Did you ever notice that Slash‘s hair is straight on the cover of Guns N’ Roses‘ landmark album Appetite for Destruction? Do you know why?
Designing the Album Cover
The cross depicted on the album’s cover was originally designed by an artist named Billy White Jr. (who died in July of 2023), for a tattoo for Axl Rose. White Jr. told Culture Creature in 2016 that it was the singer’s idea to have a Celtic-inspired cross (in homage to Thin Lizzy) with his then-bandmates’ faces on it as skulls.
Rose then took the design to Robert Benedetti at Sunset Strip Tattoo in Los Angeles to have the cross tattooed on the top of his right forearm and it remains there today.
When stores refused to stock Appetite in 1987 because of its gruesome original cover, which featured a painting of the same name by Robert Williams, Geffen suggested they slap White Jr.’s cross on a black background and use that as the new cover.
But if you look closely, the hair on Slash’s skull is sleek and wavy — definitely not the curly ‘do he’s known for sporting throughout his life. In an interview the guitarist and Rose did with MTV in 1988, they uncovered the reason why.
‘Appetite for Destruction’ Slash Hair
About Slash’s Straight Hair on the Album Cover
Rose had a pretty sentimental explanation for the tattoo, stating that he wanted it so he would always remember that time in the band’s career, regardless of how successful they became or what could happen between them down the road.
“Notice, Slash wanted straight hair, so we gave him straight here,” the frontman said as he pointed to Slash’s skull on his arm.
“I didn’t ask for straight hair!” Slash responded, laughing.
“Yes you did, you totally did. Yes you did,” Rose replied.
The two went back and forth about it for a couple of seconds before Slash asked, “Was I drunk?”
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The singer initially claimed he wasn’t sure, but then noted that Slash had been at the infamous “Hell House” when he asked for his locks to be straight on the drawing, which was an iconic (and chaotic) location in the early years of Guns N’ Roses.
“Oh yeah,” Slash remembered, “because I told Bill, I said, ‘You’re never gonna be able to draw curly hair right.'”
Though they came to an agreement by the end of that discussion, it was one of many times the duo would bicker throughout their career. See our video dissection of the feud between Rose and Slash below.
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Gallery Credit: Lauryn Schaffner