Hot Man Monday: Slash

Name: Saul Hudson
DOB: July 23, 1965
Where: Hampstead, London, England
Origin: Los Angeles, California
Genres: Hard rock, heavy metal, blues rock
Occupations: musician, songwriter, record producer, film producer
Instrument: guitar, bass, banjo
Years Active: 1981-present
Website: http://www.slashonline.com/

Velvet Revolver

-Saul Hudson, best known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter.
-Best known as the lead guitarist for hard rock band Guns N Roses
-Formed the side project Slash's Snake Pit and also cofounded the group Velvet Revolver
-On Rolling Stone Magazine's List of 100 Greatest Guitarists, he ranks #65

Early Life
-His mother, Ola Hudson, was an African American costume designer whose clientele included David Bowie, and his father Anthony Hudson was an English artist who created album covers for people like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell.
-According to Slash "As a musician, I've always been amused that I'm both British and black; particularly because so many American musicians seem to aspire to be British while so many British musicians...went to such great lengths to be black."
-During the early part of his life, he was raised by his father and paternal grandparents in Staffordshire.
-In 1979, Slash decided to form a band with his friend Steven Adler. He learned to play guitar, and his grandmother gave him a flamenco guitar so he began taking classes on how to play. But he decided to switch guitars after hearing "Brown Sugar" by The Rolling Stones
-His teacher, Robert Wolin, would play popular rock songs for his students, by artists such as Led Zeppelin, Cream.

Career
-In 1981, he started a band called Road Crew- named after the Motorhead song (We Are) The Road Crew. He placed an ad for a bassist, and later got a call from Duff McKagan. He disbanded the group and joined up with another, called Hollywood Rose, which had Axl Rose as singer and Izzy Stradlin as guitarist.
-This group then renamed themselves Guns N Roses. They played at nightclubs such as the Whiskey a Go-Go, The Roxy, The Troubadour. Throughout 1985 and 1986, they opened for larger bands. During this time, they wrote "Welcome to the Jungle" "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Paradise City"
-Because of their rebellious, rowdy behavior, they earned the nickname "Most Dangerous Band in the World." Later in 1986, Slash went through drug addiction
-In July 1987, they released their Appetite for Destruction album, which became one of the bests selling albums in U.S. history. In 1989, during a show as an opening act for The Rolling Stones, Axl Rose threatened to leave the band if the band did not stop it's drug abuse. And during that concert, Izzy Stradlin remembers having a talk with Mick Jagger because the night the concert was to happen, Izzy was wearing cowboy boots and Mick offered to lend him a pair of his tennis shoes.
-In May 1991, the band went on a year-and-a-half tour to promote their Use Your Illusion album.
-In 1988, he and Guns N Roses appeared in the movie The Dead Pool. His character appears at a musician's funeral and shoots a harpoon.
-In a 1994 episode of the horror TV series Tales from the Crypt, he played a radio DJ named Hank

Personal Life
-On Oct. 10, 1992, he married model Renee Suran in Marina Del Ray, California. They divorced in 1997.
-On Oct. 15, 2001, he married Perla Ferrar in Hawaii. they have 2 sons, London Emilio and Cash Anthony.
-Slash, the son of an English father and African American mother, did not acquire American citizenship until 1996. He was considered a British national since his London birth.
-In 2001, at age 35, he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a form of congestive heart failure caused by many years of drug and alcohol abuse. His doctors said he had between 6 days and 6 weeks to live, but he went through physical therapy and implantation of a defibrillator. He has been clean and sober since 2006, which he credits to his wife Perla.