An evolution of Guns N’ Roses: Slash and his hatred of specific genre categorisation
Few guitarists manage to carve out a distinctive niche for themselves, but Slash is certainly one of them. The Guns N’ Roses lead axeman is one of the most recognisable players out there, with his flowing locks, top hat, and, most importantly, the searing sound of his Gibson Les Paul familiar to legions of people worldwide.
While he emerged at the tail end of the 1980s with the Los Angeles group, the Stoke-born fretboard maestro appeared to rock purists like a messenger from a time long since passed. From the meaty sound of his humbucking weapon of choice to the notation of his solos and his general stage presence, Slash always had more in common with the Les Paul-toting masters of the previous decade than the hair metal guitarists that were all the rage at the time.
Of course, this is ironic, given that Guns N’ Roses and Slash were often associated with hair metal. Despite only minor connections, the bombastic nature of some of their songs, big hair, leather clothing, and their penchant for hard living fed into the belief that they occupied the same space as bands like Mötley Crüe and Twisted Sister. Furthermore, while the quintet cited classic rock and punk as key influences, their links to the most divisive form of their era were, in some ways, purely incidental and based on geography. If they had been a British band, they would likely be seen as more punk-oriented.
With aspects such as their general attitude to life and frontman Axl Rose’s polarising nature, it wouldn’t take long for Guns N’ Roses to be tied to the West Hollywood scene and all glam metal entailed. For the group, this was always a contentious matter, as the genre was fast becoming obsolete amid changing attitudes, listener tastes, and the fact that alternative rock was slowly coming to the fore. Slash felt most aggrieved by this association; he actively hated the whole thing and even deemed himself the “antithesis” of it.
For the neutral, it might seem unbelievable that Slash wanted to distance himself from the debauchery of Mötley Crüe and related acts. Still, when closely scrutinising his influences, such as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, and the general commitment to his craft, it becomes clear that there was a significant discrepancy. His primary motivation was to compose potent sonics, with everything that followed, the sex, drugs and other ephemera, secondary, no matter how much he enjoyed partaking.
He once explained this difference during an interview: “A lot of what was going on in West Hollywood at that time, it was this very superficial, soulless kind of image, and the music didn’t back it up. I didn’t like hanging out up there, so it was funny, you know, not long after that, that I would be in a band that was the antithesis of all that but right rooted in the middle of it, you know, sort of like the Antichrist of the neighbourhood.”
When most famous rockers would get bogged down in a skewed personal opinion of their standing, Slash correctly asserted that Guns N’ Roses were also rooted in the essence of glam metal, something they could not escape, no matter how much he loathed it.
While he might have despised the vacuity of the groups that made West Hollywood their own during the 1980s, their unapologetic attitude and the fact that other Guns N’ Roses members had played in glam metal groups before they formed meant that a friction between genres was always going to be inherent to their operations. This spiritual juxtaposition would also be crucial to their commercial success.
