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ONCE GILBY WAS IN AND WE WERE back on tour, we added Soundgarden to the bill for the next leg, which began in December 1991 in Worcester, Massachusetts. They were a favorite band of ours and it was cool to have them, but we didn’t have a good rapport with them at all. We had no common vibe with any of the grunge bands, actually, because we were such a big name; we were the Led Zeppelin of the time, so coming from their more underground, indie point of view, they thought of us as “fat, lazy, and self-indulgent.” We’d take them on tour and they wouldn’t talk to us. It was hypocritical because they didn’t really want to be there, but then again, unless I’m mistaken, they didn’t say no to the gig. All things considered, Duff and I got along with Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil really well, and I understood their wanting to steer clear of the circus all around them.

We had a much more antagonistic situation on our hands with our other support band, Faith No More, once their front man, Mike Patton, started talking shit about us onstage. We let it go once, twice, but after that, that was it. We had to have a talk with him. Axl came in with me, as did their guitarist Jim Martin, because Jim was as fed up with Mike as we were.

“Listen, man,” I said. “If you don’t like it here, just fucking leave. It can’t be like this. Either let’s do this thing and make it great, or forget it, go home.”

They ended up finishing the tour and that was the last outburst we heard from Mike during their set.

We did three nights at Madison Square Garden (December 9, 10, 13, 1991), the same arena where Led Zeppelin filmed The Song Remains the Same . One of those nights we met one of Axl’s heroes, Billy Joel. It isn’t obvious until you think about it, but Axl loves all of the great songwriters: the Eagles, Elton John, Billy Joel—he knows his shit. I didn’t know anything about Billy Joel aside from the fact that my best friend’s mom played his breakout album, The Stranger, nonstop back in 1978. But it was great to meet Billy that night because he’s such an icon and also because he was very, very drunk—I had no idea that he was such a fuckup, and I loved it. Duff and I could certainly relate to him, and Axl was really fucking happy. Billy was led into the dressing room, where we had all of our booze, and he rummaged around the bar area, making all this noise.

“Where’s the Johnnie Walker Black Label?” he said, out loud, as much to himself as to us. “There’s no Johnnie Walker Black.” Needless to say, we sent someone out and they came back with a bottle for Billy in no time.

FEBRUARY 1, 1992, WAS OUR LAST SHOW with Soundgarden, at Compton Terrace, Arizona, and we decided to commemorate it with a little prank. We got ourselves a few inflatable sex dolls and Matt and Duff and I took our clothes off and went onstage with them. Come to think of it, I was the only one of us completely naked. In any case, Soundgarden was touring the Badmotorfinger album, and they came from a place where there was no fun to be had while rocking, so they were mortified. They looked around and there we were screwing blowup dolls all around them; I was drunk and I fell. I got separated from my doll, and at that point I was totally naked—it was a scene.

WE PLAYED THREE SHOWS AT THE TOKYO Dome in Japan (February 19, 20, 22, 1992), which was something; in fact, I played five shows in a row in the Tokyo Dome—two with Michael Jackson and three with Guns N’ Roses. I experienced the biggest contrast you can imagine between those two audiences; I can’t think of a more surreal switch than playing one night for Michael Jackson, who was flying around the stage and had kids and toys backstage, to playing with Guns and everything that came with that world two nights later—all in the very same building. To top it off, I spent the day I had off between the two shows at Tokyo Disney.

I flew over early to play with Michael; I had recorded with him back in L.A. between the time that we finished the Illusion records and their release. It was while we were home between legs of the tour. I was staying at the Hyatt on Sunset at the time when I got the call from our office.

“Hey, Slasher, Michael Jackson is trying to get in touch with you,” Alan said. “He wants you on his record.”

“Oh, wow,” I said. “Okay.”

The next call that came through was Michael.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello? Slash?” he said in his typically nervous, timid voice.

Off we went from there. I was flattered and I was intimidated, but it came off great. We did two songs: the first one, the cooler one, was called “Give in to Me,” which was kind of like a new take on his song “Dirty Diana.” When I went in to record it at the Record Plant Michael was there with Brooke Shields, who he was dating at the time. It was trippy: the studio was as dimly lit and as dark as Guns liked to have it when we recorded.

“Hi,” Michael said. “This is Brooke.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said. I think I put my hand out for a shake.

“I really want to thank you so much for being on my album,” he said. “I really can’t wait to hear what you come up with.”

And then they split—they went off to dinner or something. I recorded my solo and that was it. A few days later I came back and recorded the introduction to “Black and White.” They wanted something on the front end, which didn’t even make it into the album version of the song. You can hear my part if you watch the video: it’s what Macaulay Culkin is playing on guitar before the song starts. That was strange; to say the least, it wasn’t quite what I had in mind for that solo.

I think Michael Jackson liked me because of the animated element of my persona. I think he saw me as a caricature. But that’s just me. I still don’t know if he knows that about me.

I could feel it in my loins that she was having a look.

AS OUR ALBUMS CONTINUED TO CHART worldwide, we toured Mexico in April, and like our South American fans the Mexican crowds were very dedicated. Then we did the Freddie Mercury tribute in London which was amazing—he was another of Axl’s heroes, so although it was a short set, we gave it our all: we did “Paradise City” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Later on I went up and played “Tie Your Mother Down” with Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, and Axl sang as well. At the end of the concert we all did “We Are the Champions.” It was a monumental gig, but the most memorable part of the evening was when I took my pants off in front of Liz Taylor: I was in the green room changing and she opened the door, her entourage in tow, and caught me in a T-shirt with no pants on at all. She didn’t have a look of embarrassment in the least; she was absolutely devilish—I could feel it in my loins that she was having a look.

IN MAY OF 1992, WE ANNOUNCED THAT we would coheadline a summer tour with Metallica starting July 7—there could not have been a bigger rock-and-roll bill at the time. It was too cool: they had just released The Black Album and we were riding high with Use Your Illusion I and II . We then headed off to start our headlining arena tour of Europe in Dublin, Ireland, in May 1992.

In my personal life, my girlfriend, Renee, and I broke up during the American leg because someone in our entourage told her how unfaithful I was being on tour. Cheating was the one thing I’d promised I’d never do. It was a weakness on my part that came out of a need to have as much of a good time between shows as possible, which, along with heavy boozing, was my way of self-medicating to get through all of the turbulent emotional activity, the yin-yang psycho-emotional ups and downs. Booze and girls—that was how I dealt. For the most part in our professional career I hadn’t taken full advantage of the exorbitant amount of women that were available to me, so now that I felt unsettled about what we were doing, I took advantage of all of it.