Slash

Saul Hudson (born July 23, 1965), more widely known as Slash, is a guitarist best known as a former member of Guns N' Roses. Slash was born in Hampstead, England to a English father, Anthony Hudson, and a black American mother, Ola, both of whom were involved with show business. Slash's mother designed David Bowie's costumes from The Man Who Fell to Earth, and his father was an artist who designed album covers for artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Hudson was raised in Stoke-on-Trent until the age of 11, when he and his mother moved to Los Angeles, California. His father remained in England. In the mid-1970s, when Slash was thirteen years old, his dad joined them in Los Angeles. Slash attended Beverly Hills High School at the same time as fellow guitarist Lenny Kravitz. At age 15, Slash was given a single-string acoustic guitar by his grandmother, with which he learned to play guitar. He soon became bored and started playing the saxophone. Eventually, Slash gave up on school, dropping out in the 11th grade. While a part of the Los Angeles band scene he auditioned for an opening in the glam metal band Poison that eventually went to C.C. DeVille. He and one of his childhood friends, Steven Adler, formed the band Road Crew (which generally had trouble retaining any members besides themselves). This band's name came from a song by Motörhead. Eventually, Slash ended up in a band called Black Sheep, which had the same agent as another band called Hollywood Rose. Slash's early influences include Rory Gallagher, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones,Motley Crue, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Queen, & Hanoi Rocks. Black Sheep and Hollywood Rose opened for Stryper in 1984, where Slash and Axl Rose were originally introduced by their mutual agent, Vicky Hamilton. Several months later, Slash auditioned to play in a band with Rose and Izzy Stradlin, but other guitarists were chosen, such as Tracii Guns. After Guns was unable to make a concert in Seattle, Slash and Steven Adler joined Rose, Stradlin and Duff McKagan to form Guns N' Roses. Guns N' Roses toured bars and opened for others throughout 1985 and 1986. They wrote some early songs such as "Reckless Life," "Move to the City," "Don't Cry" and "Anything Goes," but were unable to do any major recording until 1987, when the band released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction. Initially, the album was not well-known, but included songs such as "Welcome to the Jungle", "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Paradise City", which became the band's most famous songs. By 1988, one of G'N'R's songs had hit # 1 on the Billboard Top 100. The inside sleeve shows the original cover art, a painting called Appetite for Destruction. In 1988, the band released G N' R Lies, best remembered by its featured single, the acoustic song "Patience". Though this album only had eight tracks (four of which had already been released), it has sold 5 million copies in the United States. After Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion Tour, Slash became an American citizen. Slash is notorious for his alcohol-induced acceptance speech at the 1990 American Music Awards. Upon receipt of GNR's second award at the 1990 American Music Awards, he and Duff McKagan stumbled to the stage appearing very drunk, holding drinks, and smoking cigarettes. Within a span of 20 seconds, Slash managed to curse twice in his slurred speech before being interrupted by a music overdub and positioning of a camera on a curtain with the AMA logo. After the first swear word, an audible gasp was heard from the crowd, prompting Slash to cover his mouth, cigarette and drink in hand, and utter "Oops". (when accepting an award the following year, via live satellite feed, a much more sober Slash made mention of the incident, promising to "keep it clean this time") In 1990 a heavy metal video called HARD N HEAVY containing music, concert footage and interviews was released. The video included Slash and McKagan appearing with the band Great White at a "Children Of the Night" Benefit concert in LA for abused homeless children, the performance helped raise money for housing.[6]. In 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the 28-month long Use Your Illusion Tour, coinciding with the release of their new albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. The albums indicated a change in musical direction for Guns N' Roses, including more artistic and dramatic songs like "November Rain" and "Estranged". Songs in this vein, along with ballads like "Don't Cry", contributed to tensions that tore the band apart just a few years later, because of Rose's desire to pursue more progressive types of rock, as opposed to the rest of the band's desire to continue playing 80's style hard rock. Slash later cited this issue as a key component to his inability to work with Axl Rose. After the release of The Spaghetti Incident?, an album for which he had strongly petitioned, Slash began to drift in and out of the band. However, he picked out three songs to be on the record. Slash presented Axl with new material intended to be Guns N' Roses' follow up album to Use Your Illusion 1 and 2. Rose rejected Slash's material leading Slash to form Slash's Snakepit with Matt Sorum, Gilby Clarke, Dizzy Reed, Mike Inez, and Eric Dover. The band recorded Slash's material and released It's Five O'Clock Somewhere in 1995. Slash officially quit GN'R on October 30, 1996 after declaring he could not work with Rose. Allegedly, he and Rose had several disagreements regarding the band's musical direction, and Slash was infuriated when Rose removed Gilby Clarke's guitar track and added Paul Tobias's work which was a mirror of Slash's track on the song "Sympathy for the Devil". Slash was eventually replaced by guitarist Robin Finck. In 1997, Slash also provided guitar for "Halls of Illusion" for the Insane Clown Posse. After leaving Guns N' Roses, Slash focused on Slash's Snakepit, playing a few tour dates before disbanding the group later that year. He reformed Snakepit in 1998, only to disband it again in July 2001 after releasing a second album, Ain't Life Grand, the year before. In 1990, Slash collaborated with Michael Jackson on his Dangerous album. He performed guitar on his singles "Black Or White"(song intro) and "Give Into Me". He later appeared in the "Give In To Me" video with Jackson and even went on-stage