2022.10.16 - The Straits Times - Slash: Keeping Healthy Is The New Rock ‘n’ Roll

Slash from Guns N’ Roses: Keeping healthy is the new rock ‘n’ roll

Eddino Abdul Hadi
Music Correspondent

SINGAPORE – American rock icons Guns N’ Roses embodied the hard-partying lifestyle when they started out in the 1980s.

Nowadays, the key to rocking out is clean living and taking care of their health, guitarist Slash tells The Straits Times in a recent interview.

“Everybody tries to stay fit on the road,” the 57-year-old says via Zoom from his hotel room in Brazil, one of the stops in the band’s current world tour.

Guns N’ Roses, which also include original members singer Axl Rose and bassist Duff McKagan, will return to Singapore to perform at the National Stadium on Nov 12.

“I take really good care of myself when I’m at home and then when I’m on the road, I just sort of go for it, you know? But then you know, all things considered, I don’t drink and do drugs anymore.”

Before the pandemic, the members of the band famous for classic rock hits such as Sweet Child O’ Mine (1987), Welcome To The Jungle (1987) and November Rain (1991), would often hit the hotel gym while on tour.

“But since we started touring before Covid was really over, there were all these major protocols about how to keep yourself Covid-free while you’re on tour so that we don’t have to cancel any shows.

“And going to the gym is one of those things that becomes not really recommended because public gyms are a great place for spreading stuff.”

He does not venture out of his hotel room much, he says, preferring to practise on his guitar or binge on television shows such as western drama Yellowstone (2018 to present), which he says he is hooked on.

He has another long-term addiction that he has not ditched yet – buying guitars.

The musician, who recently released a coffee-table book titled The Collection: Slash, published by guitar company Gibson, has more than 400 guitars.

He is taking steps to cut down on impulsive buying, though.

“I try to avoid guitar stores because I’m an addict and, if I see something that I think I like, I will pick it up and I just buy it. I’m weak when it comes to that.”

His avoidance strategy applies to online music stores too.

“Going on Instagram and finding stuff is dangerous, man. I was talking to Richard, our guitar player, about it yesterday, going, ‘Isn’t it great? I haven’t bought a guitar in three months,’” he adds, referring to fellow Guns N’ Roses member Richard Fortus.

Slash, whose real name is Saul Hudson, joined Guns N’ Roses soon after they formed in 1985 in Los Angeles.

Their 1987 debut album, Appetite For Destruction, cemented their status as one of the world’s biggest rock bands when it went to No. 1 in the United States.

Their subsequent albums, G N’ R Lies (1988), Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991), also reached the top two in the US charts.

The band went through several line-up changes over the years.

Slash left in 1996 and rejoined in 2016. In the same year, they embarked on the global Not In This Lifetime... Tour, which ended up being the third highest-grossing tour of all time.

The tour, which ran until 2019, included a stop in Singapore at the Changi Exhibition Centre in 2017 that drew 50,000 fans.

Slash says he never expected the band to become well-known worldwide.

“The fact that the band was so successful in the first place, anywhere, was a big enough shock,” says Slash, who has also performed in Singapore several times with singer Myles Kennedy and their band The Conspirators.

“When we were in LA, we were just trying to get to the next gig and make that the best thing we could do at the moment, and then moving on from there. I couldn’t even think what was going to be happening in two weeks’ time. There were no illusions of grandeur for the future back then.”

Slash is thrilled that their music is still making an impact on pop culture decades after they first recorded the songs. For example, Marvel superhero blockbuster Thor: Love And Thunder, released in July, featured the band’s music prominently in the film and its trailers.

And while he is a Marvel fan, the guitarist has yet to see the film starring Chris Hemsworth.

He says: “I just didn’t particularly want to go into a theatre where they were blasting Welcome To The Jungle and be sitting in the audience, and then when the movie was over, have people turn around and look at you.”

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Guns N’ Roses
Where: National Stadium, 1 Stadium Drive
When: Nov 12, 6.30pm
Admission: From $132 via Ticketek (go to premier.ticketek.com.sg)

Shackler wrote:https://www.straitstimes.com/life/entertainment/slash-from-guns-n-roses-keeping-healthy-is-the-new-rock-n-roll

It's behind a paywall, so I didn't post the link. I had to subscribe and read about 10 free articles on that site to be granted free access to all articles for a week or something

Blackstar wrote:

Shackler wrote:https://www.straitstimes.com/life/entertainment/slash-from-guns-n-roses-keeping-healthy-is-the-new-rock-n-roll

It's behind a paywall, so I didn't post the link. I had to subscribe and read about 10 free articles on that site to be granted free access to all articles for a week or something

Oh, I see. Paywalls are always so frustrating

Shackler wrote:
Oh, I see. Paywalls are always so frustrating

They are. There are ways to get through many of them, but they don't work for some sites (especially for The Times franchises).