Slash: a Les Paul copy, a rented Marshall and Appetite for Destruction | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

SLASH played lead guitar on Appetite for Destruction, the Guns N’ Roses debut the RIAA has certified 18x Platinum. Its Sweet Child O’ Mine was the band’s only US number 1, for two weeks in 1988, and the intro and solo are the parts of it everybody knows.

The sound was a Les Paul into a loud Marshall.

Early life

He was born Saul Hudson on 23 July 1965 in England, and spent part of his childhood in Stoke-on-Trent before moving to Los Angeles with his mother. His father was an artist. His mother, Ola Hudson, was a costume designer whose clients included David Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon), for The Man Who Fell to Earth.

At 13 he met Steven Adler, who would become the Guns N’ Roses drummer. By the cleared Van Halen account, Adler played him Eruption into You Really Got Me on a little cassette player before Slash had picked up a guitar.

He and Lenny Kravitz, Who’s Who number 39 went to Beverly Hills High at the same time.

Career chapters

1. 1965Born Saul Hudson in England
2. 1985Joins Guns N’ Roses
3. 1987Appetite for Destruction
4. 1988Sweet Child O’ Mine, US number 1
5. 1991Use Your Illusion I and II; Always on the Run with Lenny Kravitz, Who’s Who number 39
6. 1995Slash’s Snakepit
7. 1996Leaves Guns N’ Roses
8. 2002Velvet Revolver forms
9. 2005Grammy for Slither
10. 2012Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
11. 2016Reunion at the Troubadour, 1 April
12. 2026Les Paul Spirit Award

Guns N’ Roses and Appetite 1985 to 1988

The classic line-up was Axl Rose, Who’s Who number 2 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon), Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan, Who’s Who number 3 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) and Steven Adler. Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987 with Mike Clink producing. It entered the US chart in August 1987 and reached number 1 about a year later. In the UK it peaked at number 5 and has spent 286 weeks on the chart.

Sweet Child O’ Mine went to number 1 in the US in 1988. He’s never been fond of it, telling American Songwriter the song “always rubbed me the wrong way”.

The top hat goes back to these years. He liked the way the brim shielded him from “looking in the eyes of the audience,” the Rock Hall says.

Lies and the Illusions 1988 to 1996

G N’ R Lies reached number 2 in the US. In 1991 Use Your Illusion II went to number 1 and Use Your Illusion I to number 2, in both the US and the UK. Each has been certified 7x Platinum.

That same year he played on Lenny Kravitz’s, Who’s Who number 39 Always on the Run, which the two co-wrote, after meeting again at the 1990 American Music Awards.

He started Slash’s Snakepit in 1995. On 31 October 1996 Axl Rose, Who’s Who number 2 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) confirmed by fax that Slash had left the band. Slash’s statement said the two of them couldn’t see eye to eye on where the band was going.

Velvet Revolver 2002 to 2008

Velvet Revolver formed in the spring of 2002, with Duff McKagan, Who’s Who number 3 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon). Slither won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2005, his only Grammy win so far.

The Rock Hall and the reunion 2012 to 2016

Guns N’ Roses went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on 14 April 2012. Axl Rose, Who’s Who number 2 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) turned the induction down in an open letter.

On 1 April 2016, just after midnight, Slash, Axl Rose, Who’s Who number 2 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) and Duff McKagan, Who’s Who number 3 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) played their first show together in years, at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.

The Conspirators and the blues 2019 to 2027

His other band is Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. In 2024 he made Orgy of the Damned, a blues record, again with Mike Clink producing. On 5 October 2026 he received the Les Paul Spirit Award at Les Paul Studios, inside United Recording in Hollywood. “Les was so much more than a great guitarist and innovator,” he said. A new Conspirators album, Flying Blind, is due on 26 February 2027 on Gibson Records.

Craft, sound and style

The Derrig Les Paul

The guitar on Appetite was a copy of a 1959 Les Paul Standard, built by Kris Derrig at MusicWorks in Redondo Beach. It had a ’59-style ink-stamped serial, a ’58 neck profile, a book-matched figured maple top and Seymour Duncan Alnico II “zebra” humbuckers. The band’s manager bought it for him after the early sessions. Derrig died in 1987, before the album came out.

He’d tried other guitars first. In January 1987 he was down to a B.C. Rich Mockingbird and a Jackson, and neither held up under studio conditions, Guitar.com says. A 1961 Gibson SG played the rhythm part on My Michelle. Before all of them, a Les Paul copy by luthier Max Baranet, called the Hunter Burst after Steve Hunter, had been his favourite until he sold it.

In 2010 Gibson made the Slash “Appetite” Les Paul, a copy of the Derrig copy. In January 2020 it announced a Slash Collection of six models, four Les Paul Standards and two J-45 acoustics.

The rented Marshall

The amp on Appetite was a modified 100-watt Marshall rented from Studio Instrument Rentals. Guitar.com says he asked for Stock #39 and was given Stock #36, which Frank Levi had modified. Marshall’s Paul Marshall thought in 2010 it was probably a 2203 from before the JCM800 era. It went through a Marshall 4x12 with Celestion 30s.

On the record he used a Roland SRV-2000, with a hidden delay mode on Welcome to the Jungle, plus a Dunlop Cry Baby wah and an MXR Analog Chorus. When Marshall built his 2010 signature amp, the AFD, it studied isolated Appetite tracks including Welcome to the Jungle and Nightrain, Guitar World reported. The AFD switches between JCM800 and 1959-style voicings.

Marshall’s first Slash model was the 2555SL, a Silver Jubilee reissue made from 1995 to 1997. Live, he’s leaned on Jubilee heads, with the clean amps modified with KT88 output valves.

Tuning, strings and hands

He tunes down a half step to E flat, Marshall says, with .011 to .048 strings and Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm picks.

Mike Clink’s point is that most of it is in the hands. In 2024 he compared Slash’s flow and attack to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s, Who’s Who number 4. On Orgy of the Damned, Clink said a Magnatone amp was the one that “really spoke” for what he played.

Stories people still tell

1. Eruption on a cassette.

   Steven Adler played him Eddie Van Halen’s, Who’s Who number 34 Eruption when he was 13. He said later the record “signalled the end of rock as we knew it.”

Legacy

Gibson and Marshall both built signature models from his Appetite rig in 2010, and the Les Paul Foundation honoured him in 2026. The Rock Hall lists Guns N’ Roses as an influence on bands from Avenged Sevenfold and Wolfmother to Greta Van Fleet.