Slash: The Autobiography

About the book

It seems excessive...but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. The mass of black curls. The top hat. The cigarette dangling from pouty lips. These are the trademarks of one of the world's greatest and most revered guitarists, a celebrity musician known by one name: Slash. Saul "Slash" Hudson was born in Hampstead to a Jewish father and a black American mother who created David Bowie's look in The Man Who Fell to Earth. He was raised in Stoke until he was 11, when he and his mother moved to LA. Frequent visitors to the house were David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Ronnie Wood and Iggy Pop. At this time Slash got into BMX bikes and would eventually turn professional, winning major awards and money, but at 15 his grandmother gave him his first guitar. Sessions with numerous local LA rock bands followed until a fateful meeting with singer W Axl Rose...and the rest was rock history. Guns N' Roses spent two years builiding their reputation before Appetite for Destruction was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Chart success and global domination followed but with it came the inevitable fall - addicted to heroin, booze and cigarettes the band imploded in a rift between Axl and Slash that is as deep today as ever. But with a new wife, kids and new band Velvet Revolver, Slash is back on track. As raucous and edgy as his music, Slash sets the record straight and tells the real story as only Slash can.

Reviews

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Quotes

'Brilliant stuff' **** News of the World 'The most insane rock n' roll autobiography you'll ever read.' Observer 'A raucous rock yarn', (Top 10 Rock Books) The Independent **** Q Magazine 'A fitting monument... Slash's memoirs are an unexpectedly intoxicating cocktail of irresponsibility and dedication.' Independent on Sunday 'Slash's story is harrowingly compulsive reading, presenting the most graphically spot-on account of hardcore drug addiction since William Burroughs' The Record Collector

Anthony Bozza Biography

Anthony Bozza is a New York City-based author and journalist who has written extensively for Rolling Stone and other magazines. He is also the author of bestselling books on Eminem, AC/DC and Artie Lange. Since 2005 he has co-authored numerous autobiographies of artists including Slash, INXS, and Tommy Lee.

Career

Bozza started his career as an intern in 1995 at Rolling Stone, fact-checking, coffee-fetching and doing research for other writers before they hired him full-time in the music department. He answered phones, edited columns and did the odd story, but his big break came after a friend turned him on to an unsigned white rapper from Detroit named Eminem. That tape of a live Eminem freestyle was unlike anything he’d ever heard. He began talking the rapper up to his editors, who told him that if Eminem ever got signed they would let Anthony write a short blurb about him. A year later, Bozza wrote the first national cover story on Eminem. Bozza wrote six more cover stories, numerous features, and countless other articles during his seven-year tenure at Rolling Stone. He wrote and edited the “Random Notes” section for two years, joining the ranks of “Random Notes” alumni like Cameron Crowe and MTV's Kurt Loder. In 2002 he left the magazine to write Whatever You Say I Am: The Life and Times of Eminem, which was born of the unparalleled access and hours he had spent with Eminem while working on his Rolling Stone features and beyond. Janet Maslin, culture critic at the New York Times, wrote that it was a “compelling” investigation of the “Shadyfication of America.” The book was a New York Times bestseller and an international bestseller, topping lists in England, Germany, France and South America. Bozza followed this up by co-writing memoirs with various musicians and other celebrities. His first such book was with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, the New York Times Bestseller Tommyland. A biography of Australian legends INXS followed. Then came what Rolling Stone ranked one of the top 5 rock autobiographies of all time, the New York Times Bestseller Slash, co-written with the notoriously taciturn Guns N' Roses guitarist. Bozza moved into the comedy world next, with the autobiography of stand-up veteran and Howard Stern co-host Artie Lange, Too Fat to Fish. The book debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and remained there for twenty-two weeks. Bozza returned to music analysis with his next book, the critically acclaimed Why AC/DC Matters, which inspired a series of "Why _ Matters" books in AC/DC’s native Australia, Bozza’s tome being Volume 1. Two more co-writes followed: I Am the New Black, the autobiography of comedian Tracy Morgan, and Purpose, with Wyclef Jean of the Fugees. Anthony Bozza has also written for magazines and newspapers worldwide, including Spin, Maxim, The New York Times, The Guardian/Observer (UK), Q, Mojo, Paper, Nylon, Blender, Radar and Playboy. In 2010, along with writer Neil Strauss, he embarked on ... Read full biography