Slash

by Slash

  5

  Least Likely to Succeed

  Once you’ve lived a little you will find that whatever you send out into the world comes back to you one way or another. It may be today, tomorrow, or years from now, but it happens; usually when you least expect it, usually in a form that’s pretty different from the original. Those coincidental moments that change your life seem random at the time, but I don’t think they are. At least that’s how it’s worked out in my life. And I know I’m not the only one.

  I hadn’t seen Marc Canter in about a year, for no other reason than that we’d each been busy doing other things. In the interim, he’d undergone a metamorphosis: when I’d seen him last, he was a music fan and was just beginning to take on a role in running the family business at Canter’s Deli. He was by no means a total “rock guy”—that was more my angle, if broad strokes were drawn. When we reconnected, Marc was someone else entirely: he was a sterling specimen of the obsessed, die-hard rock devotee. I wouldn’t have called it in a million years, but he’d dedicated his entire life to Aerosmith. He’d transformed his room into a wall-to-wall shrine: his Aerosmith posters were a continuous collage that looked like wallpaper, he had cataloged copies of every magazine that they’d ever appeared in, he maintained an orderly gallery, in plastic sleeves, of signed photographs, and he had amassed enough rare foreign vinyl and bootleg concert cassettes to open a record store.

  Marc definitely didn’t dress the part; he looked like no more than a rock fan with a taste for Aerosmith T-shirts, because he never let his fandom go so far as to inspire sartorial homage to Steven or Joe. It did, however, inspire stalking, stealing, trespassing, and a few other mildly illegal pursuits in the name of the cause. Marc had also gotten himself in with the local ticket-scalping community somehow: he’d buy a load of tickets for a show, then trade among the scalpers until he had bartered his way up to the perfect pair of floor seats. It was all a big game to him; he was like a kid trading baseball cards, but come showtime, he was the kid who walked away with the rarest cards up for grabs.

  Once Marc had his seats sorted out, his little operation was just getting going. He’d sneak in a very nice, professional-grade camera and a collection of lenses by taking the whole apparatus apart and stashing the individual pieces in his pants, the arms of his jacket, and wherever else they fit. He never got caught; and he just caught amazing live shots of Aerosmith. The only problem was that he got into Aerosmith a little too late: when he started really digging them they broke up.

  A cornerstone of Marc’s collection of Aerosmith memorabilia was an empty bag of Doritos and a small Ziploc bag full of cigarette butts that he’d snatched from Joe Perry’s hotel room at the Sunset Marquis. Apparently he’d staked the place out and managed to get in there after Joe checked out and before housekeeping showed up. Joe hadn’t even played a show or anything the night before—at that point, he had quit the band actually. I thought it was a little weird, Aerosmith wasn’t even together, but Marc was living for them 24/7. Marc has been one of my best friends in life since the day we met, so I had to support him by contributing to his collection: I did a freehand sketch of Aerosmith onstage for his birthday. I did it in pencil and then shadowed and highlighted it with colored pens and it came out pretty good.

  That picture taught me a lesson that’s been stated by the wise and otherwise throughout history: whatever you put out into the world comes back to you one way or another. In this instance, that picture came back to me literally and brought with it just what I’d been looking for.

  The next time I saw the drawing I was at an impasse: I had been struggling unsuccessfully to get a band together amid a music scene that didn’t speak to me at all. I wanted the spoils that I watched lesser players enjoy, but if that meant changing as much as I’d have to, I wasn’t having that—I tried but I found that I was incapable of too much compromise. I won’t lie now that retrospect is on my side and claim that deep down I knew it would all come together fine. It didn’t look like it was going that way at all, but it didn’t keep me from doing the only thing I could do: I did what felt right, and somehow, I got lucky. I found four other dysfunctional like-minded souls.

