Slash from Guns N' Roses Guitar World Magazine Interview

PJ Pat delves into the latest Guitar World magazine cover story about Slash. Pat discusses Slash's iconic guitar work, his unique sound, and his journey with Guns N' Roses, including their historic reunion and ongoing tours. Other topics include Slash's solo projects, his collaboration with other music legends, and insights into classic GNR tracks like 'Welcome to the Jungle' and 'November Rain.' The episode also covers Slash's dynamic with fellow band members and speculations on a potential new GNR album.

00:35 Diving into Slash's Iconic Style
01:25 The Legendary Gear and Techniques of Slash
02:54 Slash's Journey Post-Guns N' Roses
06:30 The Reunion and Evolution of Guns N' Roses
07:46 Reflecting on the Use Your Illusion Era
15:26 Slash's Insights on Iconic Tracks
22:27 The Future of Guns N' Roses

Transcript

Hey, rock fan. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. Welcome to the It's one Louder podcast. That is right. My name is PJ Pat, and on this podcast I share my 2 cents as a passionate rock fan and a musician. Uh. My 2 cents on Guitar Magazine articles and interviews, and today I got a doozy one for you.

I'm gonna talk about slash you ready to do this? Let's do it. Your host, PJ Pat, has done absolutely nothing that you would know about. So turn up the volume one louder, louder, and enjoy the show. Okay. So in the latest Guitar World Magazine where there's slash and Richard Fortis, the other guitar player in Guns, roses are right on the cover.

Didn't take me long to take a look inside and found this article about slash entitled slash and Burn by Andrew Dally. And so let's get into this. But before we do, just a little comment on slash I mean, just like many of you, he's one of my favorite guitar players, such a recognizable sound. His soloing style is very unique.

And there's of course that look, that unmistakable look slash is one of those. Even if you see a silhouette of him with his top hat, maybe not even his top hat, maybe his like crazy curly hair. You know? It's him. That's it. Amazing. Amazing, amazing. Amazing player. Amazing band. What a tone. Speaking of tone, actually, you know, we all know and love that sound of Appetite for destruction.

Guns, Rose's first album apparently, from what I've read, obviously he has such a really cool and unique tone on that. Amazing killer tone. Now, he actually rented that Marshall Amp. And he spent a long time looking for that amp after he got famous and wanted to replicate that same tone from the first album, but he just couldn't find it.

So that AMP is probably in someone's garage right now, or who knows, stocked in some attic somewhere. But yeah, he is not crazy. Very similar. I mean, still unmistakable tone with slash What's really cool about him for all you guitar players, so obviously he plays Les Paul Gibson, Les Paul most of the time, but normally.

When you solo, you actually turn that switch on to trouble to get more of a bite when you solo. But slash he does the opposite. So during solos he puts it to the rhythm tone for solos. To him it kind of gives like a warmer type soloing feel. And for the rhythm, he actually cranks it up and switches it to treble sound and it kind of gives a more biting rhythm sound.

And you actually notice that. Pretty early on when you start to get to know about tones and stuff. That's something unique that he does, and I think that's really cool and he stuck with it even to this day. That's his signature sound. Okay. Enough about the geeky stuff. Let's get into the cover story of Guitar World magazine slash and Burn.

Saul slash Hudson is the luckiest man in rock quitting goods N Roses in 1996 when they were on top of the world. He returned in 2016 for the ultimate victory lap, making peace with XL Rose, playing guitar at the peak of his powers, and even learning love a certain harmonics, heavy ballad words by Andrew Dally, DALY.

Slash was there when in the aftermath of Guns N Roses. Guns N Roses is 1987 debut album, appetite for Destruction. The band suddenly exploded onto a chaotic arc from Sunset Strip hopefuls to one of the biggest, most de botched rock acts on the planet. So it's hard to imagine anything phasing him, but when the guitar maestro considers how far GNR has come since his and basis of MCC Kagan's return in 2016, his mind is clearly blown.

As he tells Guitar World, it really trips me out that all of this has happened from the outside looking in, of course, slashes return to the GNR fold seemed inevitable behind the scenes, though he and GNR Vocalist and leader Axel Rose, barely spoke after the guitarist left the band in 1996, let alone thought about teaming up the take on the world again.

