Slash: The Autobiography - Anthony Bozza

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I had no right to be indignant but I was anyway. “What do you mean? I’m here all the time, man.”

      “Yeah, I don’t give a shit,” he said. “Get out of here, you’re not coming in tonight.”

      I was so fucking pissed off. I had nowhere else to go, so I followed Steady’s orders and went home. I drowned my embarrassment in alcohol, and once I was good and drunk, I came up with the crazy idea to return to the Rainbow dressed as a girl. It made complete sense in that special way that drunken plans do: I’d show Steady—I’d get in the club for free thanks to ladies’ night, and then I’d fuck with Steven. Adler hit on every girl in sight, so I was sure that he’d hit on me long before he realized who I was.

      My mom thought my plan was hilarious: she outfitted me with a skirt and fishnets, piled my hair up under a black beret, and did my makeup. I couldn’t wear her shoes, but the outfit worked—I looked like a chick …no—

      I looked like a Rainbow chick. I drove back up to West Hollywood in my outfit; I parked a few blocks away on Doheny and walked to the club. I was both drunk and on a mission, so my inhibitions were nonexistent. I sauntered up to Steady and nearly laughed in his face when he waved me in with no pause for ID.

      I was on top of the world; I had won—until I realized that Steven was nowhere to be found. It was like reaching the end of the roller coaster before the car had even gone over the first hill. The reality of the situation hit me square in the face: I was dressed as a girl, in the middle of the Rainbow. Once I saw the light, I did the only sensible thing—I left. On the long walk back to my mom’s car, I thought that every shout was directed at me, I thought every laugh was at my expense; I thought to myself just how hard it must be to be a girl.

      STEVEN’S GIRLFRIEND RAN INTO TOMMY Lee out on the town one night and Tommy invited her down to Cherokee Studios to hang out and watch Mötley record Theatre of Pain, the follow-up to their breakthrough album, Shout at the Devil. Steve’s girl thought nothing of inviting Yvonne, Steven, and me; I guess she figured that Tommy’s invitation included a “plus three.” Steven and I should have known better. The four of us headed down there, all ready to hang out and watch the proceedings; when we arrived, we were informed, in no uncertain terms, that the girls could go inside—which they did—but Steven and I could not. It was suggested that we go home. We were fuming: we watched our girlfriends head into the studio, and spent the night in the two lounge chairs in the lobby trying to be cool while we discussed what they might be doing in there. It was not a good scene.

      I’m not sure how, but somehow that experience didn’t scar me enough to desert the notion of getting a job at Cherokee. I had been pestering the studio’s day manager to hire me for an entire year. I’d stop by daily, like clockwork, during my lunch break at Hollywood Music across the street. I continued to do so, business as usual, but a few weeks later he finally gave in and offered me a job. In my mind, it was a milestone; I was now just one step away from becoming a professional musician. I was very wrong, but my plan was that once I worked in a studio, I would make connections because I would meet musicians and producers every single day. In my mind, a studio was the place to meet other players who took it seriously and by working there at the very least I’d get free recording time once I got a band together. With that kind of bullshit in my head, I quit Hollywood Music feeling like I’d just won the lottery.

      I was hired at Cherokee to be a gofer to the engineers, no more no less. I didn’t care; I showed up to my first day, ready to run errands, take out the trash, whatever, whenever. Or so I thought: I visibly wilted when I discovered that my job for the week was to fetch whatever Mötley Crüe might need, day or night. Just over a week before, these same guys had refused to let me into the studio and might have had my girlfriend (I believed her when she said nothing happened, but still…), and now I would have to spend the next few weeks as their errand boy. Great…

      The studio manager gave me one hundred bucks to fill Mötley’s first order, which I was sure was just the first of many: a magnum of Jack Daniel’s, a magnum of vodka, a few bags of chips, and a couple of cartons of cigarettes. I looked down at the money as I walked outside into the sunlight, debating the pros and cons of swallowing my pride. It was a really nice day. I stopped when I got to the liquor store to think about this for a minute.

      I squinted up at the sky; I stared at the sidewalk, and then I started walking again—toward home. That was all she wrote for Cherokee and me: considering how many hours I’ve spent in professional recording facilities over the years since, it’s almost ridiculous that I’ve never again set foot in Cherokee Studios. At this point I have no intention of doing so—I owe those guys a hundred bucks. The one day I did spend there taught me an invaluable lesson, however: I needed to pave my own way into the music business. It didn’t matter that any idiot could fulfill the duties of fetching for Mötley Crüe, or anyone else for that matter—that job was something that I refused to do on principle. I’m glad that I did; it made it that much easier when Mötley hired us to open for them a few years later.

      SO I’D DITCHED HOLLYWOOD MUSIC, thinking that my studio job would be the last day job I’d ever have before I made it. Hardly. Things weren’t looking too good for me at that point: I hadn’t graduated high school, I wasn’t going to college, and as far as I knew, I’d walked out on the only job that might have helped me on my way.

      I was unemployed and undirected there for a while, which was a perfect moment for my mom to get me into school again—any school. God bless her perpetual commitment to getting me educated. This time she did the only thing that made sense—she knew that I loved music, so she enrolled me in some weird vocational music school.

      I’m very disappointed in myself that I can’t remember the name of this place, though I do remember how unfocused our teachers were. I’m now pretty sure that my mom found out about this place via a flyer at the Laundromat. In any case, I enrolled, I showed up, and within weeks my teachers had me out in the field laying cables and putting filters (“gels” they’re called) over lights at various live venues. This place educated its students in the arts of sound and light engineering for live performance in a very hands-on fashion. There were about six of us in my class and almost immediately we were assisting techs on-site at venues like the Country Club, the FM Station, and various others in L.A. Actually it was a total sham: the school was clearly funded or run by the production company that put on these shows, so we, the students, were not only working for them for free, they had also taken our tuition money. Shady as it was, I did learn to run light and sound for live concerts. I enjoyed it, too, until the night I did the light show for a group of Duran Duran wannabes called Bang Bang. I realized two things as I watched their set: 1) it wasn’t possible for a music performance to be more ridiculous, and 2) this sound-and-light gig was taking me nowhere fast.

      I WAS DESPERATE TO BE IN A BAND; SO I combed the ads in The Recycler—L.A.’s free musicians’ paper—every week, looking for an invitation to something that appealed to me. For the most part it was futile: the ads were nothing but shredders seeking shredders. But one week, I saw an ad that intrigued me: it was a singer and guitarist looking for a fellow guitarist in the vein of Aerosmith and Hanoi Rocks. And more important, it expressly stated that “no beards or mustaches” need apply.

      I called the number in the ad and made arrangements to meet them at this guesthouse that they were renting on some street up in Laurel Canyon. I showed up there with a girl that I was dating and recognized Izzy immediately from the day he came into the music store with my Aerosmith drawing. I then realized that the other guy must be that high-pitched singer I’d heard on the tape. I thought, Cool, this might actually go somewhere. Their little shack was more like a closet: there was room enough for a bed, with space to sit on the floor in front of it, and room enough for a TV—which was the only source of light in there.

      I talked to Izzy for a while, but Axl never got off the phone, though he nodded his head in acknowledgment when I came into the room. At the time I thought it was rude, but now that I know him I understand that wasn’t the case. When Axl gets into a conversation, there’s no stopping him. In Guns, we used to call it a Twain Wreck: when Axl started telling a story, he was as long-winded as Mark Twain. That first meeting, though, was pretty

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