Slash Explains Why He Doesn’t Read Other Rock Biographies
Just because Slash has opened up about his life in an autobiography doesn't mean he's anxious to read about the lives of others. The guitar great intimated as much while speaking with Barbara Caserta in an interview for Italy's Linea Rock (as seen below).
The guitarist admits that rock 'n' roll interests him as a topic to read about, but he's not necessarily on board when it comes to individual biographies. "To tell you the truth, I don't read rock and roll books. I've read a book about national artists and I've read books about rock and roll, but I've never read anybody else's… Well, I read the Jim Morrison one, and I read the most recent Joe Perry one, but for the most part, I stay away from autobiographies," says the guitarist.
Further elaborating on why he shies away from them, he explains, "A lot of it is because I know people — I know the people that wrote them — and it feels like spying on them. [Laughs] It's like following people on their Instagram; if you know them, it feels like spying."
He goes on to add, "I also used to think that rock and roll books were 75 percent bullshit too, and I didn't want to get into… 'Cause autobiographies are largely written by other people, or biographies are totally written by other people, so it's their own fantasy that they're sort of building up in these books. That sort of inspired me to write my book myself and not rely too much on a ghost writer — to be as honest as possible. So they inspired me in that way."
Slash dug into his own history with the simply titled memoir Slash in 2007. In the time since that book, which the guitarist wrote to set the record straight on some of his time with Guns N' Roses, he has reunited with Axl Rose and Duff McKagan in the current lineup of the band. Slash has also continued his solo career, with his fourth album with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, 4, due on Feb. 11.