Axl Rose and Slash perform as Hollywood Rose at Madam Wong's East in Hollywood, California on June 28, 1984. Photo by Marc Canter
“All the dos and don’ts of getting tattoos went in one ear and out the other,” he said. The first tattoo came when the Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson walked into Sunset Strip Tattoos in Los Angeles and presented Robert Benedetti with an original sketch. He was 15. “The chick that’s on my right arm—that’s from a doodle I made up in high school, in social studies class. I was supposed to be writing a book report or something to that effect, and I ended up making up this entirely different story on the back of the paper having to do with a guitar player and his girlfriend. His girlfriend was the chick that’s on my arm. Her name is Shirley named after my old drummer’s mom."
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From a Slash interview
Tattoo, November 1993
