the cash to support my passion. I got a job at Business Card Clocks, a small mail-order clock factory. From September through December each year, I would assemble clocks for a bunch of companies’ holiday gift baskets. I’d put an enlarged reproduction of their business card on a piece of masonite, insert a clock movement in the center, put a wooden frame around it, box it up, and that was that. I made thousands and thousands of these things. We were paid by the hour and I was the only person there who got crazy; I’d be there at six a.m., work all day, through the night, then I’d sleep there. I don’t think it was legal, but I didn’t care: I wanted to make as much money as I could during the season.
It was a great job that I kept for quite a few years, though it did eventually bite me in the ass: my boss, Larry, paid me by personal check, so I was never on the books at his company, and he never reported my salary to the IRS. Since I wasn’t on the books, I saw no reason to pay taxes on my earnings. But the very moment that I made money with Guns a few years later, the IRS came calling, demanding all of those back taxes, plus interest. I still can’t believe that of all the things I’ve done, the government nailed me for my job at a clock factory. I found out later how it went down: the IRS audited Larry and grilled him about a certain amount of money that couldn’t be accounted for over the course of a few years so he was forced to confess that it had been paid out to his employee, me. The IRS tracked me down and put a lien on my earnings, accounts, and assets: any money that I deposited in a bank would immediately be seized to cover my tax debt. At that point, I had been broke for too long to give it all up once I’d finally gotten it: rather than pay it off with my share of Guns’ first advance check, I had my cut consolidated into traveler’s checks, which I kept on me at all times. But we’ll get to all that in just a little bit.
Another job was at the Hollywood Music Store, an instrument and sheet music shop on Fairfax and Melrose. As much as I was trying to earn my keep while pursuing what I really wanted to be doing, there were so many what-the-fuck moments. Here’s one of them: there was a guy who used to come in and shred every day in the guitar section. He’d pick a “new” guitar off the wall, as if he’d never seen it before, and proceed to play it for hours. He’d tune it, shred on it, and just kind of hang out and play for what seemed like years. I’m sure there’s one in every music store.
WHEN I STARTED JUNIOR HIGH, THERE were so many great hard rock records for me to listen to and learn from: Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Queen were all in their prime. Unlike a lot of my guitar-playing peers I never strove to imitate Eddie Van Halen. He was the marquee lead player around, so everyone tried to play like he did, but nobody had his feel—and they didn’t seem to realize that. His sound was so personal, I couldn’t imagine coming close, or trying or even wanting to. I picked up a few of Eddie’s blues licks from listening to him, licks that no one registers as his signature style because I don’t think he’s ever properly appreciated for his great sense of rhythm and melody. So while everyone else practised their hammer-ons and listened to “Eruption,” I just listened to Van Halen. I’ve always enjoyed individualistic guitar players, from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Jeff Beck to Jonhny Winter to Albert King, and while I’ve learned from observing their technique, absorbing the passion of their playing has taught me so much more.
In any case, things had changed by the time I got to high school. By 1980, English punk had found its way to L.A. and had become something utterly ridiculous that had nothing to do with its roots. It was a swift, impossible-to-ignore fashion statement: suddenly every older kid I knew was wearing torn-up shirts, creepers, and wallet chains made of paper clips or safety pins. I never understood what the big deal was; it was just another superficial installment in the West Hollywood scene that revolved around the Rainbow, the Whisky, Club Lingere, and the Starwood.
I never considered L.A. punk worth listening to, because I didn’t consider it real. Around then the Germs were the big band, and they had many imitators, all of whom I thought couldn’t play and totally sucked. The only bands that I thought were worth anything were X and Fear—and that was it. I respected the fact that the core of punk, from a musician’s point of view, was about not being able to play very well, and not giving a shit about it. But I had a problem with the fact that everyone in the scene exploited that aesthetic for all the wrong reasons—there’s a difference between bad playing and deliberately playing badly for a reason.
Slash doing what he does best: playing constantly.
Coming out of London and New York, punk rock made an impression, and as much as it was misinterpreted in L.A., it did give birth to a bunch of great clubs, the Café de Grand being the best of them. That was the greatest venue at which to see true hardcore punk shows, but it wasn’t the only one—the Palladium put on great hardcore shows, too. I saw the Ramones there, and I’ll never forget it—it was as intense as surfing big waves. Other than a few exceptions, L.A. punk was as pathetic as the miles of poseurs lined up outside of the Starwood every weekend.
At that time, I had finally gotten to an age where I was the older kid. I had spent my life running around being the younger guy hanging with the older kids, getting into what they were into, always wanting to be a part of the cool stuff they were doing. Now I was that kid, and as far as I was concerned, the punk movement and this really horrible fashion thing that had followed it in the back door had ruined everything. I had just gotten old enough to appreciate and enjoy all the stuff that had gone on before that, and just as I had everything started to fucking suck.
From the time I was born up until 1980, everything was pretty stable. It was all sort of based on rock and roll, despite the pretty watered-down rock bands that came out: Foghat, Styx, Journey, REO Speedwagon, and many more. From ’79 and ’80 on, with the exception of Van Halen, everything went in a different direction, which instilled a whole different kind of rebellion, and what I was into more or less got phased out by trendiness.
I wanted to play guitar in a band that inspired that degree of devotion and excitement.
AFTER I WAS EXPELLED FROM FAIRFAX High for that social studies incident I found myself in high school limbo. Education has always been a priority for my mother; she let me live wherever I could, however I wanted, all summer long, as long as I agreed to move in with her, wherever she might be, come fall. She needed real assurance that I was going to school so nothing but my living under her roof would do. The summer after my expulsion, I enrolled for summer school at Hollywood High to try to earn the credits I needed to join Beverly Hills Unified High School with the rest of the class at the beginning of my sophomore year. But I also tried to get out of high school altogether by studying for and taking the proficiency exam. It didn’t go so well: during the first half hour I took a smoke break and never went back.
During this period, my mom finally left her boyfriend, “Boyfriend” the photographer. Once Boyfriend began to freebase away, literally, everything in the house (he eventually ended up bankrupt), my mom and my brother packed up and moved out suddenly. I wasn’t spending much time at home at the time, so I didn’t witness it all go down firsthand. But when I heard, I was relieved.
My mom, brother, and grandmother moved into an apartment together on Wilshire and La Cienega and, per Mom’s rules, I joined them there in the fall. Mom wanted me to graduate high school before I set out on whatever path I chose to follow, but I hadn’t left her much to work with. My grades, attendance, and behavior record were less than stellar, so she did her best: she got me enrolled as a continuation student at Beverly Hills High.
Continuation is where they put kids with “adjustment” problems: learning disorders, behavior issues, and those who don’t otherwise sync with the standard curriculum. Whereas at Fairfax I thought this was a situation to avoid, here it was perfect for me; I was allowed to work at my own pace, and I could set my hours to suit my new place in the workforce. I’d arrive at eight and leave at noon because I had two jobs at the time; aside from the Fairfax movie theater, the fall was high season at the clock factory.
My classmates in Continuation Education at Beverly Hills High were a real cast of characters. There were a couple of full-on Harley-Davidson biker chicks, one that was a behemoth, whose heavy-set, fortysomething,