Slash reveals he has no memory of concerts in the 1990s
Slash, the guitarist of California rock band Guns N’ Roses, has revealed that he has almost no recollection of his early concerts with the band. The band formed in the mid-1980s with Axl Rose front and centre, and by 1987, they were world-famous thanks to their iconic debut album, Appetite for Destruction.
Alongside Rose and Slash in the classic lineup were bassist Duff McKagan, drummer Steven Alder, and rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin. As the band treated the US to its early hits, which include classics like ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and ‘Paradise City’, they maintained the typical rock and roll lifestyle of hedonistic excess.
With fame and fortune, this lifestyle intensified throughout the 1990s. After a series of peaks and troughs, Slash decided to leave Guns N’ Roses in 1996, whereupon he formed the blues covers band Slash’s Blues Ball alongside Teddy ‘Big Bag Zig Zag’ Andreadis, Johnny Griparic, Alvino Bennet, Bobby Schneck and Dave McLaurin.
In a new interview with People, Slash recalled that, during the mid-1990s, his alcoholism issues means that he can barely remember his early gigs with the band. “It was such a drunken kind of thing, and it was just for the fun of it,” he explained. “I do not recall any of those gigs.”
The guitarist doesn’t appear to have many regrets about this part of his career, though. Alcohol was part and parcel of the Californian blues scene which circled the bars. “When I first met them, a couple of the guys, they were playing in a band called The Screaming Cocktail Hour, which was a great blues band that used to play at the local Rogie’s and Baked Potato and Cozy’s, and all these small little blues dives around LA,” he recalled.
The guitarist continued: “And I would go and hang out with them and get there at ten or 11pm and jam until two o’clock in the morning.”
After forming Slash’s Blues Ball, the guitarist used his platform to broaden the group’s scope. “I got a couple of other guys, and so we started doing the same circuit, but then that turned into an actual tour, and we did it on and off for a couple of years, even managed to make it to Europe,” he said.
Although Slash’s memory of the shows is very limited all these years later, he used some of the setlists he kept hold of as inspiration for his new blues covers album, Orgy Of The Damned. With that project out of the way, he has started to return his attention to Guns N’ Roses. “I’m going into the studio with the Conspirators, getting a new record done and then after that, 2025 is all about Guns N’ Roses,” he revealed in a recent conversation with Loudwirre Nights.
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