The intense trip that saw Slash streak through a golf course
Slash, the resident guitar hero of hard rockers Guns N’ Roses, is one of the most iconic musicians of all time, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s one of the definitive shredders. Almost always aided by his Gibson Les Paul, he has provided many awe-inspiring moments that confirm his skill. Slash’s back catalogue is full of moments rightly lauded as some of the finest in rock, from the enormous crossover hit ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ to the expansive rock ballad ‘November Rain’.
Blending the influence of titans such as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen and Billy Gibbons, there’s no wonder that Slash’s style is so dextrous, as he drew on the work of a whole host of masters of the fretboard when cultivating his own, now-iconic form of playing. There’s no real surprise that Slash’s work has inspired a host of players of his own generation and younger ones, as in many ways, he is the complete lead guitarist, doing the influence of his heroes proud.
However, Slash is not just famous for his work as a musician. Like his Guns N’ Roses bandmates, he’s also known for the hellraising he got up to for an extended period when they were in their heyday. The stories about him are numerous; more often than not, these romps were drug-fuelled and downright insane. He has lived such a mythical life that his eponymous autobiography is one of the great must-reads by musicians of his stature.
One of the most outlandish stories from Slash’s life came from the late 1980s/early 1990s when every band member was strung out after capitalising too heavily on all the trappings that fame and money had to offer.
Famously, after their successful 1989 world tour, the band took a break from touring, and it was said that this had a significant effect on Slash’s life, as being on the road was all that kept his heroin addiction from getting seriously out of control. In his memoir, he looked back on that period when heroin was ruling his life: “It turned out to be the start of a long and nightmarish obsession with heroin that lasted from 1989 through 1991.”
Things got so bad that after one intense cocktail of heroin and cocaine, Slash started tripping at a golf course in Arizona. It was so overwhelming that he thought he was being “predators… with rubbery-looking dreadlocks” who carried machine guns and harpoons.
Scared he was about to die at the hands of these surreal assailants, Slash punched through a glass door in a bid to escape. Strangely, he was also fully naked by this point and grabbed a maid as an impromptu “human shield”. He later told the police what was happening: “I was still high enough that I told the story without a shred of self-consciousness.”
