Perhaps he had an Appetite for Resurrection?
A new interview with former Stone Roses guitarist Aziz Ibrahim suggests that Guns N' Roses legend Slash nearly joined the band back in 1996.
Ibrahim, who replaced John Squire when he quit the band, playing for six months before the band split entirely, recently spoke to the StageLeft podcast and confirmed the long-held rumour that Slash nearly joined the Roses instead.
"There had been auditions. Slash had offered to play," he said. "There was a lot of bitterness and anger and so forth, maybe they wanted to piss [Squire] off, so they thought, ‘Let’s get the greatest rock icon of all time.' Slash was in England and his manager wanted to manage the [Stone] Roses. They thought, ‘Yeah yeah, we’ll get this big rock icon, that would really annoy John.’ Then they said something to the affect of, ‘We’re not going to work with a guy with leather pants, are we?' So Slash wasn't in."
So there you have it - what could have been an incredible supergroup scuppered by some leather trousers.
Despite his own stint in the Roses being fairly brief, Ibrahim himself went on to play as Ian Brown's guitarist for many years to critical acclaim. Meanwhile, Slash quit Guns N' Roses in October 1996, going on to form Velvet Revolver before going solo and finally rejoining Guns earlier this year.
The man himself, however, denied the Stone Roses rumours back in 2010, when he told The Guardian, "I'd heard of the Stone Roses, but I'd never met them. I think I was probably too busy in Guns N' Roses at the time. Maybe it might have been a good idea. Someone told me we tried to recruit the lead singer into Velvet Revolver. That's not true either."
The reformed Stone Roses are currently readying their long-awaited third album after the release of All For One and Beautiful Thing this year - here's hoping Slash makes a cameo on the record.
