Array Slash - Slash

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Array Slash - Slash» — ознакомительный отрывок электронной книги совершенно бесплатно, а после прочтения отрывка купить полную версию. В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Город: New York, Год выпуска: 2007, ISBN: 2007, Издательство: HarperCollins, Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Slash: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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“Wonderfully frank.”
(
) “Entertaining and educational… a crash course for aspiring rock gods.”
(
magazine)
From one of the greatest rock guitarists of our era comes a memoir that redefines sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll He was born in England but reared in L.A., surrounded by the leading artists of the day amidst the vibrant hotbed of music and culture that was the early seventies. Slash spent his adolescence on the streets of Hollywood, discovering drugs, drinking, rock music, and girls, all while achieving notable status as a BMX rider. But everything changed in his world the day he first held the beat-up one-string guitar his grandmother had discarded in a closet.
The instrument became his voice and it triggered a lifelong passion that made everything else irrelevant. As soon as he could string chords and a solo together, Slash wanted to be in a band and sought out friends with similar interests. His closest friend, Steven Adler, proved to be a conspirator for the long haul. As hairmetal bands exploded onto the L.A. scene and topped the charts, Slash sought his niche and a band that suited his raw and gritty sensibility.
He found salvation in the form of four young men of equal mind: Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Steven Adler, and Duff McKagan. Together they became Guns N’ Roses, one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll bands of all time. Dirty, volatile, and as authentic as the streets that weaned them, they fought their way to the top with groundbreaking albums such as the iconic
and
and
.
Here, for the first time ever, Slash tells the tale that has yet to be told from the inside: how the band came together, how they wrote the music that defined an era, how they survived insane, never-ending tours, how they survived themselves, and, ultimately, how it all fell apart. This is a window onto the world of the notoriously private guitarist and a seat on the roller-coaster ride that was one of history’s greatest rock ’n’ roll machines, always on the edge of self-destruction, even at the pinnacle of its success. This is a candid recollection and reflection of Slash’s friendships past and present, from easygoing Izzy to ever-steady Duff to wild-child Steven and complicated Axl.
It is also an intensely personal account of struggle and triumph: as Guns N’ Roses journeyed to the top, Slash battled his demons, escaping the overwhelming reality with women, heroin, coke, crack, vodka, and whatever else came along.
He survived it all: lawsuits, rehab, riots, notoriety, debauchery, and destruction, and ultimately found his creative evolution. From Slash’s Snakepit to his current band, the massively successful Velvet Revolver, Slash found an even keel by sticking to his guns.
Slash

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Anyway, I was up for the idea of doing this cover because I was very familiar with the Anne Rice books; I thought they were great, which is why I had a hard time imagining Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise playing those roles. Anyway, Axl and I went to screenings of the film separately, and completely disagreed on what we saw. I hated it; I thought it was crap.

I called Tom right afterward. “Hey, Tom, it’s Slash,” I said.

“So what did you think?”

“I thought it sucked. I hated it,” I said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It was that bad. Tell the producers to license the Stones’ version because we’re not doing it.”

Axl, on the other hand, loved the movie; he thought it was brilliant and he wanted to do the song. I couldn’t have been more disappointed, pissed, frustrated, and confused. The only upside I saw to signing off on it was that it would accomplish what we’d been unable to do to any degree in the past seven months: it would actually get all of us into the studio.

We booked time at Rumbo; we did the basic tracks with Mike Clink over a few days. Duff, Matt, and I showed up together every day, basically going out of our way to do something that only Axl wanted to do, and not once did he show up to a session. From the basic tracks through to the final overdubs, we never saw or heard from Axl. We were already recording against our will, so his disregard for our time and commitment definitely inspired a very uninspired instrumental track. And needless to say, the level of bitterness and resentment reached an all-time high. It added insult to injury that after we’d completed our thoroughly average version of “Sympathy for the Devil,” it took him more than a week to even show up to the studio to do his vocals.

Once he got around to listening to the track, he had some constructive criticism. Via a lot of communications between middle people, I was told that I needed to rerecord my guitar solo so that it sounded more note for note like the Keith Richards original. Now that really pissed me off, most of all because the message reached me three times removed like we were playing a game of telephone.

My first reaction, of course, was “no.” I stood behind what I’d done, because why would I copy Keith if the song was supposed to be our version? The reply, through handlers, was: “If you don’t change it, I won’t sing.” I swallowed my pride—yet again—and went in to record a more Keith-like intro, though it was the last thing I wanted to do: Keith’s playing is so awesome on that song that I didn’t want to even come near it, but I did. And doing so left me feeling even more pissed off and put out than ever.

