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The nickname "Slash" was given by a friend of the family, who said that "Slash was always in a hurry, zipping around from one thing to another." Slash never really liked his real name, Saul Hudson, so he was fine with "Slash". And it stuck.

At age 11, Slash moved to Los Angeles with his mother, while his father remainded based in England. Slash was an outsider in school there, with his long hair, jeans and t-shirts. Slash liked experimenting with his image: "I was 14 the first time I wore a pair [of leather pants]. Even then, everyone knew I was going to be a rocker, so they just seemed to fit," he said.

The music side of the style, he got after meeting Steven Adler. The first time the two met was the day Slash found Steven after he fell off his skateboard. Slash thought Steven had killed himself and went over to see if Steven was alright, and after that they started hanging out together. They both went to Bancroft Junior High, and ended up ditching the entire seventh grade together. Time was rather spent on music - often at Steven's grandmother's place, where Steven had a guitar. He and Slash used to sit there and play together. Steven knew how to play some KISS songs on guitar, and Slash wanted to buy a bass, so he and Steven could play together. Later Steven realised he didn't want to play guitar and he tried singing instead. After a while, he switched to drums, and Slash started playing guitar.

Slash soon left his mother and moved in with his grandmother. At age 15, she gave him his first guitar, and although it only had one string, it didn't stop Slash from playing on it. Slash was highly influenced by Led Zeppelin, Cheap Trick, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones and especially Aerosmith in his early years. The guitarists that influenced him most were Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, the Rolling Stones' Mick Taylor, Eddie Van Halen and Jeff Beck.

Except for a short period going to a guitar player named Robert Wollan, Slash never had anyone teaching him how to play. He prefered learning on his own, often reproducing songs others had played before him. One of the first songs he learned was Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water." He listened to records, and tried to play exactly what he heard. He also played along with Jeff Beck's albums a lot. Slash wanted to learn solos, and how to jam on his guitar. When he became a better guitarist, Slash got more familar with playing punk and speed-metal.

Slash quickly became very dedicated with his guitar playing, and he started skipping school, so he could play guitar as much as possible. "I could sit the entire day playing the guitar," he said. It resulted in bad marks, but he also got more friends, since the other kids suddenly found Slash cool. He started playing in various bands with other young musicians, making him focus even more on music and less on school, and in the 11th grade he finally dropped out of school completely.

Since Slash and Steven shared roots when it came to music, it was natural that the two would eventually play together in a band. So happened when they formed Road Crew in 1984. Byt Slash and Steven were not a band on their own. They realized they needed a singer and a bass player, which they thought they had found when they heard a demo tape of Axl Rose, through Slash's friend, Izzy Stradlin. Slash and Steven wanted to get Axl to sing for them, but Axl rather wanted to play with Izzy. This was something Slash was not interested in, since he didn't feel like playing with another guitarist. Slash and Steven found a bass player in Duff McKagan, through an ad Slash had placed in the Recycler. "When I first met him, he was a six-foot-something guy from Seattle with spiked hair." Road Crew wasn't exactly the kind of band Duff had in mind when he first contacted them, but he decided to stay with them anyway.

Road Crew didn't do well, and in the spring of 1985, Duff left the band because he was asked to join Guns N' Roses. Duff soon started working with some connections in Seattle and booked gigs there for the band. The band's guitarist and drummer, Tracii Guns and Rob Gardner, said they were not interested in doing the tour, so Duff asked Axl and Izzy if they could try Slash and Steven instead. Axl and Izzy didn't really have any other choice, and the new line-up was finalized June 6, 1985. Slash became the band's guitarist, and after two days of rehearsing, Slash got his debut with Guns N' Roses on a Thursday night concert at the Troubadour. Shortly after, the band went on the tour later referred to as the Hell Tour.

The band soon found themself playing live and writing songs that would eventually become major hits worldwide, with the release of the band's debut album "Appetite For Destruction" in July 1987. The album acclerated slowly in sales, but Slash and the rest of the band were making money. With the bigger success, Slash started using heroin, and at a warm up gig for Rolling Stones in 1989, Axl said that too many bandmembers were "dancin' with Mr. Brownstone." Slash realized he had to stop using drugs, and he went to a rehabilitation-clinics three times between 1989 and 1991. It's not sure whether Slash was clean at any point, but he got it under better control. As a result of his drug abuse, Slash also was in coma a few times. "Apparently I've been in a couple. I don't know why, I just woke up, and the doctor told me I'd been clinically dead. It was during my drug days."

