For me, the original Guns N' Roses is the embodiment of a certain kind of chemistry that really couldn't be duplicated.

I was never into hanging out on the Sunset Strip. When it came to Guns N' Roses and the scene that was going on then, that was something we pretty much hated. That was what we had to scratch and claw through, and as soon as we got established enough to leave, we never went back.

I love playing music as much as if not more so than I did when I was 19; that compared to most of my peers is pretty surprising. I wake up every day and get really excited about doing stuff that I have been doing for the last 30 years. I just love it.

GET YOURSELF TOGETHER DRINK TILL YOU DROP FORGET ABOUT TOMORROW AND HAVE ANOTHER SHOT

I mean, the thing about Guns N' Roses was that it wasn't trying to attach itself to the '80s, or anything that had to do with the '80s. It's just who we were at that time. We were doing what we wanted to do. That had really nothing to do with anything around us, except for the simple fact that we were rebelling against that stuff.

Notes and chords have become my second language and, more often than not, that vocabulary expresses what I feel when language fails me.

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.