Slash was recently asked by Loudwire whether his newfound sobriety in the past decade had any impact on his creativity, to which he replied:
“That’s a good question. A lot of that material from the old days – I can pick particular songs that were definitely written under the influence, but I can pick other songs that were written under the influence of a couple beers. Not that big a deal, right?
“But I found out that when I got sober, sort of looking back from the time I started playing to 2006 – my partying thing was really a matter of killing time in between gigs. I wasn’t really using on the road, I wasn’t really using when I was in the studio. I was always focused on music.
“So when I got sober, all that effort that I had put into what had turned into a massive addiction at that point, I took that and just put it straight back into the music. And it wasn’t really relying on me being buzzed or inebriated to create stuff.
“I was fortunate. I really just put everything into writing and felt really comfortable sober. … For the most part, I wasn’t trying to bury anything because I had like a massive insecurity or something I was trying to bury in my past. I was really just partying because it was fun.”
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.