Okay, let's try a little experiment. I like experiments.
I want you to close your eyes. Picture a rock
star. Not a specific person, just the concept
of a rock star. Okay, got it. Now, strip away
the face, strip away the name, just look at the
outline, the silhouette. What do you see? Okay,
well, if you're doing this right, you're probably
seeing a mass of unruly, gravity -defying black
curls. Uh -huh. You're seeing a top hat, which
is, I mean... Let's be honest, a ridiculous accessory
for the 20th century perched precariously on
that hair. Right. Maybe some aviator sunglasses
and almost certainly a low slung Les Paul guitar
hanging somewhere, you know, around the knees.
Exactly. You see that silhouette and you don't
need a label. You don't need a caption. You know
immediately that it's Slash. Instantly. But here's
my problem with that image. And it's really the
reason I wanted to do this deep dive today. OK.
We treat that silhouette like a mascot. A mascot.
In what sense? In the sense that he feels like
a cartoon character. Like he just manifested
out of thin air on the Sunset Strip in 1985,
drank a gallon of Jack Daniels, played some cool
riffs, and passed out. Caricature. He's the party
animal caricature, but... When I was going through
the stack of research you sent over, the biography
excerpts, the technical breakdowns of his gear,
the touring schedules, that caricature just completely
falls apart for me. Oh, it's not just wrong.
I would argue it's the exact opposite of the
truth. How so? If you actually look at the data
and we have... A lot of it. The party animal
narrative is the cover story. The real story
is about obsessive, almost maniacal discipline.
That is the aha moment I want to chase today.
Because we're talking about a guy who Time Magazine
ranked as the runner up to Jimi Hendrix for best
electric guitar player. Which is just, I mean,
that's rarefied air. We're talking about a Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. And as we sit
here in February 2026, we are talking about a
guy who is currently in the middle of a massive
renaissance. It is a renaissance. Absolutely.
But to understand why he is still relevant in
2026, you have to understand that he isn't just
an American rock star. Right. In fact, he isn't
really an American rock star at all. He's a mixed
race kid from the English Midlands who was dropped
into Hollywood royalty. And that distinction,
that specific weird origin story seems to change
everything about how we should hear his music.
It really does. So our mission today is pretty
clear. We're going to dismantle the cartoon.
We're going to find Saul Hudson, the man under
the hat. Let's do it. I'm ready. I want to start
with the geography because this was the first
thing that really threw me. I think most people,
myself included, associate Slash entirely with
Los Angeles. The whiskey, a go -go, the troubadour,
the grime and hairspray of the 1980s strips.
For sure, that's the brand. But his story starts
5 ,000 miles away. It does. It starts in Hampstead,
London in 1965. But he didn't just spend a few
months there. He was raised in Stoke -on -Trent
until he was six years old. Stoke -on -Trent.
Now, for our listeners who aren't familiar with
English geography, paint that picture. We are
not talking about swinging London here. No, we
are not. Not even close. Stoke -on -Trent is
known as the Potteries. Okay. It's the industrial
heart of England. In the late 60s and early 70s,
this was a place of brick kilns, smoke, gray
skies, and hard blue -collar work. So gritty.
Very gritty. It's about as far removed from the
neon glam of Hollywood as you can possibly get.
It sounds bleak, honestly. It was grounded. And
I think that duality is crucial. His father...
Anthony Hudson was a white English artist who
designed album covers. Right. His mother, Ola
Hudson, was an African -American costume designer.
So right from the jump, Slash, or Saul at this
point, is navigating two completely different
worlds. He's navigating the racial divide of
the late 60s. He's navigating the cultural divide
between industrial England and, well, America.
He actually has a great quote about this in the
biography notes. He said, I've always been amused
that I'm both British and black. And that's a
fascinating perspective, especially when you
look at the history of rock music. How do you
know? Think about the 1960s and 70s. You had
white American musicians trying desperately to
be part of the British invasion, mimicking the
Beatles or the Kinks. Right, trying to sound
British. And simultaneously, you had British
musicians, Clapton, the Stones, Led Zeppelin,
trying to emulate... Black American blues players.
Everybody was trying to be what they weren't.
Exactly. But Slash, he didn't have to pose. He
literally had the DNA of both worlds. He was
the British influence and the American blues
heritage wrapped up in one person. He didn't
have to try to be authentic. He just was. So
you have this kid living in Stoke, and then around
age six, everything changes. Big change. He moves
to Los Angeles with his dad to join his mom.
