Streaming now on Prime Video
Review by Ray Hogan
By all sane or logical reasoning, Slash should be a punchline at best and a rock and roll casualty at worst. But throw reasoning out the window when the cat-in-the-hat cigarette-chomping, Les Paul-destroying individual is Saul Hudson, the force of nature known as Slash.
Thirty-two years after Guns N’ Roses took the world by storm with “Appetite for Destruction,” the best debut album of all-time by my years, Slash is still creating and perfecting off that first image and style with his latest project, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators.
His life has been very well-documented (his 2007 autobiography is a worthy read) so another documentary of any kind — particularly the rock and roll straight-to-streaming kind Amazon litters libraries with — begs the question “Why?”
“Slash: Raised on the Sunset Strip” seems meta aware of the vast amount of material available and wisely chooses its subjects to tell perhaps overlooked morsels of the guitarist’s astonishing career. Aside from the man himself, guest talking heads include the late Lemmy Killmister, Dave Grohl, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, Steve Lukather, Matt Sorum, Steven Adler (in one of the most coherent interviews he’s done) and Kennedy, among others.
“I never imagined that I’d be a father living in Los Angeles,” says Grohl in the documentary. “But I sure as shit never imagined that I’d be playing a school fundraiser with Slash in front of the principals and parents of a kindergarten.
Neither did he, Dave.
Conceived in Paris, and raised for a few years in England, Saul Hudson was born to an album-cover creator father and rock/film wardrobe creator mother. By the late 1960s both parents found themselves in Los Angeles, with Saul spending time with his father in Laurel Canyon and going to rock concerts for the artists the older Hudson worked with. In other words, from a young age, getting the veil lifted and peering into the entertainment lifestyle and creative process.
“When you look back at the ‘60s and stuff, a lot of these individuals that I was sort of raised around were really astute, very intelligent, smart very cool people,” Slash says of his upbringing. “And it was a very inspired time.”
Here are some nuggets to be gained from viewing “Slash: Raised on the Sunset Strip.”
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As mentioned above, his parents had very cool jobs
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His oldest friend is Mark Canter (whose family owns one of the world’s most renowned delis.
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His first love BMX bike riding, not guitar playing.
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He picked up his first “guitar” late in life at either 14 or 15 with a one-string axe he found at his grandmother’s house.
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The moniker Slash was bestowed by the actor Seymour Cassel, who died earlier this year and whose son a young Hudson befriended.
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He first connected with Adler, then a guitarist, around a shared love of “KISS Alive II.”
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McKagan, ever eloquent in speech and thought, says the band’s earliest shared influences were Motorhead, 10CC, Nazareth and Aerosmith
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Aerosmith’s Joe Perry was once so broke, he had to sell a beloved Les Paul, which Slash gave back to him as a 50th birthday present.
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David Geffen was a family friend but Slash refused to let him edit “Sweet Child O’ Mine” down to a more radio-friendly length.
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Money doesn’t seem to be a motivating factor in any of his musical decisions, he stood firm in 1987, he stands firm in 2019.
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Slash wears a pacemaker, which is credited with helping him make judicious and healthy lifestyle choices.
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A certain serendipity or lucky coincidence rode alongside the initial Guns N’ Roses. “I think we were the only five guys in LA at that time that could have made up that band,” Slash says.
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Guns N’ Roses hit when the Los Angeles rock (hairband, if you must) scene had become a parody of itself. “They were stuck in the middle of that sea of shit, because there was so much shit you had to wade through to get to them,” Grohl states in a hurts-but true manner.
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Lukather and Lemmy like to talk about themselves. Lemmy earned it. Not so fast, Toto.
At an hour and 10 minutes, “Slash: Raised on the Sunset Strip,” directed by Martyn Atkins, is an informative but all too quick ride. By the end of the documentary, I ended seeing Slash in the same light as Jerry Garcia, someone in my wildest insanity I wouldn’t think of comparing Slash with. In the end, they are guitar players, plain and simple. They are at their happiest when the guitar is on their lap and challenging their hearts and minds.
“You’re not going to take that guitar out of his hand, you’re not going to pry it out of his hand,” Sixx states. “Nothing is going to make him stop playing… that is a gift to the fans and that is an honesty — we don’t get a lot of honesty in this business, you know?… He is only doing it because he loves that goddamn Les Paul to death.”
