Slash

by Slash

  “No, it’s on the E! channel,” I told him.

  “Well, put on the news!” I saw that a plane had hit the Twin Towers, and moments later the second one hit while I was actually watching. The windows were open in my room, so I could see what was going on in the distance. That was probably one of the most unnerving events I’d ever experienced. As you can imagine, the whole hotel was in pandemonium. There were people running around the hallway as if it were the end of the civilized world. And Perla was still asleep. I had to wake her up and try to explain what was happening. I think it took a few minutes before it sank in. Michael and his immediate entourage had left the building and were safely on a plane out of the country, I believe. But we were stuck there in a city turned upside down.

  I thought the safest place to be was where we were, but Perla thought differently. She wanted out of there. She was convinced that the air was filled with toxins, but we couldn’t get a ride out. And for some reason, a lot of Michael’s dancers and background singers had convened in our room, because everyone was trapped in Manhattan with no way out. Perla really wanted to get home, so she was in an intense state trying to figure out a way to get us across the country.

  Eventually we found a limo that took us across the only bridge that was open at that point, the George Washington Bridge. We continued across New Jersey to the Poconos, which is a resort area in Pennsylvania. Perla found us a room in the Pocono Palace, this love-theme hotel that she knew about—I didn’t ask how. When we finally got there, it was like something I’d only seen in magazines. This place had a champagne glass for a bathtub, satin sheets and velvet blankets on a rotating bed, tacky red carpets, and mirrors on the ceiling. By the time we got there, we were dead tired.

  We collected our dinner tickets from the front desk—because that’s the kind of place this was—and headed to the smorgasboard-style dinner. Like every other couple there, we were assigned a number and had designated seats at a big round table filled with other couples. We were sitting there with old folks from New Jersey who had renewed their vows, nerdy people who’d just gotten married, and a few couples who should have known better. There was nothing beautiful or romantic about that place at all. Everyone we interacted with was clearly scared of us, but what scared us most about them was that no one was aware of the tragedy that had just occurred a hundred miles away.

  There was a shitty band and a stand-up comic booked as dinner entertainment, there was miniature golf, horseback riding, couples riding, and every clichéd romantic activity imaingable. Love was the Pied Piper for all of those fucking misfits. When we got to talking to any of them who knew about the attack, they didn’t seem to care. They were there wallowing in love, and were so into it that 9/11 wasn’t an issue worth discussing. We were stuck there, strangers in a strange land, for three days. Then we bunny-hopped, flight by flight, back to L.A.

  I HAD ONE RUN-IN WITH HEROIN DURING this period of my life. I’d stayed away and lost interest in it for so long that I actually believed my own bullshit when I told myself I’d never touch it again. Even as I began to hang around where it might be or as I made plans to hook up with people who probably had it, I still believed myself. I assured myself and I assured Perla that I was done with it, but I should have known—or at least admitted it to myself—where it was going.

  One night I got some and went back to the Hyatt on Sunset and got so high that I nodded out and fell asleep with all of my weight on one leg. When I woke up I couldn’t feel it at all. I couldn’t bend it, I couldn’t stand up, and it didn’t seem to get any better once I stretched it out. Junkies do that all the time; some of them cut off their circulation so badly that gangrene sets in.

  I had to call 911 and I was taken to Cedars-Sinai, which was completely full at the time. So they put me in a holding room until they could find me a permanent room. As I lay there smoking cigarettes, which they weren’t too happy about, they got in touch with Perla and she came down and I told her what had happened. The whole episode scared her and she threatened to leave me if I continued down this road. I was in there for a week and it was a great chance to get some peace and quiet…and watch the History Channel.

  Slash and Ray Charles recording at Ray’s legendary studio in Los Angeles.

  Seeing her there only confirmed for me that she was the one. I asked her to get married and luckily she agreed. We had a beautiful little ceremony in Maui, and spent a week together, enjoying each other. Things were definitely looking up.