And this is where the story gets cinematic. Because
his parents weren't just regular people working
nine -to -fives. Far from it. His mother, Ola,
was a powerhouse. She was designing costumes
for some of the biggest names in the world. Like
who? Rego Starr, John Lennon. And most famously,
she dated David Bowie for a while. Okay, stop.
We need to process that. Right. Imagine being
a seven -year -old kid, you're playing with your
toy trucks or whatever, and you walk into the
living room and Ziggy Stardust is sitting on
your couch trying on pants. It sounds like fiction.
Yeah. But that was his reality. That's insane.
Slash has talked about this. He said he would
just be hanging out and these titans of industry
were everywhere. Yeah. But here are the key psychological
insights. Okay. Because he saw them in his living
room, in their underwear or, you know. Eating
breakfast. Yeah. He never idolized them. He saw
the human side before he saw the rock god side.
Precisely. Yeah. Most kids who start bands are
chasing the fantasy. They want to get to the
party. Right. Slash was born at the party. He
didn't view rock stars as deities. He viewed
them as the people who drank his dad's beer.
And that kind of inoculated him against being
starstruck later on. Totally. When Guns N' Roses
blew up, he didn't freak out because fame was
just... Normal to him. It was the family business,
in a way. That explains so much about his demeanor.
He always seems so unbothered. He's seen it all
before. Now, before we get into the music, we
have to address the name. Slash. Yes. It sounds
aggressive. It sounds like a name you choose
because you want to sound like a villain in a
horror movie. Or a wrestling heel. But, again,
this goes back to debunking the myth. It wasn't
a branding choice. Not at all. He didn't sit
down with the marketing team and say, what sounds
dangerous? The name was given to him by the actor
Seymour Cassell. The guy from the John Cassavetes
movies. The very same. Slash was friends with
Cassell's son. Okay. And Seymour watched this
kid running around the house, never stopping,
always moving from one room to another, totally
hyperactive. Right. And he started calling him
Slash. Not because he was violent. but because
he was a slash of motion. He was always in a
hurry, zipping around. I love that. It's basically
a description of ADHD, not a threat of violence.
It really is. It was a descriptor of his energy,
not his temper. And that energy is what he eventually
channeled into the guitar. So let's talk about
that moment, the awakening. Because usually when
you hear about virtuosos, they start playing
violin at age three. Not him. Slash didn't pick
up a guitar until he was, what, 14? 14, which
is actually quite late for someone who reaches
his level. And the catalyst wasn't a desire to
be an artist. Oh, no. It was the quintessential
teenage boy motivation. Let me guess. A girl.
A girl. Of course. It's roughly 1979. He has
a crush on an older girl, a tale as old as time.
He finally manages to get invited over to her
house. He has a plan. He's going to make his
move. To set the mood, she puts on a record.
And the record is? Aerosmith. The album is rocks.
Oh, no. I see where this is going. The romance
is doomed. Completely doomed. The moment that
music started, specifically the grit and the
groove of Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, the girl
ceased to exist for him. Wow. He said it hit
him like a ton of bricks. He ignored her. He
sat there listening to the album over and over,
analyzing what he was hearing, and then he just
rode his bike home. He ghosted her while he was
still in the room. He did. He said, I identified
with something. It was the sound of his own internal
monologue. So that was it? That was it. The romance
was dead, but the guitarist was born. But even
then, he didn't go straight to the sixth string,
right? There is this hilarious mix -up with Steven
Adler, who would later be the drummer for Guns
N' Roses. This is one of those sliding doors
moments in history. Yeah. If this conversation
had gone differently, rock history would be unrecognizable.
No kidding. Slash and Steven Adler were childhood
friends. They decided, hey, let's start a band.
Adler, who at this point didn't play an instrument
either, immediately declared, I'm the lead guitarist.
Called it first, like calling shotgun. Exactly.
He called shotgun on the guitar. So Slash, being
the agreeable friend, and he's generally a very
chill guy, said, OK, well, I guess I'll play
bass. So we almost had Slash the bass player.
