“Because I was always in a hurry and always had something going on.” That, as Saul Hudson recalls, was how his nickname Slash came to be. “Everybody calls me Slash except anybody I give my drivers license to and I don”t want them to know who I am.” Besides Slash, he may be referenced as a rock n” roll legend, or guitar god by any number of hard rock fanatics. He can also be called a former member of Guns N” Roses but he is currently the main attraction of his own band Slash”s Snakepit.
- Paul Wong
- Slash: Still jammin” and lovin” it.<br><br>ANDY SCHWEGLER/Daily
Since the bands 1995 debut It”s 5 O”Clock Somewhere album and the 2000 release Ain”t Life Grand, the Snakepit has had a complete makeover. “None of them planned on taking it as far as I did. They had to go back to their respective day jobs and I was slowly but surely leaving my respective day job.”
For some, putting together a new band could be fairly trying but not for Slash. “I hang out a lot and meet musicians on a regular basis. I jam a lot and over the course of six months to a year I accumulated all these new friends who were musicians.” Some of these jamming friends would go on to become full fledged members of the Snakepit. The band consists Johnny Blackout on bass, Kerri Kelli, whose past credits include Ratt and Warrant, on rhythm guitar, Matt Laug, who has recorded with The Corrs, Alice Cooper, Alanis Morissette and The New Radicals, on drums and the man with the golden wail, Rod Jackson. “The guy has an amazing voice, when I first heard it I was like “FUCK! That”s the shit that”s what I am looking for.””
Earlier this year the Snakepit made their way across the country with AC/ DC, quite a tall order for a bands first tour. “We were nervous about how people perceive an opening band for AC/DC. When I went to their shows back in the day I never remembered who the opening band was.” Suffice it to say, everything worked out. “We got the crowd so worked up, AC/DC loved us.” After a few months off the road, Snakepit has put together a tour of their own, a tour that brought them to Royal Oak.
Despite being relatively green as a unit, the Snakepit is a band of rock n” roll veterans and they played as such. While Slash”s name is on the marquee, on stage it was Jackson who stole the show with his rock n” roll look of dreadlocks, light purple crushed velvet pants and siren of a voice. Jackson got down on the stage more than once in order to deliver pelvic thrusts into the air and during the song Mean Bone performed somewhat of an interpretive reading as he placed his hand onto his own “mean bone.”
Slash of course was stoic: Top hat, cigarette and Les Paul as per usual. Although the spotlight shone down on Slash for most of the evening, his playing did not overshadow the band. The group capped the night off with two songs from Slash”s former band “Its So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone.” Guns N” Roses may never reunite as they once were but as long as Slash is around there will always be good, gritty in-your-face rock.