Five bands that Slash hated
There are few people in the music industry who adore making and playing music more than Slash. A life either in the studio or on the road proves that. But where there is love, there is also hate.
While Slash may not be considered the most ill-tempered member of Guns N’ Roses, make no mistake, this isn’t a man who is afraid to let his opinion be known.
When he talks about the music he listens to, he is always willing to say what he thinks about it. This means there are plenty of interviews out there where Slash discusses the records he loves, riffs he deems “killer”, and the solos that inspired him. However, there are also plenty of instances where he talks shit about his contemporaries.
His rationale for such hatred varies. Sometimes, it’s because of that fact that he merely deems a band “posers” instead of the real deal. In other instances, he has a personal connection to said band, which he would rather forget. Regardless of what the reasoning is, there are plenty of bands out there that Slash hates, but we have managed to whittle it down to five.
The well-spoken, polite, top hat-wearing lead guitarist has a venomous tongue, and these are the bands he despises whom he has used it against.
The bands that Slash always hated:
Poison
Before there was Guns N’ Roses, Slash auditioned to be in Poison.
With the hair and the extreme guitar playing ability, Slash would have been a perfect candidate, but it didn’t quite work out. Rikki Rockett from the band spoke about Slash’s audition and said that while he was an excellent guitarist, they didn’t think he was the right fit for them.
“Slash we had known cause he was in Hollywood Rose,” said Rockett, “So Bret and I liked him; we all liked him. And he came and worked on some songs with us, but we continued to audition people even though he was a frontrunner… We didn’t want, like, a hotshot […] We wanted a rock, East Coast guy. And then C.C. [DeVille] auditioned, and he just made more sense than Slash did.”
It all worked out for the best, as Slash would end up playing in Guns N’ Roses. When asked about his audition with Poison, he said he only auditioned for the band because he felt compelled to. “Matt, the original guitar player for Poison, who was actually a pretty cool guy, had gotten his wife pregnant or they were getting married or something like that,” recalled the guitarist.
“He was moving back to Pennsylvania. He goes, ‘You should try out for Poison’. I hated Poison but in those days you did whatever you had to do to keep moving.”
Slash’s Snakepit
Yep, one of the bands that Slash hated the most was one that he formed himself (and this won’t be the last time one of Slash’s bands appears on this list, either).
After Guns N’ Roses broke up, Slash formed the supergroup Slash’s Snakepit in a bid to re-centre himself and work out his musical style. A concoction of drugs, drink and working with bad musicians made his time with Snakepit one that he’d rather forget.
“The last incarnation of Snakepit was just a huge mess; as much as I liked it, I was all fucked up — I almost killed myself drinking too much — and I had a lot going on,” recalled Slash, “And I did this record [2000’s ‘Ain’t Life Grand’] with a bunch of guys who’d never been around the block before. For me, it was like revisiting what it was like to go out and start your first band; for them, it was their first band! One was strung out, blah blah blah; we were always getting guys out of jail for stupid shit […] It had its moments, but it was like, John Lennon had his lost fuckin’ summer, right? For me, it was like my lost four or five years!”
Metallica
This one is slightly different from your usual measure of hatred. Slash was a fan of Metallica and the guys who made up the band, but touring with them and seeing them perform highlighted the flaws in Guns N’ Roses, which meant he had some resentment towards them. It didn’t come from a place of malice, but it was certainly palpable.
While supporting Metallica, Slash recalled the atmosphere in the stadium and that it was clear Metallica were the kind of hard rock. “I remember before we went on and the second we got off, the club played nothing but Metallica nonstop. It was obvious that any American band, or any band at all, that didn’t sound like Metallica wasn’t going to go over,” he said, “We got through the show, and the only thought going around in my mind was, ‘I would fucking hate to have to do this again tomorrow.’”
Kiss
Slash has never been afraid to admit he wasn’t a huge fan of Kiss. He recalled before starting a band, sitting with the Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler, who decided to play some Kiss records. He said the band were one that he “always hated”.
This hatred found its way back to the band’s frontman, Paul Stanley. He said that before Slash had made a name for himself, there were whispers in the music scene that the guitarist from a new band called Guns N’ Roses was talking shit about him.
“Immediately after my interactions with the band, I started to hear lots of stories that Slash was saying behind my back,” said Stanley. “He called me gay, made fun of my clothes, all sorts of things designed to give him some sort of rock credibility at my expense. This was years before his top hat, sunglasses and dangling cigarette became a cartoon costume that he would continue to milk with the best of us for decades.”
Velvet Revolver
Yes, this is the second one of Slash’s bands to appear on a list of bands he hates. Say what you want about the guitarist, but he isn’t afraid to talk truthfully about the music he likes and dislikes, even if it does get him in trouble.
Admittedly, he said he felt the band made some good music; however, the experience of being in said band wasn’t something that he enjoyed one bit.
“As crazed as that whole period was, I was still shocked to hear about Scott,” said Slash when discussing the death of the band’s singer Scott Weiland, “But yeah, Velvet Revolver was no fun. I have nothing positive to say about that experience except that we did write some cool stuff.”
