We all know him from his iconic top hat. We’re sure there are some of you who only know him from his hat. Does anyone know his face? Don’t worry; we’ll save you from that curiosity. And of course, you can’t see anything from his gigantic tangled curly hair gushing out from under his hat, yes. And you’re not wrong, because according to a statement he made, the number of times he’s had his hair cut his whole life can be counted on the fingers of himself. Huh?
Though we say we shouldn’t get too hung up on his look, we know it’s not going to happen. Because with his top hat and his hair and his ‘cool’ appearance, it’s not easy. We researched, compiled, and written how our master Saul Hudson, aka Slash, who is considered one of the greatest guitarists ever, got his nickname, including interesting events in music life, and how he stole (?) his hat to get that famous look, about the days of Guns N’ Roses and, of course, the problems he had with Axl Rose. Here we go.
Not a bad way to get into Rock music?
Born in Hampstead, London in 1965, Slash lived in England until the age of 11, before moving to Los Angeles with his family. The son of an Afro-American mother and an English father, Slash was born into such an environment that it would have been inevitable for him to be interested in rock music, even if it were to be replaced by anyone else. His mother, Ola, was a costume designer for John Lennon, and his father, Anthony, was the album cover designer for Neil Young and David Bowie. And we must point out that Joni Mitchell was a neighbor at the time. Joni Mitchell is a beautiful woman in all her forms, from folk to jazz (for those who don’t recognize her).
David Bowie: The New Guy in the House?
After Saul’s parents got divorced in the mid-70s, his mother Ola began dating David Bowie. In a 1991 interview about this topic, Slash said, “I didn’t really like him [Bowie] much, because he was the new guy in the house. I really resented this situation,” he said. In a 2012 interview, he said he ‘remembered and loved’ him well, referring Bowie. And that he once caught his mother and Bowie without a lot of clothes on. Oh, yeah!
His nickname comes from:
Veteran Seymour Cassel, who starred in John Cassavetes and Wes Anderson films and was known to many cinema lovers, was Matt’s father, Saul’s best friend when he was growing up in Los Angeles. Saul was a boy who kept completely crazy energy in his adolescence, and one day at a party at the Cassels, Seymour Cassel, who saw him being constantly on the move, said, “Hey, Slash, where are you going? Where you going, huh, Slash?” and that nickname stuck to him as he called out like this.
“I remember returning to my grandmother’s house on my bike, knowing that my life had completely changed.”
He described how his passion for rock music began with his epiphany:
“My great awakening happened when I was 14. I was trying to get into some older girl’s panties for a while, and she finally invited me to her house. We hung out for a while, smoked weed, and listened to Aerosmith’s album Rocks. That hit me like a fucking ton of bricks. I sat there, listened to it many times, and blew her mind. I remember returning to my grandmother’s house on my bike, knowing that my life had completely changed.”
How did I steal the top hat? What do you mean I stole it?!
Slash went shopping in 1985 to create a different image before going to a concert in Los Angeles. He fell in love with the top hat he saw at a clothing store called Retail Slut. Slash, who said it was talking to him when he looked at the hat, was penniless at the time, so he just took the hat and put it on his head and quietly left the store. If someone came after him, he thought about telling a lie, saying, “I forgot to pay,” and when no one followed him, he got away with this thievish act. When he tied a belt around the hat, he skipped out on the same shopping day, and he brought that iconic look known to the world to the world of rock. Although we don’t approve of any theft, of course, this is a very extreme example, and given that time has expired and he is a magician on the guitar, we forgive the master this time.
Days of Guns N’ Roses
Slash dropped out of high school to tour with his first band, which he joined at the age of 16, and played in a number of bands until 1985. Things got a lot different when Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin, whom he had met from previous studies, invited him to their new band. They began writing their own songs, including “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” and “Paradise City.”
Their first album, Appetite for Destruction, released in 1987, is today considered the best release and the best hard rock album by many. According to the September 2008 data, it sold 18x platinum (more than 28 million sales), quite a strange thing.
Slash vs. Axl
After their debut album, the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II also attracted great attention. Slash went on his last concert with Guns N’ Roses in 1993 and announced his leave from the band after a three-year recession. In his 2007 biography, he stated that his quit was not due to the ‘artistic differences’ he had with Axl, which everyone commonly believed to be so, and he based it on three reasons:
Axl showed his disrespect to the audience and the band members at the concerts on the Use Your Illusion tour by getting the band on the stage late for hours; he tried to take over all of the band name rights in a legal sense, thus making the musicians who would play alongside him almost as ‘subcontractors’; and Steven Adler and Izzy Stradlin’s quit the band.
Slash’s Snakepit
Considering his fondness for snakes and his possession of eighty of them for a period, it is no wonder that the band he founded after Guns N’ Roses was called Slash’s Snakepit. Active between 1994 and 2002, the band released the album It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, which consisted of material from Slash’s former band for their new album, and managed to reach over one million sales in the United States.
“Do not take drugs or drink alcohol. I am living proof of that!”
When Slash was only 35, he was hospitalized with a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, heart failure as a result of years of accumulated drug and alcohol use. Although he was given six days to six weeks to live for, he was able to survive after the surgery with a miraculous return. Years later, he said, “I have a defibrillator (a tool that normalizes irregular heartbeat) in my heart. Do not use drugs or alcohol. I am living proof of that!” he said. Slash, who has not used drugs and alcohol since 2005, also quit smoking in 2009.
Solo career
Following Velvet Revolver, Slash began his solo work for the first time. We wouldn’t be exaggerating if we used the phrase ‘Dream Team’ in 2010, simply because they worked on each song individually on their self-titled debut album. Why? Because these names include Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, Adam Levine from Maroon 5, Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead, Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell, and Iggy Pop.
His second album, Apocalyptic Love, was also released in 2012.
Do you know he’s a real animal lover?
Slash, whom we know loves snakes, is also a cat freak. His love for animals, on the other hand, is not limited to these two species, but to all living things, as we see in his last solo album, World On Fire, released last year. He wrote the song Beneath the Savage Sun, which appears on the album, to draw attention to elephants hunting for their tusks in Africa.
Slash and his 100 (in writing: one hundred) guitars
Slash has more than 100 guitars, causing all music fans -especially guitarists- to drool, that’s for sure. And you know his favorite guitar is, of course, the Gibson Les Paul. He describes it as “the best around for me.” The Gibson firm also said that Slash, along with Zakk Wylde, restored Les Paul to his former fame in the late ‘80s. Who wouldn’t want a Gibson Les Paul special series signed by Slash?
We all wish Slash to make music for many years, but also to bring any one of these one hundred guitars from the studio to the stage by combining them and sing beautiful and long solos.