In 1981 Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry sold his sunburst-finish 1958 Gibson Les Paul to scrounge up some money for Christmas. That's not the only high-profile guitar Slash has given away, though. What made Slash return the guitar that he'd pinched in an apparently perfect crime? He told reporters, 'I thought what better way to honor the Hard Rock for honoring me than to give it back, sort of.' At least he eventually did the right thing. So I've had it all these years and been playing it.' I mean, it was in the dressing room and no one claimed it. I didn't know what it was doing there, so I took it. As he told the story, 'It was in the dressing room. Slash returned a guitar that he'd swiped years earlier from the dressing room of the Hard Rock in Orlando. When Slash showed up for a 2007 ceremony honoring his career at Las Vegas' Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, he had a surprising gift for his hosts. Here's a video of the man himself telling the story: Ironically, when Slash's hat was stolen during a round of Grammys after-parties a few years ago, he had to rely on the police to regain the purloined lid. And just like that, his trademark look was born. When he got home he realized the hat looked a little plain, so he wrapped it with a belt he'd swiped on the same outing. Since a top hat can't exactly be hidden under your shirt, Slash simply grabbed the hat and walked out, apparently unseen. Since the aspiring guitar god was broke at the time, the line between 'shopping' and 'shoplifting' was pretty blurred.Īccording to Slash, he spotted the top hat in a store called Retail Slut and fell in love. In 2007 Slash told the Huffington Post that he acquired his signature top hat in 1985 when he went shopping for a memorable accessory to wear for a show in Los Angeles. The actor gently ribbed Hudson's constant motion by asking, ''Hey, Slash, where ya going? Where ya going, Slash? Huh?' The nickname stuck. (Cassel played Max Fischer's dad in Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaum's fellow elevator operator in The Royal Tenenbaums.) When Slash was growing up in Los Angeles, though, Cassel was just his buddy Matt's dad.Įven as a teenager, Saul Hudson had a lot of frenetic energy, and one day he was zipping from one room to another at a party at the Cassels' house. Film buffs know the veteran character actor Seymour Cassel as a frequent player in movies directed by John Cassavetes and Wes Anderson.

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