From Metal Hammer UK:
Matthew Flamm of Crain’s New York Business reports that former GUNS N’ ROSES and current VELVET REVOLVER guitarist Slash just sold his autobiography to HarperCollins. The British born, California-raised axeman will work with writer Anthony Bozza, who helped Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee pen his memoir, “Tommyland”. The manuscript is due to be delivered in the fall.
A HarperCollins spokeswoman confirmed Slash’s deal, according to Crain’s New York Business.
Slash, born Saul Hudson, left GUNS N’ ROSES in 1996 following a rift with frontman Axl Rose. He went on to form the band VELVET REVOLVER with fellow ex-GN’R members Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums).
Also in the works is “W.A.R.: The Unauthorized Biography of W. Axl Rose”, by British rock writer Mick Wall. The book is due out in Britain in the fall and is currently making the rounds of New York publishers.
“[GUNS N’ ROSES] is a great story, and it’s not finished yet,” says Wall’s U.S. agent, Barbara Zitwer, referring to the unfinished album, entitled “Chinese Democracy”, that Rose has been working on for years.
The notoriously soft-spoken shredder speaks! This should be interesting. For years, Axl’s been making too much of a ruckus for us to hear what anyone else has to say. If he had his druthers, Slash would’ve thought to do this 15 years ago, when he REALLY would’ve made a killing. On the other hand, it seems that at this point there’s no love lost between the dynamic duo, so hopefully Slash will be speaking openly and honestly about his time spent with his carrot-topped partner in crime. And hopefully it’ll be slightly more eloquent than the “dudeâ€-filled offerings of his peers (I’m looking at you, Tommy. Your chapters in The Dirt were no less than abominable). I wouldn’t mind if he also made a few statements about the state of Axl’s hair nowadays, shallow though it may be. The guy has it coming.
I have to admit, though, I couldn’t care less about the parts that will doubtlessly be dedicated to his time in Velvet Revolver- I only want to hear about the good stuff from back in the day. I still love Slash and will snap up this book the day it comes out, but let’s be frank: his glory days are over. He’s simply not writing music at the caliber he once was. Maybe it’s due to a particular new bandmate of his- I’d say that I wish Scott Weiland would just OD already, but that’d make him an eternally admired martyr of the rock world, and that seems like a fate worse than continuing to put up with his sorry ass while he’s alive. Best singer in rock today, my gnarled and be-fungus’d foot. Slash, you deserve a better frontman. (Frontwoman? Call me!)
Interesting that Axl should be turning up in an unauthorized tell-all at the same time- doubly so when you consider who’s doing the honors for him. You may remember Mick Wall from the spoken-word breakdown in “Get In the Ring,†Axl’s 1992 diatribe which slammed the music press for being greedy and wholly disreputable. Mr. Wall was one of those specifically called out for his skeezy practices, which makes me wonder if this new project of his is engineered to get under Axl’s skin. It’s possible they’ve kissed and made up since then, but I highly doubt that…once an enemy of Axl’s, always an enemy of Axl’s. At least we know that since Axl’s fingers aren’t in the project, we won’t have to wait 15 years to see the result.
