How Eric Clapton changed Slash’s life forever
Although the list of iconic lead guitarists is extensive, few are as distinctive as Guns N’ Roses hero Slash. The cigarette-smoking, top hat-donning maestro has many influential moments to his name, with the worldwide hit ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ reflecting how deeply his work has pierced popular culture.
Slash may be ostensibly a hard rock guitarist, but his playing encompasses many different areas, ranging from metal to country. Incredibly gifted and mostly an autodidact, his story serves as an encouraging tale for those wanting to emulate his searing heights, particularly when noting that he didn’t pick up the guitar until the reasonably late age of 14.
Galvanised by The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and punk, after he realised that he wanted to pursue music as a career, Slash would throw himself into the world of the six-string. Taking this undertaking exceptionally seriously, he would sometimes practice for 12 hours a day, meaning that by the time he joined his first band, Tidus Sloan, in 1981, he was well on his way to becoming a brilliant guitarist.
Interestingly, Slash always took after the finest virtuosos of his homeland, England. While he might have asserted his brilliance at the tail end of the hair metal era in the 1980s, the English classic rock guitarists of the 1960s and 1970s are ones he is stylistically related to. This makes sense, too, as one man he took many cues from during his formative chapter as a player was the late Jeff Beck.
He told Guitar Magazine in 1988: “I’m completely taught by ear. If there was something that I liked, that I thought was cool, I’d learn it. I’d learn Jeff Beck like you wouldn’t know. I’d learn any lick that I thought was really good from Wired, Truth and Blow by Blow.”
Interestingly, though, it wasn’t Jeff Beck who first showed Slash the way into his future as an iconic guitarist. It was the man he replaced in The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, via a local guitar teacher. As the Guns N’ Roses legend revealed when speaking to Yahoo! Entertainment, when he heard the tutor, Robert Wolin, playing Clapton licks, he knew he had to learn the instrument. This moment changed the trajectory of Slash’s life forever.
Slash first thought he’d pick up the bass, but after visiting a local music school, this idea soon changed. He recalled: “I went over there without an instrument, and not knowing what the fuck I was doing, and went in and talked to the teacher, this guy Robert Wolin, who I’ve talked to a couple of times over the years. So, he took me in the room, and we were talking, and he was playing guitar the whole time, and he was playing Clapton licks. And I said, ‘Well, that’s what I want to do.’ And he goes, ‘That’s not bass, that’s lead guitar.’ And that started. That’s where it went.”
Watch Eric Clapton in action below.