35SWEET CHILD O’ MINE GUNS N’ ROSES

(1987)

From a “cool little riff”, a rock classic was born

Every decade has its rock anthem. While the 1970s had Stairway To Heaven and the 90s had Smells Like Teen Spirit, the most memorable riffathon of the 80s has to be Sweet Child O’ Mine. It was the US number one hit that confirmed Guns N’ Roses as the greatest hard rock act of a generation, propelling debut album Appetite For Destruction to multi-platinum status. And while it was rumoured for years that lead guitarist Slash was dismissive of his own ultra-iconic opening riff, that’s not the whole story.

As he told TG: “In passing, I did say that it was sort of a joke or something, but initially it was just a cool, neat little riff that I’d come up with. It was an interesting pattern and it was really melodic, but I don’t think I would have presented it to the band and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea!’ because I just happened to come up with it while we were all hanging around together. Izzy [Stradlin, GN’R’S rhythm guitarist] was the first one to start playing behind it, and once that happened Axl [Rose, the band’s singer] started making up words, and it took off that way.”

As for the guitar Slash played, it could only ever have been a Les Paul – but perhaps not the Les Paul that you’d expect. “I was lucky even to have a guitar for the Appetite album,” he said. “Originally, when I got to the studio, I had somehow, in a fitof desperation, pawned most of my guitars, so all I had was a BC Rich Warlock and two Jacksons. I’d been playing those guitars live, and they sounded OK in a room full of people, but when I actually went and heard them in the cans they sounded f*ckin’ horrible!”

Fortunately, fate intervened in the form of GN’R manager Alan Niven. Slash recalled. “Right before we went in to do the guitar overdubs, Alan gave me a handmade copy of a 1959 Les Paul made by a guy called Kris Derrig. He built a run of between fifty and a hundred immaculate ’59 reissues, and that was the guitar that I used for the whole record.

You could never tell that they weren’t Gibsons.”