Nine albums you should listen to by the members of Guns N' Roses... and one you should ignore

Slash - Slash (Roadrunner, 2010)

The best record that Slash has made outside of Guns N’ Roses was nominally a solo album, but featured a stellar cast of special guests – including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Iggy Pop, Chris Cornell, and two old GN’R bandmates in Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan. This format – star guitarist plus various big-name singers – was loosely inspired by Santana’s monster hit from 1999, Supernatural.

Where Santana covered a range of styles on that album, Slash, on his, simply rocked out. Most significant of all was the contribution of Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy on the standout songs Back From Cali and Starlight. Kennedy would go on to co-star on Slash’s subsequent albums Apocalyptic Love, World On Fire, Living The Dream and 4.

Izzy Stradlin And The Ju Ju Hounds - Izzy Stradlin And The Ju Ju Hounds (Geffen, 1992)

Walking out of Guns N’ Roses in 1991, when they were the biggest band in the world, Izzy Stradlin had some balls. Having quit drugs and booze, Stradlin was tired of the circus around Axl and GN’R, and wanted to make music on his own terms, in the style of his hero Keith Richards.

Backed by The Ju Ju Hounds – Georgia Satellites guitarist Rick Richards, ex-Broken Homes bassist Jimmy ‘Two Fingers’ Ashhurst and former Bob Dylan drummer Charlie Quintana – Stradlin created one of the coolest rock’n’roll albums of the 90s, with brilliant, low-key tracks such as Shuffle It All and Come On Now Inside, and a cover of reggae classic Pressure Drop injected with a blast of punk rock.

Velvet Revolver - Contraband (RCA, 2004)

Supergroups are notoriously combustible, and so it proved with Velvet Revolver. Featuring three veterans of The Most Dangerous Band In The World, plus a singer as volatile as Axl Rose, this was not a project built for the long haul. It was, however, great while it lasted.

They had impeccable rock’n’roll credentials: Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum from GN’R; second guitarist Dave Kushner ex of LA punks Wasted Youth; Scott Weiland, former frontman for alternative rock icons Stone Temple Pilots. And with Velvet Revolver’s debut, Contraband, they delivered a modern classic: hard rock infused with Weiland’s Bowie-inspired artistic sensibility, and great songs, too – from the badass Slither to the beautiful heartbreak ballad Fall To Pieces.

Gilby Clarke, Pawnshop Guitars (Virgin, 1994)

If there is a forgotten man in the story of Guns N’ Roses, it’s Gilby Clarke. During his three-year stint as rhythm guitarist, Clarke appeared on the 1993 covers album The Spaghetti Incident? And he was still in GN’R when this solo album was released in mid-’94. But not for long…

Although Axl and every other member of the band appeared on Pawnshop Guitars, the singer fired Clarke before that year was out. With Axl Rose, so it goes. For all that, this is a fine record, with crunching hard rock in Cure Me… Or Kill Me, and Beatles-referencing power-pop in Black. Axl sings on a version of the Stones’ Dead Flowers, the cynicism in the song entirely apt.

Slash’s Snakepit - It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere (Geffen, 1995)

It was an album born out of frustration, and comprised of songs that Slash had written for Guns N’ Roses and then had rejected by Axl Rose. In such circumstances, the debut album by Slash’s Snakepit could have been a disaster. Instead, it was a powerful, guitar-heavy record, and for Slash, a signpost to a future beyond GN’R.

It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere featured Matt Sorum Gilby Clarke, Alice In Chains bassist Mike Inez and a singer, Eric Dover, who was previously a guitarist in pop rock group Jellyfish. The album’s earthy tone is typified by Beggars & Hangers-On, evoking a heavier Lynyrd Skynyrd. For Slash, it was a validation. One year after this album was released, he quit GN’R.

Duff McKagan - Tenderness (UME, 2019)

McKagan’s second solo album arrived all of 26 years after his first. And he’d learned a lot in that time - not just about songwriting, but about the world around him. He called Tenderness a “socio-political” album, and one of its songs was praised by none other than Bob Dylan, who stated: “There’s a Duff McKagan song called Chip Away, that has profound meaning for me.”

Tenderness was produced by Shooter Jennings, son of country music legend Waylon Jennings, whose backing band added warm tones of pedal steel and fiddle. Most powerful of all was the song Feel, described by McKagan as “a memorial” for his friend Chris Cornell, his former bandmate Scott Weiland and his hero Prince. and Chester (Bennington). He explained: “I was trying to highlight a bigger subject, which is suicide and depression and drug addiction, in sort of a poetic way.”

Velvet Revolver - Libertad (RCA, 2007)

The music was never a problem with Velvet Revolver. Their second album Libertad was almost as good as the first. The problems for this band were entirely personal.

There were some great songs on Libertad – Let It Roll, She Builds Quick Machines, and a brilliant cover of ELO’s Can’t Get It Out Of My Head. But when this album failed to match the success of Contraband, tensions between Scott Weiland and the rest of the group rapidly escalated. Weiland jumped before he was pushed. He quit on April 1, 2008. Later, following the singer’s death on December 3, 2015, Slash posted a photo via Instagram of them together with a simple message: “Sad day. RIP Scott Weiland.”

Duff McKagan - Believe In Me (Geffen, 1993)

Given the state that Duff McKagan was in during the early 90s – drinking, by his own estimation, a gallon of vodka a day – it’s amazing that he made a solo album at all, let alone a good one. And it was a record almost entirely of his own making, save for guest spots from Slash, Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz and others.

The album had its flaws. The rap-rock of Fuck You was a drunken joke too far. But on the best track, Man In The Meadow, McKagan dug deep in a lament for his dead friend Todd Crew, of fellow LA band Jetboy. Behind the caricature of McKagan – the pissed-up punk rocker – there was a whole lot more.

Izzy Stradlin - River (Sanctuary, 2001)

In all the years since he quit Guns N’ Roses, Izzy Stradlin has kept a low profile. He has, on occasion, jammed with GN’R. Other than that, he’s stayed out of the spotlight. While he’s never stopped making records, he goes about his business quietly.

River is the next best thing to his solo debut, Izzy Stradlin And The Ju Ju Hounds. Pure, no-frills rock’n’roll, it has echoes of the Stones running from the swaggering Jump In Now through to the woozy honky-tonk ballad Feelin’ Alright. How Guns N’ Roses have missed him.

Adler - Back From The Dead (New Ocean Media, 2012)

Of the five members of Guns N’ Roses’ classic line-up, Steven Adler is the luckiest to still be alive. By his own count, he has survived “28 overdoses, three botched suicides, two heart attacks and a debilitating stroke.” As such, the album he recorded with his eponymous band in 2012 was aptly named. The man himself proclaimed to Classic Rock: ‘There’s nothing greater than a comeback.” Problem was, the album sucked.

In his prime, Adler was the best drummer that Guns N’ Roses ever had. But this band he had was no Guns N’ Roses. With singer Jacob Bunton screeching horribly, Adler sounded like a bad Ratt tribute act. And so, inevitably, the album sank without trace.