Having said that, though, since 1996 to 2016 when he rejoined slash has been a really busy guy, pretty much after leaving GNR, he. Formed his own band called slash a Snake Pit. And if you haven't had a chance to listen to that first record, that bluesy, gritty, dirty rock, just like you want slash to do, go check it out.

The singer's name is Eric Dover. He has an amazing voice. I love it. It's kind of a. Really raw and raspy type voice. He was the guitar player and singer for jellyfish. Just a fun fact for you. But yeah, go check it out. And of course, let's not forget, he rejoined some XGNR people. Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum.

And United with the One and only Scott Whalen. Rest in Peace. Two form Velvet Revolver. Did a couple albums there, some kick-ass songs there. He did his own solo. Album. I remember that first solo album where he had a bunch of guest vocalists show up. Amazing. If you haven't checked that out, it's, I think it's just called slash but yeah, miles Kennedy was on there.

The guy from Wolf Mother Fergie from Black Eye Peas, just to give you a kind of a variety. So he went all over the place on that one, and then he struck Alacia with Miles Kennedy. So he did his own after that slash my and Miles Kennedy and the conspirators. That one was really cool. So you know what? He's a busy guy and.

Having read a couple interviews with slash he just needs to keep busier to stay outta trouble. And that's what he does. He's just constantly working on stuff. Even now when he's not doing GNR stuff, he's doing his own solo stuff, writing songs for the new album, et cetera. So really cool to see that he's just one of those active, legendary guitar players, you know?

'cause you got people like, let's say for example, Jimmy Page. Amazing, influential. Virtuoso in his own right. And he really hasn't done much. You know, I think he did this one album with, uh, Coverdale called Coverdale Page. Amazing, amazing. But that was it. That was the only album I loved that listened to that nonstop at some point in my life.

And, uh, what else did he do? He did like a live album with the Black Crows. I think he did one solo album or a couple things here and there, but I mean if you think about it, he hasn't really done much, but thankfully slash is not one of those guys like Jimmy Page and he likes to put himself out there and put in the work and be productive and bless us with all this amazing music and guitar schooling.

Back to the article and even when he did agree to Cozy up alongside Rose again, he didn't exactly have the long haul in mind. It sounds crazy, but when I first got involved again, it was just to do a couple of shows, one of which was Coachella slash says, we'd been getting these offers to do that event for years.

So Axel and I got together, sat down and hashed out a lot of stuff that had been built up over the years. That's when he said, we get these offers to do Coachella. You wanna do it? I said, yeah, that would be fun. So much fun. In fact, that slash is still here nine years later. But this isn't your father's guns N Roses.

There are no more hardcore drugs, no more binge drinking benders and no more infighting. The fact is that tore the band apart in the first place. That's the best way to put it slash as other than changes in the way things were handled back in a day. It's just maturing and maybe the lack of massive substance abuse on my part.

He laughs. I can't speak on everybody else's behalf, but all those things play into it. It's a perfect storm of a lot of things. That Perfect Storm has seen Guns N Roses go from a legacy act who went through league guitar players like it was going outta style in the early two thousands to regrouping and picking up where they left off after the Use Your Illusion tour in the early nineties.

I got pause here and tell you a little story now that use your Illusions era. Obviously it was awesome. Those albums are untouchable and it was a big soundtrack of my life back then, but I got mixed feelings 'cause I actually went to that concert where they opened up, it was a duo headlining thing with Metallica, guns N Roses, and I wasn't living a Montreal at the time.

So when they came over, faith no more open for them. What a, what A bill. Right? How awesome is that? But the thing is, that's when that in Famous Riot broke out in Montreal. I was there. I was in that crowd. Now I was a little too young to instigate anything, but I remember just being in awe and scared for my life when the riot broke out.

I mean, I have never seen as many police in one place as then in riot gear on horses and just that amount of teenage. Anger and angst and vandalism happening all at the same time was really overwhelming. And unfortunately, yeah, we only got to see, I think it was like four or five songs from GNR before Axl just had enough, threw his mic down and took off and bang, that's.

