Maybe you can't understand by listening Sweet Child o' Mine or November Rain, but Slash's style is rooted in the blues. «Everyone considers me a rock guitarist», he says, «but I grew up in a family where the blues was listened to. When I picked up the guitar I set out to become a rock guitarist, but my roots still lie in the blues.”
When he left Guns N' Roses in the '90s, Slash started a group called Slash's Blues Ball that played songs by giants of blues and soul, from Robert Johnson to Stevie Wonder. Before even recording any of them, Slash put Blues Ball aside to start up his hard rock band, Slash's Snakepit.
He then joined Velvet Revolver, made a solo album, rejoined Guns, released albums with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. In the last year he has started playing the blues standard again Key to the Highway which was part of the Blues Ball repertoire. He got back in touch with two members of the old band, bassist Johnny Griparic and keyboardist Teddy Andreadis, and started a new group with guitarist and singer Tash Neal and drummer Michael Jerome.
He just lacked great voices so he called on Iggy Pop, AC/DC's Brian Johnson, Demi Lovato, Paul Rodgers, Chris Robinson, Billy Gibbons and Gary Clark Jr. and others to sing Orgy of the Damned. He liked it so much that he organized a traveling festival entirely focused on the blues called SERPENT (which stands for Solidarity Commitment Restoration Peace Equality Tolerance). There will be among others the Warren Haynes Band, Keb' Mo', Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Robert Randolph. We interviewed him.
You could have easily recorded an album with Guns N' Roses or the Conspirators. Why did you decide it was the right time for the blues instead?
I had a couple of weeks free between parts of the Guns tour and I used them to make the record, without thinking too much. I put the musicians together, I drew up the list of songs, we started rehearsing. I immediately imagined having different singers and so I called Gary Clark for Crossroads and Beth Hart for Stormy Monday. When I went back on tour with Guns I started organizing sessions on my off days, working with the singers wherever they were. This took a little longer, but in the end the whole album only took 10 days to make.
You said you chose Brian Johnson for Killing Floor because you like its low register. Did you choose every single song for every singer?
Let's say yes. I hadn't thought about Iggy Pop at first, but then thanks to the bassist, Johnny, I found an article in which he said that he would really like to do something blues. I called him and he told me what he would like to do AwfulDream by Lightnin' Hopkins. I'd never heard it, it's a sort of crazy outtake that ended up on the record by chance, it's done in a very free way, without a specific arrangement, it almost seems like they were rehearsing after a session or something, nobody's playing the same thing on the album. same moment. Sounds cool. We met in my studio in Los Angeles and recorded live sitting on a couple of stools. It was very, very spontaneous.
Is that Iggy who seems to be meowing?
Yes, that's him imitating a harmonica. At the time I had no idea who was making that sound. I looked around and realized it was him.
Do you feel like you sounded different on this record?
My approach to the instrument was certainly different than what I would have had with the Conspirators or Guns. I think I played more relaxed, I didn't mind making mistakes, I tried to follow the flow of the music. If we did a take and it was good except the guitar wasn't perfect, I left it like that. You take Stormy Monday with Beth Hart. The version you hear is from the first time we played it with her. It was supposed to be a rehearsal, but her vocal performance was so hardcore that we kept it as it was. She was too emotional.
In fact, at the end you hear yourself say: “It was fantastic.”
She, like all of us, was shocked by Jeff Beck's death. She had just returned from his funeral and that vocal performance was her emotional tribute to Jeff. She couldn't repeat it.
Can Jeff Beck's influence be heard anywhere else on the record?
As far as I'm concerned, in all the pieces because it's in my way of playing, in general. Okay, I don't play the fusion stuff he did, but I'm a big fan of him, especially old school Jeff Beck and the Jeff Beck Group. There's a lot of him in Living for the City by Stevie Wonder that I recorded with a Telecaster. While I was doing it, Jeff was on my mind.
In Killing Floor your playing is brilliant and full, I've never heard you like that before.
It's a sound that comes from another place, I don't know how to put it into words. There's certainly a big difference compared to when I record with the Conspirators. Here I have a more relaxed approach to the instrument, I follow the inspiration of the moment. I enjoyed myself.
But some arrangements are more thought out, you see The Pusher And Crossroads which do not resemble the originals.
We didn't waste time listening to the originals, it wasn't necessary because we knew them and could arrange them in our own way. It depends on the group you're playing them with or you simply want to hear that song done in another way. You have the power to change certain things if you like. If I remember correctly, with Key to the Highway it went exactly like this: I took Freddie King's arrangement and sped up the tempo, simply because I liked it better. Living for the City instead we cut it quite a bit by eliminating the part where you hear sounds and noises from the streets of New York. I like it, eh, it also influenced me a lot when I was little, but despite it being beautiful I didn't want to completely emulate the original. There are parts that make sense in Stevie Wonder's version, but which if we reproduced them they wouldn't have had the same meaning.
Photo: Matthew Baker/Getty Images
You added a coda to the version you recorded with Gary Clark Jr.'s Crossroads.
At first I wanted to do the Robert Johnson version, Cross Road Blues. In the end I thought I didn't want to make a blues record just for blues listeners. It would have been taken too seriously and listened to from the purists' point of view. I told myself that it would have been more natural to do a more rock version of Robert Johnson.
Gary was the perfect choice.
The part of Crossroads that he plays is one of the best guitar moments of any album I've listened to recently. Gary needed to take a break from his album and jumped at the chance to get away and do something different in Los Angeles. He really felt that he was happy to dedicate himself to this project and not be the center of attention. It was wonderful.
How Demi Lovato got there singing Papa Was a Rolling Stone?
It was a gamble, we knew it. He comes from the world of pop, but I had a very precise idea of his voice and I knew that he could best interpret those lyrics and the emotion he conveys. We've known each other for a long time, I know her past, I know that he has made some missteps in life, that's why I called her and asked her to talk about it. Turns out that song meant a lot to her. So she came and she sang with a powerful voice that will surprise even those who are used to listening to her music.
The album ends with the instrumental Metal Chestnut, which is unusual for you. How was it born?
We were a couple of days before we started recording and our producer, Mike Clink, asked us if we had any unreleased songs. At that moment I realized that I hadn't thought about it at all, he surprised me. I went home and put something together. I was nervous about playing in front of all these guys, I'd never made a real record or written original material with any of them. So I started playing it, but I was too nervous and I played it too fast. However, the others understood and came after me. Ted started playing the organ part and we recorded it. The version on the record is maybe one of the two takes we did. I'm proud of it, you can feel the emotion of the moment.
Because you titled it Metal Chestnut?
While I had my headphones on I heard someone say something just before we started recording. I asked what he said and I don't know why, but I immediately thought the answer would be “metal chestnut,” which I thought was funny. He said something completely different, but I decided to keep it as the title.
And what had he said?
I do not remember. Whatever it was, it wasn't as good as “metal chestnut.”
Has this album changed anything in your way of seeing blues and soul?
I do not believe. However, it changed my awareness of being able to do many more projects like this. I have no way to dedicate myself to things like this and in the past it has been frustrating…
What do you mean? You already play with Guns N' Roses and the Conspirators…
I'm part of bands that have a blues base, but not the traditional one. I'm always looking for opportunities that allow me to jam sessions. Working with different people and putting the festival together was fantastic. If it goes well, I'll do it every year. A door opened, I found interesting people, it's exciting. When you play the blues the important thing is to be together, there's no pressure or anxiety of being a super-something or a fucking Grammy winner. It's all about making music and having fun, something that is sometimes easy to forget. Here, this is the opportunity for me to do it forever.
From Rolling Stone US.
