Slash discussed the state of rock music in a new interview, saying the genre had fallen out of the spotlight and he didn’t mind all that much.

“Rock isn’t mainstream anymore, and in some ways, I like that,” Slash told USA Today. “It harks back to when rock ’n’ roll was more of an underground concept, when people were speaking about things that they weren’t necessarily comfortable saying in the mainstream arena.”

The Guns N’ Roses guitarist released his fourth solo album Living the Dream today.

Asked about his favorite bands, he name-checked the Foo Fighters. "My favorite band consistently has been Queens of the Stone Age because they always put out cool, interesting records," he said. "But I still listen to a lot of old stuff because the rock 'n' roll that turned me on as a kid, not too much of it exists.”

He also commented on the genre he felt had replaced rock, saying, “As far as hip-hop is concerned, it’s become so generic at this point. It’s definitely taken on a very Top 40 thing.”

Slash also admitted the Guns N’ Roses reunion might never have happened if it had been left to him. Relations thawed around 2015 after frontman Axl Rose took the initiative and placed a call to his former bandmate, leading, eventually, to their Not in This Lifetime world tour.

“I don't know if I would have had the wherewithal to call him, just because I'm introverted and it might have been hard for me,” Slash said. “Not during that initial phone call, but after that, it was really good to be able to get rid of some of the negative baggage that we'd been carrying around for a long time.”

He noted that it had been 20 years "of not talking and letting this bad blood continue to be perpetuated by the media. It turned into something way bigger than what was really going on, so it was good to get past that.”

Asked if he regretted the amount of time that had passed before reconnecting, he said, “Things happen as they happen. I make it a point of not having any regrets.”

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