I did the gig, I met my drug buddy, I came home to L.A. and knew I was too fucked up to be around Perla, who had come home entirely clean and sober, let alone be around our children. I did the only thing that made sense to me: I checked myself in to a West Hollywood hotel, and I scheduled the day that I would check myself in to rehab. Until that morning I intended to finish up the drugs I’d bought right there in my room or wherever they might lead me. Perla and everyone else was worried about me. But she was patient and tolerant and that is why we love each other the way we do.
I wasn’t fine. But I was almost ready to admit it. I knew that my debauchery needed to end. I had planned to get some space from my wife and from my band after I’d allowed myself those predetermined four months to let it all hang out; I knew I was in need of some solace and quiet. And I got it. This time rehab turned out to be really good for me, because this time I surrendered. First I kicked the drugs, then I cleared my head and did some work on figuring out why I liked to put myself in the same position over and over again. Early in the morning of July 3, 2006, I checked into rehab. I did a full thirty days, I fully surrendered… I learned more about myself than I had ever thought was possible. And as of this writing, I’ve been sober ever since.
ONCE I WAS BACK ON TRACK, THE BAND got back on track and we got down to recording and writing our second record,
We’d started working with Rick Rubin back before I got sober; actually I believe it was before and after my Oxy binge. We were excited to do so for obvious reasons—Rick’s track record is legendary. But it didn’t really work out: Rick has his methods; he has his crew there to do the producing and engineering and every few days he pops in to see how it’s going. Usually he’s got a few bands set up like that around town.
That really didn’t work for us. Rick would listen to a bit of what we were doing and tell us to take one part of a song and combine it with something else that he’d heard that he liked. We also got jealous of the fact that he was spreading his focus around, doing four albums at once. It felt like he was always leaving us to see another one of his concubines, and when he was there we didn’t really connect—he sat back and let us go. Under those conditions it felt like this record would take us a year or more to complete.
We broke it off with Rick and moved our operation to Scott’s studio, Lavish. Scott suggested that we give it a go with Brendan O’Brien, who had done most of STP’s records. I’d only known him in that capacity. I liked him well enough when I talked to him on the phone and so we had him come in and everything just seemed to fall into place. Brendan liked working fast and hard and he insisted that every member of the band be present for every session. I think that is one of the best pieces of advice I could ever give to any band.
If one of us didn’t show up on time, Brendan refused to work until everyone was present, which both whipped us into shape pretty good and motivated us to be there. But he brought more than just discipline to the equation, he brought a musicality that stems from the fact that he plays guitar, bass, and drums. At any given moment he could play along with us and it really helped the process. With someone that informed, we progressed very quickly.
OUR SESSIONS WERE CONSISTENT; EVERYONE was there, everyone contributed, and everyone appreciated what each player was doing. I didn’t think it was possible, but the chemistry that came out of that mutual participation surpassed the first Guns sessions. Everyone was so inspired and everything we did, every experiment even, was very musical. We were playing great, Scott was singing great, and what we ended up using as the final tracks on the album were, for the most part, the first or second live takes of each song. That record is what happens when you pair a really good rock-and-roll band who loves what they’re doing with a producer who really understands them and knows exactly what he’s doing.
Every day I’m glad I found the strength to take the high road.
PERLA AND I ARE BOTH ALL CLEANED up now and we’re really happy. July 2007 will be my one-year anniversary, and I’ve gotten more done this past year than in the two years before that combined. You only get so many karmic “Get Out of Jail Free” passes; you’re bound to run out eventually. So far I’ve been extremely lucky, so I’m not taking any more chances. A junkie has only two options, and I’ve got a long list of friends on both sides of the fence. They can get clean or they can get dead, and every day I’m glad I found the strength to take the high road.
Copyright
SLASH. Copyright © 2007 by Dik Hayd International, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan- American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non- transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition October 2007
ISBN 9780061752353
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Credits
Jacket Design by James L. Iacobelli
Front Jacket Illustration by Shawn Kenney/Michael Rotondo
If Memory Serves
I’ve been asked more than a few times why I decided to do this book at all and here’s why: A few people who know me well kept telling me that I should do it—and finally I agreed with them. I was very reluctant to share my life in any way, particularly in a medium open to public consumption, most of all because I regarded a memoir as something you do when you’ve got no career left to speak of. That isn’t the case for me, and even if it were, I wouldn’t have much interest in that. It’s not natural to regard your life objectively, but once I did, I realized that my story up until now made for something pretty entertaining. I also realized that if I didn’t get it all down now, there was a very good chance that I’d forget it all. In the end I realized that this book would serve another purpose: it would put one era of my career to rest and signify the start of the rest of it.
I’d like to make one more thing pretty clear, because this is another question that haunts me almost every day, usually because it’s asked by people who don’t know me at all. I’d like to state, very simply once more why I chose not to continue on with Guns N’ Roses so that no one feels the need to ask me this ever again when they see me on the street. Here it goes: 1) the constant disrespect for all involved by going on late for no good reason night after night after night, 2) the legal manipulation that Axl forced on us, from demanding ownership of the name to downgrading us, contractually, to hired hands, and 3) losing Izzy and Steven, who were such an integral part of the band’s sound and personality… without them, the band no longer had its original chemistry.
My departure had nothing to do with artistic differences, as many people claim to know. It was not as simple as “Axl wanted synths and Slash was old-school.” It had nothing to do with Axl wanting to go digital and Slash staying analog. To think that dissolving the kind of band and the kind of musical chemistry we had over something so trivial is just asinine. It’s true, I am old-school, and I do like keeping it simple—but I’ve never been close-minded. If anything, I was more than flexible and willing to try any kind of recording technique or explore any new sound, so long as I was doing so on an equal playing field with musicians that worked together toward a common goal. I
