When Slash calls, other people answer. Fourteen years after his self-titled debut solo album, which featured Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Lemmy, and his former band member Myles Kennedy, among others, the guitarist has once again hit the e-book hard.
For his upcoming album, titled Orgy Of The Damned, Slash has recruited an entirely new set of guest vocalists. The challenge this time is that it’s an album of blues covers, featuring everyone from AC/DC’s Brian Johnson to ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes to Gary Clark Jr. , Iggy Pop and Demi Lovato covering songs by big names like Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Wille Dixon and Fleetwood Mac from the Peter Green era.
Slash is a busy guy right now. As if a new solo album wasn’t enough, he’s also about to embark on a UK tour with his regular solo band, The Conspirators (featuring Myles Kennedy). Still, he’s not so busy that he can’t find time to talk to Classic Rock about Orgy Of The Damned, his collaboration with Iggy Pop and Demi Lovato, and his Oscar performance.
Why make an album of blues covers now?
It was very spontaneous. Deep down, I’ve sought to do this for years. I had a blues band in 1998 [Slash’s Blues Ball], it was a fun blues thing and arranged with smart blues musicians. But it was something I hadn’t touched. Until now. I had weeks off between stops [on the Guns N’ Roses tour] and it was just an impulsive idea.
What are your earliest memories of listening to the blues? Were those old records playing at home when you were a kid?
When I was a kid, when I was in England [Slash was born in Stoke-on-Trent and spent his early years in the UK], there was only fresh rock ‘n’ roll at the time: The Kinks, The Yardbirds and The Moody. Blues and The Who. Es something important and it all influenced through the American blues.
But when I moved to the U. S. , on my mother’s side, it was my grandmother who really drew me to what we might consider classic blues records. There were many other artists, but the one that caught my attention the most at the time. That time was B. B. King. I had a comfortable place for him at that time. I had cousins who listened to the blues, so that was the case. When I first started playing guitar, I was excited about the power of hard rock. But what I enjoyed was still firmly rooted in the influences of classic blues, so I started to go back and noticed all those wonderful guys who enjoyed the musicians I was listening to.
Were they all sitting at the beginning of Guns N’ Roses, doing a song with Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf’s songs?
No, Guns N’ Roses is more of a mix of everybody’s influences at the time: the Stones, the New York Dolls, Thin Lizzy, all of that. The blues were circulating there, but we weren’t covering Little Walter [laughs].
As far as Orgy Of The Damned is concerned, how did you know which singers would appear on which songs?Did you ask them what songs they could sing?
Most of the time, I just imagine one singer for each song, and that’s how it turned out. So Brian Johnson, the only user I envisioned for Killing Floor, didn’t have a replacement for that. But with Gary Clark Jr. , I went for the concept of Robert Johnson’s Crossroad Blues or Cream’s Crossroads. I was just looking for an excuse to play with Gary.
You went with Crossroad Blues. Es a wonderful guitarist. Did you play guitar on the song in addition to writing the song?
Sí. Es one of the only guitarists on the album. I had this concept and called him to see if he was interested. It was part of the concept to make this particular song. But with Iggy Pop, he wasn’t even on the list of singers on this album. I didn’t have a song for him. What happened was that I called him because I heard he wanted to do some blues. I’ve known Iggy for a long time and I wasn’t aware of it. And at the time I thought it was really interesting.
So I called him and asked, “Is there a song you’d like to do?”And he said Awful Dream through Lightnin’ Hopkins. If you pay attention to the original, it’s definitely a feat. It’s like anything they just grabar. no everyone plays the same thing at the same time, it’s very loose, there’s no express arrangement, that’s how we recorded the song.
It’s hard that no one ever asked Iggy to sing a blues song. They gave him the best voice for that.
I think he’s so much the godfather of punk that they don’t think of it when they think of Iggy Pop. But this consultation was great, it was just him and me living on a few stools. Its functionality was so heartfelt and so heartfelt. I got the impression that I was enjoying this release by making this song. In fact, it was a moment.
