Owing to his vaunted status as the person on the Guitar Hero III box, Velvet Revolver and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has been drafted by American Idol producers to mentor the surviving four contestants on tonight’s episode (“Rock Night,†ostensibly). As far as we know, Saul Hudson’s never been much of a singer (we think he might’ve wheezed his way through a track or two on The Spaghetti Incident?, but that’s it). So what wisdom will he impart to a bunch of aspiring pop vocalists? We opened his 2007 autobiography, Slash, to random pages for clues.
To photogenic finalist Kris Allen:
“I pounded as much Jack as I could stomach, then I tore the bus apart searching in vain for my sunglasses. I checked myself in the mirror, took a few deep breaths, and headed outside as nonchalantly as possible. I strolled over to Joe trying not to twitch, hoping that my smile looked more relaxed than it felt. Coke makes you paranoid and this particular batch was some speedy, New Jersey, stepped-on Sopranos coke so it was hard to hide the effects… Every time I see the resulting picture of us, I have to laugh because anyone who knows me at all knows I never smile like that or ever hold myself quite so stiffly. Somehow I managed to keep my jaw in line, but it wanted to swing like a barn door in the wind.â€
To phlegmy-voiced, stage-presence-deficient Danny Gokey:
“The audience was full-on punk and still bloodthirsty after just having seen Social Distortion. We got up there and ripped into our set, and within the first thirty seconds, the show became a spitting contest between us and the first five rows: their fans fucking spit on us, so we just spit on them back. It was hilarious and memorably sickening … We ended up with green phlegm all over us, and considering that it was warm out, not only was I shirtless, but the heat cooked the spit and made it start to smell pretty bad. It didn’t matter, I was impenetrable: in the moment, the energy of it all took over.â€
To 17-year-old contestant Allison Iraheta, who will probably be voted off this week or next, on the importance of completing high school:
“After my incomplete stint at high school, I lived with my mother and grandmother in a house on Melrose and Cienega in a small basement room off the garage. If need be, I could slip out of the street-level window undetected at any time of day or night. I had my snakes and my cats down there. It was perfect for me.â€
To drama queen and presumed front-runner Adam Lambert:
“I mentioned in the least confrontational way, that [Axl] should probably apologize to [my grandmother] for telling her to fuck off. I hadn’t known Axl that long, but I already knew him well enough to understand that he was a sensitive, introspective person who endured serious mood swings, so I chose my words carefully and presented the issue in a very nonjudgmental, objective tone … We were driving on Santa Monica Boulevard, doing about forty miles an hour, when suddenly, he opened the car door and jumped out without a word … Axl is a dramatic kind of individual … He got a reputation for being volatile and flying off the handle. I’d been out with him several nights where we got into these major fucking fights with total strangers for no reason at all … It was a hell of a lot of fun.â€