Slash. The Guitar Players Book About His Life, Loves, and Recovery from Addiction

I have never read a book that was about a rock star before. I typically read history and finance. I actually received this book as part of a promotion with a guitar purchase and I was a bit curious about all the excess of the road that are part of the rock and roll lifestyle.

The book is written by Anthony Bozza but told in Slash's own words and narrative. The life of Slash is discussed from various parts of his life. He does not delve heavily into it in the book, but he does mention the fact that he is bi-racial with a white father and black mother. He does not make much of an emphasis on this and instead focuses on the music. He does mention one encounter WASP guitarist Chris Holmes says that (plural racial slur for blacks) should not play guitar. This offended Slash and he was going to pound him but nothing happened. I guess that Holmes was not aware of Jimmy Hendrix or that the king of the blues Robert Johnson influenced generations of guitarists and still does.

He was very young when his parents split up and his mother raised him most of the time with some help from his grandmother. He was a bit of a hell raiser in school and ended up getting kicked out. He did discover playing the guitar and got very dedicated to it. He would meet future Guns N Roses drummer Steven Alder and begin to start getting into various bands. He actually had an audition for the group Poison at one time. According to Slash he "nailed it" but really was not into the glam scene. C.C. Deville came in looking glam with "a pink jacket and all kinds of make up on and I knew he would get the gig". Seems Slash really had a lot of resentment towards Poison. I wonder if it was sour grapes. After several different band incarnations the band that would become Guns N Roses was formed. Slash gives and in depth look at how rough it was for the bad at first. He narrates things from having to live with girlfriends to basically being homeless in the name of trying to make it. He discusses the women on the road, the problems within the band and the excesses that go with the rock and roll lifestyle.

He talks extensively about his involvement with booze and drugs. He freely admits he was drunk most of the time. He also discusses his on again and off again relationship with Heroin and how it almost killed himself and a friend of his named Todd Caru actually died because he "Danced too hard with Mr. Brownstone" as heroin was called by the group. He was partying with some friends and actually thought they should stop partying, but Todd would not listen to reason.

Slash also reveals how much of a fluke the guitar into to what would be their most popular song came about. Slash mentions that some of the guys were hanging out and playing around when he was fooling around with a "circus theme" on his guitar. Axl Rose heard it and liked it and told him to keep working on it. This would end up being the main riff to the mega hit Sweet Child O Mine. I found it amazing that such a popular song could have came about as kind of a fluke.

Many people often wondered about why Slash left Guns. He discusses basically how much of a prick Axl could be. He was very draconian and basically things had to be his way. The rest of the group would feel one way and he would feel another. He even did not want to share royalties evenly when they released Appetite for Destruction. Basically he got the lions share and gave Steven Adler the least since "he was just a drummer". This probably only added to the problems that they had with Steven. Basically he was a major junkie and it got in the way of his playing. Eventually he would be kicked out of the group because of this. The rest of the group went along with it. The book clearly points that it was more Axl than anything else. Slash thought the chemistry was gone when Adler left the ban. Slash would later continue playing with Matt in a group called Velvet Revolver that also included former Guns N Roses bassist Duff McKagan. Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin also left the group and that really upset Slash as he felt that was the driving force behind writing the music together.

Slash says in his book that people who have not worked with Axl really have no right to criticize him. I can see his point, but he does make Axl out to be a real jerk. The rest of the band never knew when they were going to on the stage at a show because Axl would not go on until he "felt like it:" He also stormed out of a more than one show. This actually incited Riots a couple of times including a major riot it Montréal, Canada. He also basically took over the group going as far as trying to put many members of the band "on salary as hired hands" instead of full group members. He also would hire and fire supporting people without consulting anyone in the group and spent much of the tour profits on parties again without consulting anyone. This was too much and Slash left.

Throughout the book Slash tells of him problems with drugs. He also mentions his recent sobriety. He mostly smoked weed, did some coke, but it was heroin he had a real issue with. Some people would smoke heroin known as "chasing the dragon" to get high, but it did not work for Slash so he went right to shooting up called mainlining. He would play guitar drunk, but he mentions that a girlfriend once gave him some heroin for a present before he played and he screwed it all up. He decided after that never to play stoned again. He had friends, his parents, and an ex-girlfriend really worried about him. She actually arranged an intervention with his parents about his dope. Slash actually played it off and they did not think that anything was wrong. I must say that I do admire that he was able to quit heroin "cold turkey" that is supposed to be really tough, especially with a potent narcotic like heroin. He was finally able to kick the habit when his second wife Perla told him she was pregnant. That really opened his eyes.

Slash has actually formed a new band called Velvet Revolver and has done well with them. I personally like Guns N Roses (older) music better, but they are not a bad band. He has also done some solo work in addition to projects with various artists including playing on a Michael Jackson.

Overall I think the book is really good. I normally don't read this kind of books, but since I got this one for free when I bought a guitar, I figured I couldn't go wrong. The story is really inspirational. If you want to be a rock star it also can let you know it's not as glamorous as it may appear to be. It appears Slash almost lost his life on more than one occasion. He lost friends and saw lives wrecked because of dope. The sad thing is that some of the best material by Guns N Roses was recorded while either drunk or on drugs.