MUSICIAN Robert John Photography SLASH He’S Back with a Few New Friends—And One Very Special Old One by Chris Neal
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MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Robert John Photography SLASH He’s back with a few new friends—and one very special old one By Chris Neal AS RECORDING PROGRESSED ON GUNS Now the soft-spoken California native born Saul Hudson and his N’ Roses’ first album in 1986, the up-and-coming prized guitar are back together again on Slash, his fi rst full-fl edged hard-rock band’s lead guitarist was getting anxious. solo album. (Namesake side band Slash’s Snakepit released two He was OK recording basic tracks with the three guitars he had on albums, in 1995 and 2000.) It’s an all-star affair that fi nds Slash hand—a BC Rich and two Jacksons, for the record—but he didn’t joined by guest vocalists ranging from Ozzy Osbourne, Kid Rock feel confi dent using any of them to lay down his leads. He couldn’t and Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy to Fergie, Wolfmother’s Andrew afford to buy a new guitar, and wasn’t sure what to buy if he could. Stockdale and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. For a guy who has dealt Then, he says, “The hand of fate stepped in.” The band’s then- with two of rock’s most notoriously mercurial singers—Guns’ Axl Rose manager, Alan Niven, gave him a brand-new Gibson Les Paul. Slash and Velvet Revolver’s Scott Weiland—it was a refreshing change of rented a few Marshall amps and hit the studio with his new guitar. pace. “It changed my whole attitude about singers in general,” he “That was it,” he says. “The right Marshall with that guitar sounded says with a chuckle, “and how something so complicated can be awesome.” He loved the sound so much, in fact, that he has hardly so simple.” ever played another guitar in the studio to this day. Slash and his Slash is gearing up for a solo tour (with Kennedy on board as Les Paul remained an unbeatable team even as he split from Guns vocalist), which will continue throughout the year. We caught up N’ Roses in the mid-1990s and re-established himself as a rock with him at home in Los Angeles to discuss his new friends, his hitmaker with Velvet Revolver in the 2000s. new direction and, of course, his favorite guitar. ‘I’ve realized that I only need one guitar and one amp.’ 44 M mag 2_HBa.indd 44 3/22/10 5:34:10 PM MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM How did you enjoy the experience of usually because I hate the recording gear APPETITEAPPETITE FOR making a solo album? there is to work with and what it sounds RRECONSTRUCTIONECONSTRUCTION The whole journey was a lot of fun. After being like. I had this little Zoom recorder on the in bands for so long, I welcomed the chance last Velvet tour, and I started recording to be my own boss for a minute. It was a unplugged electric into that to get ideas TheThe new Slash signature model Les Paul is great learning experience. It reinvigorated down. It came in handy. After the tour a replica of the guitar he fi rst played on my faith in music and working with different was over, I had this Boss 16-track digital GGunsuns N’ Roses’ classic AppetiteAppetite forfor people, especially singers. recorder and I began to focus on recording Destruction—itself a Les Paul Standard stuff to get a better idea what I was doing. replica built by luthier Chris Derrig in the You do have an interesting history Finally, after I’d compiled 20-some different late 1950s, and Slash’s primary recording with singers. ideas I went to my friend’s little garage Pro guitarguitar to this day. (He typically uses Yeah. Without getting into the fi ner details of Tools studio and actually started making signature model prototypes it, I’ve worked with some of the best singers proper demos. on the road.) Developed by in the world, especially for rock ’n’ roll—the Gibson luthier Tom Murphy, most volatile, the most real. The kind of At what point would you bring in the aptly named Appetite things you hear coming out of their mouths the singer? forfor DestructionDes Les Paul is an honest interpretation of who they are, The Pro Tools demos, which are me playing replicatesreplicat the original right which is great. But it’s not been easy. guitar and bass over a drum machine, made down to the scratches, belt a cohesive song structure. Sometimes it’d buckle nicks and cigarette How did you decide which guests you be a three-minute song, sometimes it’d be burns. “I noticed that there wanted on the record? a minute-and-a-half idea, whatever. Once were so many people I spent a year hanging around, writing stuff. I had that, I’d send it to a singer and say, super-interested in that When I fi nally got a piece of music that I “Deal with this.” (laughs) It was a nerve- pparticulararticu guitar—blogging could stand back and get a perspective on, wracking experience. I wouldn’t know what aboutabout the specs and where I would try to think about who would sound their response was going to be, and I can’t the guitar came from, this good singing it. That’s where it started. say it was the best quality sounding stuff I aandnd tthat,”h he says. “So I was sending them. I was fortunate that they thought it would be cool if Did you intend to make it diverse, or were open-minded enough to go along with Gibson actually put out a did that happen naturally? me on this. signatursignature model that was It came naturally, because the music was built exactlyexactly like the original.” diverse. The making of this record was an Logistically, how diffi cult was it to get ThatThat involved having opportunity for me to write whatever and the guests into the studio? Seymour Duncan not feel the pressure or the insecurity of It was really pretty easy. Once I’d sent them wire up new pickups it being overly judged by the other guys in the demo and they’d signed on, it was just made like the the band—or completely rejected, for that a matter of, “OK, can you come down on company’s Alnico matter. (laughs) Or just being confi ned to a such-and-such day?” And that was basically IIII PProsros as they one-dimensional musical direction, which a it. A lot of times I would get together with were in 1986. “They band sometimes does. That led me to writing the artist to work out the arrangement. Some have evolved over the whatever I felt like. people had a lot of input. A good example is years, and they don’t Kid Rock: We wrote that song in his studio in have all the same Had you been writing things all along Michigan, I came back to L.A. and recorded components, that didn’t fi t into a band context? it with my band, we sent it to him and he did the same I think I morphed from one writing style into the vocals in his studio. That was an isolated aamountmoun of another. Normally I’d be writing in terms of incident. Most of the time we’d get together wraps and so Velvet Revolver, so in the back of my mind and work on the song, then they’d just come on,on,”” eexplains that was the end destination for whatever I down to the studio and record it. Slash. “It’s was working on. At the end of the last Velvet got old-scold-school Revolver tour I was writing in the back of You stuck mostly with your classic Les capacitors that they the bus or in the dressing room. I had all Paul for recording. don’t even make anymore. these different kinds of music and I didn’t Instead of pulling out different guitars for WeWe focused on getting all that really think about where it was going. When I different sounds, I just used this one guitar stuff right, to try to get as close to the tonal fi nally came to the decision that I was going and made it sound different. (laughs) I had quality of that guitar as possible.” (Seymour to do a solo record, all that stuff funneled one Marshall, a JCM 800 that I had in storage Duncan’s Signature Series Alnico II ProPro into a different direction and had a whole that probably hails back from the ’80s, and Slash humbucking pickups are also available different meaning. that was my primary setup. separately.)separately.) Visually, the guitar sports an “Unburst” fi nish, traditional trapezoid inlays When you’re writing, do you What keeps drawing you back to on the fi ngerboard and a headstock featuring make demos? that guitar? Slash’s signature. A less expensive version For years and years I made demos in my It works! (laughs) It’s something I’ve been ofof the Gibson Custom Shop’s Appetite for head. If it was a good idea I’d probably retain using for a long time, I feel comfortable with Destruction model will be available in August it, and if it wasn’t, all the better anyway. I’m it and it always sounds good. That guitar from Gibson subsidiary Epiphone. not very good at making decent demos, has its own unique thing to it.