A week or so after that I heard that Axl had finally scheduled time to go in and record his vocal tracks, so I went down to see him in person. I waited for three hours. When he finally showed up, he came into the lounge and proceeded to talk to me from behind a magazine, without looking me in the eye, for about fifteen minutes…. I couldn’t deal with that at all, so I took off.

When I got a DAT of the song with Axl’s vocal on it, I noticed that there was another guitar layered on top of mine in the solo. Axl had gotten Paul Huge to double over me. In other words, that guy copied what I was playing on another track and they layered them. It was like really bad plagiarism.

That was it—having another guitar player record over me without telling me was as much disrespect as I was willing to handle. I washed my hands of that song, I washed my hands of Guns for the moment, and I focused my energy on my own songs and my own project, Slash’s Snakepit’s debut, It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere .

ONCE THE SNAKEPIT GOT GOING, I WAS completely content. For the first time in years, touring was easy, my bandmates were loads of fun and low on drama, and every gig was about playing rock and roll—not proving something or putting on a huge spectacle. Everything rolled on: the record sold, the tour was fine; I was on the road with no end in sight. We were in the midst of booking another leg when I was informed by Geffen that they’d sold a million copies of It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere and had turned a profit so they saw no reason for me to continue our tour. I was to return to L.A. because Axl was ready to begin working on the next Guns N’ Roses record. They’d thought it through: in case I objected, they made it clear that the financial tour support for Snakepit was over.

I returned to L.A. dreading what lay in store for me and I had good reason to; what lay in store was the beginning of the end—the conclusion of unfinished, unpleasant business. All things considered, the end had begun long ago; I was just coming home for the funeral. It’s funny, when fans ask me, as they do almost every day, whether Guns, in its original form, will ever reunite, it is hard to take them seriously. That question is so asinine to me; if they knew the real story, they’d already know the answer. But my response is always the same: “Take a look at what everyone is doing now. Duff and Matt and I are part of a really successful band. Izzy’s content doing his thing; Steven, too. And Axl is touring with the ‘new Guns.’ No one is making phone calls to see when we can get the band together again.”

That’s the lowdown of where we’re all at. Once you take that into consideration, the answer to the reunion question should be pretty clear, if you ask me. Are we cool?

12. Breakdown

Sometimes the truth lies is in front of your eyes and makes so little sense - фото 31

Sometimes the truth lies is in front of your eyes and makes so little sense that you just don’t see it; it’s like confronting your reflection in a fun-house mirror—it’s hard to believe that the twisted figure staring back is you. Guns had become a similar monster; we were such a bizarre version of what we once were that I could barely recognize us. But unlike the fun house, I couldn’t escape; when I turned away from the glass, the reflection was still there.

Iwas ordered to come back off the road; I was told to stop something that I was enjoying in every way. I was reluctant to do that. I wanted to keep the tour going beyond Japan; I wanted to take it to Australia, I wanted to finish what I’d set out to do. It might seem inconsistent, because Snakepit was seen as an in-between project and a bit of a party band, but I was ambitious about it. When I set my mind to achieving something, I put blinders on, I put my head down, and drive ahead until I get it. And I hadn’t quite gotten what I’d aimed for on that one.

I had been that single-minded and determined when I brought the record to Geffen. I didn’t consider and didn’t realize what was going on with the label in 1994 when I showed up for my meeting. The entire record business was on the verge of a massive shift; all of the majors would be combined, sold, or dissolved within the next few years. At the time I didn’t know or care. I played Snakepit for Zutaut, they agreed to put it out, and that was all I cared to hear. I didn’t sense the confusion that was going on up there or in the industry at large and I didn’t acknowledge the very obvious anxiety that was circulating about the next Guns N’ Roses album. I had no idea that David Geffen was about to sell the company, and that the prospect of a new Guns record might have changed that, but even if I did, there wasn’t much I could have done to deliver it “on time.”

Looking back, I realize that while they thought I was putting the future of Guns in jeopardy by pursuing Snakepit, they decided that it was more important to humor me, so they went the whole nine yards to let me get it out of my system. They were biting their nails the whole time but if Zutaut or anyone else had voiced their concerns, I would have told them the truth: I had no intention of quitting Guns N’ Roses. As pissed off as I was, I always thought that I’d go back, after some time off, when the time was right.

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