  I was working in the Hollywood Music Store the day a slinky guy dressed like Johnny Thunders came up to me. He was wearing tight black jeans, creepers, dyed black hair, and pink socks. He had a copy of my Aerosmith drawing in his hand that a mutual friend had given him: apparently prints of it had been made and circulated. This guy had been inspired enough to seek me out, especially when he heard that I was a lead guitar player.

  “Hey, man, are you the guy who drew this?” he asked a bit impatiently. “I dig it. It’s fuckin’ cool.”

  “Yeah, I did,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Slash.”

  “Hey. I’m Izzy Stradlin.”

  We didn’t talk for long; Izzy has always been the kind of guy with somewhere else that he needed to be. But we made a plan to hang out later on, and when he came by my house that night, he brought me a tape of his band. It couldn’t have sounded worse: the tape was the cheapest type around, and their rehearsal had been recorded through the built-in mike in a boom box that had been placed on the floor. It sounded like they were playing deep inside a jet engine. But through the static din, way in the background, I heard something intriguing, that I believed to be their singer’s voice. It was hard to make out and his squeal was so high-pitched that I thought it might be a technical flaw in the tape. It sounded like the squeak that a cassette makes just before the tape snaps—except it was in key.

  AFTER MY INCOMPLETE STINT AT HIGH school, I lived with my mother and grandmother in a house on Melrose and La Cienega in a small basement room off the garage. It was perfect for me; if need be, I could slip out of the street-level window undetected at any time of day or night. I had my snakes and my cats down there; I could also play guitar whenever I liked without bothering anyone. As soon as I dropped out of school, I agreed to pay my mother rent.

  As I mentioned, I held several day jobs while trying to put together or get into a band that I believed in amid the quagmire of the L.A. metal scene. Around this time, I worked for a while at Canter’s Deli in a job that Marc basically invented for me. I worked alone upstairs in the banquet room, which wasn’t suited for a banquet at all—it was more or less where they stored all kinds of shit that they didn’t necessarily need. I didn’t realize the humor in that back then.

  My job involved comparing the waitstaff ’s checks with the corresponding cashier’s receipts so that Marc could quickly and easily figure out who was stealing. It was so easy; a job that the biggest idiot could do. And it came with perks: I’d eat pastrami sandwiches and drink Cokes the whole time, while putting those papers in two piles, basically. My job did have its place: through my sorting, Marc caught more than a few staffers who had probably been robbing his family for years.

  After I left, Marc willed my job to Ron Schneider, my bass player in Tidus Sloan. Our band still played together sometimes, but we weren’t taking things to the next level in any way—without a singer, we weren’t going to ever gig on the Strip.

  My job at the Hollywood Music Store was one of a few that I saw as stepping-stones to playing guitar professionally, full-time; I wasn’t in it for the fame and girls, I wanted it for a much simpler reason: there wasn’t anything else in the world that I enjoyed more. At the music store I was a salesclerk who sold—and played—every guitar on the floor, but that was by no means my only area of expertise. I also sold all kinds of shit that I knew absolutely nothing about. I could fake my way through explaining the ins and outs of bass amps, but when it came to drum sets, drumheads, drumsticks, and the wide array of percussion instruments I sold, I’m still impressed by my ability to put a shine on a pile of bullshit.

  I liked my job in the music store, but it was a voyeuristic purgatory. I’d spend every idle moment staring through the front windows at Cherokee Studios across the street.
Cherokee was a bit of a recording destination in the early eighties: not that I was a huge admirer, but every time I’d see the Doobie Brothers roll in there to cut a song, I can’t say that I wasn’t totally fucking envious. I was, however, totally fucking starstruck the day that I happened to gaze out the window to see Ric Ocasek walking down the street, heading to Cherokee.

