Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash revealed that Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry was so broke in the late 80’s, he couldn’t afford to pay him $8,000 to buy back his old Les Paul guitar. It’s hard to believe that one of rock’s greatest guitarist had less than $8,000 to spend. Slash had bought the guitar after Guns N’ Roses starting to have success around the release of Appetite for Destruction.
Slash told Rock Cellar Magazine, “When I saw that one that Joe had in various Aerosmith photos, that was the coolest Les Paul. I didn’t know what tobacco sunburst was, but in every picture, it was just a darker-looking Les Paul than what everybody else had. So I knew that guitar very well. And I just thought it was really, really cool. I never imagined in a million years it would suddenly pop up for sale. But Guns was finishing up a tour in Japan — the first-ever trip to Japan — and I got this phone call from the office in L.A., saying somebody’s got a guitar they want to sell and thought I might be interested.
He said, it used to belong to Eric Roberts and Joe Perry and Dwayne Allman. And I was like, ‘Oh. You know what? Send pictures, because I know that guitar and all the nicks on the front.’ Because it’s a real recognizable guitar. And when I got home from the tour, I got to my apartment, I got the mail, and there was this envelope stuffed with paper and photos. Polaroids. And I opened it up and was like, “Fuck. That’s the guitar.”
At some point somewhere, I’d heard the story form Joe. Something having to do with a bad financial situation, and how that guitar got hocked. But whoever had the guitar didn’t really realize the value of it, because they sold it to me for $8,000. So this guitar gets Fedex’ed to my apartment, and I was living at a real cheap fucking apartment. And I opened it up, and there’s my coveted fucking Les Paul, that Joe used to have, and that I remember from all these posters and photographs from when I was a kid. So that was really my first good Les Paul.
And I actually gave it back to Joe finally back in 2002 or something. I offered it back to him when I first got it, for what I paid for it. But at that time, he didn’t have the money. Aerosmith had just gotten back together. So I had it, and I used it for various things.”
