2001.06.22 - Chicago Sun-Times - Slash A Proud Throwback To Hard Rock's Glory Days

Slash a proud throwback to hard rock's glory days

By Jeff Vrabel
STAFF REPORTER

The man called Slash finds it quite logical that his band is about to begin sharing stages with Billy Idol.

"We were both out on our own tours and we found our routes crossing," Slash said from rehearsals in California. "We thought, 'Well, these towns aren't big enough for the both of us, so we'd probably better come together.' "

That unification will come when Slash's Snakepit and Billy Idol hook up for a double bill at the Riviera Theatre on Tuesday, the first stop in a three-date mini-tour that will also hit Detroit and Pittsburgh.

"It'll be interesting for the audience," said the former Saul Hudson. "There'll be a lot of Idol fans that might not know us . . . so it'll be a challenge to mix it up."

One of the most recognizable, incendiary guitarists in recent memory, Slash remains a throwback to the old school of hard rock. He still wears his black top hat, still religiously drags on his ever-present smokes, and still thrashes at his Les Paul through a mop of curly black hair. In many ways, he's still the same guy that exploded out of Hollywood in the '80s with the glorious train wreck that was Guns N' Roses. "I think that's my problem," he laughs. "I just live for this thing it is that I do. I'm sort of an overgrown teenager."

Still, in a land where tuneless rap-metal and bubble-gum boy bands reign supreme, fans might worry that Slash has his work cut out for him bringing his style of blues-tinged hard rock to current audiences. Turns out they'd be
worrying far more than he is.

"It's the same scenario I've been through before," he said. "When Guns broke in the '80s, New Kids on the Block were huge . . . Debbie Gibson, all that kind of crap. I've always been involved in the antithesis of whatever's going on. I think life would be dull without it.

"The one thing that's always been true is that rock 'n' roll is always there, and no matter how you twist it around or bend it, when you do the genuine article, people always love it."

Slash and a handful of then-GNR members put the first Snakepit album together--1995's "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere"--during a stretch when their band's future was in characteristic doubt. But for Snakepit's second record, "Ain't Life Grand," released last October, Slash assembled an all-new lineup that just wrapped up a long string of opening dates for AC/DC.

In fact, the Idol dates are just the latest step in a long line of projects from the self-described workaholic. In addition to Snakepit, he organized Slash's Blues Ball, a traveling cover band that specialized in blues-rock standards. He's also shared stage and studio time with a ridiculously diverse list of performers that includes Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop, Carole King, Alice Cooper, Lenny Kravitz, the Insane Clown Posse, Cheap Trick and Ozzy Osbourne.

"You know what's cool about that?" he says. "It was never something I initially set out to do. But it's a compliment that anybody would want to do something with me, and when it sounds right, it's just icing on the cake."

That all being said, it's hard not to look at the signature top hat and not see shattered remains of Guns N' Roses, a scenario Slash doesn't seem uncomfortable with at all.

"I don't like to talk about Guns in a bad way. I'm sorry it's not still there. We could have tweaked around the edges and tried to make it work, but we'd have spent 24 hours a day, seven days a week doing only that."

As such, the constant rumors of a Guns reunion are just that. "Without a couple of years of serious psychotherapy, I don't see it coming," Slash laughs.