Slash

by Slash

  All I remember is that the next time I saw Steve was in court, because he sued us, which seemed asinine. He was in such bad shape that I knew what he was doing when he headed to the bathroom in the middle of the proceedings. He sued us for a couple million bucks for a glitch in the execution of his sobriety contract. He needed to have an attorney present when he signed it, and he hadn’t had one. Of course, thanks to our attorneys, we didn’t know this. I was shocked when I found out that Steven won his lawsuit and we had to pay him two million bucks.

  As difficult as it was, at least it was over. Now it was time to find a new drummer.

  THAT ARDUOUS TASK FELL TO DUFF AND Izzy and me. We set up shop near Alan Niven’s office in Redondo Beach, in a little rehearsal studio, where I realized after the very first day of auditions how fucking difficult it was going to be. In the back of my mind I thought, “Sure, anybody can play drums.” Right…the three of us thought that finding a replacement would be easy considering that our songs were all pretty straight-ahead 4/4 rock rhythms with few fancy time changes—how hard could that be? After all, if we’d pulled it off with Fred Curry when Steven was injured, the prospects looked good. After a few horrible days of trying to play with uselessly inappropriate candidates, though, we realized the depth of our naïveté. The way a drummer plays involves such a personal feel for the rhythm and inflections on the beat that affect the entire vibe of the song—and the entire band for which he keeps time.

  We ditched Redondo Beach and returned to Mates to undertake a more thorough search. We tried out Martin Chambers from the Pretenders, who is a great drummer and a great guy, but we should have known that it wasn’t going to work out the minute he walked in with that huge octopus drum kit he used with the Pretenders. It was more, for want of a better word, fantastic than your average drum kit. That thing had round poles that came over the top of it with cymbals hanging from them—it was just ridiculous. He was setting it all up while Duff tuned up and got ready to play with him for a bit; Duff was the front line. He and the drummer had to click, first of all—if they didn’t, there was no point in Izzy or me even picking up a guitar.

  I was in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, reading a magazine, when Martin and Duff started playing, and as I listened through the door, I thought, Oh boy. I was making something more appealing than what I was hearing at that moment, which just goes to show that putting great players in the same room doesn’t mean that they will sound great together. Making great music is much more complicated; it’s about chemistry and the commingling of the players’ stylistic ticks. It’s nowhere near as simple as the sum of the parts; it’s more like building Frankenstein’s monster: you need ingenuity…and lightning.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Duff was still playing but he shot me a look that said it all, so needless to say, Martin didn’t work out. We were fucked, because at the time, Martin was our best bet at the end of a short list that we’d already exhausted. To Steven’s credit, and unbeknownst to most, the feel and energy of Appetite was largely due to him. He had an inimitable style of drumming that couldn’t really be replaced, an almost adolescent levity that gave the band its spark.

  All at once the momentum we’d built over the last few months came to a standstill and although I didn’t show it, I was panicked. I thought, This is it, we’re done. I was convinced that Guns N’ Roses would break up because we couldn’t find a drummer. And I was worried about what I would do with myself if we did.

  DURING THIS TIME DUFF AND I WERE pretty inseparable. He had split up with Mandy, so we’d go out when the band wasn’t working—more often than not, to Bordello’s, a club owned by former Cathouse founder Riki Rachtman. That place was great, there was a little jam room in the back where a blues band would get up and play, and I would usually end up sitting in on a few songs. That place was so much fun—we’d just go there and drink and jam. But the truth is, even if you’re famous and everyone loves you and this and that, after a while that scene or any scene, to me at least, becomes sort of miserable, dull, and monotonous. After you’ve done it twice, maybe three times, it is nothing but boring. Even to this day, the Hollywood rock-club scene does nothing for me; it’s all there, and as much as times and styles have changed, it’s all still the same. If you’ve just played a gig and you need to blow off some steam, it’s great, but if you’re just hanging around town, it’s like being in some blown-out cliché: from the chicks on down, it’s a cliché of what all the kids think life is going to be like if they become rock stars. It’s not a mirage that I want to be a part of.

