The show that made Slash want to leave Guns N’ Roses: “Sucked”
It’s hard to imagine Slash having the greatest time every single time that he went onstage with Guns N’ Roses back in the day.
Even though he loved the idea of playing music to anyone within earshot, it’s no secret that Axl Rose could become a little bit of a handful whenever they played, whether that meant going on rants, stopping shows early, or those extra fun nights where he didn’t even bother to show up at all whenever they played. But Slash was the first to say that he wasn’t necessarily an angel either every single time that the band tried to pull themselves together.
Because as much as Guns were a tight unit every single time they played, it always felt like they were hanging on by a thread every single time they performed. No one knew if they were going to witness a trainwreck or one of the greatest performances in rock history whenever they got up onstage, and that was what made their shows feel all the more dangerous once they hit the arena circuit.
But with that much money also comes a fair bit of problems, and Slash was already having issues well before Appetite for Destruction blew up. ‘Mr Brownstone’ was already about the problems that he and Izzy Stradlin were having with heroin, and when you give someone with that kind of addiction the biggest royalty checks in the world, it was bound to be a recipe for disaster when they eventually hit the big time.
Then again, you wouldn’t know it from hearing many of Slash’s performances. Even though he had many shows that he played when he wasn’t in the best frame of mind, his playing never seemed to suffer throughout every single show. Even photographers have had stories where Slash was so strung out that he dropped a cigarette down his pants during a solo by accident and still managed to hit every single note before fixing himself.
As long as he did his job right was all that mattered, but Rose knew that there was a deeper problem, and he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind right to Slash’s face. Anyone else would have pulled their bandmate aside and read them the riot act about how worried they were about them and how they needed to clean up, but when Rose decided to take time out of their set opening for The Rolling Stones to talk about Slash’s problems, the guitarist wasn’t exactly willing to forgive and forget.
Rose had crossed a line, and while dancing with Mr Brownstone was always going to lead to more problems, Slash wasn’t going to roll over and take the criticism, either, saying, “I was about to walk off. I was pissed. We finished the show, and it was one of those nights where everybody had their little part of the stage and just stayed there. The show sucked, it was lousy, and then Axl announced he was going to quit.”
The band still had a few more years left in them, but that didn’t mean that they were the healthiest thing for Slash to endure. While he did eventually get on the road to recovery, some of the shows for Use Your Illusion could get downright ugly behind the scenes, especially the day before one of their shows, when Slash collapsed in a hotel and was pronounced dead for a few minutes before he was revived by paramedics.
Bands aren’t normally the first place people go if they’re looking for the most stable environment, but when Slash did eventually walk away from the band, it felt like some weight had been lifted. He had spent years trying his best to straighten himself out, and while he did have a bright future ahead of him, he knew that the first step in moving on was to get as far away from the band as he could.
