Slash, the Guns N' Roses guitarist widely seen as a quintessential American rock musician, has revealed that his signature blues-based lead guitar style was shaped chiefly by two British players: Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. Speaking to Esquire in 2014, he explained that these former Yardbirds bandmates and friends were pioneers of 1970s rock guitar, whose reinterpretation of the blues left a lasting mark on his own sound. The revelation is notable given Slash's American image, though it is less surprising considering he was actually born in London and spent part of his childhood near Stoke-on-Trent before moving to Los Angeles.

Slash recalled first hearing Led Zeppelin aged seven, describing Page's playing on "Whole Lotta Who," on "Whole Lotta Love" as sleazy and primal, an influence he says fed directly into the dangerous, bending, dirty-toned style he later developed with Guns N' Roses. He was equally effusive about Beck, calling him "hands-down probably the best lead guitarist of all time," and pointed to Beck's expressive, blues-inflected early work as an influence on tracks such as "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "You Could Be Mine," even though Beck's later, jazzier Stratocaster work lost his interest.