Slash

IZZY STAYED OUT THERE WITH US FOR a while, all through Greece and Turkey—places we’d never played before. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but Izzy was doing what he does best; he was checking out the situation, taking stock, observing everything, taking part while committing to nothing. He wanted to see what had changed and what hadn’t. He was taking note of how much drinking was going on, what Axl’s trip was. He was testing the water to see if he could deal with it. At the time I still thought he’d quit the band because of the riot in St. Louis and the near riot in Germany. I didn’t even realize that those incidents were the least of his reasons.

For the entire Illusion tour, all two-plus years of it, we had two camera guys with us documenting every single moment. Those guys were close friends, so we really let them in and they really got it all. They captured the kind of history that anyone aside from the members of the band would never see. They were out with us on this leg of the tour, of course, as was Del James, who became a de facto narrator at times, conducting interviews and telling the camera guys what was what. One night Del and the cameras caught Izzy and me jamming on our acoustic guitars, just hitting loose stuff the way we did when no one was around. We fell into the pocket so naturally, and it felt comfortable and so great, that I’d love to see a tape of that. We have two years of footage, in fact, all of which is in a vault that will remain shut forever unless Axl and the rest of us get our differences ironed out. That footage is the Holy Grail of Guns N’ Roses: seeing the film that would result from condensing the best moments into two hours would be the be-all and end-all of knowing exactly who we were and who we are.

Izzy remained on board until late May, ending his run with two shows at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, England. Gilby flew out and hung out and the two of them got along great. There was no drama as the baton was passed, thank God.

From there we continued across Northern Europe; we did our makeup show in Norway, our second try at our first ever. We’d had to cancel the first time it because Axl got “held up” in Paris. Norway was a big one for Matt, since his family is Norwegian; he was pretty into visiting the roots of his Nordic history.

A particularly memorable night took place in Cologne, Germany; the kind of night that I might not remember completely, but one that I am remembered for. We had a day off, which Gilby and I spent sightseeing. Later on we met the band and some friends at this Italian restaurant, where we filled a huge corner banquette. We had tons of food, all of this wine, and at the end of the meal, Gilby and I decided to indulge in a few grappa shots. The first few went down fine and all was well. Then we did one more and suddenly it all went wrong: I puked everywhere. It was an Exorcist puke; I was sitting in the deep corner of the booth, so it went all over the table, and inexcusibly all over everyone around me. It flowed across the plates and everything and started dripping on the floor. I don’t know what was wrong with the owners of this place, but they found it charming. They were so honored to have us there that me puking up my meal at the table was A-OK. I commemorated the night by signing their guest book: “Of all the restaurants in the world, this is definitely one of them!” That line, by the way, was definitely stolen from Mike “McBob” Mayhew.

The tour continued through Europe and then returned to South America. We did our last date in Argentina on July 17, 1993. As I recall we played until about two a.m. and then commandeered the hotel bar until about six a.m. And when we returned to L.A. we had the honor of having done the longest tour in rock history. We’d played 192 shows in two and a half years, spanning twenty-seven countries. Over seven million people had seen us perform. I don’t really keep track of my achievements, but if I did that is the one I’d point out first and foremost.

I RETURNED TO L.A. EXHAUSTED AND went straight to Renee’s stepmom’s house for some kind of family gathering. Her stepmom’s name was Dee, but everyone called her Ma, because she was a very sweet old lady of about seventy or so. Her house was cozy, with pictures of the family everywhere; it was just nice in every way. And in the middle of this quaint little gathering, a bindle of coke fell out of my pocket.

Before we’d set off on that last South American leg, Matt, Duff, and I spent a lot of our time out on the town doing blow. One of the nights before we left, we’d done as much as we had and I remember thinking that we’d bought more than we were going to do. I’d put that extra bindle in my jacket and forgotten about it. Actually, late that night, I tried to find it and couldn’t—I’d rummaged around in my jacket and jeans, and convinced that I’d dropped it somewhere along the way, I just went to sleep with Renee.