  Around this time Steven Adler returned from his exile in the Valley and we picked up precisely where we left off. Each of us had girls in our lives and the four of us became an inseparable unit. My girlfriend Yvonne was a senior in high school when we met; she was a disciplined student by day and a rock chick by night, and she managed those dual identities very well. Yvonne was an amazing girl: she was very smart, very sexy, very outspoken, and very ambitious—today she is a high-powered lawyer in L.A. After she graduated, she enrolled as a psychology major at UCLA, and since by that point I had begun to more or less live with her, on my days off she’d somehow talk me into accompanying her to school at something like eight a.m. I’d spend the morning at the UCLA campus, sitting outside, smoking cigarettes, and watching the yuppies go by. Some days, whenever I found the course or professor interesting, I’d sit in on her larger lecture classes.

  I don’t even remember her name anymore, but Steven’s girl at the time and Yvonne became fast friends because the four of us went out every single night. I didn’t even want to most of the time, but there we were, out there hitting the Strip—and I didn’t even like the music of the day at all, though I tried to be positive. The coup de grâce came when a very hyped, overrated “innovation” known as MTV first aired. I expected it to be like Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, the live, hour-long program that ran on Saturday nights from 1973 to 1981. That show spotlighted an artist a week and aired amazing performances by everyone from the Stones to the Eagles to the Sex Pistols to Sly and the Family Stone to comedians like Steve Martin.

  MTV couldn’t have been more of a polar opposite: they showed Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me with Science,” the Police, and Pat Benatar over and over. I would literally wait for hours to see a good song; and usually it would be either Prince or Van Halen. I felt the same way when I explored Sunset at night: I saw a lot, I liked very little, and I was fucking bored the entire time.

  Steven, on the other hand, was in his element. He was all about what was going down on the Strip, because it was his chance to realize his rock-star dreams. He’d never exhibited such ambition before: he did whatever it took to get into a club, to meet people, to make connections, and be in the mix to whatever degree possible. Steven posted up in the Rainbow parking lot every Friday and Saturday night, and he kept tabs on every band that ever played as often as he did everything but give his balls to get himself inside.

  I rarely cared to go along, because I could never do what most often needed to be done: I was incapable of humiliating myself to go that extra mile. I don’t know why but I had a problem hanging around parking lots and stage doors, looking for any way in that might present itself. As a result I was so infrequently present that Steven’s never-ending morning-after tales of incredible bands and hot chicks eventually got to me. But I never saw any of those mythical creatures when I decided to accompany him (against my better judgment). I witnessed nothing but a string of evenings that never achieved epic status.

  I thought to myself just how hard it must be to be a girl.

  One night that stands out started with Steven and me borrowing my mom’s car (I was seventeen at the time, I believe) to go the Rainbow to mix it up.

  We drove down to Hollywood and walked up to the club, and discovered that it was ladies’ night.

  “That’s fuckin’ awesome!” Steven shouted.

  I had gotten into the Rainbow for years, thanks to my fake ID and Steady, the club’s bouncer. He’s still there, and he still recognizes me. For whatever reason, though, Steady wasn’t having it on this particular night: he let Steven in and sent me packing.

  “Naw, not you,” he said. “Not tonight, go home.”

  “What?” I asked. I had no right to be indignant but I was anyway. “What do you mean? I’m here all the time, man.”

  “Yeah, I don’t give a shit,” he said. “Get out of here, you’re not coming in tonight.”

  I was so fucking pissed off. I had nowhere else to go, so I followed Steady’s orders and went home. I drowned my embarrassment in alcohol, and once I was good and drunk, I came up with the crazy idea to return to the Rainbow dressed as a girl. It made complete sense in that special way that drunken plans do: I’d show Steady—I’d get in the club for free thanks to ladies’ night, and then I’d fuck with Steven. Adler hit on every girl in sight, so I was sure that he’d hit on me long before he realized who I was.

  My mom thought my plan was hilarious: she outfitted me with a skirt and fishnets, piled my hair up under a black beret, and did my makeup. I couldn’t wear her shoes, but the outfit worked—I looked like a chick…no—

  I looked like a Rainbow chick. I drove back up to West Hollywood in my outfit; I parked a few blocks away on Doheny and walked to the club. I was both drunk and on a mission, so my inhibitions were nonexistent. I sauntered up to Steady and nearly laughed in his face when he waved me in with no pause for ID.

