Billy Bob Thornton, Slash, and the drunken 2000 deal for a piece of rock and roll history: “I don’t want to sell it to some moron”
There are certain people who do the very things that people expect them to do, and since Billy Bob Thornton looks like exactly the kind of guy who’d spend his free time necking whiskey with Slash at a hotel bar in Hollywood, it’s not a surprise to discover that he’s done exactly that.
Even though the industry has given him his livelihood and a shitload of money, Thornton has never been someone to play the Hollywood game, schmooze at parties full of insiders and high-flyers, or politic his way into particular projects or parts. If he’s not on set, then he’ll most likely be doing something related to music.
Of course, getting pissed with the legendary guitarist is tangential at best, but it’s still a connection. One night, Thornton even got a great deal more than he bargained for, having met the Guns N’ Roses axe-slinger for a few bevvies, and coming away with a fixed residence, something he hadn’t had for years.
“I bought Slash’s house,” the Academy Award winner explained. “Slash and I made the deal at The Whisky Bar at the Sunset Marquis Hotel, where I used to live in LA. Slash and I used to hang out in the bar there with Billy Gibbons and all these guys.” He didn’t mean to be a name-dropper, but since the ZZ Top co-founder was also a regular fixture, it must have been a go-to place for rock’s high and mighty.
Thornton didn’t just get himself a humble new abode, though, one that he subsequently moved into with then-wife Angelina Jolie, but he also acquired a piece of rock and roll history. “Slash said, ‘Dude, you’ve gotta buy this house, I don’t want to sell it to some moron who’s going to turn it into something else,” the actor recalled, and since he didn’t believe he was a moron, he agreed to make the deal.
Why was Slash so concerned that any other suitors would turn his palatial mansion into something he didn’t want it to be? Because the basement of the Beverly Hills estate contained the Snakepit, the custom-built studio where he recorded two albums with his supergroup of the same name, Slash’s Snakepit.
The most famous top hat-wearer on the planet created the studio to work on new material after wrapping the exhausting two-and-a-half-year world tour for Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion two-parter, and the demos he recorded in his safe haven were initially planned to be part of the legendary band’s next record.
However, Axl Rose rejected the material. “I just wouldn’t do it,” the frontman explained in 1999. “I didn’t believe in it. I thought that there were riffs and parts and some ideas that needed to be developed.” What had been intended as a place to recharge and reenergise his creative batteries had the complete opposite effect, with Guns N’ Roses imploding soon after, with Slash officially leaving the band in 1996.
Once Thornton moved in, he renamed Slash’s Snakepit as The Cave, and he picked up where its previous occupant had left off, using the studio to record music of his own. “It was an amazing studio,” he reflected. “It wasn’t as big as the one we have now, but it was really good.” At least it was still in use while he lived there, with the star purchasing not only a new base of operations, but a slice of history, too.