How the riot started. Now, if James Hetfield hadn't burnt his arm before then maybe there wouldn't have been such a violent reaction like that. But that's the whole thing about that night. Metallica came on and people were just vibing. It was awesome. And right in the middle of fate to black, that's when James was standing a little too close to the fireworks.

Burnt his arm. They had to stop the show. Lars Kirk came out and apologized and uh, said, Hey, you know, we can't continue, but we'll be back. And we waited and waited and waited. That's, this is when Axo started showing up late to gigs and just didn't give a crap about what people thought. And so, yeah, by that time when GNR came on, the crowd was already.

There's a lot of pent up anger and frustrations of the night, and unfortunately he didn't help matters when he took off like that on us. Yeah, a little bit of mixed feelings, but I'm glad that they were able to make up, and I've seen GNR now since they got back together twice now, and I gotta say, they sound amazing, axle sounds.

He doesn't have the power he used to have in his voice, but as an overall package. Amazing. Amazing, amazing. And, uh, he plays on time and they do like a full, at least two hours or more show, and it's just rocking. So I'm really happy that they were able to, uh, you know, put their feelings aside and just rock out and show the world what real rock and roll is all about.

Okay. Back to the article. We did Coachella, then we just kept going slash says it never really stopped. The only thing that temporarily stopped it was COVID because we were just going from tour to tour and having a great time. Having a cashier of iconic songs to revisit surely made having a great time, much easier, but for slash, these aren't just any songs.

For the most part. These are songs defined by his riffs and his solos, which the guys who kept his spot warm for 20 years could never quite replicate. Yeah, you could say slash is Guns N Roses proverbial X factor. But it has nothing to do with top hats, though. He makes those look damn cool too. Nor does it have to do with his Les Paul slung low because those are always cool.

But the vibe elicits from the stadium size audience g and r perform to every night. I don't wanna sound cliche slash says, but every show is so contingent on the audience. That sort of reciprocal energy is what drives it, and that has been solid for this whole run since I've been back in it. That's how it was from our inception back in the day up until I left in 1996.

The last part of that statement specifically about leaving in 1996 is particularly critical when it comes to Guns N Roses, despite their issues. Axl Rosen slash Epitomize, that classic lead singer, lead guitarist dynamic. It's magic. In 1996, that magic died. Yes. The post slash lineup of GNR gave us 2000 eights Chinese democracy.

And yes, it was kind of fun to see Buckethead Shred with Guns N Roses. The same goes for Robin Fink and Ron Bumblefoot Foul. But we wanted to see the band that gave us appetite for destruction and used your illusions one and two. Absolutely. I mean, before slash and Duff join. It was a rough go for GNR.

They could obviously not fill stadiums. They were playing like these couple of thousand capacity venues here and there. But man, as soon as Duff and slash joined an explosion, and that confirms this last statement, people wanted to see that magical band that brought us those first three or four albums.

We're fortunate to be a band whose material has stood the test of time like that slash says, and we're fortunate to be appreciated This far out. To be able to maintain that much interest, you have to consider yourself really fucking lucky. And that's the way I see it. It's been quite a ride. That right isn't over yet.

GNRS shows planned around the world in 2025, aiming to circle back to America for yet another stadium sized victory lap. After that, their long awaited reunion album just might be in the works, but not until the time is right. More on that later. Oh man. That's the one thing I think fans are dying.

Absolutely dying to hear, is a new GNR album with slash and duff. Part of the songwriting process, man. Now if you listen to slash recently, he has been hinting at it, so I'm crossing my fingers that one day it'll happen. But yeah, it's been what, like a. Five, six years now that they have been touring nonstop, playing pretty much the same set, the same songs.

I mean, it's awesome. But I mean, like I said, I've seen them twice. I don't intend on seeing them three or four times. I'm not sure how many people out there planning on doing that. So I think, I know they're probably milking it and writing that wave, but at some point. I mean those stadiums, ticket sales have gotta start coming down 'cause they've been doing the same shtick for at least five, six years now, if not more for the time being slash is vibing and enjoying the ride in a way his younger self maybe couldn't.

