Slash

by Slash

  All the same, I had just read Time magazine’s cover story on AIDS and the pictures of HIV-related lesions looked exactly like the marks on my stomach to me. It was probably just psoriasis or an irritation, but I was convinced that between my porno chick and my junkie girlfriend that I’d caught it, because I hadn’t used protection with either of them. I remember walking up Melrose near San Vincente after leaving the junkie girlfriend’s place to go to a clinic for an AIDS test. I thought I was a goner; I was convinced that this European tour would be the only international tour I’d ever do before I died. Luckily, the test was negative.

  It didn’t help that on top of that, I’d picked up venereal warts, probably from the porno chick—which intensified my AIDS terror. I’d been pretty promiscuous up to that point and never used protection, but I never thought anything more serious than crabs could happen to me. When these things showed up…I thought, What the fuck is this? I went to a clinic before we left and they tried to get rid of them a few times, but nothing worked; they kept coming back. When we started on the tour, they had gotten so painful that I couldn’t sleep on my stomach. I spent all of my time in and out of clinics in every country we went to, keeping these things at bay. I wanted to get rid of them permanently before I met up with Sally. Eventually I got them off properly so they didn’t return just before we got to the U.K.; Sally never knew a thing.

  If I had to choose my favorite show of the tour, it was the Paradiso in Amsterdam. The venue is amazing; it is a dark, foreboding building that used to be a church. Inside the main hall are high ceilings, arches, and great acoustics. So many legends had played there, from the Sex Pistols to the Stones, so I was excited to do it. I remember Axl going off on old rock stars that night during the set: I don’t recall his exact words but the gist of it was that any older-generation rock star who felt that we were ripping them off was right—we were, but we were doing it better. I think he capped that speech off by telling Paul Stanley to suck his dick.

  That show was so great that Izzy and I decided to celebrate by scoring some dope. We were in Amsterdam after all, where soft drugs are basically legal and hard drugs aren’t hard to find—at least that’s what we thought. We spent half the night looking for dealers, and eventually copped some smack that was so stepped on and weak that it wasn’t even worth the effort. Obviously we were pegged as tourists.

  We took a ferry from Holland to England, and for the crew guys who had tour experience it was no big deal, but for us it was huge. You could smoke as much pot as you wanted until you got there. It was wild, all of the crew guys and the band smoking themselves to death, trying to consume the rest of whatever they’d bought in Amsterdam. There was a main bar area, and Axl got so high that he went to sleep on one of the couches there. We were the only ones in there when he did, but soon the place filled up, and all of the other passengers sat around him and kind of leaned on him. I remember opening the doors to the various cabins, where one or another of our crew, like Bill, my guitar tech, would be smoking every single last crumb of their weed so they wouldn’t have to throw it over the side before we got to England.

  We ended the tour on October 8, 1987, in London and it was amazing. The band was really coming into its own; we’d had enough road time by then to know what we were doing. We had become comfortable as players: we knew one another well enough that we didn’t have to think much about what we were doing the moment we went on. Once you have that familiarity, you can improvise and build from there and make every show unique. The Hammersmith Odeon show was explosive; die-hard fans that I run into to this day tell me that it was the best show of ours they’ve ever seen. When a show really clicked, as we did that night, we would have a great interaction going between me and Izzy because we had that indescribable guitar relationship; or I could be in sync with the rhythm section, Duff and Steven; or there was the great interaction between Axl’s energy and my emotional interplay with him. It was just great energy as a whole—we’d throw it out at the crowd and they’d throw right back at us. It couldn’t have happened in a better venue: the Hammersmith Odeon is the famous room where everyone from Motörhead to The Who to Black Sabbath to the Beatles to Johnny Cash has played; and it’s where Bowie did his final gig as Ziggy Stardust in 1973.

