Slash

would have hung in there with Axl through an industrial record or whatever else he wanted to try if the creative vibe between us was positive. My flexibility is the only thing that kept me in the band as long as it did—that’s how a team works. Unfortunately, we stopped being a team somewhere along the way.

As for the rest of how it all played out, I learned, looking back on it all, that the people Axl hired to “represent his interests” through all of the band’s undoing could have been a bit smarter than they were. Maybe intelligence has nothing to do with it: had they cared enough about him and about Guns N’ Roses as a band to have advised him to pursue any other path than the one he did this story may have had a different ending. Anyone could have foreseen the lack of positive outcome that lay ahead on the road Axl chose to go down. But then again, maybe that is how he wanted it

MY BEST FRIEND MARC CANTER IS putting out a book that is the visual accompaniment to all that you read here. Here’s a guy who way back when I was living at my mom’s house, before junior high, always had an Instamatic in his hand and was snapping pictures. Marc came to as many of my gigs in high school, in Hollywood, and once I was in Guns as he could possibly get to. His ever-present camera was just part of Marc. I never thought anything of it and never thought that any of those pictures would ever be seen again. I never thought that a side effect of that hobby of his would be a pretty extensive and intimate chronology of everything Guns N’ Roses did prior to 1988. All of it was just sitting around Marc’s house all these years—until now. It is now a book of pictures called Reckless Road. I never would have expected my childhood buddy to be capable of such shots.

BEFORE I WRAP THIS THING UP I HAVE something important to say about my parents. In the retelling of my childhood, I emphasized the negative over the positive, because the negative aspects of how my family evolved ended up informing my decisions as a kid more than any of the positive ones did. The negative is what explains where I turned in my youth. But what was lost in my re-creation was how my parents’ positive influences taught me to be the person I am.

My parents were such a prominent, encouraging influence on me as a child during the years when I strove to find out who I was going to be. I couldn’t have asked for better guides because they are, truly, two of the most creative people that I’ve ever met—and at this point I’ve met many. Both of them are amazingly talented, and though they didn’t ultimately prove to be the right match for each other, they did see beyond their differences to raise their children in a unique and informed fashion. The way they brought my brother and me up was unconventional but infused with love and discipline that never veered into being overly domineering.

I LIVE SO MUCH IN THE MOMENT THAT I’ve never daydreamed about the future beyond tomorrow. I’ve never related to those people who plan their lives five years down the line. As much as those types think they have control of their reality, I beg to disagree, because how much can anyone really “plan” what is going to happen to them beyond the next twenty-four hours? Its not that I don’t care what happens five years from now, its just that the next twenty-four hours is the stepping-stone to getting there.

I’ve found that just being, day to day, just waiting to see what comes, and going from there is the only way to grow. It’s informed how I’ve dealt with Velvet Revolver in nothing but the best respect: we have come so far in so short a time. Whenever we’re onstage, it’s at once so familiar and exciting that it seems like our first show even though it’s our thousandth. I’m consumed with what we’re doing, I’m proud of the record we made in Libertad, and I feel that we’re in a place where we are just now capable of tapping into what this band is really capable of.

At the time of this writing, our second record is just a few weeks old, but I can’t wait to see where our next record is going to go. We’re lucky; we stumbled upon something that is just beginning to evolve and it’s doing so in such a positive way. As this book comes to a close, Velvet Revolver is about to embark on our first headlining tour of arenas and sheds. We got to that level by the end of our two-year promotion of Contraband, but this is different: we’re starting where we ended, and from there we can only build a bigger beast.

I’m happier than I’ve ever been musically. This band writes creative, earnest, complex rock and roll. It’s not quite ironic, but as far as I’m concerned, it sure is funny that I found my future by revisiting my past. After looking around and ignoring the obvious so as to avoid anything that seemed like a revisitation, I ended up locking in with the guys I’d spent the better part of my career and my life with. And once we did, the past became an afterthought. And the present has been better than it has ever been.

As for the future, aside from playing in Velvet Revolver, at some point I want to do a record with all the players I’ve played with and admired over the years. I have a list of them, which is long. At this point, all that I know is that I plan to call it “Slash and Friends.” I’m actually looking at my wish list of collaborators right now and no, I’m not going to tell you who is on it.

I’M HAPPY TO SAY THAT I KNOW FOR A fact that as of summer 2007, Steven Adler is doing better. I’ve been helping him help himself to get off of crack, smack, and Jagermeister, which has been a compound addiction that has been ruining his life for the past quarter century. Counting from before he was ousted from GN’R, this is the longest that he’s ever been clean. He has some pretty good people around him now and I’m happy to report that he seems genuinely happy.

Ron Schneider, my bass player in Tidas Sloan, is working with Steven as a tech/moral supporter. It’s funny how things come full circle, even when you think your circle has expanded infinitesimally. At the same time, hearing about Ron’s situation, I couldn’t help but realize that almost everybody that hung around a lot with Guns N’ Roses ended up becoming a junkie at one time or another.

WHEN YOU REVIEW YOUR LIFE LIKE THIS, it’s strange; there have been parts that I’ve looked at as if I wasn’t there—I’ve read a few of these stories as if for the first time. But more than anything you gain perspective; this kind of exercise isn’t easy, but in the long run it’s a really good idea.

It’s a good thing to truly understand how and why I’m the same yet different than I’ve always been. It’s as if my personality remains but my wisdom has grown. If there’s one thing that made my bullshit recede, it’s fatherhood. The reality that I was going to be someone’s dad didn’t kick in until I found myself staring at the assembly instructions for a crib. We’d just finished painting our guest room and there I was having to assemble this thing. There was no going back. And as much as I freaked out at that moment, after that I didn’t want to go back. If anything I ran toward it, not away: I let myself be consumed with baby stuff, which is great, because I enjoy it.

All things considered, it came very naturally. Once I’d gotten the crib together, I knew it was real; I knew that we were going in. By the time that Perla and London and I were photographed for the cover of some baby magazine whose name I can’t remember, I was totally into it. That photo shoot wasn’t the cover of Creem or Rolling Stone, but I was pretty excited—we’d hit the big time on the baby circuit. And I was just as proud.

Being a parent has its moments where you find yourself doing what you are doing, but with this new little person who has integrated themselves into your life who’s just… there. Kids become a part of your everyday existence so instinctually and so naturally that before you know it they’re there… and you can’t remember what life was like when they weren’t.

My boys are three and five and I’ve started catching myself, at least once or twice a day, realizing how fast they are changing and growing. It’s a constant reality check. How can it not be? When your four-year-old stands in front of you defiantly and argues like you’re both equals, how can you not ask yourself “Is this happening? Am I negotiating with a four-year-old?” I wouldn’t have it any other way: Perla and I made beautiful kids, and our personalities are so strong in them that it’s entertaining to us. They are definitely a product of their parents…. In fact they’re a mirror of their parents: they are both defiant yet sweet.

^{Slash and Velvet Revolver in Santa Barbara, September 2007.}