I constantly have to stop and be thankful that we're able to do something that I love so much. He says there's really nothing like it. To be able to go out there and play for three hours is really a blessing. I just wanna pause here. We mentioned earlier about slash being the X factor in Guns N Roses. I gotta disagree.

I mean, slash is obviously a necessity with just the riffs and the solos that he's come up with over the years. But the true X factor is. Izzy Stradling. Yes, Izzy Stradling. So I know they're in the studio writing new songs. But without Izzy, man, I'm telling you, I am a little fearful that they're not gonna be as good or as creative or as magical as those previous albums with Izzy.

'cause pretty much Izzy was part of the songwriting process. All the way up till, use your illusions. And um, he really is, I think, the X factor in GNR. Hopefully one day he comes back. If not, I get it. You know, he doesn't want that spotlight. It's not for everybody. I get it. But if you take a look at the credits and how much is he contributed to the songwriting?

Right from the get go, right from appetite from Destructions, you'll see how important he was for the band. Okay, so we reached a portion of the article where Guitar World starts asking questions and slash just answers the questions. I'm not gonna read 'em all, I'm just gonna pick and choose which ones I find interesting.

And the first one is this one right here. What's it been like playing beside Richard Fortress, the other guitar player compared to Izzy Stradling and Gilby Clark. Richard is a great all round guitar player. He can do it all. And the cool thing about him is that. All of the guys who were in the band when I wasn't like Buckethead Bumblefoot and DJ aspa, he was the only one I'd worked with prior.

He was there for a minute and with all those guys in there, I don't know how that would've worked when I came back and there was a lot of expectation that Izzy was going to do this, but Richard was there that first day we started rehearsals and I was given the opportunity to see if I liked working with him or not.

Although we did toy with the idea of Izzy coming back. Richard was always there. I felt really at ease and comfortable with Richard staying in when Izzy didn't work out. Izzy is such a recluse. It's difficult to imagine him playing so many big shows on such a grand scale. Well, it was weird coming back into it for me, so we had just started to rehearse and the depth of the material at this point and the level of play, manship and all that kind of stuff.

CI the nineties was where everybody had been growing as players. We're all really eager to get better and just keep evolving. But I don't know where Izzy would've fallen in at that time. I have no idea because we never really got a chance to jam at any of those initial rehearsals for the, not in this Lifetime tour.

So I don't know what it would've been like. Everybody has been constantly working this whole time and growing as musicians, but I don't know what he's been up to on a musical level. Ah, okay. Here, a little bit of a appetite for destruction history here. Looking back, how did you write the riff for Appetite for Destruction's First Track?

Welcome to the Jungle. Welcome to the Jungle is funny because when that riff came to me, Axel had come over and I played him that riff, right? And then we had our first rehearsals at this guy, Nikki Beat Studio in Silver Lake in la and on that first day we were like, what are we gonna play? This is when the band first got together, like the classic lineup with Steven Adler and Izzy Axl goes, why don't you play that thing you were playing to me earlier?

And that's where Jungle started. We all fell into where I had the riff and Izzy and everybody just had different input. That's how all our songs worked. No matter who we came up with, the initial idea, everybody was hands on. And that's what I was saying. That's why Izzy was so important in those early days.

Did the solo come just as spontaneously? I remember doing a solo, but I can't remember how we ended up in C Sharp. He laughs. I remember changing a couple of notes around the chord changes and the solo just came together. But all of that material on appetite musically almost wrote itself. I can't remember too much time being spent on any one particular song where we were trying to get the arrangement right.

Everything had to be done in the studio at Nikki Beats and entire songs came out of it, and Jungle was one of those where it really came together in a time it took to have a session. Alright, some more appetite, history. Question is, is it true that you didn't initially like Sweet Child of Mine slash is?

Yeah. I have to admit, I did have a thing with it. He laughs. It was a riff I came up with and I didn't know what I was gonna do with it. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time, but it inspired the whole song. I always say this, but to me we were like a Motorhead type hard rock band. So any kind of ballads were sort of unres.

