Slash has revealed that he once dressed up in his mother’s clothing in order to fool the bouncers at legendary Los Angeles rock ’n’ roll haunt The Rainbow, and hit on future Guns N’ Roses bandmate Steven Adler.
Slash shared the story on US chat show Jimmy Kimmel Live, ahead of performing The River Is Rising with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators.
As the guitarist recalls, the Rainbow Bar And Grill had a particularly strict security guard named Steady who wasn’t easily fooled by the homemade fake IDs Slash would forge for himself and his best friend Adler, when the pair were 15 years old. On one particular night, Adler was waved through into the bar, but Slash was turned away at the door, so he hit upon a cunning plan to attempt a second run at gaining admission.
“I was really drunk,” Slash announces up-front, by way of a disclaimer. “So I went home, and put on a bunch of make-up, and put on some of my mom’s clothes, and I went back up there. And it was Ladies Night… so I got in.
“I was going to go and pick up on Steven, because Steven would screw anything, and I thought it’d be really funny. So I got in, and slowly but surely I realised, ‘Steven’s not here…he’s gone.’ And this whole black cloud of reality came down. And I felt the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt, still to this day I’ve never felt like that. And then having to leave and then walk down Sunset Boulevard in a dress… it was horrible.”
Footage of Slash, Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators performing The River Is Rising, the first single and opening track on the quintet’s forthcoming album, 4, can be seen below. Recorded at RCA Studio A in Nashville with producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Airbourne), the album will arrive via Snakepit Records/Gibson Records on February 11.
The quintet previously unveiled plans for a 28 city North American headline tour. The River Is Rising tour kicks off next week at the Roseland Theater in Portland, Oregon on February 8, and runs through to March 26, where it will close at the Hard Rock Live venue in Orlando, Florida.
The tour will call at:
Feb 08 Roseland Theater Portland, OR
Feb 09: Paramount Theatre Seattle, WA
Feb 11: Cache Creek Casino Resort Brooks, CA
Feb 12: The Warfield San Francisco, CA
Feb 15: Arizona Federal Theatre Phoenix, AZ
Feb 16: Harrah’s Resort Southern CA Valley Center CA
Feb 18: YouTube Theater Los Angeles, CA
Feb 19: Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, NV
Feb 22: Delta Hall Eccles Theater Salt Lake City, UT
Feb 23: Paramount Theatre Denver, CO
Feb 25: Arvest Bank Theatre The Midland Kansas City, MO
Feb 26: Mystic Lake Casino Mystic Showroom Prior Lake, MN
Feb 28: Riverside Theater Milwaukee, WI
Mar 02: Riviera Theatre Chicago, IL
Mar 04: The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor, CAN
Mar 05: The Vine at Del Lago Waterloo, NY
Mar 07: House of Blues Boston, MA
Mar 09: The Fillmore Silver Springs, MD
Mar 11: Tropicana Atlantic City, NJ
Mar 12: Beacon Theatre New York, NY
Mar 14: Dominion Energy Center Richmond, VA
Mar 16: Grand Ole Opry Nashville, TN
Mar 18: Coca Cola Roxy Atlanta, GA
Mar 19: Durham Performing Arts Center Durham, NC
Mar 21: The Fillmore Charlotte, NC
Mar 23: North Charleston Performing Arts Center, SC
Mar 25: Ruth Eckerd Hall Clearwater, FL
Mar 26: Hard Rock Live Orlando, FL
