(Credits: Raph Pour Hashemi)
Tue 9 September 2025 2:00, UK
Slash wasn’t one to worry about his ego that much in Guns N’ Roses.
He never liked the idea of being a rock star in that way, and it was much easier for him to play as fast as he could with his hair pulled down beneath his top hat than worry about rockstar shenanigans. But between being one of the biggest guitarists in the world, he also had to deal with some people who weren’t as enthusiastic as everyone else.
Then again, Guns N’ Roses was bound to be a hard pill for most people to swallow back in the late 1980s. The hair metal scene had become so glamorous that seeing a band that looked genuinely dangerous coming out of the woodwork was bound to be a breath of fresh air. But if you mix in a bunch of songs about drugs and more than a little bit of misogynistic lyrics in there, it’s no shocker why parents weren’t exactly going to be clamouring for Appetite for Destruction when it came out.
But that hardly stopped the rock fans of the world. After all, since when was anyone going to buy music strictly based on what their parents thought was okay? The whole appeal of the band was them being dangerous, and even if Slash didn’t utter a single word when he was onstage, it felt like he lived the rockstar lifestyle firsthand every day of his life, usually with a guitar in one hand and a Jack Daniels bottle in the other.
When the band finally started gaining traction, though, the music world was bound to have some opinions. Elton John was enough of a fan to join the group onstage when they performed ‘November Rain’ when it came out, but looking at the other heavyhitters of the day, Slash remembered that Prince was far from impressed with what they were doing.
While it was always going to take a lot to wow ‘The Purple One’ onstage, it’s not like he had reason to feel intimidated, either. There were hardly any musicians or public figures who could compete with his insane track record, but whereas most saw competition, Slash felt that Prince only treated them like a bunch of kids when they were accepting their first awards.
Compared to the likes of Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones, who seemed to be passing the torch to them in some respects, Slash felt that Prince looked down on them when they crossed paths at the American Music Awards, saying, “I met Lenny Kravitz, which was cool, but Prince blew us off. He and his entourage just ignored us when we walked by. He didn’t say anything, and he probably didn’t know who we were. I don’t think we’re what he’d call good company, and I really didn’t care.”
Then again, it’s important to look at where Prince was in his career as well. Sign o’ The Times had come out the same year as Appetite for Destruction, but since Lovesexy came out a few months later after Prince deemed The Black Album to be too evil to release, it’s not like songs like ‘It’s So Easy’ and ‘One In A Million’ were going to sit well with him when he starting looking at the new kids in town.
But it also speaks to a different outlook on the music industry when looking at how Guns’ and Prince’s careers went. Guns N’ Roses were the kind of band that burned way too bright before they eventually snuffed themselves out, but Prince was the consummate artist who was never going to rest when it came to writing the next record.
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