In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin left Guns N' Roses. This was received with mixed emotions by Slash. Slash never liked Izzy's way of playing, but they still were friends. "I always got irritated over Izzy's way of playing," Slash said. "It didn't sound right". Slash also felt that Izzy was not interested in doing the hard work to "keep it together". "He didn't want to do videos or spend all those hours in the studio, and slowly but surely he started to drop out."

In September, 1991, Guns N' Roses released "Use Your Illusion" I and II. To support the albums, the band went on a two and a half year long tour. They played in front of 7 million people in 27 different countries. After the tour, Axl wanted to take a break, while Slash wanted to do a mini-tour on small clubs - to support the release of "The Spaghetti Incident?", which was released in November, 1993. When that didn't happen, Slash started writing songs for a new album: "I built a studio (called Snakepit) in my house and started writing songs." He originally wanted the songs to be on a new Guns N' Roses record, but as Slash said it, "no one seemed to be interested in the material. Axl said, 'That's not the kind of music I want to do.' I said, 'OK,' and took it all back. We've had that happen too many times in Guns, when certain songs just didn't make it, and they would have been killer. I didn't want to lose any more material." Slash hooked up with Matt Sorum and Mike Inez (Alice In Chains), and they started rehearsing. Gilby Clarke was later brought into the band: "I was hanging out with the guys that I hired to fill the positions in Guns, which was Gilby Clarke and Matt Sorum, and Mike Inez was just a good friend of mine, from Alice in Chains. Basically (we were) just writing and recording and digging having a studio in the house." But to release a record, the band also needed a lead singer, and after many auditions (they tried former Quireboys singer Spike; Hanoi Rocks' Michael Monroe; Little Caesar singer Ron Evans among others) the chice fell on Eric Dover (Jellyfish).

They named the band Snakepit, but because they didn't have legal rights to the name, and the fact that Geffen Records didn't want to  release an album by a band named Snakepit, with a profile like Slash in it, they had to change the name to Slash's Snakepit: "Snakepit was really just the name of the studio because it was next to a room filled with snakes and we called it Snakepit Studios. When we went to record we didn’t have a singer, let alone a name for the band. 'What are we gonna call it?' 'We’re gonna call it the Snakepit.' 'Cool.'" Slash's Snakepit released the album "It's Five O' Clock Somewhere" in February 1995.

Making the Snakepit album was a relief for Slash, much because he didn't feel all the pressure he felt when he recorded with Guns N' Roses. "I was just writing what I thought was cool," he said. "I was a kid in a toy store. I had a studio in my house. Get up in the morning. Literally. Press "on." Plug in your guitar and go. I don't look at stuff from the concept of writing the quintessential hit record. Just guitar riffs."

After the release of the band's debut, Slash wanted to tour immediately. But since both Mike Inez and Matt Sorum were called back to their respective bands, there had to be some delays so they could find replacements. Snakepit replaced Matt and Mike with Brian Tichy (drums) and James Lomenso (bass). The band played some stadium gigs, but mainly small club. Slash's Snakepit did 108 gigs in four months, on four different continents.

Even though Slash hadn't been working with Guns N' Roses for a long time, he was still optimistic about continuing with the band after the Snakepit tour. He tried talking with Axl about their musical style - Slash wanted Guns N' Roses to play pure rock, while Axl wanted to take a (slightly) different direction, because he thought the band wasn't gonna survive without changing. Slash later said he thought Axl wanted to create a new Pink Floyd's "The Wall". After years trying to work things out with Axl, Slash realised he couldn't do Axl's music, and he officially resigned from the band in 1996. At that point, Slash had  been out of the band for about a year already: "I just split while it was still cool. I tried to hang on and stick with the band as long as I could, but there were definitely limitations. It just got to the point were we couldn't work together anymore. I did what I had to do. We just went in different directions."

In the summer of 1996, Slash was invited to Budapest, Hungary to play the Sziget Festival. Slash decided to go for it, but he had to put together a band for the event. He hired Teddy Andreadis and various other musiciants for the band and Slash's Blues Ball was formed. From the end of 1996 till the fall of 1997, Slash's Blues Ball played clubs throughout California and into the southwest, and the northeast.

