Array Slash - Slash

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 fuck s 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.