Slash (49 page)

For the time being, we all hung around, and in our ample downtime we all talked shit. It was so negative. After a while, I could barely show up because the animosity became crippling. We’d spend each night in the studio maybe writing music or jamming…most nights we’d sit around frustrated, waiting to see if Axl would show—which he did, usually after most of us had left for the night—all under the guise that we were writing music for the next Guns record. On top of it all, a new contract issue further disrupted an already volatile situation.

This time it was directed at Duff and me—the only two remaining original members of Guns N’ Roses. And it was very strategically presented:
the contract stated that Axl would retain rights to the band name and was allowed to start a new band that he could call Guns N’ Roses. Of course Duff and I could be members…but only on his terms, which felt to us like we were being defined as hired hands. Axl had hired an attorney to push this through, so Duff and I did as well, and the three of them started haggling, having those attorney fests that do nothing but cost their clients money. Doug Goldstein was also there helping “facilitate” the whole thing.

That situation chipped away at the stone that is me; my patience, my dedication, my determination—all of it finally began to give way. It’s been the focus of so much speculation: What actually did Guns N’ Roses in? Was it artistic differences? Was it Slash’s ego? Was it Axl’s attitude? It was all about Axl wanting control to the point that the rest of us were strangled.

I didn’t really know what else to do after Axl sent a letter on August 31, 1995, saying that he was leaving the band and taking the name with him under the terms of the contract. After that we tried to put it back together. He pushed this contract issue on us with so much pressure to the point that Duff and I just gave in. We signed some document that we’d agreed to have put in escrow for a certain amount of time to see if we could work things out. But if we didn’t agree to put the terms into effect by a certain point, the contract would be null and void, so I signed it and let it go. I just wanted to move forward if we had anywhere left to go together.

Needless to say, my trust in Axl was gone. That entire contract situation was the antithesis of Guns N’ Roses in my mind. I was forced into a secondary role, while Axl was now officially at the helm if I officially let the escrowed contract become effective. One time he called me for a private meeting at his favorite Italian restaurant in Brentwood. I showed up and he wasn’t there, so I sat at the bar waiting for him. After he arrived, we moved and sat in the back in a dark booth as if we were in the Mafia. As far as I can remember, the meeting was basically an attempt to coerce me into accepting the arrangement he and his lawyers were pushing, but in a lot less heavy-handed manner. Axl treated the situation as if he and I were the two most important factors in this whole thing. He tried to convince me that it was all good, that it was something he and I were doing as partners.

At that point, he was trying to draw me into his world, to show me his version of things in his way, which is a very nice way, but I just didn’t go for it. I sat there and listened, not giving too much feedback. There was too much tension and too many unaddressed issues. It became increasingly obvious to me that there was nothing I was going to say that was going to change his mind. And he already knew how I felt. He and I continued this way until it all boiled over later.

It had become no fun. It had become depressing. It was almost amazing to me that this band had taken such a turn; we, the band, had allowed Axl the freedom, over all those years, to transform what we had into some morbid reality that existed only in his head.

There were another couple meetings like that in Doug Goldstein’s office. Then, of course, there were endless meetings with the attorneys going over and over this thing. It was exhausting. I couldn’t even understand what the fuck I was doing there. No matter what we might eventually put out as far as a record was concerned, none of this was worth it.

THE STONES WERE IN TOWN DURING
this period; they were staying at the Sunset Marquis and recording at Don Was’s house, working on
Bridges to Babylon
. I went over and checked out a few sessions, and watching them work, watching them do their thing, made me feel even worse about my situation. They had a chemistry that encompassed all of their very distinct personalities but never lacked respect. Keith would roll in and pick on Ronnie relentlessly but Ronnie is such a nice, amiable guy that it was all okay. It had to be because Keith is pretty sinister and such a profound narcissist that he has to take it out on someone. He can’t take it out on Mick or Charlie…though he tries. They’re so resilient that it doesn’t work, so Ronnie gets it all. As Ronnie says, “Keith has these tyrannical moods.” But as harsh as it ever gets, it is all within the parameters of mutual respect.

