Each week, SPIN digs into the catalog of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.
Saul “Slash” Hudson, the iconic Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist who’s rarely seen without his signature top hat and shades, will turn 60 on July 23. In addition to his flashy, melodic guitar solos, Slash was instrumental in writing some of the 1987 songs that launched the band to superstardom, “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” as well as Appetite for Destruction’s infamous closing track “Rocket Queen.”
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Slash first played with Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler in a band called Road Crew in 1984 when he came up with the beginnings of “Rocket Queen.”
Once the classic GNR lineup came together in 1985, Rose wrote lyrics to Slash’s riff about a woman he knew, Barbi Von Greif, who planned to start a band called Rocket Queen. But it was another young lady who helped make “Rocket Queen” integral to the band’s debauched reputation. Adriana Smith, a stripper who’d been dating Adler, was hanging out with the band in the studio when Rose wanted to add some suggestive sound effects to the song’s bridge. Legend has it that the moans of passion on “Rocket Queen” are the unsimulated sound of Rose and Smith going at it in a vocal booth.
In 2018, the band released Appetite for Destruction: Locked N’ Loaded, a deluxe reissue that included the band’s first attempts at recording most of the album’s songs at Sound City Studios in 1986. The Sound City version of “Rocket Queen” is pretty close to the final song, sex sounds aside, although the band hadn’t quite worked out a graceful transition between the song’s two sections yet.
Three more essential Guns N’ Roses deep cuts:
“Move to the City”
Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin were high school friends in Lafayette, Indiana, who reconnected after both moved to Los Angeles, and the early live staple “Move to the City” functioned as their origin story: “You pack your bags and you move to the city, there’s something missing here at home.”
“Bad Obsession”
Guitarist West Arkeen was a friend of the band who co-wrote several great GNR songs, including the Appetite single “It’s So Easy” and the bluesy Use Your Illusion I track “Bad Obsession.” Several members of Guns N’ Roses guested on the 1996 debut by Arkeen’s band the Outpatience, but Arkeen sadly died of a drug overdose in 1997.
“Get in the Ring”
The Use Your Illusion II track “Get in the Ring” holds a unique place in SPIN’s own history, with Axl Rose angrily calling out the heads of several music magazines by name, including SPIN founder Bob Guccione Jr., over their coverage of the band.
Guccione famously accepted the challenge from Axl Rose and Rose ultimately declined.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
