Guitarist Slash honored with Hollywood star

Guns N' Roses guitar legend Slash was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday -- with fellow former hell-raiser Charlie Sheen joining those paying tribute.

The British-American musician said the award was particularly fitting because he went to school nearby, and spent his formative years on Hollywood Boulevard dreaming of becoming a rock star like Led Zeppelin.

"This is a really special acknowledgement... it's the coolest thing you could ever get," he said as hundreds of fans gathered for the ceremony outside Hard Rock Cafe, just along from the world-famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

"I'm such a part of this scenery. I went to school here, and started playing guitar here, literally 100 yards down the street... I got a very technicolor education up here," added the guitarist, who was born in London.

Sheen, who has had his own battles with drugs and alcohol over the years, joked that the first time he met the guitarist, "I was so excited I called him 'Smash.'"

"It's quite fitting that Slash is getting a star on the very street that Axl Rose will one day be sleeping on," he added, referring to Slash's long-time rivalry with his former bandmate.

"This man here, through his music and through his person, through his compassion, has changed the way that I look at the world forever. That can only happen through true artistry."

Following the ceremony, the 46-year-old musician -- real name Saul Hudson, born to a British father and an African-American mother -- posed for photos with his wife Perla Ferrar and their two sons.

After quitting Guns N' Roses in the mid-1990s, the guitarist had success with other bands, including Slash's Snakepit and Velvet Revolver, before embarking on a solo career.

While a typical rock wildman in his early heyday, Slash has been clean and sober for several years, and has even reportedly stopped smoking.

But Sheen recalled their hell-raising years together, joking that Slash's Hollywood star "is going to be stepped on more than the coke we did in the 80s."

AFP