Slash: The Autobiography

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These are just rough chapters I've written from the shit tonne of Slash/GnR/80s books that I have in my unpublished section on Wattpad.

Slash relates how he eventually achieved stability and sobriety after his second marriage and the birth of two sons. The tone of the book is neither boastful nor repentant. Slash tells it like it is, without false modesty. I appreciated the shooting-from-the-hip approach, except possibly for one thing, namely the peer-bashing (It comes across as slightly narcissistic when “every other band is rubbish and hateful except us”). Taking into account, however, the nature of the L.A. scene at the time, and the larger-than-life personalities involved, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that there would be some bad blood. When it comes to adventures, new places are the best location for them to happen- especially when you're moving from the country out in Indiana to the busy city of Los Angeles. Through meeting new people, getting sent home, and breaking all of the usual rules, things are bound to happen.

Besides being a junkie and cocaine addict (not even mentioning the groupies...) he was such a severe alcoholic that he drank around four liters of vodka every day (not counting in the beer and whiskey he did at night). I'm surprised and glad he's still alive after all this excessive debauchery. The book does seem to jump from one thing to another. I'm surprised he can remember dates and places? Considering he was otherwise out of his box, at the time. Not that Slash doesn't consider his drug problems to be that serious! There's this line in Bull Durham where Kevin Costner's character tells Tim Robbins's character, "You got a gift. When you were a baby, the Gods reached down and turned your right arm into a thunderbolt." A lot of the point of this movie is that while the young pitcher has been blessed with incredible talent (and is also, being played by baby Tim Robbins, very sexy), it's the seasoned but mediocre career minor league journeyman Crash Davis who's the leading man with the depth (and sexiness, despite being played by Kevin Costner who is, outside of this role, completely gross and unsexy) to fascinate Susan Sarandon's incomparable Annie Savoy. In the movie Ebby Calvin LaLoosh is this kind of silly dude whose right arm is a thunderbolt, and that talent is fascinating but it doesn't mean he is. What a dissapointment it was. First of all, I felt like Slash took Anthony Kiedis's Scar Tissue and rewrote it - he only changed the names and made it 10 times worse. Then I changed my mind because Anthony focused mostly on drugs and selfanalysis, and Slash - on music. You would think it's good, but it's not. It's just simply BORING. I was reading it and reading and it was such a struggle. The thing is, it's not written well. It's just one fact after another, nothing to make it interesting. I didn't get to know anything about Slash. The only thing I know after reading it is that 'Axl is an asshole'. That's it. This sentence is also a great summary of this book. Danielle Pierce is only 20, but her life is as chaotic as it could be. Not only is she an alcoholic, but she also had a traumatic childhood.

Slash calls the Epiphone the first “good acoustic” he ever took ownership of, and he received it in a moment of goodwill. “When I was 15, I would do some babysitting, and this one kid I babysat for, his parents had it hanging on the wall next to a mandolin,” he recalls. “I asked them, ‘Can I play it while the kid’s sleeping?’ I was still playing it when they got home, and they actually ended up giving it to me.” The year was 1987 and Los Angeles was the hotspot for high hair, and high hopes to make it into the music industry. I couldn’t even touch a guitar string because the pain was so bad… I had to re-establish the connection between my brain and my fingertips.” The Blasters' Dave Alvin on the highspots and the horrors of his career in five songs Kylie Peters, the lead singer, alcohol guzzling, cigarette smoking, and debauchery queen of Ashes of Angst.A doctor installed a defibrillator in my heart when I was 35. Fifteen years of over-drinking and drug abuse had swollen that organ to one stop short of exploding. When I was finally hospitalized, they told me I had six days to six weeks to live. (p VIII) I jumped at the opportunity to see Slash performing live with Kings of Chaos in Cape Town last year and it stands as one of the greatest concerts I’ve been to (my wife and I were right there in the front). Slash was a kleptomaniac who stole his favorite bands' entire catalogs on cassette tapes. He also stole snakes by coiling them around his arm and just brazenly walking out the store. The first top hat he got was also stolen. Weirdly enough he only got caught once (being underage they let him go). It’s been a blast working with Gibson to create a platform for me to talk about my favorite thing, guitars,” says SLASH. “This book is a great exposé of all the great guitars I’ve collected over many years.”

