What does a bona fide guitar hero do in his spare time? Play the Guitar Hero video game, naturally.

Slash, the top-hat-sporting former axeman for rock legends Guns N’ Roses, says his passion for the popular music game led to a deal with publisher Activision that features him in the franchise’s upcoming third installment, called, appropriately enough, “Guitar Hero III”.

“Funnily enough, I got hooked on ‘Guitar Hero’ in a tour bus and I just fell in love with it,” Slash said at Activision’s media briefing at E3, the video game industry’s annual trade show.

“I guess at some point our merchandisers and our manager had discussions about stuff I might want to get involved in and ’Guitar Hero’ was one of them,” said Slash, whose day job is lead guitarist for rock band Velvet Revolver.

A deal was quickly worked out to feature Slash in the game as a ”boss” who challenges players to a guitar-shredding face-off. Slash also wrote and performed the theme song for the game, which is scheduled to hit shelves ahead of the holidays.  The songlist includes G’N'R’s “Welcome to the Jungle”, Velvet Revolver’s “She Builds Quick Machines”, “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones and “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam.

“It’s pretty heavy, pretty loud, all the things ‘Guitar Hero’ is. It’s got a very addicting quality to it and anybody who knows me knows that applies to me. Out of all the things I’ve been involved with, other than being in a band, this is definitely the coolest.”

(Photo: Slash’s Official Fan site)