2010.11.21 - The Guardian - This Much I Know: Slash

This much I know: Slash

By Shahesta Shaitly

The musician, 45, on Stoke-on-Trent, groupies, and being addicted to cooking shows

Guitars are the coolest, sexiest things ever. I was overwhelmed the first time I put three notes together that sounded how they were meant to sound.

I was at my lowest from 1996 to 2001. I left Guns N' Roses and my alcoholism was at its peak. I was 35 and had to have a defibrillator fitted to my heart.

I gave up drink and drugs five years ago. I used to be a heroin guy. Up until then, if I was doing drugs then I wasn't really drinking, and if I was drinking I wasn't doing drugs – it was always one or the other.

There is this perception that I was a drunken brute, which was probably true at some point. But even in my partying days I was just very reclusive and kept to myself. It was just me and my demons.

I haven't smoked a cigarette in a year and a half.

I grew up in Stoke-on-Trent. We moved to Los Angeles when I was five years old. My memories of Stoke are cosy: my aunt and grandmother making mince pies and my grandfather being an old-fashioned fire chief. The thing I missed most when I left the UK was that there was no lollipop lady in LA.

I don't know what "American" feels like, but I definitely feel a thing for the British. I feel more comfortable in a room full of people if there's a Brit in there.

Growing up around famous people [his parents worked in the music industry], I'd often wonder what it felt like, but when my time came it was really uneventful.

I have a phobia of leaving my arm out of a car window when I'm driving. I think it has something to do with playing the guitar and needing my arm.

Reality TV is a sign of the end of western civilisation as we know it. There's no mystique left to anything.

Everybody asks questions about what happened with Axl [Rose] and I'm forced to come up with answers, but there's really nothing much to say.

I'm not an emotional person – I guess it's one of my drawbacks. The last time I cried was probably when my mum died.

Groupies have changed. In the 70s they just wanted to have sex. In the 80s they wanted to be near somebody rich. I couldn't tell you about the groupies of the 90s because I can't remember. Now they're pretty innocent or they're scary stalkers.

I'm addicted to cooking shows. I have no patience for cooking, but I know everything about it.

Working with Michael Jackson was great. He wasn't a dictator or one of those idiosyncratic assholes that feel like they can get away with being an asshole because they're so great. Michael was the embodiment of music.

I believe in something higher than myself. It's not god-specific.

Having children is still changing me. I'm the eternal teenager, so having my two boys is kind of like having a couple of buddies around.

My greatest achievement is that I've stayed alive in the music industry for this long – or maybe it's just staying alive, period.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/21/this-much-i-know-slash-musician-british-drugs