One particular evening, after they were done for the day, I went back to Ronnie’s hotel room and hung out for a while. He asked me if I knew Keith. I said I didn’t, and had never met him one-on-one, so he took me over to his room, introduced us, and left me there. It was dark, with some old blues
playing on the stereo. The one lamp that was lit dimly illuminated Keith’s face with this sort of creepy glow as he sat on the couch. I sat in a chair by the coffee table while he sized me up. He talked for a few minutes, then suddenly pulled out a butterfly knife and flipped it around a few times to show me who’s boss. He slammed it down on the table between us.

“Um…Okay,” I said.

Later that night we went to dinner at Chasen’s. Keith and I stood at the bar, talking about dope and jail, and I could tell that he was just putting up with me by that point. I’d been at the studio rehearsing all day, so when the conversation swung around to my band, I let it all out.

Keith took it all in, and then looked me deep in the eye. “
Listen,
” he said. “There’s only one thing you never do—you never
leave
.”

I knew where he was coming from; if you never leave, no matter what they say, you were
there
. If you are always the one to show up at rehearsal and stay until the end, even when times are tough and not everyone is getting along, the one thing that your bandmates will never be able to hold over your head is the fact that you walked out. It’s true: if you show up early to rehearsal or recording and you’re the last one there, you are the guy who can’t be fucked with. A perfect example was the great Rolling Stones song “Happy,” from their
Exile on Main St.
album. As legend has it, while Keith was waiting for the rest of the band to show up, he wrote the whole song by himself. When they arrived, he presented it to them as if to say “What took you so long?” I definitely wanted to be that guy who could overcome all these obstacles and produce music. When you’re always there, you’re the one that holds all the cards.

Keith inspired me; I felt like I had to try harder. The next day I tried to refocus my outlook and I showed up at the Complex ready to make it work at all costs. And that’s when I got slapped in the face once again: Axl never showed up to rehearse, and the attorneys’ negotiation of our “employment contracts” had taken a really insulting turn. God bless Keith for trying, but there was nothing I could do—I had to go.

Our “rehearsals” always went really late; even later by the time Axl showed up. Whenever he did, it was usually around one or two; we’d play for an hour or more and then finally get bored and go home, leaving him in the studio. I didn’t hear him sing the whole time we were at the Complex; I’m not sure I’d heard him sing since the last show in 1993, and at this point it
was 1996. So I didn’t even know what we were working on. We were supposed to jam and jam until he said, “I like this,” or, “I like that.” Nobody was having a good time, so nobody was inspired. Generally I’d get home about three a.m. And it was one of those nights that prompted me to get out.

I got in bed and went to sleep. Two hours later, about five a.m., I woke up with cold sweats and in the blackest of moods and felt really suicidal. I wanted to end it; I was so miserable that I wanted it all to disappear. I’d never felt that way before, I’d never wanted to snuff myself—I’d gotten really close a few times but never intentionally. For a half hour, I looked around my bedroom; I had nothing to do it with; I wanted to kill myself quickly; I didn’t want to go on. If there had been any dope lying around, I would’ve done it all in one hit and that would have been that.

For the next hour I stared at the ceiling and thought about my life from start to finish. I was weighing whether or not it was worth living, sorting out how I’d gotten where I was and deciding what I could do about it all. By six a.m. I was exhausted and fell back asleep. Two hours later I woke up with one crystal-clear thought in my head:
That’s it.
Other than that, my mind was silent.

Up until that moment, one part of me wanted to push on; the other part saw no future. In the early-morning light, I went over all of the angles once again and every single one of them pointed to the same conclusion. The band wasn’t what it had once been and I didn’t want to be there anymore. Once I said that to myself, there was nothing else to think about.