  Before the honeymoon, I carried my guitar around and constantly set up sessions, though everything around me remained chaotic. With my black book and cell phone, I tried to keep things going musically. I lacked focus, but I was committed, and sometimes my efforts lead to a lucky break. One was working with the legendary Ray Charles. The day after Perla and I returned from our honeymoon, I went to South Central L.A. to record “God Bless America Again” with him. I used my ’54 Telly and it was one of the more amazing sessions I’ve ever participated in it was, a huge honor and a humbling experience. I didn’t think Ray had even heard of me, but there we were playing together.

  Ray was involved with a benefit for underpriviledged kids with an interest in music—he’d let them record in his studio and use his equipment, and sometimes Ray even played with them. They’d work on songs, techniques, and arrangements while he coached them. I’d go down there at times to play some tracks with the kids. Helping them out was an incredible feeling.

  I also contributed to certain parts of the Ray movie tracks; I played with guys way out of my league, big-band old-time blues jazz players. I played guitar on “Sorry Is the Hardest Word” on his Ray and Friends album, but after Ray died, the executive producer used a friend of his instead and took my part off, even though Ray thought I was more bluesy.

  My period of rootlessness in the musical sense was about to come to an end. I had wandered and I had learned. I was ready to come back to my center and make a new start. It was time. I got together with Pete Angelus, who had managed the Black Crowes and had wanted to manage me. He got me together with Steve Gorman, the Crowes’ drummer, and Alan Niven turned me on to a bass player. We started to write and came up with the music for what became “Fall to Pieces.” All we needed was a singer—again. But then my good friend Randy Castillo passed away and I went to his funeral, and out of his death came a rebirth I could have never imagined.

  Velvet Revolver and some of their biggest fans on the Santa Monica Pier in July 2004 during the making of the “Fall to Pieces” music video.

  13

  Coming Up for Air

  You can’t wait around for destiny to give you what you think you deserve, you have to earn it, even if you think you’ve paid your dues. You might have achieved what you wanted, but are you sure you learned the lesson?

  In 2002, I went to Ireland and hooked up with Ronnie Wood to be part of the tour for his solo record. He called it the Not for Beginners tour. Perla came with me and we hung out with Ronnie and his wife, Jo, and had a great time. We’d rehearse in Ronnie’s bar: he has a building apart from the house that is a proper pub with a snooker table and Guinness on tap. We ran through great stuff: Woodie’s stuff, Stones stuff, Faces songs, a Guns N’ Roses song, and a Snakepit song. We had sixty songs rehearsed and a great band to play them made up of Ronnie’s son Jessie, two of Jessie’s friends on bass and drums, and a couple of other guys; plus Ronnie’s daughter Leah singing background. It was a really cool thing because we toured all of these little clubs all over the U.K. We had the Coors come up and sing and we’d play the Faces’ classic “Ooh La La” every night. There was a lot of fun and a lot of Guinness to be had. As Perla and I would later discover, that is where our son London was conceived.

  After that tour we came back and headed to Vegas for New Year’s. Before we’d gone to the U.K., we’d spent a weekend down there at the opening of this resort called the Green Valley Ranch, and while we were there, in the Vegas magazine in our room we noticed an ad for Guns N’ Roses
live on New Year’s at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. We decided that we had to check it out.

  I called a promoter I knew and he said he’d get us in no problem. We got to the Hard Rock to check into our room a few hours before the show, and as we walked through the lobby, people were noticing us because Guns fans were everywhere. We’d been in our room for about ten minutes when there was a knock at the door. I opened it up to see hotel security.

  “Oh, hi!” I said. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Sir, we have come to let you know that you will not be allowed into the Guns N’ Roses show tonight.”

  “Oh yeah? Why is that?”

  “We have strict orders from Guns N’ Roses management not to allow you admittance under any circumstances. I’m sorry.”

  “C’mon, man, that’s ridiculous,” I said. “Just sneak me in. I’m not here to cause trouble, I just want to see the show. I’m sure you can understand why.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, there is nothing we can do about it.”

