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SLASH'S SILVER BALLS
"I'm not at liberty to really discuss the Snakepit pinball machine until the blueprints are done, but it's going to be a really, really cool game, very different. I drew everything, like I always do, on cocktail napkins. The Guns machine, for one, is the first machine ever made with the real record on it. At the time, it was the loudest machine ever made. The Viper machine we just did... it has Snakepit material on it, and now that's the loudest machine ever made. I went to (one pinball company) and asked, 'Can you do this, this, this and this?' And they went, 'Umm, I don't know.' I went to Data East and they said, 'We can do anything.' I spent a couple of months in meetings back and forth to Chicago, dealing with stuff (for the Snakepit machine).

"All the pinball companies are in Chicago. My ex-wife, her family lives in the suburbs of Chicago, and I went there to visit for the first time - I never played pinball as a kid - so I was bored. there was nothing to do except drive into the city and get fucked up and never be able to find my way back. But they had a basement - those are real popular in Chicago - and they had pinball machines down there. So I played pinball every night for a week. We came home and I bought The Addams Family (pinball machine) for Renee. That was the first one. Then one turned into two, two turned into four, four into six, and next thing you know, I was designing one! That's when the Guns N' Roses machine came.

"I play for relaxation, just to take my mind off things. Or you just walk into the room, turn on one machine and play a game before you go on to something else. There's a general theme: either they're monster or a fun, goofy theme, like Party Zone. Anything that's got a cool vibe. I don't know how to define it. Baseball, football, the fisherman one - no way. I'll probably get Godzilla.

"The Funhouse machine has a great story. We were all on mushrooms one night and Renee thought the machine was talking to her. I told her, 'Honey, it's OK, you're having a bad trip.' But she made me unplug the machine, making sure its mouth and eyes were closed, and I had to sell it. Later on, I found another one, so I bought it back in... (My now ex-wife and I) were on the outs then. Still to this day, she's scared to death of it."