Quite literally Johnson have time-lined his life in cars. There’s plenty of highs and lows. From lights randomly popping out of his Lotus to the abject misery of owning anything made by British Leyland. There’s the odd insight into life on the road. Whether it’s bunking on the tour bus or being chauffeured around Europe in an executive limo in style. His band mates don’t make it out unscathed either and there’s plenty of falling in love on the road. Only with British convertibles and not slutty groupies.

It’s full of short, funny (some very funny) and punchy anecdotes. Via cars, he manages to leave no part of his life unscathed and that’s what’s truly miraculous and perhaps why Johnson decided to go this route for his biography – and it does work. There’s a sense that as a standard biography it would be too tight lipped and laconic. No question he has no problem opening up over some put banter about his cars though. But sadly it kind of lacks substance. Honestly I read this book cover to cover in three days. A decent reader could easily do it in a night. Not to Johnson’s detriment. This is a fantastic read. If only it could be longer.

This book can be summarised in a few quick points: Axl Rose is a twat and never let a junkie tell you about his heroin habit. Don’t get me wrong. The Gunners truly the were the soundtrack to my adolescence and I think Slash rocks. Only I had no idea how big a smacker the guy with the top hat was/is.

It breaks down like this. The book is roughly 30% his (and other band mates) self pitying bullshit to do with heroin, 10% about Axl’s prima donna, delusional bullshit, 20% his youth, 45% about the Gunners getting together. The remaining 5% the kind of anecdotal cool stuff about other bands and rockers you actually want to hear about. Of that 5%, he talks about other bands like Faster Pussycat, Sebastian Bach, Motley Crue, Alice Cooper and a bit about Ronny Wood from the Rolling Stones.

Unlike Lemmy’s biography White Line Fever, where he only remembers operational and managerial aspects of his band (put it down to the masses of speed he takes), Slash somehow only remembers all the self pitying dope stuff. It gets a bit hard to read after a while. It would be cheaper to buy a hippie a drink (no doubt they wont offer you one). Don’t get me wrong, it’s punctuated with some interesting glam rock anecdotes, but there’s nowhere near enough.

One of the chuckles you get out of the book is that there’s the odd reference to David Lee Roth as some kind litmus test for glam rockers. For example, he talks about being concerned about AIDS in ‘85, then mentions that since David Lee Roth didn’t get it, he kept fooling around! Without ruining too much, at another point he says “so I did the only thing that made sense: I hung out with David Lee Roth all night”. So it’s not completely cut and dry.

On the subject of Axl, it would be good to hear his reprisal, but clearly he is a twat. No one takes ten years to get an album out, while sacking everyone in his original band, which makes everything said about him by Slash quite plausible, and he’s quite diplomatic about the whole thing. Surely, Axl’s bio would be encyclapedic. Who needs it.

Anyway on a more positive note, the first few chapters about his childhood are quite interesting, as his mum Ola went out with Bowie and worked with a bunch of musos. His dad also designed album covers, his mum stage costumes. So he was well and truly born into the biz. He was even more of a kleptomaniac than Steve Jones! There’s also a bit about getting Velvet Revolver together.

Closing up, I’m not quite sure if I can completely recommend this book. It’s all about how much damage you can do to yourself rather than drinking stories or on tour debauchery. Not really my think. 2 out of 5.