  WE RETURNED TO THE STATES AND landed in New York City and went directly to do MTV’s Headbangers Ball. Immediately afterward we’d have to get on the tour bus to do an overnight drive and meet up with Mötley Crüe to begin our stint opening for them. We’d flown all night, hadn’t showered, and were in no mood for the MTV experience. From the moment we entered the building at ten a.m., it was a huge clash between hungover, sweaty, unclean touring-in-the-same-clothes-for-weeks rock musicans and the corporate world of MTV. We got to reception and there was a Geffen representative waiting to meet us who was all smiles and bullshit gracious posturing. We got our little name tags, we filed through the turnstile into the elevator and into a room to wait; some green room with nothing in it but two couches and a table. There was no rider, no amenities, nothing in there at all. I had my bottle of Jack with me, of course, so I was fine.

  It was obvious that we weren’t happy, so someone up there sent VJ Downtown Julie Brown in to say hello and keep us occupied for a minute. I got the feeling that it wasn’t her idea; she didn’t want to be in that room at all. She went through the paces but wasn’t anything close to her trademark bubbly self; she looked nervous and apprehensive. Clearly she had the worst precon ceptions of our band; for someone who lived in New York and was supposedly “downtown,” she turned my stomach. If I’d been further through my bottle of Jack, I probably would have shouted what I was thinking: Shut the fuck up already, we don’t want to be here either, but we all have to get through this day.

  When we got on set, we met JJ Jackson, the host, and he was really cool. They had this big set, and somewhere along the line, we joked that we should destroy it on camera. That idea stuck, and among ourselves we decided that we were going to do just that. So we got into the interview, and Axl talked, answering all of JJ’s questions. I sat there quietly; the other guys were quiet, too. We waited until the show was just about over and then in ten seconds flat we totaled the set. I didn’t think about it at the time or again until a couple of weeks later when I saw the episode. We looked like savage zombies straight out of 28 Days Later. That was our first real exposure, our first step up from just having a video on MTV; that was us, inching our way into mainstream consciousness.

  We left MTV, got on our bus, and the next day set off with Mötley. It was surreal to follow up a week spent in a converted sightseeing bus headlining in Europe with a Midwestern tour of America supporting Mötley Crüe: they were touring Girls, Girls, Girls, were enjoying the apex of their popularity, and were a band who spared no expense. I had always liked Tommy from the moment I met him—he’s probably the most genuine, true-blue, heart-of-gold person to emerge from that scene. I always liked Nikki because he was the brains, the marketing, and ideas guy behind that band. I’d always respected his dedication and his passion to his vision and how he’d made it a reality. Mötley was the only band from L.A. that came out of the glam metal scene that was 100 percent genuine. They might not have been the most original—after all, Nikki shamelessly lifted entire parts from other bands. But whether it was Kiss or any of their other influences, Mötley wore those influences on their sleeves and were so sincere and devoted that you could not fault them for it—and Nikki embodied all of that in my mind. On that tour Duff and I could usually be found in close proximity to Nikki because we knew that he was always holding a huge bag of blow.

  Those guys were very generous with us; they took us in like proud parents, and like proud parents, they showed off the house that their hard work had built. This was their third big headlining world tour, so they had their entire stage show going: a full arsenal of pyrotechnics, a huge crew, months of sold-out arenas to play—the full rock-and-roll dream. They had developed this convenient system of communication involvi
ng walkie-talkies and numeric codes: everyone in the band’s production had a walkie-talkie with a key taped to the back of it explaining what the various numbers represented. There were codes strictly for the crew relating to gear, lighting equipment, load-in, etc. Then there were the band’s walkie-talkie codes, which covered their day-to-day needs. For example, “1” stood for blow, which was listed under a nickname; “2” was a code word for chicks; “3” stood for booze, and so on. It was great, at any given time, as the situation required, they’d just get on the line and say, “Hey, it’s Tommy, I need a number one, a number three, and if you see a few good number twos along the way, bring all of that to my dressing room. And, uh, please hurry. Thank you very much!”

