Slash

Slash (the real name Saul Hudson) is a British-American guitarist. He was born on July 23, 1965 in Stoke-on-Trent. His parents were working in the field of show-business: Saul’s father created album covers and his mother was a costume designer. When Slash was 11 years old, his family moved to Los-Angeles. Soon after that his parents divorced and since that moment he lived with his mother. School teacher of music produced a great impression on Slash. As the musician noted: “The teacher had the Les Paul, and he always played Cream and Led Zeppelin. When I heard that, I thought that it was the thing I wanted to do”. Slash and his friend Steven Adler aimed to create a band. Steven declared himself the lead guitarist, so Saul decided to be the bassist. He came with a request to his grandmother, and she gave him an old one-string guitar. Nevertheless, it did not stop Slash on his way to the aim. Aged 14, he listened to Aerosmith’s album Rocks and understood that something had changed in his life. Since that moment Slash decided to devote himself to music.

In 1983 Slash and Adler formed Road Crew, a Motörhead tribute band. They placed an advertisement for a basist in a local newspaper, and that is how they met Duff McKagan. After the band Road Crew disbanded, Slash became a member of a local band Black Sheep. In 1984 Black Sheep and Hollywood Rose opened for Stryper. After the show Slash and Axl Rose were introduced to one another. Pretty soon they became friends, and in a few months Slash and Adler were invited to play with Axl Rose, Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin in the band Guns N' Roses. In 1985-1986 Guns N' Roses played in bars and opened for famous bands, but it was the period, when they wrote such hits as Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City. They were noticed and the contract with the label Geffen was signed. Guns N’ Roses became famous in no time due to their debut album Appetite for Destruction: more than 28 million copies were sold. That record was followed by the albums that were hardly less successful: G N' R Lies, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. Everything was perfect. However, in the middle of 90’s Slash showed several new songs to Rose, but he rejected this material. It made Slash form his own band named Slash's Snakepit. In 1995 they recorded their debut album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which turned out to be successful. More than a million copies were sold in the US.Slash's Snakepit disbanded in 1998 and after that Slash worked with many musicians as a session guitarist. He collaborated with Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper, Bad Company and many others. The next stage of Slash’s creativity was the supergroup Velvet Revolver.

In 2010 Slash released his first solo album titled Slash. While recording it, Slash worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Kid Rock, Iggy Pop and many other musicians. Only that fact tells a lot about the quality of Saul Hudson’s debut solo record. In spite of many years of creativity, Slash is still full of ideas. Skills, talent and virtuosic guitar playing – these are the ingredients of an ideal musical cocktail.