Slash Quotes

I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.

The first song that made me interested in music was 'Oh, Pretty Woman' by Roy Orbison. It was the guitar intro, that riff, that I really liked and made me listen in a different way.

I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.

I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.

I saw the film 'Amadeus' from when I was five, which made me want to take piano lessons.

The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me.

One summer I remember, I got exposed to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly was a very very big, made a very big impression on me. Because of a lot of things, you know, the way he looked and his charisma.

When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn't play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.

It's hard - some people get inspired by a feeling, but I'm mostly inspired by melodies.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.

I'm not the sort of chap who can sit down and write music. When it comes, I'm happy.

What we admit to is being a rock n' roll band. From day one, I was a big Chuck Berry fan.

Initially, I just used the guitar as a prop. I'd pose with it in front of a mirror in my Kiss makeup when I was skipping school. Then I figured out how to play the main riff to Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' on just the E string. Next, my old man showed me how to play barre chords, and that's when things started getting really heavy.

The only thing I don't write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.

My first instrument was bass, and the first thing that I remember learning to play that was better than a few notes was Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain.' If you're the guy who penned that bass riff, then you should probably be in some sort of fantasy band.

I just sort of grew up with music always in the background like a soundtrack. And it really hit me hard when The Beatles came along, like so many people. That got me started digging back further to Chuck Berry.

I started out with piano when I was little. That, for songwriting, is my favorite instrument.

I am so highly skilled that when I pick up a phrase and then pick up my guitar, a form comes out almost immediately - a song - and once I start, I have to finish it.

I was driving home and thinking about what rock and roll should be about. 'Adventure and Trouble!' I thought. I sang the song first and then added the chords later.

The Beatles were a huge influence on me to write really good melodies.

I compose melodies in my head and then interpret them musically with my guitar and keep them recorded. The guitar helps me to build unique chord structures on simple melodies.

A lot of the time, I will write a guitar riff first. I don't write drum riffs first.

If you take the riff from the song 'Cowboys From Hell' and really break it down, it's almost a hillbilly guitar riff: dekka dekka dekka dekka dekka dekka dekka dek.

I have been making music since I was a kid. I have written music since I was, like, seven or eight. I was in the studio at 9, 10. So I've had a lot of practice over a lot of years.