Slash Didn’t Want Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ Cover In ‘Interview With The Vampire’

Guns N’ Roses’ lead guitarist, Slash, did not want his music in the movie Interview with the Vampire. The band covered “Sympathy for The Devil” by the Rolling Stones for the movie adaptation of Anne Rice’s book, Interview With The Vampire. Ironically, Slash did have strong feelings about the book author and thought her works were great.

Musician Tom Zutaut thought it a great idea that Guns N’ Roses should cover “Sympathy for the Devil” for Interview with the Vampire, and Slash agreed with his proposal. However, Slash did not take the idea so pleasantly upon seeing the movie.

Slash’s thought about the idea

“Anyway, I was up for the idea of doing this cover because I was very familiar with the Anne Rice books,” Slash wrote in his 2009 autobiography, Slash. “I thought they were great, which is why I had a hard time imagining Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise playing those roles.”

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However, Slash’s judgment of the Rolling Stones’ cover idea changed after he watched the movie. “Anyway, Axl and I went to screenings of the film separately, and completely disagreed on what we saw,” he continued. “I hated it; I thought it was crap.” Slash suggested that the producers use The Rolling Stones’ version of the song instead; however, Axl Rose thought the movie was brilliant.

Axl had a different opinion from Slash

Slash told Cruise over the phone that the movie was terrible, but fellow Guns N’ Roses member and lead vocalist Axl did not agree. “Axl, on the other hand, loved the movie; he thought it was brilliant, and he wanted to do the song. I couldn’t have been more disappointed, pissed, frustrated, and confused,” Slash explained. “The only upside I saw to signing off on it was that it would accomplish what we’d been unable to do to any degree in the past seven months: it would actually get all of us into the studio.”

Fans also seemed to have opposing reactions to the movie, as reflected by its ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, which were barely over 60%. Rice’s Vampire Chronicles received more adaptations on screen, with another Interview with the Vampire premiering as a series in 2022. The series got a high rating of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes this time. Another 2022 movie adaptation was Queen of the Damned from Rice’s The Queen of the Damned and The Vampire Lestat.