2014.09.18 - Orange County Register - Slash Takes Over L.A.

Slash takes over L.A.

By Kelli Skye Fadroski

Rock guitarist Slash is a Hollywood staple. He rose to fame in clubs along the Sunset Strip and Hollywood Boulevard as the axman for Guns N’ Roses in the mid-’80s, when fans first got a taste of now-iconic rock hits like “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

When the original GNR lineup fell apart in the mid-’90s, he formed Slash’s Snakepit and in 2002, co-founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver. He won a Grammy in 2005, was honored at the Sunset Strip Music Festival in 2010, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. The 49-year-old musician also continues to top most music magazines “best of” lists when it comes to guitar players and legendary riffs.

Slash went solo in 2010 and released his self-titled debut, which featured guest vocalists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold and Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge. Slash reunited with Kennedy for a second record, “Apocalyptic Love,” in 2012, adding bassist Todd Kerns and drummer Brent Fitz, and eventually dubbing the project Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators.

The group’s latest album, “World on Fire,” dropped Tuesday and will be celebrated with a trio of intimate, sold-out L.A. club gigs: Sept. 23 at the Troubadour, Sept. 25 at the Roxy and Sept. 26 at the Whisky A Go-Go.

“I came from England, but I was entrenched at an early age in that sort of Laurel Canyon/West Hollywood music scene,” Slash said in a recent phone interview. “I was going to the Troubadour and the Roxy as a little kid and the Whisky as a teenager. Regardless of if there’s ‘a scene’ now or not, those are still the go-to clubs.”

While there are many Sunset Strip memories that he’s deemed “probably too X-rated” to share, Slash said his favorite was cruising down Laurel Canyon, headed towards the boulevard on his Big Wheel as a kid.

“I was running away from home,” he recalled with a laugh. “I was this little kid getting picked up by the West Hollywood sheriff and having to sit in the police station, waiting for my parents to come pick me up. Yeah, it was all downhill from there.”

Though he was busy working on a new album, which was followed by a summer tour with Aerosmith, he took on yet another side project, composing a score for a psychedelic 3D clown maze at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, which opens Friday and runs on select nights through Nov. 2. The twisted attraction is sure to scare the pants off of those suffering from coulrophobia, the extreme and irrational fear of clowns.

“What’s particularly cool about working with Slash is his passion,” Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy said. “We’ve done mazes with Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and Rob Zombie, but this is the first time we’ve had an artist come up with an original score..”

Slash said he considers himself a “hardcore horror purist.” He grew up on Hammer horror films and fell in love with the genre after seeing the horror/sci-fi film “Trog.” Though “The Exorcist” didn’t exactly scare him, George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” certainly did. He started Slasher Films, a horror production company, in 2010 and produced his first flick, “Nothing Left to Fear,” last October.

However, he was reluctant to attend any Halloween-related events because they always “seemed a little diluted and campy.” He finally took his two sons, London and Cash, to HHN for the first time last year to experience the Black Sabbath-inspired attraction, and he quickly because a fan of Murdy & Co.’s attention to detail.

“It blew my mind,” he said. “When John told me about the clown maze, my wheels started turning because when you think of clowns there is an automatic sort of musical vibe that twisted clowns give off. I’m really over-the-top excited about the Universal thing.”

Slash will also receive an Eyegore Award and perform with Kennedy at the annual ceremony held on opening night at Universal Studios.

https://www.ocregister.com/2014/09/18/slash-takes-over-la/