there" is way easier now...

Building a fanbase is also way easier now than back then.

Not to mention : recording an album is way more accessible now too.

I don't think the picture is anywhere near as bad as he says it is. Sure, you can't get superfamous anymore but who cares ?

[Rovim]

This is my favorite part of the interview:

"So we’ve written this whole new record that’s ready to go, from just this last tour. So we’ll go into the studio in Spring and record it. And that’s going to be an awesome record, the next one. I’m really excited about that." - Slash

Thanks for posting btw.

[EvH]

He makes some good points.

But I still don't get why he quoted only one band.