  What I’m getting at is that generally I preferred to stay at home, drink all day, listen to records, and play guitar and write music. I wasn’t reclusive in the way I’d been on smack, but in my mind, I had switched over to work mode, so going out and socializing was the last thing on my mind—I had committed to being productive and getting our band to the next level. On one of the nights that Duff coaxed me out to this place Peanuts to jam with this great little blues band, we ended up hanging out with this girl, Pilar, that he picked up. Pilar was a sexy Middle Eastern or Latin girl—I’m not sure which. She had a friend with her that I barely spoke to whose name was Renee. And Renee had this too-cool-for-school attitude; she held her head high, with this mightier-than-thou stance. She was really good-looking and she knew it, and that whole vibe locked me in like a tractor beam, because any girl that was going to fucking make my life difficult, any girl that was hard to get, was the girl to go for in my mind. In Lemmy Kilmister’s infamous words, “The chase is better than the catch.” Renee had no interest in what I did or any of the notoriety that came with it; she wasn’t a rock chick by any stretch of the imagination.

  She was a model and aspiring actress and very independent. Within a couple of weeks I had ditched the Walnut House and was living in her place full-time. She had a great spot that her dad, before he passed away, had bought for her down on Valley Vista—I think there was a dinette set, a bed, and a couch in the whole place. Here’s how we spent our time: I’d get up in the morning and fucking lie on the floor and drink vodka and smoke cigarettes until she got up. She’d go do what she had to do that day and I’d do the same and that was our life. I watched a lot of cooking shows; The Galloping Gourmet, Great Chefs of the East and West, and The Food Network. It was the start of a lifelong obsession with cooking shows, though to this day, I don’t cook at all. At night we’d order out.

  That was my home life. Meanwhile, we still had this quest for a drummer going on.

  ONCE WE’D EXHAUSTED ALL LOGICAL possibilities, I for one was not going to let the hunt for a drummer end the band. Duff, Izzy, and I racked our brains. We discussed the best drummers we’d seen lately, but nobody appropriate came to mind…until one night, I had an epiphany. I recalled seeing The Cult a few months before at the Universal Amphitheater and being mesmerized by their drummer. He was fucking amazing; I was standing at the soundboard and was completely captivated by his playing. I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the band at all for the whole gig. His playing was extremely tight and his sound had enormous presence; it was big, bombastic, and delivered with intense authority. The moment I remembered him, I couldn’t believe that I’d sat through so many shitty auditions without realizing that I knew just the right guy.

  Mike Clink, our producer, had worked with Matt Sorum, the drummer in question, before, so I called him immediately and left him a message. A little later, I was a bit drunk, lying on my back, my head hanging upside down over the edge of Renee’s bed, watching the phone on the floor and waiting for it to ring. Finally it did. I picked it up instantly.

  “Hello?” Mike said, typically soft-spoken.

  “Hey, it’s Slash,” I said. “So, hey, listen, do you know the drummer from The Cult? We need a drummer, and I saw this guy and he’s great, and I’m trying to find out if he’s available.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Mike said. “Let me make a phone call.”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  The
phone rang again in the early evening. “Slash,” Mike said. “Here’s what I found out. He’s possibly available. Do you have a pen? I have his number.”

  I hadn’t moved much that day; I was waiting for this call, focused on it, because I knew this was right. I wrote the number on the sheets, or on the wall or on my hand, I’m not sure which.

  I dialed and waited. Matt picked up.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, Matt, is it? This is Slash,” I said. “I’m from Guns N’ Roses and we need a drummer. Are you interested?”

  Two days later Matt came in to rehearse, and within the course of two or three songs, Duff, Izzy, and I realized that we’d found our man. We’d found ourselves a player with an innate feel all his own, both in step with the rest of us and individually stylized. He had the power, the chops, and the vibe to fill the void—and add to what the band’s sound was about to become.

