Slash tickets go on sale tomorrow for his July 31 show at the Cunard Centre, and if you’re wondering what the perfect gift would be for this guitar god, we’ll save you a little time and tell you it’s not a puppet. Darren Moreash tried that, and it didn’t go well. Moreash is a local puppet maker (www.darrionettes.com—and, yes, he does custom orders) who has a love of both inanimate little buddies and classic rock.
Moreash has made wooden likenesses of Gene Simmons, James Hetfield and Cherie Currie. But it was only Slash who freaked out about it. “A photographer friend of mine in Toronto was meeting Slash a month or so ago and asked me to make a Slash marionette and he’d get it to him,” says Moreash. “He held it up and Slash stepped back, my friend asked him if he would hold it for a photo, and Slash’s response was ‘Get that fucking thing away from me, I want no part of it.’ He was visibly shaken up and although he signed a bunch of stuff for my friend, he would do so only if the puppet was nowhere near him. Maybe Slash was having a bad day or maybe he has pupaphobia [fear of puppets, doye], who knows.”
It’s his loss, because for Moreash anyway, the puppets have led to happiness. “I (met) this girl at my work—tall, blond, 20 years younger than me—totally out of my league but I decide to make her one for Christmas. She’s a big Alice Cooper fan so that’s who I made. She loves it, it’s still hanging in our house, 10 years later. Yep, she married me. Since I’m not much to look at all I can say is power of the puppet, people, power of the puppet. She’s co-puppet maker with me, she makes the clothes and does most of the painting.” So get over it, Slash. The puppet was made with love.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2012.