  We hung out with those guys a lot during the tour, but Nikki was always very aware of how much he was showing off their success and making the band’s status known to us. He and Tommy were the only ones inviting us over to enjoy their spoils: we never saw Vince and for that whole tour I never met Mick Mars. To this day I’ve never met him, actually. As much as it felt like Nikki was sharing with us, it was clear to me that he was doing it to boast a little; especially because we only saw him and enjoyed their privileges when Nikki felt like hanging out. There was always an agenda with him: in the touring situation he was never out of control—whenever he did lose control he was always in a situation where he’d be taken care of. I respected that: Nikki didn’t like to make himself vulnerable. And hanging out with the likes of us was not at all conducive to retaining control.

  Mötley were traveling by private plane as often as possible at that point, and for one of the longer travel legs between gigs, Nikki invited us to join them on the plane. It was more than most headliners would have done and flying Mötley Air was enjoyable; the trip came complete with drinks, lines, and aisle surfing during takeoff and landing—a sport that involves standing sideways in the aisle and riding the plane’s momentum. If you get the chance, do it; I highly recommend it.

  At the time, there wasn’t a more debauched double bill than Guns and Mötley; and as much as we lived up to it, that reality quickly became business as usual. That gig was my first exposure to first-class professional touring, which, unlike Steven, had never been something I coveted, although it’s become a regular part of my life. To me, those moments onstage, playing guitar before a crowd, is what it’s all about. That is what has always mattered to me; that is what makes all of the boredom and drama that comes with being in a touring rock band worth it.

  So I did everything possible to put distance between yesterday and the present.

  Although I’d been around show business all of my life, on the Mötley tour I finally realized, firsthand, that entertainment was equal parts tedium for each moment of magic—it demanded commitment. Even in the best of situations, life on the road is monotonous: you get up at whatever time; you pass the time until the gig; you do the gig; and you party, usually while traveling to the next one, where you do it all again. Touring becomes one big blur of a very intense moment.

  That said, it has never become cliché to me; I’ve always known where I am. Touring, to this day, is still not a cliché to me; every room is not the same. Back then as now, I’ve always made a point to do a sound check to get the vibe of the venue. I wasn’t always able to do so when we were an opening band, but what I could do was learn a bit about the city we were in. I never cared about what was going on in any given city culturally, but I did care to learn what I could about our audience and what they were like.

  Unfortunately whatever conclusions I’d drawn about the people who’d come to see us wherever we were would most often be left in the urinal of whatever bar I went to after the gig. In my mind I’d have these moments of enlightenment that would be forgotten entirely en route to the next city only to be relearned on the next tour. I had a finite amount of memory, and since I eagerly awaited the next moment, the past faded fast. If anything touring to me is like the Stephen King story “The Tommyknockers,” where the past is eagerly munching away at your heels as you desperately try to stay one step ahead.

  When you are that gung ho to get where you’re going, there is never enough time in a day. I don’t remember sleeping or resting at all during this period; there was a fever pitch to everything and I didn’t want to miss a thing. It felt like if I slowed down, time would catch up and then all of it would stop.

  So I did everything possible to put distance between yesterday and the present. I’ve always been that way and I still am. It is why I don’t have any memorabilia to speak of: I don’t have gold and platinum records, only the guitars that mean something to me. My wife, Perla, was so shocked by that fact that she recently had the record company remake me platinum copies of all of my records. She hung them on the wall leading up the stairs in our house. I think they lasted a week; they drove me so nuts I took them down one night and put them in storage. I don’t need accolades on the wall to remind me who I am.

  MY ONLY TANGIBLE CONNECTIONS TO the past outside of my memories are the meticulous day planners I’ve maintained for most of my life—until I gave up on them after having too many stolen or lost. But I have saved all of those that survived and a few have come in pretty handy when ugly legal situations or something like this book have popped up and I’ve needed to recall specifics. It was how I kept track of my life and I did note every significant event. That said, unfortunately, this tour with Mötley is a black hole because, for the first time in my life, someone stole that day planner, along with all of the very few clothes I had with me on tour. It wasn’t hard for them to do—all of it was stuffed into the pillowcase that doubled as my luggage. Our security guard Ron Stalnaker would always handle our bags—he was one of those kind of guys who against all rhyme or reason had this need to carry things and exert himself. His mind-set was robotic, “I must pick up and carry…” It was fine with us because we never used bellboys or porters anyway because back then we couldn’t afford the tips.