  I think Duff and I took Matt out to ask him if he wanted to join—I can’t remember where—probably the Rainbow—but we took him out and drank and did some blow, that kind of thing. He fit right in. He was pysched; it was the situation that every touring musician dreams of. There’s no easier gig to walk into for a real rock-and-roll player. After hanging out with Duff and me, it was clear that Matt thought Guns was the biggest band on the face of the planet as well as a crew of relentless partiers. The pay was good and there were no rules, except for one: all you had to do was play well.

  But Matt had to learn a hell of a lot of stuff pretty fast. We had the demos of thirty-six songs that we planned to record for the albums. Since those tapes weren’t really enough to go on, Duff, Izzy, and I had to teach him everything in a reasonably short amount of time, and because of that, the rest of us had to become very professional very quickly. There was a lot of remorse, at least on my part and surely the other guys’, about letting Steven go; but when Matt came into it, he brought new life to the proceedings. There was a light at the end of the tunnel when it looked like it might go dark forever.

  A FEW OTHER THINGS WERE GOING ON during this period as Guns geared up to reemerge—we made a few appearances that are worthy of note. One of them was the night that Duff and I accepted our American Music Award on behalf of the band for Best Rock Album. I had never paid attention to the Grammys or the AMAs or any of that stuff; I never watched those shows on TV or took an active interest in any of it. Duff and I went anyway—mostly for the drinks—and we really had no concept of the fact that being nominated meant you might actually win something, and if you did win you were expected to get onstage and say something—to the crowd as well as the TV audience at home.

  At this point, I was dating Renee and Duff was with Pilar, and the AMAs were something to take the girls to. All they had to serve was wine, and we had at least eight big cups a piece. The whole thing was pretty boring and stiff. We’re sitting there talking when all of a sudden Guns N’ Roses was called for Appetite winning Best Rock Album. We were dumbfounded. The spotlight shot over our seats and we staggered up there. Once I realized we’d won, I wanted to thank all the different people, so I thanked Zutaut, Niven, all those people at Geffen all the while dropping countless fucks caused by the wine and my nervousness. I had no idea what the protocol was at these ceremonies. Anyway, I was a few names in when they cut the mike. I kept talking for a second, until I realized it’d been shut off. We were escorted back to do pictures and have the press conference. I was buzzed, I was having a good time and gave them all the middle finger.

  The next day, this AMA thing was all I heard about. I was overwhelmed by the controversy because to this day the incident still doesn’t mean that much to me. I was, however, responsible for the seven-second delay being instituted at all future live award ceremonies; plus Dick Clark wouldn’t speak to me for eight years. I wasn’t allowed at the AMAs until only a year or so ago when I was asked to present some award.

  It wasn’t intentional but nonetheless it sent a message: the Guns spirit was alive and well.

  BACK AT THE STUDIO, WE HAD THIRTY- six songs, which was more than enough to fill a double album. I wanted to choose the twelve best of the thirty-six and hone them down to perfection, but I let it go because as long as were moving forward, I was happy. Axl wanted to record all thirty-six and go the double-album route. He didn’t want to sit on these tunes. I understood that: many of them were old by this point—they’d been held over from our last album, and some were even older. Also, there was a whole bunch of new songs that represented where we were at that moment in time. It might be retrospect talking, but the general consensus was that we were cleaning the slate, getting out everything we had. As a whole, these songs were representative of something important: the band’s past and present. It had been such an incredible journey and the only way to express it was all in this body of material.

  Matt was great; he was tight with Duff and me; Izzy was around, but not like he used to be. Not only was he 100 percent dead sober, he was also very much anti-alcohol and antidrugs at that point. When Izzy met Matt they got along fine, but it was under the condition that the decision had already been made: it was all okay, but I think Izzy felt dictated to—and he hated that. Izzy was pretty fragile from the time he came back to the band until the day he left, and as I look back, this whole shift probably didn’t sit entirely well with him. When we had rehearsal we were all there as a band and it was cool, something was off. Izzy wasn’t happy…but he wasn’t saying anything, and Axl had distanced himself from the day-today mechanics of the band so much that as long as we had a drummer and everyone was there and playing together, he thought we were cool and ready to move forward.