The moment I saw it on the floor, Renee saw it, too, and I immediately put my foot over it before Ma or anyone else noticed. Then I casually “checked” my shoe and picked it up. When we got home and started doing it, I realized that this thing had been in my jacket for the whole South American tour—I had actually brought coke into South America and back, which is ridiculous, because that is the last place where you need to bring your own coke.

It wasn’t my first time averting international disaster: the first time we’d toured South America, I was almost deported back to England: I didn’t have my U.S. or British passport and my work visa had expired. The entire band went through customs while I was detained by the authorities at LAX. The only person who stayed with me was my security guard, Ronnie. It didn’t look good: I was in the holding room surrounded by armed guards and I was wearing shorts, a leather jacket, a T-shirt, and a top hat. There was this one Asian-American customs officer really putting it to me, while his younger sidekick knew who I was, which only seemed to fuel his boss’s contempt for me. In the end we had to pay a hundred-dollar waiver to get me out and I didn’t have any money on me. Neither did Ronnie—so he went panhandling in the airport, at the arrivals terminal in LAX, to get it.

AMID ALL OF THE HIGH AND LOW POINTS, we did some amazing performances that, thinking back on it, rival all of the bands I looked up to as a kid. We had a very established chemistry and a dynamic that was priceless. We’d made history, but when it was over I was fried, and as hard as it was for me to admit it, I was glad to be home for the first time in my life. The controversy and the struggle to pull the tour off had gotten to me more than anything else: the chaos of that emotional roller coaster, with all of its instability, had worn me out. When I came home, I had to reacclimate, to say the least.

I’d sold the Walnut House and Renee and I had bought a place off of Mulholland Drive, where we tried to stop the wheels for a second, which once again was very hard for me to do. I installed a full-on reptile zoo over there; just a gazillion snakes and all kinds of stuff. I built a small studio over the garage, and when the nagging desire to work started to rear its head again, I began working on demos for songs that I’d written on the road.

I started hanging out with Matt and recording demos of that stuff just for fun, and Mike Inez from Alice in Chains and Gilby started to come around and play with us. The three of us just got into a groove of jamming and recording every night. We didn’t know what it was going to be. At some point I played it for Axl, who took a pronounced disinterest in it.

That was fine by me. I was writing for the hell of it, just doing music that was indicative of where I was at that moment. I hadn’t grasped the idea of doing a Guns record or what that might be going forward; I was just having a good time with no pressure whatsoever.

We recorded about twelve songs. I had just mixed the last of them the night of the Northridge earthquake in 1994. I’d finished at about four a.m., and I went downstairs to our bedroom. Renee was sleeping, the TV was on, and I put the DAT of the entire twelve demos for what would become Slash’s Snakepit on the nightstand and got into bed. The second I turned out the light, the earthquake hit. There was a TV in a cabinet that raised and lowered at the foot of the bed. At that moment it was up, and the TV was on, and as it was blasting up the bed between Renee and me it exploded, just as all the power in the house went out. The next five minutes were like Godzilla shaking the place. It took me a few moments to even realize just what was happening.

Renee’s cousin was staying with us at the time; it was his first time in L.A., and when we’d had lunch down on Melrose earlier that day, he asked me what earthquakes were like. In the confusion I thought about him. He was asleep down the hall in the office, next to a room full of venomous snakes. I got Renee out of bed, and got her to the doorway of our bedroom. She was so groggy that she opened the door into her head about three times before she thought to move out of the way. After I got her situated, I went down the hall and knocked on the door. There was a giant armoire in that room and Renee’s cousin was sleeping at the foot of it on the floor. I panicked and called out for him but there was no answer. I thought that he must be trapped under the armoire until finally he responded. Like his cousin, Greg banged his head a few times on the door getting out of there.

The house continued to shake as the three of us huddled in the doorway to our bedroom. Renee was between us, with no shirt on, and she was pretty well built. Despite what was going on around us, I still found that pretty funny. We rode out wave after wave; each of them felt like something was attacking the house. The noise was deafening: glass was breaking, furniture was being tossed around, our eight cats were howling, and the