It’s been a blast working with Gibson to create a platform for me to talk about my favorite thing, guitars,” says Slash. “This book is a great exposé of all the great guitars I’ve collected over many years.”

Of course, I'm automatically biased when it comes to Slash. He's my favorite guitarist and I've got a lot of respect for the man. I noodle with the guitar a bit and I would have liked some more insight into Slash’s technique and approach, but he steers well clear of this kind of thing (for the most part), opting to focus on the lifestyle and the people involved instead. The book is sordid and tragic and funny and a whole lot of other things, but it provides a great snapshot of the musical scene at the time of what Slash refers to as the Guns ‘n Roses Reign of Terror, i.e. the 80s and very early 90s. Something else that fans will want to read is the depiction of events leading up to the end of Slash’s tenure with the band, and the issues with Axl Rose. This Japanese-made steel-string acoustic isn’t the oldest guitar in Slash’s collection, but it is the one he’s had the longest. “I think I was probably in high school when I got it,” he says. “And I cherish the fact that I’ve managed to keep it and nothing’s happened to it.” I used to be a HUGE Guns-N-Roses fan. I even spent a couple hundred once to see them live (and then Axel cancelled the concert!(. But I have always been a fan and always loved their music. Estranged is one of my all time favorite songs by anyone. The Collection: Slash Deluxe edition is presented in a Les Paul slipcase and measures 240 x 340 mm (9.45 x 13.39”). It includes a cover poster, four guitar art prints, and a certificate of authenticity. The initial print run of the Deluxe edition is hand-signed by SLASH and is limited to 1,000 copies worldwide. Explore The Collection: Slash Deluxe edition. Above (L-R): The Collection: Slash Custom, Deluxe, and Standard editions.

The main problem with this book is that it doesn't seem to have been written by a professional writer or looked at by a professional editor. This would be way less of an issue if he'd gone with an actual ghost, rather than a music journalist who shared the writing credit, because then I could've indulged the conceit that Slash actually somehow wrote the thing by himself. As it is, I guess I had unrealistic expectations and was distracted by being sad because this book could've been so much better than it was. He discusses his reasons for leaving the band, what he did after leaving, the other projects he worked on between leaving Guns N' Roses and the formation of Velvet Revolver, and the drama surrounding that band, and everything in between. We want to support the health of the nation enabling people to live longer, happier and healthier lives. If you're expecting a memoir of drug addiction, you may be disappointed. Not to say that there isn't drug use here - there certainly is, including one memorable anecdote where Slash finds himself running naked across a golf course, pursued by little monsters only he can see. But he doesn't go into much more detail than is necessary, and his main focus in the book is the music. This book reads like a blog. The storytelling focuses on so much on small detail it starts to get boring. Slash just retells the same story of getting high.I have to believe the pitch to the Harper Collin publishing house went something like this: Tommy Lee "wrote" two books, I am sober an average of 5% of the time these days, Scott Weiland is a mess again, and Axl is still working on Chinese democracy somehwere . . . so yeah, I want to write a book. What's that, you say you love the idea? Great. Make sure the ghost writer likes to drink. Oh yeah, and about the money . . . . Axl remembered a riff that I'd played him when he was living over at my mom's house [...]. We were sitting around rehearsal looking to write something new when that riff came to Axl's mind. [...] I started playing it and instantly Steve came up with a beat, Duff joined in with a bass line, and away we went. I kept throwing parts out to build on it: the chorus part, the solo, as Axl came up with the lyrics. Duff was the glue on that song - he came up with the breakdown, that wild rumbling bass line, and Izzy provided the texture. In about three hours, the song [Welcome to the Jungle] was complete. The arrangement is virtually the same as it appears on the album. (pp 108-9) The slashed book is a quest item used in Elemental Workshop I. It is made by using a knife on a battered book. Additionally, it can be found by searching the bookcase where the battered book was originally found, only after creating a slashed book for the first time. One night when [my girlfriend] Renee and I were at [manager Alan Niven's] house with him and his wife Camilla, Alan said something really inappropriate to Renee. I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was creepy enough that we left immediately. I never forgot it, and I won't repeat it here (p. 321). Slash also explains how he dealt with and overcame the harsh chains of addiction, and his many close calls with death because of heroin, cocaine, pills, alcohol, and more.