  So Ronnie had set our bags up against the side of the bus and gone back into the hotel wherever we were to get more bags from the lobby. Some kid had been waiting there and grabbed the first two bags set down—which were Duff ’s and my pillowcases. We hardly did laundry; we didn’t have anyone to take care of our shit. On occasion—and I mean on occasion—we’d go to a coin-op laundry and clean our clothes. We wore what we had and just kept getting new T-shirts whenever possible. Basically, once my jeans were worn out, I wore my leather pants for the rest of the tour. Duff, Izzy, and I definitely lived by the seat of our pants (pun intended) clotheswise; we’d throw our shit in one laundry bag or pillowcase, both the clean and dirty all together. That bag that was stolen contained everything I needed that day: socks, a new T-shirt, my day planner, plus everything else that I had to wear. We meant enough at that point for someone to want to steal my “luggage,” as if it were a prize. I guess that’s cool. At the time it was a drag because I had no other clothes and I was late for a radio interview. I had to do it in person, live on the air, in a towel, since I’d told Ronnie that it was okay to take my “luggage” to the bus while I took a shower—I’d planned to get dressed en route. At least I got a T-shirt from the radio station.

  MÖTLEY WAS THE ONLY BAND FROM THE L.A. scene that we came upon that we ever worked with on a national, professional level. It made sense; they were the only band we respected, the only one with whom we could share a camaraderie. I was still convinced that no one knew who we were, but apparently they did because it was quite the ticket and the shows were amazing. It was the ultimate “bad boy” bill and we behaved accordingly.

  There was the night that Nikki Sixx and I got into a drinking contest. Depending on whom you ask, either I started it, claiming that I could drink both Tommy and Nikki under the table, or Nikki dared me to outdrink him. In any case, he and I ended up sitting at the hotel bar wherever we were and getting into a shot contest. Nikki had a system. He would order four shots and I’d down my two right away, while he’d down one of his and l
eave his second lingering, which I’d end up downing because it was just sitting there as kind of a community thing. I was aware of what he was doing, but I was still slamming quickly, and whether it was the conversation or whatever, I started to lose track. Soon enough, the more shots that were there, the more I’d drink. In the heat of the moment I’d do mine, while he’d be nursing his, and there was that extra one so down it went. I’d never drink like that alone and I wasn’t fooled; I was totally aware of what he was doing…to a point.

  In theory, we were going shot for shot, but since I was drinking half of Nikki’s rounds, I’d say that by the end of it I downed twenty shots of Jack Daniel’s to his ten. I got so drunk that I’ve been told that I barfed right there at the bar, between my legs, onto the floor, and tried to hide it. I don’t remember that at all, but I do remember doing what I always liked to do when I was drunk—wrestle some guy who was much bigger than me. In this case it was Nikki, whom I tackled, bar stool and all, out of nowhere. Nikki is pretty tall, and at that time he was pretty heavy, too, so he ended up turning it around: he slammed me on my back and sat on me. Once I was sedated, they took me upstairs and put me to bed in Tommy’s drum tech Spidy’s bed. I woke up there the next morning completely unable to turn my head; I was in the worst pain I’d ever felt in my entire life. I managed to limp to my room and called Doug, our road manager, to tell him that I needed a doctor right away. Apparently I’d dislocated four vertebrae in my neck.

  I could barely play because supporting the weight of my guitar across my shoulder was excruciating. I spent the next few weeks just standing in one place onstage with my top hat pulled down as far as it would go. The vertebrae that were injured were too far up and too close to the base of my skull to have a chiropractor put them back in line. So I had my first experience with acupuncture and that proved to be very helpful; I got it before every single show and a few times a week for a few months afterward. Until the swelling subsided, I walked around like a rusted Tin Man.