(Credits: Far Out / Tidal)
Wed 25 February 2026 20:30, UK
Slash has learned about the ins and outs of being in a rock and roll band the hard way whenever he joined a band.
Guns N’ Roses may have been the biggest bunch of misfits that the world had ever seen, but from the moment they started playing together, songs like ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’ were bound to take over the world once they eventually reached the airwaves. That kind of chemistry can carry any band a long way, but the guitarist felt that some great combinations weren’t worth coming back to.
But for a while, Slash’s biggest enemy seemed to be Axl Rose. The frontman was not willing to compromise for a second whenever working on Use Your Illusion, and given all of the pirates happening on tour, Slash was already halfway out the door by the time they started working on “The Spaghetti Incident?” when they finally got home. He didn’t want to answer to Rose’s demands anymore, but it took him a few more years before he found his feet again as well.
Slash’s Snakepit did have some fantastic guitar work and felt a lot more in line with what Guns was supposed to be after Appetite for Destruction, but they simply didn’t have the same kind of star power that the old lineup did. And while Slash’s Blues Ball did make for a pretty interesting covers act on the club scene, Slash was dangerously close to turning into another rock and roll casualty like the millions of others on Sunset Boulevard.
But then something funny happened when Scott Weiland was brought into the picture. Stone Temple Pilots had been on the rocks for a few years, but after going on hiatus after No. 4, Slash figured that Weiland might be a good collaborator when working with Velvet Revolver. Grunge and Guns N’ Roses didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, but when every other GNR member not named ‘Axl Rose’ joined, Weiland didn’t waste any time in embracing his inner rock star on tunes like ‘Slither’.
This was where the frontman was always meant to be, but getting back on the rock and roll merry-go-round didn’t exactly go as planned. Slash may have been back in the public eye all over again, but after going through a few relapses on tour and watching Weiland become as destructive as Rose was on the final few tours they played, it was only a matter of time before they decided to go their separate ways.
They could still play to the best of their ability, but even after Weiland straightened himself out, Slash said that he wouldn’t be willing to roll over and make another record with the STP frontman, saying, “He’s been interested in burying the hatchet and getting back together and sort of juggling this whole STP/Velvet Revolver perfect-world thing. And I’m, like, there’s no way that’s gonna happen. I love Scott — he’s a great guy when I’m not in a band with him. I’d just like to keep it that way.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, either. Velvet Revolver had the potential to be a great band without Weiland, and while it’s tragic to think that Weiland never got the chance to perform with Slash again, they were already looking for other singers to fill that slot, even going so far as to work with Slipknot’s Corey Taylor on a few ideas before he ended up being called back to his nu-metal brethren.
Slash might still have the door open to work on whatever new project that’s presented to him, but maybe it’s best to leave Velvet Revolver where it is at this point. There are some great songs on those two albums if you want to go digging, and the last thing you’d want to do was make a new album that sounds like a shadow of what you once were.