had gone public with his opinion about me, the lawsuit, or anything like that.
As I’ve said, this incident was widely reported in the press and on the Internet and anyone who is interested can go read all about it if they so choose.
The fact of the matter is, this incident and the resulting negative effect it had on Velvet Revolver was very unsettling to me; I can barely even talk about it still, let alone re-create it in detail here. I thought I was going to see everything I’d just finally gotten together fall apart.
First things first; the lawsuit was a nightmare that had gone on too long. For fear of further litigation, the easiest way to explain it is to say that since 2001 we were involved in a lawsuit over the rights and profits stemming from licensing and merchandise. It was a typical broken-up-bands litigation where one party complains of underpayment by another party. The road of rock and roll is littered with that kind of shit.
But what hurt the most was that I had to defend myself to my band. I showed up and insisted that what was alleged wasn’t true, but the way that Axl had written this thing made it sound so matter-of-fact that everyone seemed to think it was.
The guys were very dubious about accepting my story. At the same time I was very sincere about telling them the truth. At first I thought I should respond publically, and told my band I would, but later decided it would only complicate the issue and prolong it.
I wasn’t sure what to do; I still wanted to proceed—my credibility was riding on it. We had a band meeting a few days later and Scott didn’t show; it was obvious to me that since I hadn’t made a move, I’d let him down.
Then Scott released his own rebuttal. He attacked Axl on every level. And my instinctual reaction wasn’t “you’re right,” it was “you can’t talk shit about Axl!” I can talk shit about Axl, I can talk shit about Axl all day if I want to—that’s because I’ve had to deal with him for years. But neither Scott nor anyone else has that right.
Tensions in the band escalated as a result and I got my gear out of Matt Sorum’s home studio, where we’d been writing and rehearsing.
Word on the street was that I’d quit Velvet Revolver to rejoin Guns N’ Roses. I don’t know who started that rumor but it had legs long enough that it caused an exhausting internal battle. The media took a particular liking to that story: that Slash had ditched his former Guns bandmates to rejoin Axl in whatever his idea of Guns N’ Roses was going to be. At that point I think
It looked like what I was doing was a fact, but for the fact that I wasn’t doing it. If you picked up any music paper around that time or listened to the radio or checked out blogs on the Internet, there was no avoiding it. It was etched in stone: I’d left Velvet Revolver, I was going back to Guns. The reality was that neither happened: during those few months I was just at home, recording musical ideas on my digital sixteen-track.
It literally was a waiting game: it took all of us a while to get past all of that bullshit. Finally, when it all went away, we got back to work. I just went over to Matt’s house one day like nothing had ever happened.
“Listen, man,” I said. “All of that was ridiculous and all of this is ridiculous. Can I tell you what really happened?”
“Yeah, man.”
I said my piece, relating the story once again as it had gone down. Clearly, time had proven that I had had no reunion with Axl and that I wasn’t rejoining Guns N’ Roses—because nothing had happened! That fact seemed to convince the guys that my version of events was the truth. I never felt that I’d needed to explain myself to those guys, but I had, which always pissed me off. But I got over it and so did they. After I had a one-on-one with Matt, I had one with Kirschner and then Duff and Scott. All in all, it was completely unnecessary drama, whether it was unsaid or not. I just didn’t have the time for it. But we got through it. And we’re all better for it today.
THE BAND FINALLY GOT TOGETHER AND started rehearsing at Matt’s house, in his recording studio in his garage. Everybody was getting along again and we started to work on new material for our next record. It was at this time that I tore my rotator cuff working out in the gym and went to see a doctor. He prescribed a few theraputic exercises and gave me a bottle of Vicodin. I knew damn well what Vicodin was and what effect it has on me, but in the form of a prescription from my doctor, it all seemed okay and actually necessary. I took the Vicodin as instructed, one every four hours. It soon became two every four hours, then one every hour, then one every fifteen minutes—that’s just the way it works with me.
Not only was my band situation in jeopardy, Perla and I were at odds like never before. I was heading one way with the Vicodin and she was heading another way: after the birth of our second son, Perla wanted to lose all the weight she’d gained having children, and in doing so got addicted to prescription diet pills. Diet pills are basically a gourmet form of speed and she’d been taking them long enough indiscriminately that it had altered her personality. She was already a superattentive, superassertive person who was always a few steps ahead of me. Adding speed of any kind to that equation accentuated those traits to the point that she became too intense for me to deal with.
Our interactions were getting increasingly agitated, so I went to Las Vegas to take part in VH1’s Rock Honors in 2006, where, along with my buddy Tommy Lee, we did a set of Kiss songs. While I was there I met up with my Oxy-connected friend and got more pills than I could handle. My friend had beaten cancer but in the interim he’d allegedly gotten into a near-lethal car accident and had a newly unending prescription for them. When someone tells you they have a prescription like that, you don’t ask questions.
By then I’d gotten familiar enough with the drug that I wondered what would happen if I crushed them up, liquefied them, and melted them down to inject. I was quite pleased to discover that it worked. I had a great time in Vegas; it was the perfect place to face the fact that that’s where I was heading. I stayed there for a few days more than I needed to. I just got high. I was just chipping; I didn’t have a habit. (Chipping is a here and there relationship with smack.)
I came back to my home and as my relationship went further downhill, I was self-medicating; I had a stash of Vicodin and OxyContin. Perla and I split up abruptly; we were apart for a day: I went to a hotel out near the airport. I packed up our Hummer with my clothes and my cat and in my mind I wasn’t ever coming back. I wasn’t at all a saint, but I couldn’t handle where she was at. I told her that she needed to go to rehab.
She agreed. “If I’m going in, take care of the kids” was the last thing she said to me.
WHILE PERLA WAS IN REHAB IT GOT bad—our nanny took care of the kids while I maintainined a healthy Oxy habit. I found an L.A. connection and bought about a three-month supply. And while I didn’t do it every day, eventually I did it every night. I kept it from the band like I kept it from my family. But then eventually it crept in: I’d do a shot before rehearsal. I’d pursued the creative vibe with the band in a clear mental state, but eventually there I was again… foggy. It was so out of hand that I was shooting up in Matt’s bathroom, and it was obvious to everyone that I was high. All the same, no one said a word, at least for a while, and it says a lot about our collective tolerance. I wasn’t even trying to hide my habit from a band of guys who’d had their share of problems and a singer who still had his. I was so obnoxious about it that Matt even found blood on the wall. If my nodding out at rehearsal didn’t give it away, that surely did.
We kept on keeping on, not really going forward, just kind of writing and creatively treading water. I accompanied Matt to a Camp Freddy gig in Vegas, not so much to see the show as to hook up with my Oxy connection and stock up. I thought I knew what I was doing but I don’t think I’d realized how quickly I’d become the dark horse. I remember being backstage at that show: everyone would get quiet when I walked into the room. It was starting to be like that wherever I went.
My manager at that time and now is Carl Stubner, and while I was in Vegas he called me. We talked about a few things, and though I didn’t realize it in the moment, he was listening carefully, trying to gauge where I was at. I don’t remember what I was talking about but suddenly he interrupted me.
“Hey,” he said. “Be honest with me. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, man,” I said, lying. “I’m fine. Why?”
“Listen to me… I’m not going to tell you how to live your life and I’m not here to be a cop. I just want to know if you’re okay. Because if you’re not, I am here for you. But you have to be
“I’m fine, really… Yeah, I’m fine.”