After Blues Ball, Slash wanted to go back in studio to make another album, but since the musicians who had originally been in Slash's Snakepit were unable to write and record with him, Slash had to put together a brand new band. "The first band was just sort of a make-shift, throw-together band just to kill time, because I was still in Guns and it was just fun. It wasn’t serious." For the new album, Slash wanted to have a more permanent thing, so he listened to hundreds of musicians play before he picked four: Matt Laug (Venice) was choosen as the band's drummer, Johnny Griparic (Slash's Blues Ball) was choosen as the bassist, Ryan Roxie (Dad's Porno Magazine, Alice Cooper's band) was choosen as the second guitarist, and  newcomer Rod Jackson was picked as the singer. "The singer we have is the fucking awesomest singer in the world," Slash said. "[Jackson] was under my nose without me knowing it, after two hundred singers I must have looked at. I can't verbally characterize his voice, but he's got amazing control, amazing volume... he's just fucking awesome."

After the band was formed, the band started writing and recording. Slash already had some songs, but most were changed a lot before they ended up as the final result. The music was written before the lyrics on most of the tracks, which Slash felt was a difficult and weird way to do it.

The album, titled "Ain't Life Grand", was released in October 2000. It was produced by Jack Douglas, and engineered by Jim Mitchell. Mitchell also did some additional producing. Slash's Snakepit went on tour to support the record, both playing opening gigs for AC/DC and doing some headlining shows on their own.

During the recording process of "Ain't Life Grand", Slash also worked on the Guns N' Roses album "Live Era '87-'93": "I was there for the whole thing. A lot of people think (it's) over-produced, or over-mixed; that's what I heard. No, that's what the band sounded like. I was surprised, I didn't know the band was that good!" The album was released in November, 1999.

On April 29, 2002, Slash, Duff, Matt, Todd Nelson and Joshua Todd (Buckcherry) performed at the tribute show for drummer Randy Castillo (Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe) who died from cancer March 26, 2002. Izzy Stradlin was originally scheduled to perform, but he never showed up. Over the next months, rumours started circulating that Slash, Duff and Matt were going to form a band together. In August, 2002, it was confirmed that the so called "project" was their main project. The band recruited Scott Weiland and Dave Kushner, and started working on an album. The band chose the name Velvet Revolver, and released their debut on June 8, 2004. The band went on tour after the release, and toured throughout 2005.

Besides major band projects, Slash has played with several bigger and smaller artists since the breakthrough in 1987. Artists he has worked with include Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Jeff Beck, Iggy Pop, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Jackson, Paul Rodgers, Steve Jones, Bob Dylan and Puff Daddy.

Slash has also had ups and downs in his personal life. He married Renee Suran on October 10, 1992 in Marina Del Ray, California. The two separated and divorced in the fall of 1997. Slash got married for his second time on October 15, 2000 - to Perla Ferrar. Over the next years, Slash also got two sons, London and Cash Anthony.

(Updated December 28, 2005)

Artist Name: Slash
Real Name: Saul Hudson
Born: July 23rd, 1965 in   Hampstead, London, England.
Other Bands: Slash's Snakepit, Slash's Blues Ball, Velvet Revolver, Road Crew
Worked with: Duff McKagan, Gilby Clarke, Matt Sorum, Alice Cooper, Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Lenny Kravitz and many more.
Nicknames: Slick

Parents: Ola and Anthony Hudson
Siblings: Ash is his brother
Children: London and Cash Anthony

Kiss: "If it weren't for Kiss, I wouldn't have met Steven or started playing guitar."

Aerosmith: "Those guys have all been heroes of mine since I was a kid and first started listening to rock 'n' roll."

Joe Perry/Brad Whitford: In the days when I really started playing guitar, you know like really getting in to that whole thing, amongst other guitar players, Aerosmith and Joe Perry and Brad Whitford were definite influences. You know it's the coolest most screwed up band in the world basically. You know it gave me a path to follow you know.

Rolling Stones: I was into the Stones. I'm not so much influenced by Keith as I was Mick Taylor, who used to be in the band at one point. But, I mean, the actual songwriting, yeah. I'm a real Stones freak. I have all the records up to a point.

Others: Jeff Beck, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Fear etc.

"I only get concerned about money when the electricity goes out. Then you have to do acoustic records."

"Back in the Eighties, record-industry producers tried to impress us by showing us their collection of gold and platinum records. We were like, "Do you have anymore Jack Daniels?"

"I remember one time I was running from one side of the stage to the other, and I suddenly noticed Axl was running from the opposite direction and that I wasn't going to be able to get out of his way. Immediately went into a tuck and roll, and he jumped over the top of me. And I didn't miss a note! It was cool. "