“Very popular with the girls”: The first album Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash had sex to
As Ian Dury entertainingly observed in his classic song ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’, rock music goes far beyond mere musical entertainment. It is a state of mind and a way of life for many, often involving plenty of sex and mind-altering substances. This was certainly the case for the Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, and it all started in the provocative on-stage thrusting of Elvis Presley in the 1950s.
As the first domino to fall in a countercultural revolution powered by rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis Presley used his sex appeal to his advantage on stage. Besides his energising, rhythmic music, Presley entranced the screaming hordes with jerking pelvic movements and later donned costumes that accentuated his nether region. The traditional values of many in the postwar climate strongly opposed the rock ‘n’ roll revolution, but the baby boomers were unstoppable.
Just a few months before he died in 2017, Tom Petty accepted an honour from MusiCares. In his speech, Petty noted the debt he owed to The Beatles for keeping the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll alive after Presley started the revolution. He explained that the first wave of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s made the American government “very nervous”, especially the Republicans. “They put Elvis in the army, they put Chuck Berry in jail,” he said. “Things calmed down for a couple of years, but it was too late; the music had reached England, and they remembered it.”
Throughout the 1960s, The Beatles led the charge, tracing the cultural evolution from the besuited early years to the colourful psychedelic era. As the hippies preached, “Make love, not war,” they emphasised progressive values surrounding sexual liberation and denounced the dubious actions of power-hungry politicians and overseas conflicts. From this heady period spawned the future Guns N’ Roses star Saul Hudson, known by his stage name Slash.
Slash was born in 1965 in London, the epicentre of contemporary rock, to an African-American mother, Ola J. Hudson, and an English father, Anthony Hudson. “My dad especially raised me on British rock music – you know, The Kinks, Cream, The Yardbirds, The Stones and The Beatles,” Slash once recalled. Meanwhile, his mother was a famous fashion designer famed for her intimate and celebrated work with Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, and David Bowie, whom she briefly dated in the 1970s.
With such a background, Slash was hardwired for the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. In the 1980s, he began playing in bands in his home city of Los Angeles, eventually settling into a successful career with his partner in crime, Axl Rose. Appetite for Destruction, Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, was a highly successful celebration of classic rock that took cues from some of Slash’s favourite bands, including Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith.
During his early teens, after moving with his mother to LA, Slash expanded his vocabulary, welcoming American bands into his taste pool. While his father may have disapproved, his infatuation with groups like Aerosmith proved pivotal for his future success. “Aerosmith were the combination of all the sexy riffs Zeppelin had with the fucked-up looseness and bluesiness of the Stones,” Slash beamed, picking out Rocks as one of his all-time favourite albums in a past interview with Classic Rock. “Rocks was delivered in this outta control way with Steven screaming and the guitars going ‘KRRRK!’ That was my record – it spoke to me as a fucked-up teenager and set me off on a path.”
During his carefree years as a “fucked-up teenager,” Slash enjoyed his first sexual encounters. He recalled trying to seduce one of his early crushes with some Aerosmith, but it turns out Stevie Nicks is more of an aphrodisiac than Steven Tyler. “I nearly first had sex to Rocks… I’d been courting this girl for months, finally got in her apartment while her mom was away, and she put it on,” he recalled. “I played it over and over until she said, ‘You might as well go!’”
While Slash failed to make any progress with Rocks, he remembered Rumours by Fleetwood Mac as the first album he had sex to. He said the 1977 classic was “very popular with the girls back then.” Touching upon the idea of being patient and making love on the female’s terms, Slash mused, “Usually, it’s the girl’s music that you end up having sex to.”