That's a wild thought. We were very close. He
goes to a local music school, the Fairfax Music
School, to take a bass lesson. But the teacher,
a guy named Robert Wolin, starts playing guitar
to demonstrate something. He plays Brown Sugar
by the Rolling Stones and some cream riffs. And
Slash is watching this probably thinking, wait,
the bass doesn't do that. He's thinking, that
is the voice I hear in my head. He realized immediately
that the lead guitar was what he wanted. He quit
bass lessons before he even really started, switched
to guitar, and that was the end of his social
life. And this brings us back to that workaholic
theme we touched on earlier. It does. Because
the image is that he just partied. But you don't
get that good by partying. No, you get that good
by obsession. We're talking about 12 hours a
day. 12 hours? Every day. He dropped out of the
social scene. He stopped racing BMX bikes, which
he was actually a champion at. I didn't know
that. Yeah. He would sit in his room, play until
his fingers bled, tape them up, and play more.
He was trying to figure out Jeff Beck's solos
note for note. He treated practice like a full
-time job before he ever made a dime. It's the
10 ,000 hours rule, crammed into about three
years. Pretty much. And that work ethic is what
he brought to the table when Guns N' Roses finally
formed in 1985. This is mythological territory
now, the most dangerous band in the world. They
earned that title. And the chemistry was instant.
You had the merging of L .A. Guns and Hollywood
Rose. Right. In May 1985, the classic lineup
solidified. Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Izzy
Stradlin, and Steven Adler. Now we have to talk
about the look, because this is where the silhouette
comes from, the top hat. I assumed for years
that this was a stylist's decision. Or maybe
he saw it in a movie. It was pure accident. And
a crime. A crime. It was 1985. They were playing
the Whiskey A Go -Go or one of those clubs. And
Slash didn't feel like he had a look. He was
just a guy in jeans. He walked into a store called
Retail Slut on Melrose Avenue. Retail Slut. Very
80s. Very 80s. He saw a top hat in the window.
He liked it. But he was broke. So he just took
it. He shoplifted the most famous hat in history.
He put it on his head and walked out. Then he
went to the store next door, a place called Leathers
and Treasures, and shoplifted a Native American
-style concho belt. Doubling down. He got back
to the apartment, realized the hat was a little
plain, cut the belt up, wrapped it around the
hat, and boom! The icon was born. That sums up
the band perfectly, doesn't it? Spontaneous,
illegal, but undeniably stylish. It's cobbling
together brilliance from whatever was lying around.
And that is exactly what they did with Appetite
for Destruction in 1987. Let's talk about that
album, because the stats are staggering. 18 million
copies in the U .S. alone, best -selling debut
of all time. It's insane. But I want to know
why. Why did that album hit so hard in 1987?
Context is everything. In 1987, turn on the radio.
What do you hear? You hear Poison. You hear Motley
Crue. You hear what we call hair metal. Spandex,
Aquanet, songs about partying. And sonically,
it was very processed. The guitars were thin
and buzzy. The drums were gated reverb. It was
cop music disguised as metal. Right. Then appetite
drops. And it sounds dirty. It sounds dangerous.
It sounds like a street fight. Slash's guitar
playing wasn't trying to be Eddie Van Halen.
He wasn't tapping. He wasn't using a whammy bar.
He was playing. blues licks but playing them
with this ferocious aggression he was channeling
joe perry and jimmy page there is a raw quality
to it and i saw that total guitar ranked the
sweet child of mine riff as the number one greatest
riff of all time which is hilarious because slash
hated that song really Why? He despised it. He
was sitting in a jam session, just goofing around.
He started playing that circus melody, doodly
-de -doodly -doo, as a string -skipping exercise.
Still just warming up. He was basically practicing
scales. He thought it was a joke. Axl heard it
from the other room and said, that's it. That's
the song. Wow. Slash tried to sabotage it by
putting that heavy, slow breakdown in the middle,
but it just made the song better. It's always
the stuff you throw away that ends up being the
gold. Always. But OK, Appetite is huge. They
had the biggest band on Earth. Use Your Illusion
comes out in 1991, two albums debuting at number
one and two. But the wheels are coming off. The
wheels were barely attached to begin with. It
was the classic too much too soon. And we have
to be honest about the substance abuse. It was
rampant. You have the song Mr. Brownstone, which
is literally an ode to heroin addiction. Right.
In 1989, opening for the Rolling Stones, Axl
famously threatened to quit on stage if certain
members didn't stop dancing with Mr. Brownstone.
Calling out your own bandmates in front of 80
,000 people, that is a hostile work environment.
