Slash

Mike Clink, our producer, had worked with Matt Sorum, the drummer in question, before, so I called him immediately and left him a message. A little later, I was a bit drunk, lying on my back, my head hanging upside down over the edge of Renee’s bed, watching the phone on the floor and waiting for it to ring. Finally it did. I picked it up instantly.

“Hello?” Mike said, typically soft-spoken.

“Hey, it’s Slash,” I said. “So, hey, listen, do you know the drummer from The Cult? We need a drummer, and I saw this guy and he’s great, and I’m trying to find out if he’s available.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Mike said. “Let me make a phone call.”

“Okay, yeah.”

The phone rang again in the early evening. “Slash,” Mike said. “Here’s what I found out. He’s possibly available. Do you have a pen? I have his number.”

I hadn’t moved much that day; I was waiting for this call, focused on it, because I knew this was right. I wrote the number on the sheets, or on the wall or on my hand, I’m not sure which.

I dialed and waited. Matt picked up.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Matt, is it? This is Slash,” I said. “I’m from Guns N’ Roses and we need a drummer. Are you interested?”

Two days later Matt came in to rehearse, and within the course of two or three songs, Duff, Izzy, and I realized that we’d found our man. We’d found ourselves a player with an innate feel all his own, both in step with the rest of us and individually stylized. He had the power, the chops, and the vibe to fill the void—and add to what the band’s sound was about to become.

I think Duff and I took Matt out to ask him if he wanted to join—I can’t remember where—probably the Rainbow—but we took him out and drank and did some blow, that kind of thing. He fit right in. He was pysched; it was the situation that every touring musician dreams of. There’s no easier gig to walk into for a real rock-and-roll player. After hanging out with Duff and me, it was clear that Matt thought Guns was the biggest band on the face of the planet as well as a crew of relentless partiers. The pay was good and there were no rules, except for one: all you had to do was play well.

But Matt had to learn a hell of a lot of stuff pretty fast. We had the demos of thirty-six songs that we planned to record for the albums. Since those tapes weren’t really enough to go on, Duff, Izzy, and I had to teach him everything in a reasonably short amount of time, and because of that, the rest of us had to become very professional very quickly. There was a lot of remorse, at least on my part and surely the other guys’, about letting Steven go; but when Matt came into it, he brought new life to the proceedings. There was a light at the end of the tunnel when it looked like it might go dark forever.

A FEW OTHER THINGS WERE GOING ON during this period as Guns geared up to reemerge—we made a few appearances that are worthy of note. One of them was the night that Duff and I accepted our American Music Award on behalf of the band for Best Rock Album. I had never paid attention to the Grammys or the AMAs or any of that stuff; I never watched those shows on TV or took an active interest in any of it. Duff and I went anyway— mostly for the drinks—and we really had no concept of the fact that being nominated meant you might actually win something, and if you did win you were expected to get onstage and say something—to the crowd as well as the TV audience at home.

At this point, I was dating Renee and Duff was with Pilar, and the AMAs were something to take the girls to. All they had to serve was wine, and we had at least eight big cups a piece. The whole thing was pretty boring and stiff. We’re sitting there talking when all of a sudden Guns N’ Roses was called for Appetite winning Best Rock Album. We were dumbfounded. The spotlight shot over our seats and we staggered up there. Once I realized we’d won, I wanted to thank all the different people, so I thanked Zutaut, Niven, all those people at Geffen all the while dropping countless fucks caused by the wine and my nervousness. I had no idea what the protocol was at these ceremonies. Anyway, I was a few names in when they cut the mike. I kept talking for a second, until I realized it’d been shut off. We were escorted back to do pictures and have the press conference. I was buzzed, I was having a good time and gave them all the middle finger.

The next day, this AMA thing was all I heard about. I was overwhelmed by the controversy because to this day the incident still doesn’t mean that much to me. I was, however, responsible for the seven-second delay being instituted at all future live award ceremonies; plus Dick Clark wouldn’t speak to me for eight years. I wasn’t allowed at the AMAs until only a year or so ago when I was asked to present some award.

It wasn’t intentional but nonetheless it sent a message: the Guns spirit was alive and well.

BACK AT THE STUDIO, WE HAD THIRTY- six songs, which was more than enough to fill a double album. I wanted to choose the twelve best of the thirty-six and hone them down to perfection, but I let it go because as long as were moving forward, I was happy. Axl wanted to record all thirty-six and go the double-album route. He didn’t want to sit on these tunes. I understood that: many of them were old by this point—they’d been held over from our last album, and some were even older. Also, there was a whole bunch of new songs that represented where we were at that moment in time. It might be retrospect talking, but the general consensus was that we were cleaning the slate, getting out everything we had. As a whole, these songs were representative of something important: the band’s past and present. It had been such an incredible journey and the only way to express it was all in this body of material.

Matt was great; he was tight with Duff and me; Izzy was around, but not like he used to be. Not only was he 100 percent dead sober, he was also very much anti-alcohol and antidrugs at that point. When Izzy met Matt they got along fine, but it was under the condition that the decision had already been made: it was all okay, but I think Izzy felt dictated to—and he hated that. Izzy was pretty fragile from the time he came back to the band until the day he left, and as I look back, this whole shift probably didn’t sit entirely well with him. When we had rehearsal we were all there as a band and it was cool, something was off. Izzy wasn’t happy… but he wasn’t saying anything, and Axl had distanced himself from the day-today mechanics of the band so much that as long as we had a drummer and everyone was there and playing together, he thought we were cool and ready to move forward.

The first recording with Matt was “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” for the Days of Thunder soundtrack (which also ended up on the Illusions albums). I remember doing the solo for it on my way somewhere and I used a ’58 Gibson Explorer. It was an amazing take, I just ran in there with my girlfriend and some friends in tow, picked up the guitar, and really let the solo sing: I turned the tone down on the bass pickup, I locked in and let it scream. I really love the way that one came out—it was very emotional yet effortless.

“Knocking on Heaven’s Door” was also the first song that we could listen to and get an idea of what the band sounded like with our new drummer. It came out great, but there was a definite difference in the overall feel of the new Guns from the old Guns. We had lost a little bit of the mayhem and punk rock, that raw chaotic, seat-of-the- pants feel. Instead we sounded more epic and solid and huge. That was a good or a bad thing depending on who you asked. In my opinion, I was just happy to be moving ahead.

Next, we went in and Matt learned all thirty-six songs at breakneck speed, basically by playing them with us live because there was no other material to reference. We booked ourselves into A&M in Hollywood and recorded thirty-six songs in thirty-six days. Between takes, we’d go to Crazy Girls, the strip bar across the street, which I’m sorry to say is no longer there. At night we’d go out carousing, then show up the next afternoon and do it all again on a new song. It was a great thirty-six days, during which Duff and I realized that Matt was both an incredible drummer and our brand-new party buddy. Before the drug thing got out of hand and before the incident with Steven, there were some dark periods, but we’d come through that: we were now very functional alcoholics and occasional coke users. Actually, I doubt that it was occasional—Matt and Duff did a lot of blow. I didn’t do as much, but it didn’t matter because, like them, I’d built up my tolerance of everything to the point that we were all a perfectly productive, chemically driven, and very professional band.

^{Beverly Hills High should be proud: Slash onstage with Lenny Kravitz.}