  I got in touch with my promoter friend and there was nothing he could do either. He said that the word was that I’d been spotted with my guitar and top hat as if I was going to get onstage. That was preposterous—I didn’t even have a guitar with me! It was no use; the entire staff was instructed to keep me out at all costs. We decided that it wasn’t worth it; I’m not the type to cause a scene.

  Perla and I checked out and got a room over at the Green Valley Ranch and went to the grand opening of Whiskey Blue at the resort and had a blast at the huge New Year’s Eve party they were having. That night, I ran into a guy whom I’d met before but didn’t know very well, though he knew me. He took me into the bathroom and laid out a line of what looked like blow for me to snort.

  I love to be deviant and do what I’m not supposed to do, which includes doing whatever drugs are given to me without really asking what they are or wondering where they came from. I snorted this stuff up, and within five minutes a very familiar euphoria came over me. I knew that feeling well; it wasn’t coke, it was an opiate…this was some form of heroin. A very good form indeed, because suddenly everything in the world was wonderful as far as I was concerned.

  I asked him for more and he gave me a handful of pills. “What is this?” I asked. “This is what I just did?”

  “It’s OxyContin,” he said. “It’s basically synthetic heroin. You smash it up and snort it. I’ve got a great connection.” He sure did: he’d just beaten cancer and had a bottomless prescription.

  “Wow,” I said, barely concealing my enthusiasm. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Now Perla and I had spent the first years of our marriage and our relationship being pretty wild. She was the most awesome, coolest girl: no matter how many parties we went to, no matter how much shit she’d done or I’d done or what was going on around us, Perla was always in control. She could remain grounded in insane circumstances and was always the one to take care of anyone who needed help. During that phase, we drank a lot, we did a lot of Ecstasy and coke, but the one thing she would not tolerate was dope. She threatened to leave me after my episode at the Hyatt and there was no way that she was going to allow this high-grade shit—which made it all the more appealing.

  I told myself I’d tell her as I crushed another OxyContin and snorted it and entered a blissful state. I brought that habit back to L.A. with me and snuck this stuff in secret for a while. I started calling my new friend to get more…he’d run back and forth from L.A. to Vegas to keep me supplied. Pretty soon I had a new type of monkey on my back.

  If there is one thing I am, it’s “the eternal teenager.”

  IT WAS NOW 2002 AND AEROSMITH WAS playing the L.A. Forum with Cheap Trick opening up. I was all set up to go and my Vegas friend was in town with a big batch of OxyContin and we were armed to the teeth and ready to have a great night. Perla and I got into a huge fight about something insignificant shortly before I had to leave. It was bad enough that she didn’t want me to go—she wanted closure before I did.

  I was stoned and stubborn; I didn’t want to hear it, I was going to the show whether we worked it out or not. My friend was waiting in the car and I was trying to get out of the house. I walked to the door as Perla stood at the bottom of the stairs, still talking to me despite my unresponsiveness.

  “Slash!” she yelled. I turned around. “I’m pregnant.”

  High as I was, that cut straight through it. I stared at her for a long moment. It felt like time stopped.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk when I get back.”

  I got high as a kite that night, so deliberately and obviously that the Aerosmith guys, the Cheap Trick guys, and everyone I ran into were aware of it. Under the circumstances, I did the only thing that made sense: I hung out with David Lee Roth all night. But, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t get what Perla had said to me out of my head.

  When I got home we talked about everything. We’d been married over a year, and together for five years. Up until then, nothing had happened and we’d never used protection. It didn’t take us long to decide that we would have the baby. We surmised that my Guinness consumption in Ireland must have had something to do with my sudden potency. The running joke was that we’d name the kid Guinness, but we decided against it since that was Ronnie Wood’s dog’s name.

  More than any other incentive I’ve ever had, Perla’s pregnancy straightened me out: I got off the Oxy, still without telling Perla what I was up to. I just kicked as I had in the past—cold turkey, with no one the wiser. I kicked standing up, and told Perla that I had the flu. But it was no use: I’d forgotten about a stash I’d hidden in our guest room, and when she found it she knew exactly what I was up to.