with him during the Dangerous World Tour once. In 1995, he appeared on stage with Jackson for the MTV Music Video Awards, and guested on the HIStory album, followed by an appearance on the Blood On The Dancefloor album two years later. In 2001 Slash once again joined Jackson on stage at the Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special performing guitar for "Black Or White" and "Beat It". In 1996, Slash collaborated with Marta Sanchez to record "Obsession-Confession" for the soundtrack of Curdled. The track was received well by the Smooth Jazz radio stations. Later that year, he also played live with Alice Cooper at Sammy Hagar's club Cabo Wabo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The show was recorded and released the following year as A Fistful of Alice. In 1997, Slash (alongside the late Ol' Dirty Bastard and hit alternative rock band Fishbone) appeared on BLACKstreet's rock remix version of their hit single "Fix". In 2003, he participated in the Yardbirds' comeback record Birdland, released on the Favored Nations label. He played lead guitar in the track "Over, Under, Sideways, Down." In early 2003, Slash also made an appearance at a rally to protest the coming War in Iraq called "Peace on the Beach." Specifically, Slash performed the song "Imagine" by John Lennon. Ed Kowalczyk provided vocals during this performance. In 2002, he reunited with Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum for a benefit/tribute concert for Randy Castillo which starred Gunn Atkinson aside him. Realizing that they still had a lot of chemistry, they decided to form a new band together. The band that featured Slash, McKagan, and Sorum also featured former Buckcherry members Keith Nelson and Josh Todd. Later Duff put out a statement that Josh and Keith didn't quite fit with the band, and they added Dave Kushner as rhythm guitar and, after a long search, Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland. In 2006, Slash guested on keyboardist Derek Sherinian's solo album Blood of the Snake covering the 1970 Mungo Jerry hit single "In the Summertime", also featuring Billy Idol on vocals. A video was also made featuring Slash, Billy, and Derek for this song. Velvet Revolver began as "The Project", a venture by Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum to find a new lead singer. On rhythm guitar, they initially worked with Izzy Stradlin, and they were offered to open for The Strokes but Slash, Duff and Matt wanted to have a lead singer; after this Izzy became less involved. They would find their second guitarist in the form of Dave Kushner, who had previously played with McKagan in "Loaded" prior to this project. For many months, the four of them listened to demo tapes of potential lead singers, a monotonous process (documented by VH1). After many months, Slash and the others were almost ready to give up. However, Stone Temple Pilots had recently imploded and lead singer Scott Weiland was encouraged to try out for "The Project". Scott had tried to join before but Duff was reluctant to allow him to split Stone Temple Pilots. The natural demise of that band afforded him the opportunity to join with Slash, Duff, and Matt, which worked well with him immediately, and so Velvet Revolver was formed. The band played several concerts in the summer of 2003 and released their first single, "Set Me Free" as part of the soundtrack for The Hulk. In June 2004, they released their first studio album, Contraband. A 19-month long tour ensued, as the album went platinum and re-established Slash among the masses who had forgotten him over the years. The tour finally ended in January 2006, and Slash and his bandmates took a well-deserved break before beginning work on their second album. The band recorded a new song for Steven Spielberg's latest film Monster House in May 2006. On May 31, 2006, Slash was joined by Rob Zombie on vocals, another former GNR axeman Gilby Clarke on rhythm guitar, Scott Ian of Anthrax on bass, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee on drums, and surprise guest Ace Frehley of Kiss for a rendition of God of Thunder. The occasion was a one-time supergroup tribute to Kiss for the VH1 Rock Honors Award Show. In 2006, Slash made an appearance on the first album of American Idol send-off Chris Daughtry, playing lead guitar in the song "What I Want". In 2007 he performed with Paulina Rubio the song "Nada Puede Cambiarme" and he appears in the video too. On January 17, 2007, Slash was added to the Hollywood RockWalk of Fame, side by side with legends like Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. On March 2, 2007, Slash was a guest at the funeral of Anna Nicole Smith. On March 12, 2007, Slash and Velvet Revolver paid tribute to Van Halen by inducting the band into the Rock N' Roll hall of fame. The band also played 2 covers. Further bringing him to the center of the rock and roll world in 2007, Slash is set to appear on the cover of Guitar World magazine for their July 2007 issue. The title is "The cat in the hat is back" and it pictures him holding his guitar with a snake crawling up to his face. The issue also includes a detailed interview with the artist. In March 2006 Axl Rose's lawyer released the following statement: "In October of 2005 Slash made an unannounced 5:30 AM visit to Axl Rose's house. Not appearing to be under the influence, Slash came to inform Axl that: 'Duff was spineless', 'Scott Weiland was a fraud', that he 'hates Matt Sorum' and that in this ongoing war, contest or whatever anyone wants to call it that Slash has waged against Axl for the better part of 20 years, that Axl has proven himself 'the stronger'. Based on his conduct in showing up at Rose's home, Axl was hopeful that Slash would live up to his pronouncements that he wanted to end the war and move on with life. Unfortunately that did not prove to be the case." Slash didn't comment on Rose's press release, but a Velvet Revolver spokesperson did promise that Slash would be heard from "within days". Slash's press release never came. On May 13, 2006, Slash appeared on the Camp Freddy Show on Indie 1031 FM and denied having visited Rose's house or saying anything that Rose claimed.Slash has admitted that he visited GUNS N' ROSES singer Axl Rose's house in 2005, despite previous claims to the contrary. Slash did not speak with Axl but with his assistant Beta Lebeis. 2: There also is an IDM artist that features in the album "Cycles" called Slash.