Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As you may, or more likely, probably don’t know, I am a guitarist. For guitarists of my age – which I try to avoid mentioning – no guitar was more desired, more hallowed than the Gibson Les Paul. Slung low like Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page or at a less ridiculous height by, well, most other guitarists, its simple elegance and stout tone powered some of the greatest guitar playing of classic rock’s golden era. By the mid 1980s, however, it had fallen out of fashion in favor of the musical versatility and lighter weight of the Fender Stratocaster. As a college freshman in Boston, I ogled rows upon rows of reasonably-priced Les Pauls at Allston’s Mr. Music, but paused on purchasing one. A year later, their prices had skyrocketed, and I could no longer afford one. Whose fault was that? Slash, that’s who.
The 2014 documentary, Slash: Raised On The Sunset Strip, chronicles the life of the top-hatted, curly-haired, Les Paul slinging Guns N’ Roses guitarist and is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Directed by music-doc vet Martyn Atkins, and originally produced by Guitar Center, it tries to connect the events of his life to the history of the Sunset Strip, the one and a half mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood which was the center of Los Angeles’ music scene from the ‘60s hippie era through the ‘80s glam metal epoch.
Born Saul Hudson in 1965, it’s little wonder Slash ended up a rock n’ roll musician considering his family ties. His mother was a costume designer who worked for and briefly dated David Bowie and his father was a graphic artist who designed famous album covers for early ‘70s singer-songwriters. He spent his early years in England, but later moved to L.A., and grew up ensconced in the L.A. music scene. “It was a lot of fun being raised in that chaos,” he says of his youth, during which his parents often dragged him to clubs on the Sunset Strip to meet with and see the musicians they were working with.
Slash befriended future GNR drummer Steven Adler in junior high school, the pair bonding over a shared love of hard rock and cutting school. Adler recalls with affection seeing the future guitar hero being told by a teacher “he was going to be a loser and a bum all his life. In that instant I realized I had somebody else that was just like me.” The two soon began playing music together, Slash saying that after picking up the guitar, “there was nothing else in life.” He got his nickname from a friend’s father who said he was “always in a hurry,” Adler noting the only person who doesn’t call him Slash is his grandmother.
As a teenager, Slash began going back to the Sunset Strip to see Mötley Crüe, then a club band. Bassist Nikki Sixx likens Slash to a little brother, one who always had a guitar in his hand, and talks about his own attraction to L.A.’s rock scene. We also hear from Motörhead’s Lemmy, who in his 70 years on this Earth was the living embodiment of rock n’ roll badassery, who famously relocated to L.A. and became a fixture at the Strip’s Rainbow Bar and Grill.
Soon, Slash and Adler were cruising the Sunset Strip to find musicians who would make their own rock n’ roll fantasies reality. Coming from different backgrounds, glam and punk, hard rock and hardcore, the members of Guns N’ Roses unique take on classic influences delivered with a heaping dose of attitude would affect the music scene far beyond their native environs. And then of course it all went to hell, but that’s another story, not covered in depth here.
After Guns N’ Roses imploded, Slash relied on his guitar playing to carry him through the ensuing decades. Along the way he almost died a couple times, probably had a lot of fun doing it, got sober and had a defibrillator implanted in his heart, though I’m not sure in which order. Filmed in 2014, with his reunion with Guns N’ Roses still a couple years away, the documentary spends time discussing the then-current iteration of his solo band, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators. We see them soundcheck for a show at West Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre, and they sound good, though you can hardly blame him for putting them on furlough once Axl, or, more likely, Axl’s manager, made the phone call about getting the old band back together.
Slash: Raised On The Sunset Strip ends with a litany of platitudes about Slash as a guitarist and mensch, which all seem true, but it’s nothing you’ve never heard before. All you need to do is listen to that first GNR album, and his standing in the premier league of rock guitar is indisputable. It’s a rather perfunctory documentary and drags on way longer than its 71 minute running time, but you know, so does “November Rain.”
Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician who does now own several Les Pauls. Follow him on Twitter: @BHSmithNYC.
