Family life has tamed wild-maned Slash, who is oneof the rock world's guitar legends.

American rock guitarist Slash is as renowned for his top hat almost as much as for his guitar riffs. He literally nicked his signature look by lifting the headgear from a shop in Hollywood.

'I saw it in the store one day in 1985 or 1986. I went in and tried it on,' he says in a drawling, chilled-out voice over the telephone from his home in Los Angeles.

'It looked cool and we had a show that night and I was looking for something to wear. So I stole it. I wore it that night and I've been wearing it ever since.'

The Britain-born guitarist first made his name with Guns N' Roses, one of the biggest rock bands in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and later with Grammywinning rock group Velvet Revolver. He will be staging his first gig here at Fort Canning Park on Aug 2.

Slash, whose real name is Saul Hudson, will be fronting his own group, with which he released his first eponymous album in March.

He is still seen as an icon in the rock world. A Time magazine survey last year ranked him as the second greatest guitarist after Jimi Hendrix.

He has played guitar for a wide range of artists, such as the late King of Pop Michael Jackson and current R&B star Rihanna, to fusion jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour and the late soul legend Ray Charles.

His likeness has also been used in the wildly successful guitar-based video game franchise Guitar Hero.

Though he still looks very much the curly-maned rocker he was back in the mid-1980s, the 44-year-old father of two says his days of rock 'n' roll excesses, shoplifting included, are definitely over.

Drugs, cigarettes, alcohol - he has quit them all. 'I stopped drinking almost four years ago,' says the rocker who used to be regularly photographed with a bottle of whisky in hand.

'I burnt out. The problem with me is that I do everything to excess. I got tired of drinking, I got tired of being an alcoholic, having to wake up in the morning and having a few shots before I brushed my teeth. It got boring.'

His two sons - London, seven, and Cash Anthony, six - from his second marriage, were instrumental in his changed outlook to life. He says: 'I think having kids was very grounding for me and gave me another element of responsibility, where I care for somebody other than myself for once.

'As a musician, we tend to be very very self-centred. Having kids sort of gave me a little bit of insight on how to be more conscious of people around you.'

Like any proud father, the former wild man of hard rock recounts attending his eldest son's violin performance in school.

Slash was born in London to an English father and an African-American mother, and had an early exposure to the heady world of rock 'n' roll.

His mother designed costumes for pop/rock trailblazer David Bowie while his dad was art director to singers such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.

The family moved to Los Angeles and his grandmother gave him his first guitar when he was 15. Obsessed with the instrument, he dropped out of school, eventually joining Guns N' Roses in 1985.

The band's reputation for staging incendiary live shows and their knack for getting into trouble earned them a reputation as the 'Most Dangerous Band In The World'. But critics also praised them for bringing back an edge to rock music.

The band's notoriety served only to accelerate sales of their albums. Their first, Appetite For Destruction, sold 38 million, the best selling debut album ever.

In 1991, they released two albums simultaneously: Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. They debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively in the Billboard charts, the only band to achieve such a feat.

In Singapore, Guns N' Roses have sold 143,000 copies of all their albums, according to record label Universal Music. In comparison, pop artist Lady Gaga has so far sold 30,000 copies of her three album releases here.

The rigours of dealing with overwhelming success and differences in musical vision put Slash at odds with increasingly eccentric Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose. The guitarist finally quit in 1996 and concentrated on his side-project bands, Slash's Snakepit and Slash's Blues Ball.

Guns N' Roses sans Slash did not release another studio album until 2008, the underwhelming Chinese Democracy.

Slash makes it clear that his time with Guns N' Roses is well and truly over.

'It's pretty widely known that I left the band 15 years ago and the idea of getting back together with Guns N' Roses is probably one of the furthest things from my mind. Same with Axl, same with (bass player) Duff, no one's really thinking about getting back together,' he says.

Slash's next high-profile band was Velvet Revolver, formed in 2002 with former Guns N' Roses members Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum and singer Scott Weiland from popular alternative rockers Stone Temple Pilots.

After two successful albums, the band are currently on hiatus after the drugaddled frontman Weiland left to rejoin his old band.

Slash says he needed a new musical outlet where he was in full creative control after all the drama with his previous bands, hence the solo album.

'It might have stemmed from some of the frustration of dealing with Scott and Velvet Revolver and all the craziness that went on. I just needed a breather.

'So after the tour was over and we let Scott go, I was like, 'phew, okay, I need to do something on my own'.'

For his solo outlet, he roped in guest vocalists that included veteran rockers Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop and Fergie from pop group, Black Eyed Peas.

The album peaked at No. 1 on American charts and topped sales charts in Austria, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden. It has sold 3,500 copies here.

He tells Life! he is looking forward to coming here and promises to play not just songs from his solo album but also from Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver. He was last here to do promotions for Slash's Snakepit in 1995, but did not perform.

His touring band will be fronted by singer Myles Kennedy from hard rockers Alter Bridge while prog-punk band from New York, Coheed And Cambria, will be the opening act. Concert organiser LAMC, which is also staging Slash's concert in Hong Kong, expects a turnout of 5,000 for the Fort Canning gig.

Slash says: 'I have a bunch of Twitter fans who are from Singapore and I am very excited.'

The micro-blogging online tool has helped him keep in touch with his fans.

'I do Tweet a lot. I started doing it initially to put out updates of what I was doing. Eventually I started talking to fans (through Twitter) and then I realised that I really liked it.

'I know it's not face-to-face but it's close. You really appreciate where fans are coming from and you can tell them stuff that they hear from you as opposed to hearing it from a magazine.'