  We’d been hopping from rental to rental and finally decided that we needed to buy a house. I’d had the house where I’d recorded Snakepit on the market for a while and it had finally sold, so it was like a new start. I remember starting our house hunt while I was getting clean and just sweating profusely as we looked at these places. I think I was still clinging to the flu excuse at that point.

  We looked at this one house that was straight out of “Hansel and Gretel”: it was a medieval cottage that the owner had decorated ridiculously. It turned out to be Spencer Proffer’s house, the guy who produced Live! Like a Suicide. We had a quick hello and good-bye, just a drive-by catching up. I was surprised to find out recently that he has nothing nice to say about us at all. He said that during those sessions I peed on the floor and that Axl shot up in the studio and threw up on the control board and tried to get Spencer to shoot up, too. You can read these lies and more in the extensive library of unauthorized Guns N’ Roses stories available at bookstores and online. None of that is true; he must have a case of ill will because we didn’t hire him to produce the whole record.

  So I got clean, and I was inspired by Perla: from the second she knew she was pregnant to the day she had the baby, she didn’t touch a drink and quit smoking on the spot. She underwent such a huge, abrupt switch; the maternal instinct took over immediately and it was amazing.

  Perla had some complications with the pregnancy; London was a breech baby, which means that he was sitting in such a way that it was very uncomfortable and painful for her for most of the nine months. She had to remain on bed rest for most of her term.

  During those months I started looking to put a new band together. Pete Angelus, who had managed Van Halen, David Lee Roth, and the Black Crowes, had taken an interest in managing me, so he hooked me up with Steve Gorman, the then former drummer for the Black Crowes, who was available because at that point they’d broken up. My old buddy Alan Niven gave me the number of a bass player that he thought I should hear, so we brought him in, and I can’t remember his name but the three of us started rehearsing, just jamming with no real agenda. I was on the straight and narrow, not really even drinking. It was the first time since before the final months of Snakepit that I had gotten myself back into gear: I was in a better head space than ever,
I’d started to think about a band again, and I’d started writing material. During that time I came up with the music that evolved into the song “Fall to Pieces.” We jammed for a very short period of time, but I came up with a lot of ideas, the most complete one being that song. Those were the first signs of me taking any kind of a responsible, adult role in my life, because if there is one thing I am, it’s “the eternal teenager.”

  IT WAS AROUND THIS TIME THAT I HEARD Randy Castillo had died. I’d known Randy for years; we’d met in the metal touring circuit of the eighties. He was one of the most in-demand session and touring drummers around; he’d played with Ozzy, Lita Ford, and everyone else you can think of. But Randy was as far from the typical L.A. metal musician as could be: he was one of the most genuine, down-to-earth, and easygoing people I met during that entire period. He was always fun to hang out with and just no bullshit: he was totally self-abusive with booze and coke, but was always a great drummer with a heart of gold. I don’t remember exactly how we met, but we had mutual friends, and in my mind it felt like I’d always known Randy. What set him apart from everyone else in L.A. was that he was always happy and never judgmental of anybody. Unlike most of the other characters around back then, he was never preoccupied with talking shit about other people, or spending the night critiquing how other people looked or acted. That kind of conversation is such an L.A. staple; Randy didn’t care—maybe because he was from New Mexico originally.

  I played New Mexico with Snakepit, and by then I’d heard that Randy had cancer and that it was very serious. When we came through, he came down to the show and hung out on the bus with us. At the time he was undergoing chemotherapy and he didn’t look good at all. He was very thin and weak but I was just so happy that he’d even come down.

  A short while later I heard that his cancer had all but disappeared and that he was doing much better. And not long after that I saw him and he was a different guy altogether—he looked great. When I got the call, maybe five months after that, that Randy had died, I was shocked. I hadn’t even known that he’d taken a major downturn.