“Personally, I consider [Slash] a cancer and better removed, avoided,” said Axl Rose, once, when the hostility between the two Guns N’ Roses members was at an all-time high. “And the less anyone heard of him or his supporters, the better”.
The quote is a pretty harsh one. Guns N’ Roses members called each other some horrible things over the years, but “cancer” might be up there with one of the worst. Axl Rose never worried about holding his tongue when it came to slandering his bandmates, and Slash was caught up in that libel in the process. The most interesting part of the quote, however, is Rose saying that he doesn’t want to hear from Slash again. Unfortunately, that was a big ask at the time, as once the group split up, Slash was quick to look for side projects.
This is coming from a Slash obsessive. If you have only listened to his work for Guns N’ Roses and haven’t dabbled in any of his side projects, you’re really missing out. He compromised a fair bit for the band, so when you listen to him with free rein, just a guitar pick and six-string to play with, you get to hear the guitarist at his very best.
He’s had a pretty successful run playing with Myles Kennedy, which won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has listened to them. When you check out tracks like ‘Driving Rain’ and ‘Anastasia’, you realise there is nothing but heavy-hitting rock ballads on show, each of which adds another string to Slash’s bow of guitar-oriented achievements. The same can be said for his collaboration albums and his work with Velvet Revolver. For the most part, he is proud of the projects he’s worked on outside Guns N’ Roses, but there is one he has regrets about.
One of the first projects that Slash worked on outside of his original group was Slash’s Snakepit. This is something he had in the works for a while, all the way back to when he was still in Guns N’ Roses. He always said that the first incarnation of the band didn’t count, as nobody who was a part of the project was taking things seriously.
“The first one doesn’t count,” he said, “We had a bunch of guys together, and we recorded stuff and called it Snakepit because I had snakes. But I was still in Guns then; it wasn’t a permanent thing”.
Once Guns N’ Roses split up, Slash decided to actually give the Snakepit side project a go. That led to the creation of what eventually became known as Slash’s Snakepit. “This one was a career move,” he insisted, “This is everybody’s individual fucking-let’s-lock-arms-and-do-it. Not for myself, but every individual in the band was like ‘We gotta make this thing happen’. It took a year to get it all together.”
The music that came out of the project was pretty good. ‘Neither Can I’ is still considered one of the best songs that he put his name to, and the whole thing was a great way for Slash to adjust to life outside of the band setting. That being said, there were some issues with that time, namely, Slash’s over-reliance on various substances.
“The last incarnation of Snakepit was just a huge mess; as much as I liked it, I was all fucked up,” admitted Slash, “I almost killed myself drinking too much—and I had a lot going on”.