  The first recording with Matt was “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” for the Days of Thunder soundtrack (which also ended up on the Illusions albums). I remember doing the solo for it on my way somewhere and I used a ’58 Gibson Explorer. It was an amazing take, I just ran in there with my girlfriend and some friends in tow, picked up the guitar, and really let the solo sing: I turned the tone down on the bass pickup, I locked in and let it scream. I really love the way that one came out—it was very emotional yet effortless.

  “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” was also the first song that we could listen to and get an idea of what the band sounded like with our new drummer. It came out great, but there was a definite difference in the overall feel of the new Guns from the old Guns. We had lost a little bit of the mayhem and punk rock, that raw chaotic, seat-of-the-pants feel. Instead we sounded more epic and solid and huge. That was a good or a bad thing depending on who you asked. In my opinion, I was just happy to be moving ahead.

  Next, we went in and Matt learned all thirty-six songs at breakneck speed, basically by playing them with us live because there was no other material to reference. We booked ourselves into A&M in Hollywood and recorded thirty-six songs in thirty-six days. Between takes, we’d go to Crazy Girls, the strip bar across the street, which I’m sorry to say is no longer there. At night we’d go out carousing, then show up the next afternoon and do it all again on a new song. It was a great thirty-six days, during which Duff and I realized that Matt was both an incredible drummer and our brand-new party buddy. Before the drug thing got out of hand and before the incident with Steven, there were some dark periods, but we’d come through that: we were now very functional alcoholics and occasional coke users. Actually, I doubt that it was occasional—Matt and Duff did a lot of blow. I didn’t do as much, but it didn’t matter because, like them, I’d built up my tolerance of everything to the point that we were all a perfectly productive, chemically driven, and very professional band.

  Beverly Hills High should be proud: Slash onstage with Lenny Kravitz.

  I WAS GETTING OUT THERE AND CIRCULATING a lot more, too, by this point. Duff and I ran into Iggy Pop during our down time and he asked us to play on Brick by Brick. We went down to meet him at the Rainbow, where we got into his car and listened to the demos, which was very cool. Iggy is Duff ’s ultimate hero and there was a little bit of histor
y there on my end because of Bowie—he and my mom had gone to visit Iggy at the Cedars psych ward. We showed up in Hollywood and laid down some tracks with him: “Home Boy,” “Pussy Power,” and a song that Iggy and I cowrote, “My Baby Wants to Rock ’n’ Roll.” It was one of the most fun sessions I’d ever done. Not long after that, we also did the video with him for “Home Boy.”

  This was a real honor for us; it was another sign that Guns was getting back out on the scene and that we were being taken seriously as musicians. People wanted to see us plain and simple. At that point in 1990, Appetite and Lies had become huge commercial successes. This newfound attention also drew the spotlight to me as a guitar player, which took the form of a few calls to our management office. It was flattering to discover that other musicians had started to give me credit for being a fairly good guitar player.

  One collaboration I did at the time was with Lenny Kravitz. I already knew him; he and I attended Beverly Hills High at the same time, and although I was in continuation while he was a regular student, we were the only two half-black half-white musicians in the school that I knew of. Duff and I were fans, and our favorite record of the moment was Lenny’s debut, Let Love Rule. When we were introduced at some awards function, I was ecstatic when he asked me to play on his next record, Mama Said, which he was in the midst of writing. Shortly thereafter we met up in a little studio on Robertson in L.A. where I put a solo on “Fields of Joy.” As I was warming up in the lounge that day, I played a funky guitar riff that I’d come up with recently but hadn’t found a place for in any of the songs I was working on at the time with Guns. It was just another of my exercises at the time.

  “Hey man, what is that?” Lenny asked

  “I don’t know…Just something,” I said. “It’s too funky for Guns, but I like it. It’s cool.”