I got out of bed and called our management office, BFD, and told Doug that I wouldn’t be coming back.

“That’s it,” I told Doug. “I’m done. I quit.”

I hung up before he could say anything.

IN RETROSPECT I WAS NAIVE ABOUT THE
whole thing: I didn’t protect myself legally because I didn’t think I had to. In my mind, what was the name without the players? I didn’t think I had given Axl anything, because to me, what could he do with the name and nothing else to show for it?

I didn’t have my attorneys get on that situation as well as I should have;
I was so over it and so worn down that I just couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to do a press release, I didn’t want to raise a brouhaha or stir up a lot of fanfare. I wanted to go quietly. I didn’t want it to be one of those situations where you have two guys bickering at each other through the press. I didn’t see any reason why something so simple should turn into a big legal battle either. I thought I’d take my share and go.

In the short run, no one in the Guns corporation actually believed that I was done. Axl contacted those closest to me, telling them that I should change my mind. He called my dad, my security guard, my wife, Renee, and told each of them that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. He said that I was pissing away so much money because of my decision. But none of that mattered to me. I was
done.
The camel’s back had been broken and there was no going back.

To tell you the truth, none of the people in Axl’s camp believed I was really gone for the next couple years. I was kind of taken aback by their deep sense of denial: I never behaved as if I intended to return, but that didn’t matter to them. They just didn’t believe that I would rather not be in Guns N’ Roses than deal with the reality of being in Guns N’ Roses.

I’D DONE EVERYTHING IN MY POWER
from the day we got together to make Guns N’ Roses the best band in the world. I’d put my heart and soul into everything we did and I regret none of my contributions in the least. We did things other bands only dream of; in just a few years, we surpassed goals that took bands like the Stones decades to achieve. I don’t like to brag, but if you research it at all, you’ll see that what we did in the time frame we did it is something unsurpassed in the history of rock and roll.

After working to make that band all that it could be for the better part of my life, saying good-bye to the institution I helped build was as alien as being launched into space. But once I’d done it, a weight was lifted from my shoulders and the lead was out of my shoes. It was like decompressing after a deepwater dive. The day I made my decision, I woke up early and called the powers that be to deliver the news, and went back to sleep. I don’t remember anything else of that day aside from the fact that when I woke
up again I was
refreshed
. I felt as if I’d just slept for a week. Later that night I called Duff, Matt, and Adam Day and let them know. Duff accepted my decision without any question, and Matt wasn’t surprised either. I was satisfied but it was bittersweet; I had never really given up before in my life.

I enjoyed a period of peace for a while. I started to go out and just jam whenever I had the chance. My attorneys asked me if I wanted to sue for damages and just go after as much stuff as possible, and I said no, in good faith. I can’t get into it; aside from saying that they were trying to protect my rights and I probably should have listened, the truth is, I was in denial about just how mercurial and untrustworthy the relationship between the Guns institution and me had become. I didn’t see it as such, but when you leave a company you have to protect your interests. At the time I still had a silly amount of trust in what Guns meant to me, so I didn’t dwell on it. And to this day there are still issues that remain to be resolved that cause me grief.

All things considered, I stand by my decision, and I stand by the way I did it. Even my dad had told me earlier on, when I was in a state of duress, “Don’t go down with the ship.” I consider leaving GN’R one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made. There’s no doubt that if I’d stayed with the band under those circumstances I’d surely be dead by now because of too much unnecessary drama. I definitely would have found junk again or it would have found me. If I knew then what I know now, had I been more experienced and more self-protective and more suspicious of the players involved—and I’m not even talking about Axl so much as the people he hired to guide him through this—it might have been handled differently. He hired people who had nothing but making money off of him in mind. If it had been otherwise, or if he and I had been able to discuss it face-to-face, there might have been a greater degree of preservation in regard to our mutual interests as a band. But I don’t believe in “ifs.”