Slash: Did Leather Pants Keep Him Out of The Stone Roses?
Slash, who's best known for his work with Guns N' Roses, apparently once offerered to join another set of roses—the U.K.'s Stone Roses.
This is according to Aziz Ibrahim, a former Stone Roses guitarist. Ibrahim revealed this juicy bit of "What if?" rock history during an appearance on the StageLeft Podcast.
Slash had left Guns N' Roses in 1996, just a few months after John Squire had exited Manchester's Stone Roses.
"Slash was in England and his manager wanted to manage the [Stone] Roses," Ibrahim said on the podcast. "There had been auditions. Slash had offered to play. There was a lot of bitterness and anger and so forth, maybe they wanted to piss [Squire] off, so they thought, ‘Let’s get the greatest rock icon of all time.'
"They thought, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll get this big rock icon, that would really annoy John.’ Then they said something to the effect of, ‘We’re not going to work with a guy with leather pants, are we?' So Slash wasn't in."
In the end, Stone Roses decided to call it quits altogether. They wouldn't regroup until 2011.
But is it all true? When asked about the rumours in 2010, Slash told The Guardian: "I'd heard of the Stone Roses, but I'd never met them. I think I was probably too busy in Guns N' Roses at the time. Maybe it might have been a good idea. Someone told me we tried to recruit the lead singer into Velvet Revolver. That's not true either."
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You can check out one of the Stone Roses' 2016 singles, "All for One," right here.
Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
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