Guitar Ace Slash jumped to fame with an unmistakable aspect like the anchor of weapons and roses. A true rock 'N' Roll person, the artist once rarely saw himself without a fallen cigarette and a glass hat, the last one of which he could barely contain his curly hair.
Now, as of this week, he is a character in the theme park in Universal Studios Hollywood.
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Slash, or, rather, a skeletal facsimile of him played by an actor, will be available for photo opportunities and will meet and greet on the Halloween horror nights of Universal, which extends most of the nights until November 2. For the musician, born Saul Hudson, is a dream of fulfilled. A devotee of a lifetime of thematic and coasted parks, Slash has closely aligned with Halloween horror nights since 2014, when he began scoring music for his haunted homes.
And the character, he says, was partly his idea.
“I went to them and told them: 'Hey, can we have one of those strokes?' “That would be really great. Then they came up with one and looks quite threatening.”
Slash enjoys the idea of being an imposing presence, sometimes intimidating. That is clear when it is on stage as the cornerstone that takes the attention of numerous bands. And he likes to scare, as demonstrated by his own film producer centered on terror, Berserkergang. But obtain Slash one by one, and he really just wants to get a geek in his favorite walks from the theme park.
Universal Studios has launched a second compilation of music vinyl that Slash has composed for Halloween Horror Nights over the years.
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / for the times)
We talked to Slash approximately one week before Halloween Horror Nights opened from Orlando, Florida, where he was hidden recording an album with his band The conspirars. That job, he says, will be published in 2027 due to the planned obligations of 2026 tour with Guns N 'Roses. He regretted that he would not have time to visit Walt Disney World and the new epic universe of Universal. The last Florida park is home to a land with the theme of monsters that Slash said he was anxious to see.
His love for thematic parks is deep and, of course, he is not partisan.
“I am a true Disney head,” he says, joking that such a statement may not make his universal partners happy. He says he visited Disneyland for the first time in the early 1970s. “I really can't express in words what makes it so magical, but there is a definitive thing there you feel when you are really there. I loved it since I was a small child.”
“But I love thematic parks in general,” he continues. “I love Russian mountains. I love that carnival energy. I love arcades. I love everything about that festive outdoor thing, and I have never left that.”
It could be said that it has become that.
The Halloween season means that it is time for the Halloween horror nights of Universa, which extends until the beginning of November in the theme park.
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / for the times)
Slash has a deep fascination with Universal Studios, made clear for his knowledge of how the tram of the park lamp, officially designated as the world -fame study tour, has changed over the years. And as a fan of the terror of a lifetime who speaks nostalgically of watching movies from the 70s as “The Wicker Man”, “The Omen” and “The Exorcist” with his parents, Halloween Horror Nights is especially loved by Slash's heart.
Slash first attracted the event in 2013 due to a haunted house with the theme of Black Sabbath's music and images. The artist received a tour of horror nights for John Murdy, who has long supervised the edition of the west coast of the festivities.
“I was so impressed,” says Slash. “I was euphoric. I remember that he had physically made dizzying sounds. The whole matter, from the stilts of mosquitoes to the invisible Bush figures that hid in the bushes and were camouflaged, was incredible. He wanted to be involved.”
Murdy was open to the idea. “The first time I entered his personal recording studio, the first thing I noticed was a great impression of 'Bride of Frankenstein', our 1935 classic, hanging on the wall. And I thought, 'Oh, we have something in common'”.
Halloween Horror Nights is full of haunted houses and fear actors.
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / for the times)
Slash would write music for six Halloween Horror Nights centered on the classic Monster characters in Universal. This year, he returned to horror nights with a score established in a relaunch of an original maze of the depression era, “scarecrow.” Musically, it is a game for the artist. “Scarecard” includes a cover composed of bars of the traditional popular number “or death.”
“We started talking 'frightening', and as a pure coincidence, he said: 'Oh, I only learned the banjo and the dobro',” says Murdy. “I was learning all these traditional instruments of the Apalaches, and I said: 'That is incredible because my house is located in the bowl of dust'”.
That cut has immersed more music with American influence is not a complete surprise. His solo effort of 2024, “organy of the Damned”, supports the blues, for example, including an abrasing and root version of the Rocker of Fleetwood Mac “Oh Well” with the Country star Chris Stapleton. The Halloween Horror Nights of Slash work selections, except the new “Scarecrow” music, will be available again in a limited career vinyl in Universal Studios during Halloween horror nights.
Slash appears this year as a “character” on Halloween Horror Nights, a skeletal and mosquil interpretation of the artist.
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / for the times)
“As soon as they gave me the concept, my brain entered that kingdom: I could take my pedal steel and make an American type approach, unlike the Gothic, a kind of pseudo-metal that I was doing for all universal monsters,” says Slash.
Slash has become an element of Halloween horror nights that this year will have a bar centered on the artist, a complete one with a mini cup hat as a dessert. When asked how it feels to be immortalized as a sponge cake sculpted with coconut lime mousse, it does not shudder.
“I would like to explain with words how much I love such things,” says Slash.
After all, it is a regular theme park, although its favorite walks are located a few kilometers from Universal Studios in Anaheim. “I love the haunted mansion in Disneyland. ESO and Pirates of the Caribbean will always be my two favorite walks,” he says. “The attention to detail and the creative element and everything that is happening with those old Disney walks is still, until today, insufficient.”
Halloween Horror Nights in Universal Studios
The brand of any true theme park fan is an appreciation of the dark walks of the old school, the attractions found in dark show buildings already often filled with a variety of vignettes. Slash individualizes “The Secret Life of Pets: off the leash” of Universal as another culminating point.
“I went with my stepdaughter and we continued that trip and it's great,” says Slash. “The 'pets' is really sweet. I am a great animal boy. We love our cats, so that was very fun.”
The crowds aligned to enter “Scarecrow”, a haunted house on Halloween Horror Nights with Slash music.
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / for the times)
And before Slash can finish his next thought, he begins to sprout on a recent trip to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where he visited Ferrari World, home to a series of famous Russian mountains.
“I can talk about these things all day,” he says.
