#13. Slash

Slash by Slash with Anthony Bozza

Bit of a departure from my normal reading material this one but I have been told several times that this is one of the best rock autobiographies out there and is a raucous tale of excess that is well worth a read. OK, I thought, I’d give it a go and picked it out as one of my christmas presents. I’ve no musical talent at all so I don’t tend to be particularly interested in the exploits of bands on the road as they tend to be quite samey – we did some drugs, drank some booze, screwed around and had a good time. Did I really expect this to be any different? No, not really.

Before I read his autobiography I knew Slash was from Stoke, loved snakes and his real name was Saul Hudson – the Guns n’ Roses stuff is a given, surely. I knew he toured with Slash’s Snakepit and formed Velvet Revolver after GnR split and that he and Axl didn’t exactly see eye to eye. From the media coverage over the years I knew he liked a drink and I half knew about the heroin – it didn’t come as any suprise, put it that way. So what was there for Slash to tell me that I didn’t already know?

I’m not a massive Guns n’ Roses fan although I do own a copy of Appetite for Destruction and both Use Your Illusion albums. I didn’t follow any of the side projects though, including Slash’s Snakepit and Velvet Revolver and hadn’t really appreciated how far removed from the original line up the new Guns n’ Roses was when Chinese Democracy came out although I guessed it was Axl’s new band and didn’t include Slash. I don’t own Lies or The Spaghetti Incident as I thought they were poor compared to Appetite for Destruction so didn’t bother with them. I suppose that marks me as a fan of the early GnR, the real rock/metal stuff. That’s the side of the story I wanted to hear about I guess.

The book is largely chronological as one would expect. It starts with Slash’s birth (in Hampstead, not Stoke as I thought although he was raised in Stoke) and contains a lot about his childhood. I hadn’t realised his parents were involved in the music industry, his dad through his art being used as album covers and his mum as a costume designer. I didn’t know that from a very early age Slash was around a lot of famous musicians, including David Bowie who his mum had an affair with, and how that shaped his view of life. There’s no reason why I should know these things of course; as I said before I’m not exactly a massive fan. But the book follows Slash through school, to adolescence where his character starts to shine through and he causes all sorts of mayhem and eventually learns to play guitar. He struggles to get a band together, eventually forms Guns n’ Roses, makes a record goes on tour, does a lot of drugs, gets clean, does more drugs and so on. GnR split (he walks out on them), he forms other bands, argues with Axl, does drugs, makes a record, goes on tour, does drugs, has kids, settles down and gets clean. And in a nutshell that’s it.

If you like reading about people doing drugs in various parts of LA and hotel rooms around the world then this is your book. If you’re not really into GnR then there’s probably not that much in it for you. And if you don’t have a working knowledge of LA geography (which I don’t) then some of the book is hard to follow. I don’t know my West Hollywood from Sunset Boulevard and at times you feel as though it’s important you do know the difference between the areas of LA else you’re missing some of the subtext of the stories Slash is relaying. Is it a tale of raucous excess? I dunno. Maybe it just doesn’t come across in print. It’s all very well reading about him doing all this blow and drinking half a gallon of vodka but it just doesn’t make me think “wow, that’s rock and roll!”, it makes me think “is that a lot?” OK, I get the fact that half a gallon of vodka is a lot, even when we’re talking US gallons. But the drugs – I don’t know what’s a lot and what’s not. From time to time Slash discusses the effects of the drugs, including the time his heart stopped for eight minutes, but most of the time it was the same old story: did some drugs, got high. And? I can’t relate to just getting high, for a tale of rock and roll excess I want to hear about dying on stage in the middle of a guitar solo and being revived just in time for the encore or something. And that’s the thing, it all seemed a bit tame to me. There’s no “oh my god!” in there. When it comes to the point where he leaves GnR and has the public spat with Axl there’s still no controversy in this book. This was an opportunity to draw battle lines but instead Slash says that Axl has his version of events and while they may be different to his they are probably equally valid. Cop out. Maybe this would have been better as a Hollywood biopic rather than an autobiography because as written the story is just too tame at times to really grip you. If this is the best rock autobiography out there I won’t be rushing to buy any others. This is one for the fanboys only I’m afraid.