Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash recently addressed whether it’s easier or harder for aspiring guitarists to get started today. He compared the current landscape to when he first began playing more than four decades ago, in comments shared on Q1043 New York.
The discussion centered on how access to online resources has changed the way young musicians learn to play, compared with the more traditional methods of the past.
“Are you kidding? People are incredible now,” Slash said. “They pick up an instrument and there’s so much information out there on YouTube and Instagram, all the social networking stuff, where you can really learn how to play, as opposed to having to look in a book or sitting down and listening to records and going to concerts and sort of watching from a distance. You really get tutorials, and people are getting so good so fast. Little kids are blowing my mind.”
Slash’s remarks come at a moment when Guns N’ Roses themselves are as active as ever. This gives his comments on the next generation of players extra weight from a musician still very much in the spotlight.
The band is currently in the middle of a massive 2026 world tour spanning more than 60 dates. The trek kicked off in March in Monterrey, Mexico, before moving through South America and Europe. It is now well underway on its North American leg, which began in late July and continues into September.
Guns N’ Roses have kept the tour expanding well past its original announcement, adding new stops across North America along with additional dates in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. The band’s schedule now stretches from late March through mid-December. This underscores just how much demand there still is for their live shows more than three decades into their career.
The tour will also mark a return to India, where Guns N’ Roses are set to play a two-city run in 2026. It’s a fitting reminder of the band’s global reach. That reach mirrors the same kind of worldwide, borderless access to music and instruction that Slash pointed to when describing how today’s young guitarists are able to learn and improve so quickly.
Slash remains closely tuned in to both the current state of rock and the tools shaping its next generation of players. This is evident in the band’s relentless touring schedule and in Slash’s own observations on how the guitar-learning landscape has changed.
