My
first exposure to a rock guitarist called Slash, was after hearing the band
Guns N’ Roses which was led by a rather melodramatic and off-the-wall
character called Axl Rose.
Slash (ISBN 978-0-00-725777-5, Harper Collins, 2008) is his
biography, and he commences in early childhood in Hollywood, which involved
petty theft, expulsions from schools, being in a broken home, and living
rough. He admits that his life was certainly not what one would describe as
“normal”. “Hollywood has always been a weird place that attracts odd folks.”
Having been born to an African American mother and an English father, he was
in the situation where he was English but black, and alternated between
being African American and Caucasian, using whichever racial identity served
him best in applying for a school placement.
The first quarter of the book is somewhat repetitive, complete with names of
girls he had slept with, and in whose house. Not really necessary, though
obviously Slash thought that these details were important.
His guitar playing started with an old flamenco guitar with one nylon string
which his grandmother gave him. His tutor suggested he should get the other
five strings! This he did and he practiced day and night. He showed that
when he found something that really interested him, he was prepared to work
at it, and even run two jobs to fund his guitar playing.
In many ways, Slash admits that he stole his way to the top; even his trade
mark top hat came his way via thievery.
Similar to most other rock musicians of the day, Slash and friends
moonlighted around L.A. doing any gigs they could find, eventually arriving
in Seattle where they played together as the first show for what became the
legendary Guns N’ Roses with Axl Rose as the singer and Slash the guitarist.
I found the chapter detailing the difficulties of recording music, different
guitars, different amplifiers etc. more interesting than the pages and pages
of descriptions regarding drug taking. And drug taking was something that
Slash did with a vengeance, almost dying a couple of times and requiring
much time in rehab. His involvement was completely over the top, and even
witnessing his best friend dying in his arms from heroin overdose wasn’t
enough to get him to stop at that time (though he did later).
His description of singer Axl Rose confirms the impression that he was
mentally disturbed and perhaps all the way to an obsessive-compulsive
disorder where he could just miss arriving for a concert, but feel there was
nothing inherently wrong with that behavior.
In line with Slash’s ‘bad boy’ image, he details the trashing of hotel
rooms, but stopped after he had to pay for one night of excessive violence.
The breaking up of Guns N’ Roses and fatherhood finally brings maturity, but
Slash certainly did it the hard way!
At B. 495 this is a weighty book of around 500 pages. If you were a fan of
Guns N’ Roses, you will find this book interesting, but it is not as
fascinating as the Rolling Stones Keith Richard’s book “Life” for example.
