Coming Up Roses

Spencer Patterson

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004 | 8:31 a.m.

It seems unthinkable that a superstar rock guitarist could be overshadowed by his own head wear. Yet, night after night, the musician known as Slash draws his loudest cheers when he places his famed black top hat atop his curly, dark mane.

"I sort of feel like Pete Townshend having to (expletive) smash a guitar every night, but you don't want to let anybody down," Slash said in a recent phone interview. "If I forget it, people are like, 'Hey man, why didn't you wear the top hat?' They feel gypped if I wore it the show before.

"It's funny. The (expletive) hat gets more response than I do."

Fans in Las Vegas for New Year's weekend get their chance to worship Slash's hat -- and, oh yeah, his guitar playing -- at a pair of Velvet Revolver shows at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.

The band is scheduled to ring in 2005 with a 10 p.m. performance Friday, followed by a 9 p.m. gig Saturday.

"It's gonna be interesting because you have everybody that parties out in Vegas on a regular basis anyway, but it goes up 10 notches on New Year's Eve," Slash said from the Velvet Revolver bus, en route to a show in Detroit. "I've experienced that, and I know how painful the next day is."

Slash (born Saul Hudson) also knows how harrowing the music industry can be. After severing ties with storied hard-rock outfit Guns N' Roses in 1996, he spent the next seven years trying to recapture his former glory.

But the 39-year-old axeman says that, despite those rough patches, he never regretted quitting GNR.

"I had to go through a lot of really (expletive) hard times, a lot of struggling, all kinds of (expletive), basically going back and paying my dues," Slash said. "But even though it was really tough, it was probably one of the most intelligent (expletive) decisions I ever made.

"If I'd tried to be more financial-minded and stayed in the band for all the wrong reasons, I would probably be really unhealthy or dead right now."

Instead, Slash is finally right back where he started, in the lead guitar seat for a red-hot rock band.

"It was all worth it to get to the point where we're at now," the notoriously shy and soft-spoken Slash said. "But talk about taking (expletive) risks."

One of Slash's most daring moves -- looking past former Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland's rap sheet and history of drug abuse and installing him as Velvet Revolver's frontman -- has worked out far better than most fans predicted.

By all accounts, Weiland has stayed straight, thus far affirming Slash's faith in the vocalist.

"Rock 'n' roll is risk. That's one of the great things about it," Slash said. "When we recognized Scott for what Scott was, of course there were a lot of naysayers. But we were willing to go the whole nine yards and make that happen, and it paid off.

"A lot of people wouldn't have taken that chance, and this wouldn't have happened for a lot of people."

Since the release of debut album "Contraband" in June, Velvet Revolver has established itself as a force both in record stores and on the road.

The disc and two of its singles ("Slither" and "Fall to Pieces") hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band's live show has rapidly moved from sold-out clubs to arenas.

The five-man supergroup -- which also includes one-time Guns N' Roses rhythm section Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums) and ex-Wasted Youth guitarist Dave Kushner -- has even earned industry respect, grabbing Grammy Award nominations for best rock album, best rock song and best hard rock performance.

The accolades have stunned even Slash.

"I was actually surprised by all the radio activity and the actual album sales, especially in this day and age with the way the music industry is," he said. "The mainstream is definitely a hodgepodge of all kinds of stuff, but it's not rock 'n' roll."

To Slash, much of today's popular music is "pretentious and contained and deluded." Velvet Revolver, he said, is anything but.

"It's the kind of rock 'n' roll band that's really exciting to see, sort of like the traveling circus," he said. "You go in and there's a certain vibe to it. And once it kicks in, everybody's like, 'Wow, that's a good time.' "

It's too early to tell whether Velvet Revolver's success signals a shift toward the crunchy, guitar-driven rock of the late 1980s and early '90s, but Slash said it wouldn't shock him. After all, he's seen it happen before.

"That's a little bit of where the whole Nirvana, Soundgarden thing came from," he said. "All of a sudden people were taking a chance on rock bands because Guns N' Roses was so undeniably successful. I think it helped get a lot of other bands' foot in the door."

Slash said he looks back at most of his 11-year stint with GNR proudly, despite the way his relationship with frontman Axl Rose unraveled toward the end.

"Guns N' Roses was my first real professional rock 'n' roll band, and the whole experience was new and it was (expletive) crazy and it was great," he said. "And then there came a point where it wasn't so new and crazy and great, and it didn't have to be that way.

"Going into it, I don't think we expected Axl to sort of (expletive) shift gears the way he did. But that's the way it turned out."

Technically, Guns N' Roses still exists today, with Rose as the lone remaining founding member.

But 11 years have passed since the band's last full-length studio project, with no sign of its long-rumored "comeback" effort, "Chinese Democracy." GNR's most recent U.S. tour was cut short in 2002 following a near-riot after a last-minute cancellation in Philadelphia.

That muddled legacy has left Slash questioning Rose's decision to carry on with the Guns N' Roses name.

"I'm more (expletive) off about what he has done with the name more than anything," Slash said. "Because he could have done whatever -- or, as it's turned out, not done whatever -- and used a different name and kept the (Guns N' Roses) name intact. But he's sort of tainted the whole thing.

"Guns N' Roses as its peak will always be considered one of the great rock 'n' roll bands. There's no denying that. But at the same time, the reality is what's going on with it now. Everybody's aware of it, and that's a huge negative."

Given Rose's struggles with GNR and Slash's resurgence with Velvet Revolver, the guitarist could be forgiven for gloating. But he said he doesn't view his career as any sort of competition.

"There's a sense of accomplishment. When you set your mind to do something and work really hard at it ... and it actually works, you feel vindicated in that way," Slash said.

"But this isn't the result of some sort of revenge or anything. This is more about survival."