Slash Thought He Was ‘Gonna Die’ Filming ‘November Rain’ Video

Slash said he believed he was “probably gonna die” during the making of Guns N’ Roses' classic video for “November Rain.”

“‘November Rain’ as a video was really Axl [Rose]’s kind of brainchild, and I don’t even know exactly what it’s about,” the guitarist admitted during an interview with Yahoo!

Slash noted that one of the video's most famous moments, in which he emerges from a church to deliver an epic solo, was director Andy Morahan's idea.

“But [Morahan] didn't tell me that they were going to be doing bomb shots with me with a helicopter!” the guitarist explained. “And when I got out onto the set and did my thing, then I noticed that this helicopter would come back and forth at extremely fast speeds and get really, really low.”

So low that Slash feared for his life.

“I thought, ‘Well, this'll be my last day on Earth,’" he noted. 'It was the kind of thing where you’re just resigned to the fact that you're probably gonna die. And at that point in time, I was pretty much had that — I didn't have very much fear of death in those days. Anyway, we shot it and I had no idea what it was going to look like afterwards. But it ended up looking pretty cool. But I didn't know it was going to be as memorable as it turned out to be.”

Watch Guns N' Roses' 'November Rain' Video

“November Rain” - with its indulgent production and hefty price tag - remains one of the most famous music videos in history. The clip, which has amassed more than 1.8 billion views on YouTube, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary on Feb. 18.