It was toxic. Steven Adler was fired in 1990
because he physically couldn't play anymore due
to addiction. Wow. Izzy Stradlin, who was really
the calm center of the band, left because...
he got sober and couldn't be around the chaos.
Slash hung on until 1996. Why did he finally
leave? I feel like the standard PR answer is
always creative differences, but digging into
the biography, it seemed much more personal.
It was. It was about respect and control. Yeah.
In his autobiography, Slash paints a picture
of Axl Rose trying to turn the band into a dictatorship.
How so? Axl wanted ownership of the name. He
wanted to downgrade Slash and Duff to hired hands.
The employee status. Exactly. And on top of that,
Axl was notoriously late. We're not talking 10
minutes. We're talking going on stage two, three
hours late. That's unprofessional. Riots were
breaking out. Slash is a professional. Remember
the discipline. He wanted to play. Sitting backstage
for three hours wondering if the singer is going
to show up. It broke him. He essentially said,
I'm done. That opens up the wilderness years.
Although calling it a wilderness is misleading
because he never stopped working. He is constitutionally
incapable of stopping. Right. He formed Slash's
Snake Pit immediately. Actually, Snake Pit started
before he left GNR. He had written a bunch of
riffs for the next Guns album. Axl rejected them,
so Slash said, fine, I'll record them myself.
That became, it's 5 o 'clock somewhere? Which
is a solid rock record. It defied the grunge
trends of the mid -90s. It did. It's very bluesy.
But the real second act came with Velvet Revolver.
This was the supergroup concept. You take the
core of GNR slash Duff, Matt Sorum, and you add
a new singer. But supergroups usually fail. They're
usually ego fests that implode after one album.
And this one almost didn't happen. The search
for a singer was excruciating. They documented
it on VH1. They listened to hundreds of tapes.
It was monotonous. I can imagine. But they needed
someone who had the charisma to stand next to
Slash. Which is a tall order. It is. Eventually
they landed on Scott Weiland from Stone Temple
Pilots. Talk about doubling down on chaos. You
take the guys from the most dangerous band in
the world and add the singer from one of the
most troubled bands in grunge. It was a powder
keg. Yeah. But the explosion was beautiful. Their
debut album, Contraband, went straight to number
one in 2004. They won a Grammy for Slither. I
want to pause on Slither for a second. Because
that riff, it doesn't sound like Guns N' Roses.
It sounds darker. It's tuned down to drop D.
It's sludgy. It showed that Slash wasn't just
a nostalgia act. He wasn't just rewriting Welcome
to the Jungle. He could write modern, heavy,
alternative rock. It proved his relevance to
a whole new generation. But as with all things
involving volatile personalities, it didn't last.
No. Weiland had his own demons. By 2008, after
some very awkward onstage meltdowns where Weiland
would announce the tour was over to the crowd
while the band was still playing, they split.
Oof. Slash cited chemical issues. So he's bandless
again. And this leads to what I think is the
most interesting phase of his career, the solo
renaissance. I agree. Because around 2010, he
seems to change his strategy entirely. He stopped
trying to replace Axl or Scott. He stopped looking
for a front man to fight with. He released his
self -titled solo album in 2010, and it was billed
as Slash and Friends. That album is a who's who.
You have Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, Adam Levine,
Lemmy, Dave Grohl. It was cathartic. He just
called up everyone he respected and said, let's
make a song. But the most important phone call
was to a guy named Miles Kennedy. From the band
Alter Bridge? Right. Miles sang two tracks on
that record. Yeah. And something clicked. Miles
Kennedy is, how do I put this? He is the anti
-axle. In what way? He is a choir boy in a rock
star's body. He has a four octave range. He can
sing anything, but he is humble. He is professional
and he is sober. So no drama. No drama. Yeah.