  I was on top of the world; I had won—until I realized that Steven was nowhere to be found. It was like reaching the end of the roller coaster before the car had even gone over the first hill. The reality of the situation hit me square in the face: I was dressed as a girl, in the middle of the Rainbow. Once I saw the light, I did the only sensible thing—I left. On the long walk back to my mom’s car, I thought that every shout was directed at me, I thought every laugh was at my expense; I thought to myself just how hard it must be to be a girl.

  STEVEN’S GIRLFRIEND RAN INTO TOMMY Lee out on the town one night and Tommy invited her down to Cherokee Studios to hang out and watch Mötley record Theatre of Pain, the follow-up to their breakthrough album, Shout at the Devil. Steve’s girl thought nothing of inviting Yvonne, Steven, and me; I guess she figured that Tommy’s invitation included a “plus three.” Steven and I should have known better. The four of us headed down there, all ready to hang out and watch the proceedings; when we arrived, we were informed, in no uncertain terms, that the girls could go inside—which they did—but Steven and I could not. It was suggested that we go home. We were fuming: we watched our girlfriends head into the studio, and spent the night in the two lounge chairs in the lobby trying to be cool while we discussed what they might be doing in there. It was not a good scene.

  I’m not sure how, but somehow that experience didn’t scar me enough to desert the notion of getting a job at Cherokee. I had been pestering the studio’s day manager to hire me for an entire year. I’d stop by daily, like clockwork, during my lunch break at Hollywood Music across the street. I continued to do so, business as usual, but a few weeks later he finally gave in and offered me a job. In my mind, it was a milestone; I was now just one step away from becoming a professional musician. I was very wrong, but my plan was that once I worked in a studio, I would make connections because I would meet musicians and producers every single day. In my mind, a studio was the place to meet other players who took it seriously and by working there at the very least I’d get free recording time once I got a band together. With that kind of bullshit in my head, I quit Hollywood Music feeling like I’d just won the lottery.

  I was hired at Cherokee to be a gofer to the engineers, no more no less. I didn’t care; I showed up to my first day, ready to run errands, take out the trash, whatever, whenever. Or so I thought: I visibly wilted when I discovered that my job for the week was to fetch whatever Mötley Crüe might need, day or night. Just over a week before, these same guys had refused to let me into the studio and might have had my girlfriend (I believed her when she said nothing happened, but still…), and now I would have to spend the next few weeks as their errand boy. Great…

  The studio manager gave me one hundred bucks to fill Möt
ley’s first order, which I was sure was just the first of many: a magnum of Jack Daniel’s, a magnum of vodka, a few bags of chips, and a couple of cartons of cigarettes. I looked down at the money as I walked outside into the sunlight, debating the pros and cons of swallowing my pride. It was a really nice day. I stopped when I got to the liquor store to think about this for a minute.

  I squinted up at the sky; I stared at the sidewalk, and then I started walking again—toward home. That was all she wrote for Cherokee and me: considering how many hours I’ve spent in professional recording facilities over the years since, it’s almost ridiculous that I’ve never again set foot in Cherokee Studios. At this point I have no intention of doing so—I owe those guys a hundred bucks. The one day I did spend there taught me an invaluable lesson, however: I needed to pave my own way into the music business. It didn’t matter that any idiot could fulfill the duties of fetching for Mötley Crüe, or anyone else for that matter—that job was something that I refused to do on principle. I’m glad that I did; it made it that much easier when Mötley hired us to open for them a few years later.

  SO I’D DITCHED HOLLYWOOD MUSIC, thinking that my studio job would be the last day job I’d ever have before I made it. Hardly. Things weren’t looking too good for me at that point: I hadn’t graduated high school, I wasn’t going to college, and as far as I knew, I’d walked out on the only job that might have helped me on my way.