Demi Lovato sings on Papa Was A Rolling Stone. Es singer, but she’s not the person you’d expect to hear on an album like this. What made you think of her?
Papa Was A Rolling Stone is rarely a classic blues song, it’s more of an R song.
I asked him about the song, because it was vital that whoever was doing a song on the album had some kind of relationship with the curtains; you can’t just call someone bloodless with a song they’ve never heard before and say, “Hey. “Can you sing that?” because it’s not going to come with any kind of sincerity or passion. And it turns out that the song meant a lot to her and she personally felt in it on some level, and without delay she jumped. in it. This is one of the reasons why his birth is so direct and poignant.
Many of the other people whose songs you sing are dead, but you’ve met and even played with some of them. You played with BB King. How was it?
Well, I’ve played with BB a few times. It’s the kind of moment when a young guitarist meets his hero, an idol, and the latter takes the time to devote some of his time. He was generous to me.
The first time I played with him, I forgot that I had actually played with him. He will have to remind me of that years later. But he’s always been great to me. As a young guitarist, you literally enjoy those moments when someone you literally appreciate is willing to give their time.
You’re on Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well album, with Chris Stapleton on vocals. Have you ever met Peter Green?
In fact, I did. I met Peter at a German music exhibition, when they had him back up and running, so to speak. That was in the mid-’90s, and I guess I’d been incapacitated for a long time. He knew slightly where HeArray was, but they brought him back to the level to play.
I met him at his first concert, at this exhibition. He had no idea who I was, but I met him. It was huge, but at the same time it was also very surreal, because he was in a different position than where he was. Were.
And Stevie Wonder? There’s a Living For The City part on the album. Have you ever crossed paths with him?
Oh yes, I’ve seen it several times. It’s great. We joked that I would bet on one of his albums, but that never happened. I will gladly accept this offer if it ever comes to me.
I grew up listening to Stevie, and one of the reasons we did Living For The City is because it was my favorite song when I was 8 or nine years old. I enjoyed that record, Innervisions, and I enjoyed that song and the story it told. Tash [Neal] is the singer and guitarist on the song and will be the lead singer on the tour for this album.
You’re about to start your UK tour with The Conspirators. Will Myles Kennedy sing one of those songs?
Okay, so this excursion to the UK is with Myles, and it’s on the album we made two years ago that we never had the chance to open worldwide [the fourth album of 2022]. It has nothing to do with the blues record. .
He recently starred at the Oscars with Ryan Gosling in the movie I’m Just Ken from the movie Barbie. What’s your favorite memory of the night?
I just finished that song [laughs]. I just showed up on the day of the event. I had two days off for an Asia tour with the Conspirators, so I flew to L. A. from Korea, got taken to the Kodak Theater, got into this crazy chaos that is the Oscars, and did a quick review with Ryan Gosling singing. And all those guys dancing all over the place, and then they went backstage. I sat in the audience with all the other actors for the ceremony, then they gave up and I performed the song, we were put in a car, they went back to the airport and flew to the Philippines.
Are you making plans to collaborate with Ryan Gosling in the near future?
Oh, no. . . Mark Ronson, who is a dear friend of mine, asked me to record the song, which I did. The movie came out and it was huge, and the song was doing well, so he asked me if I would do the Oscars performance, which I wasn’t originally going to do because I was in Asia, but Hollywood did it. He got out of his way and took me there to perform this song.
Ryan was great, I didn’t know what to expect. We spent some time backstage and he sang the song. I have to congratulate him, he did all this production. But no, I don’t think I’m going to. Make a record out of it.
Orgy Of The Damned will be released on May 17th. Cutting feat. Miles Kennedy
Tickets are on sale now.
Tickets are on sale now.
Dave Everley has been writing and humming music since the early ’90s. During this time, he served as deputy editor of Kerrang!and Classic Rock, associate editor of Q mag and editor/tea boy of Raw, not necessarily in that order. he has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the absolutely legendary Ultrakill. He’s still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.
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