No arrests. Just incredible execution. And that
evolved into Slash featuring Miles Kennedy and
the Conspirators or SMKC. Terrible acronym. Great
band. And unlike Snake Pit or Velvet Revolver,
this lineup has stuck. That's a key point. They've
released four albums together. Apocalyptic Love,
World on Fire, Live in the Dream. and four and
four was a big deal for another reason right
it was the first release on gibson's own record
label yes in 2022 gibson the guitar company launched
a record label and naturally their first signing
was slash of course it solidified his status
not just as an artist but as the global ambassador
for the electric guitar okay i have to push back
on this workaholic label you used earlier you
called him the employee of the month of rock
i did But we're talking about a guy who famously
died for eight minutes from an overdose in the
90s. You can't tell me he was a disciplined worker
when he was nodding out in hotel rooms. That
is a fair challenge. And I'm not saying he wasn't
chaotic in his personal life during the addiction
years. But look at the output. Even during the
peak snake pit days or the end of GNR, who was
the one showing up to rehearsals. I assumed none
of them were. Axta certainly wasn't. But Slash
notes that he would get high, yes, but then he
would sit in his room and play. The guitar was
the constant. And fast forward to the modern
era, post -2010. Look at his schedule. It is
actually insane. I'm looking at the tour dates
here. He tours with Miles Kennedy for 18 months.
The day that tour ends, he flies to meet Guns
N' Roses. He hates silence. He has this restless
energy. He just channels it into the fretboard
now instead of substances. He punches the flock.
He is a blue collar worker in a cop hat. Which
brings us to the impossible moment. The not in
this lifetime tour. 2016. Yeah. For two decades,
Axl and Slash didn't speak. Right. Axl had famously
said a reunion would happen not in this lifetime.
Hence the tour name. But they patched it up.
After all that bad blood. Slash says it was mostly
third party stuff that kept them apart. Managers,
agents, lawyers whispering in ears. Ah, the middlemen.
Once they actually got in a room, face to face,
the animosity faded. And, well, we have to talk
about the economics. The GDP of a small country.
The tour grossed $584 million. Wow. That is half
a billion dollars. It was the third highest grossing
tour of all time at that point. Noni is a great
healer. It is a fantastic lubricant for friendship.
But to their credit, the reviews were stellar.
They sounded tight. Yeah, they did. And that
brings us right up to the present. We're in early
2026 now. GNR has been releasing new tracks,
perhaps The General? Absurd. And even just a
couple of months ago, in late 2025, Slash was
doing another supergroup thing, The Dirty Bats.
Yes, December 2025. Slash, Duff McKagan, producer
Andrew Watt, and Chad Smith from Chili Peppers.
They did a one -off show with Bruno Mars and
Eddie Vedder. Wild lineup. Just shows that Slash
is the ultimate connector. He can play with anyone.
I want to shift gears now, pun intended, to the
equipment. Let's do it. Because for the nerds
listening, this is the Holy Grail. But I want
to warn you. Let's not just list model numbers.
I want to understand how the gear makes the sound.
Deal. That's the important part. Let's start
with the guitar. Slash is the face of Gibson.
But there is a twist to this story that I absolutely
love. The guitar that recorded Appetite. It wasn't
a Gibson. This is the great irony. In 1986, Slash
was frustrated. He couldn't get the sound he
wanted. He had sold his guitars to buy drugs.
Right. He was playing whatever he could find.
The band's manager, Alan Niven, saw that they
were about to record this massive album, and
Slash didn't have a good instrument. Okay. So
Niven went to a luthier guitar builder named
Chris Derrig. Chris Derrick wasn't a Gibson employee.
No, he was a guy building high -end replicas
in the back of a music store. He built a copy
of a 1959 Les Paul Standard. Oh. Slash picked
it up and it just sang. He used that copy to
record Appetite. So the sound that saved Gibson,
because let's be honest, Slash made Les Pauls
cool again, was created on a fake. A forgery.
A really, really good forgery. But here's the
technical secret. Lay it on me. Why did it sound
so good? It comes down to the pickups. Explain
that to me like I'm five. Okay. Pickups are the
magnets on the guitar that catch the vibration
of the strings and turn it into electricity.
Got it. In the 80s, everyone was using ceramic
pickups. They are high output, very harsh, very
loud. They scream. Perfect for hair metal. Exactly.
The Dare guitar had Seymour Duncan Elnico II
pickups. These use a different type of magnet.
They are weaker. Weaker is better. In this case,
yes. They are vintage style, they are softer,
warmer, and they let the wood of the guitar resonate
more. So while everyone else was trying to be
louder and harcher, Slash went softer and warmer.
Precisely. It sounds like a human voice. It sounds
like a violin that's angry. An angry violin.
That is the perfect description of his tone.
It really is. Now you plug that guitar into an
amp, and this story is even better. This is the
SIR heist. Oh, this is legendary. So Slash rents
a Marshall amp from a rental company called SIR
for the recording sessions. Okay. But this wasn't
a stock amp. It was SIR stock, hashtag 39. What
made hashtag 39 special? It had been modified
by a tech named Tim Caswell. Imagine a car engine.
