capable of vocally—she had kept me up for the past three nights. So we lit up some candles for atmosphere, then she and Axl went out into the live room, got down on the floor by the drum riser, and we recorded Smith’s performance in all of its honest moaning and groaning. Enjoy it—it’s right there in the final mix. That breakdown said it all; I couldn’t think of a better song to close the album and I couldn’t think of a more telling slice of our lives at the time to hand to our fans.
It encourages you to drink responsibly and behave politely.
ALAN NIVEN WAS ALWAYS THINKING of how to best exploit every situation to our advantage; he was excellent at spreading the word and generating excitement. While the album was mastered and prepared for release, he kept us rehearsing and booked us a three-gig run in London at the Marquee, and arranged for some interviews over there. He did everything he could to introduce us to England ahead of time, which was a smart move on his part. Before we could go, however, I had to get myself a new green card, because I’d recently lost it when I left the black day planner in which I keep all of my important papers on top of the van as I pulled out of rehearsal with Duff one night. It ended up all over Santa Monica Boulevard, and even though I was able to find most of it on the street, the one thing I never found was my green card—it’s possible that there is an illegal immigrant walking around L.A. with the name Saul Hudson. If so, I hope my name has served him well.
I made the mistake of bringing Todd Crew and West Arkeen with me to wait in line down at the immigration office when I went to replace it: it’s always a first-come, first-served basis, so after the third day of unsuccessfully getting in, I needed company. We showed up at four a.m. to ensure that I’d make the cut and we were so drunk that we were stumbling around the place like the Keystone Kops. We’d brought some booze for the road, of course, so once the office opened we were a total mess. Todd almost got arrested because he started playing with some rubber plant in the hallway while holding my place in line, which made the other people there very uncomfortable.
We got over to England and stayed in two apartments, Axl and Izzy and Alan in one and Duff and Steven and I in the other. We had a tour manager named Colin and we got there a week before our shows to rehearse and do some press. We were staying in Kensington High Street, which was too far from the twenty-four-hour culture of Soho. It was not at all a rock-and-roll neighborhood; it was very proper with nothing to do but drink in the pub on the corner, which of course we did. It reminded me of the time we spent in Canoga Park: we explored everything and found nothing that was quite our scene. Except in London no one paid attention to us.
Todd Crew and Del James met us out there, which elevated the tempo considerably. Todd had tickets to Paris that his parents had given him for his college graduation. Looks can be deceiving: to the naked eye he was a burnout, but Todd was a college grad and was very well schooled. He’d never taken that trip, so he and Del used those tickets, just two long-haired American rock-and-roll guys totally lost in France living their version of
Our average day in London consisted of rehearsal, after which we might go to one of the clothing shops in the area because that was all that there was to do. One time my guitar tech Johnny took me to a really nice guitar store. He made a big deal out of me: I was Slash, the guitar player for Guns N’ Roses, the next great American rock band from Los Angeles. While he was schmoozing the owner I lay down on the floor to get comfortable, and passed out cold. They had to carry me out. Apparently that incident made a big impression on the English press and kick- started a handful of nicknames—“Slash Crash” and “Slashed” (as in pissed or drunk) were a couple. It established my “legendary” reputation there. I can’t imagine why.
Once our friends from home arrived, we did carouse more intensely. We’d drink in every pub we saw, rehearse for a few hours, then drink in every other pub we saw until the pubs closed. We weren’t nearly as rambunctious or destructive as we were in say, the Valley, because there wasn’t much that we could have possibly done to bring life into Kensington High Street. Just walking down the street, looking at the manicured parks and gardens, was quite sobering at any time of day. Our rehearsal space had the same cold London environment. In a clinical room or neighborhood like that, you don’t feel right busting things up: it encourages you to drink responsibly and behave politely.
Once we ventured to Soho and beyond, however, we found our peers. One night Duff and I were motivated to see a band (I can’t remember at all who) at Town and Country, which was a converted coach house way out in East London. We were smashed when we got there and we were more smashed when we left, and we had never stopped to consider that we’d be more or less stranded after the show. The trains had stopped running and I’m sure there was a bus, but we knew nothing about that. We started walking, just trying to make sense of which way was up, looking in vain for a cab. And of course it started to rain.
I was not happy about our situation at all, and apparently I became such a belligerent ass that right then, on some street miles from where we had to go, Duff found it necessary to straighten me out. We didn’t get in a fistfight exactly but there were definitely words exchanged. I don’t know how we got home, I don’t remember passing out; after our “altercation” I remember nothing. We did get back to the apartment somehow where Del lay in wait. Del was fond of taking pictures whenever one of our friends ended up in a compromised position, so I’ve learned through visual evidence that I slept through most of the next morning on my hands and knees with my boots on and my head buried in the corner of the couch. My top hat had been reduced to a complete puddle by the rain, but I’d held on to it—it was sitting there in a heap beside me. I wasn’t happy about that at all—for the rest of the trip. I was like a beaten puppy: “What? No top hat?”
One of our weirder excursions in the week leading up to our gigs took place on a Sunday, which no one bothered to tell us was off license, meaning no liquor stores, pubs, or grocers were allowed to sell booze. Of course you can always find the odd lawbreaker, but that day we had our work cut out for us, because no one was feeling kind to our cause in the proper lanes of Kensington High Street. As we wandered around looking for an open pub, we amassed a few odd stragglers. One of them was a weird young girl who was a rock fan, and was really shy but was somehow… off. She latched on to us and began to follow us wherever we went. No one was really talking or interacting with her much—she just hung around. We weren’t sure if she was a runaway, a groupie, homeless, or emotionally disturbed, but by the end of the night it was clear that she intended to stay wherever we were staying, because it didn’t seem like she had anywhere else to go. She was harmless enough, so we let it happen. Between Del and Todd and the rest of us, our flat was full of people sleeping on the floor, crashed out wherever. I was passed out on the floor myself and I remember that this girl was across the room before I lost consciousness. But sometime during the night, I woke to find that she had unzipped my pants and was sucking my dick. I acted like I was still asleep but I must admit that I didn’t stop her because it was pretty good. In the morning she was gone and we never saw her again.
WE REHEARSED AT JOHN HENRY’S, A famous studio where everybody who is anybody has done the same. It’s the eqivalent of S.I.R. in L.A., but with an English sensibility—it’s just a bit more “proper.” It was very cool, because lining the hallways were road cases that said motorhead, iron maiden, and thin lizzy. The place had an amazing vibe. We chose to spend our per diems, which were a few pounds a piece, at the pub, so we’d raid the little cafe at the studio for as many coffees, Danish, and sandwiches as we could stand. We’d get bags of crisps at the corner shops for a few pence and fill up on those before drinking the rest of our money at the pub around the corner.
Our three shows were at the Marquee Club, the famous little sweatbox where everyone from The Who to David Bowie to the Sex Pistols had played. On show days we sound-checked there, then Duff and I spent the evening drinking outside on the street with the curious locals who had come to see us. After a week in Kensington High Street, we were starved for any taste of the rock-and-roll culture that we were used to. I’m not sure if it was that afternoon or after that first show, but hanging out like that I managed to land myself a girlfriend named Sally, who was a hot “Page Three” girl at the time. “Page Three” is a fixture of the English newspaper
I also hung out with my hero, Lemmy Kilmister. The entire band met Motorhead that trip and that made our
