We catch up with the memorabilia designer for Hard Rock hotels .

How did Hard Rock start?
These two gentlemen from the States were living in London in the early 1970s and decided they missed American food. At first the décor was not music centric at all.

How did the memorabilia collection come about?
[A lot of musicians] started hanging out at the Hard Rock Café in London. In order to mark the place he preferred to sit at, Eric Clapton signed one of his guitars, and hung it above the stool. A week later Pete Townsend walked in, saw that Eric Clapton had put his guitar up, sent in his later, and wrote on it: “Mine’s as good as his, love Pete”.

What does your job involve?
It’s myself and three other designers who look after over 70,000 pieces of memorabilia in our collection. With each new hotel or café, our job is to design and integrate the memorabilia displays into the public spaces.

What’s your favourite piece of memorabilia?
I’m very partial to Slash. And we happen to have a love letter that Slash wrote to his [high school] girlfriend Michelle who later became the inspiration for the Guns N' Roses song ‘My Michelle’.

Does Michelle know?
Oh, she sold us the letter! So she knows and she’s obviously very proud. I mean I would be proud if a song was named after me.

Do you wash the outfits given to you before you display them?
You know what? No. We have a T-shirt that James Brown wore in concert and there are these two big sweat marks on the back. I mean how can you wash that? It’s a part of a music history.

We’ve heard that each floor in the hotel will be themed. Is that true?
Yeah. We have an Ozzy Osbourne floor and a Cher floor. We think it’s gonna help with guests finding their way. Like if you come back at night after having a few drinks and you forget which floor you were on, maybe you’ll see a crazy Ozzy outfit and be like ‘Yeah, I was on the Ozzy floor!’

Ever tempted to take something from the collection to hang up on your wall at home?
Absolutely not! I love my job too much to ever do something like that. I can tell you that I have held Slash’s guitar before and got goose bumps just from that.