Most amps have one turbocharger. Caswell took
the output of the first turbo and fed it into
a second turbo before it hit the engine. It created
this incredible saturated distortion that was
still smooth. It had extra gain stages. Exactly.
Slash plugged in. hit an A chord, and the sound
of God came out. He loved it so much that he
decided, I am never returning this. He stole
the rental amp? He told the rental company it
had been stolen. He kept it. He hid it. You're
kidding me. But karma is real. A few months later,
during rehearsals for a tour, a roadie, who didn't
know the backstory, accidentally took that specific
amp back to SIR for repair. Oh no! The guys at
the store recognized it immediately. Hey, this
is a hashtag 39. They took it back. So he lost
it. He lost the magic amp. He spent the next
10 years trying to recreate that sound, but he
could never quite get it back. That is tragic
and hilarious. It's the one that got away. Now,
we have talked about the music and the gear,
but we have to talk about the man's survival.
Because frankly, looking at the medical charts,
he shouldn't be here. No, statistically, he is
an anomaly. The drug and alcohol abuse was extreme.
We were talking about half a gallon of vodka
a day plus heroin. Good Lord. In 2001, at age
35, he collapsed. What was the diagnosis? Cardiomyopathy.
Basically, congestive heart failure. His heart
was so swollen and weak from the abuse that it
couldn't pump blood effectively. That is an old
man's disease. It is. The doctors gave him six
days to six weeks to live. Six days. He had a
defibrillator implanted in his chest, which he
still has. He went through intense physical therapy,
and remarkably, he survived. He got clean and
sober in 2006. He credits his ex -wife Perla
for helping him through that, but it was a massive
wake -up call. It's interesting because when
you see him now, he looks healthy, he's fit,
he's running around stadiums for three hours
a night. He replaced the chemical obsession with
other obsessions. He became a dinosaur and reptile
nerd. He was a board trustee of the L .A. Zoo.
He had a massive collection of snakes in his
house. Pythons, boas. But, and this shows his
growth. When his first son was born in 2002,
he gave them all away. Why? He realized it wasn't
safe to have giant constrictors around a baby.
That's a responsible parent move. He prioritized
fatherhood over his hobby. That is a mature decision
that the 1987 Slash would not have made. For
sure. And his other ventures are just pure geek
culture. I was reading about his production company.
Slasher films? He loves horror movies, so he
started producing them. Right. He's obsessed
with pinball. So he designs machines for Jersey
Jack and Data East. He even wrote a theme song
for Angry Birds. He has an Angry Birds avatar.
He does. It's a bird with a top hat and a guitar.
That is delightful. It really paints a picture
of someone who just loves what he loves unapologetically,
whether it's blues riffs, horror movies, or mobile
games. And that's the key to his longevity. He
isn't posing. He really is just a guy who loves
to play. So as we wrap up this deep dive. Where
does Slash stand in the Pantheon? We know the
Stats Hall of Fame, millions of albums, but what
is the legacy? I think his legacy is that he's
the ultimate survivor and the ultimate bridge.
A bridge between what? He bridged the gap between
the British blues of the 60s and the American
aggression of the 80s. He bridged black and white
culture in his own DNA. He bridged the underground
club scene and the massive stadium rock world.
And he bridged the gap between technical virtuoso
and soulful player. That's the most important
one. Think about the guitar heroes of the 80s.
Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, incredible players.
But can you hum their solos? Not really. It's
a lot of notes. Exactly. But you can hum every
note of the November Rain solo. Guitar World
ranked it the number six greatest solo ever.
Listen to how he holds the notes. It's not about
how fast he can play. It's about the emotion
he wrings out of that Les Paul. He makes the
guitar sing. He does. And the fact that he's
doing it in 2026, selling out stadiums, clean,
sober, and still wearing that top hat, that is
a victory. It absolutely is. So here is our challenge
to you, the listener. Don't just listen to Sweet
Child O' Mine for the millionth time. Please
don't. Go find the isolated guitar track for
November Rain, put on headphones, close your
eyes, and really listen to the nuance behind
the distortion. You might just hear the soul
of the man under the hat. It's worth the time.
Thanks for diving deep with us. We will catch
you on the next one. Keep listening.