He laughs, but it really became part of our set. We played it one time opening for Ted Nugent, and when it was time to play that song, I was like, oh fuck, he laughs. And of course I had to remember how to play the riff accurately by myself in front of everybody every time we played, which at the time I was a little drunk and you never knew what was gonna happen.

He laughs. So how do you feel about the song now slash says, as luck would have it, it was a single that actually broke the band. It's a great song and I don't have any issues with it. I had issues with it back in the early days when I'd go out and play it, but it's become one of the big 10 pole songs in a set.

So it is what it is. When people talk about your guitar solos, November Rain always comes up. Yeah. That iconic scene from the video, if you remember where slash walks out in front of the church and just belts out that solo and you got the shot of like the above overhead shot and just all around him while he is soloing freaking amazing scene from that video.

But yeah, his November rain solo, absolute stunner. Slash says, yeah, but all the solos that one included were very spontaneous and at the moment when the song was written, are you freaking kidding me? That is crazy. That is absolutely insane. That's how pro he is. You figure out what the chord changes are gonna be and then just.

Do whatever you feel. The November rain solo, which sounds so structured to me now, was just what happened in the moment? Oh man, my mind is blown. Wow. He was just feeling it. I wonder how many takes he did on that one, and I wonder if they kind of cut and pasted his solos, although that was kind of early on.

Pre-pro tools, so I'm not sure if they did a lot of that stuff. I mean, obviously they used to do it. Back then with tapes and just cut and paste using tape like, you know, uh, David Gilmore's solo Uncomfortably Numb is famously known as like he piecemeal that last classic solo. Different parts of, um, a couple of takes.

So they used to do it back then, but it was obviously not as common as now with you could easily deal with Pro Tools and digitize it. Well, Andrew's really honing in on the appetite stuff, which is awesome. When you play Rocket Queen Live, it features an open-ended jam. That whole jam section has been there since the nineties when guns was doing the stadium tours back then, we started to extend parts of certain songs to make jams out of them and really just made them up on the spot.

You really didn't know what the structure was. How has that evolved since you've been playing with Richard? Initially he was doing a solo section. I was doing a solo section. Then it would get back to the arrangement of the solo. Okay. Last two questions. When you returned to guns nine years ago, did you imagine you'd be packing stadiums with the world at the band's fingertips again?

He says, no, I didn't. It'll be 10 years in March, 20, 26, 10 years now. So I was a little off. They've been touring for 10 years. Imagine 10 years with the same set list, the same songs. Nothing really new, crazy. I'm sure they're making millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars each for this.

But man, come on, get into the studio, guys. Come up with an album already, man. Like I was seeing before, I'm blown away that we've managed to have such a great following this whole time. Well, that's 'cause your songs are so damn good slash so damn good. Last question. Is there a new album in gn R's Future?

Thank you, Andrew for asking slash says, there's so much material at this point. It's a matter of having the discipline to sit down and fucking get to it. But the thing with guns is, in my experience, you can never plan ahead. You can never sit down and go, we're gonna take this time and we're gonna do this.

Every time we've done that, it falls apart. It just spontaneously happens through some sort of inspiration that triggers it. And the next thing you know, it's off and running. So it's coming. I know it's coming because everybody is thinking about it. It'll just happen when it happens. All right, well, thanks a lot slash for leaving it wide open.

That doesn't really tell us shit does it? That can mean it's coming next month or 10 years from now. Thanks a lot slash Anyways, there's the icon slash himself from the horse's mouth. Hopefully enjoy this. Do yourself a favor. Just keep on enjoying their amazing music. And when the new album comes out, it'll come out, like I said, because Izzy is not gonna be involved in the songwriting process for this new album.

I don't really have crazy high expectation for it. But hey, in the meantime, do yourself a favor. Rock out to their music. And when that album comes, we're going to, I was gonna say rush out and get it, but it's more like we're gonna rush and stream it. And see what happens. You know, don't set your expectations too high, but just enjoy the fact that these legends are back in the studio laying something down like slash said.

It's gonna be whatever it is. Alright, if you want to support the show and you're digging this cap. Go check out. It's one louder.com, ITS, the number one louder.com. I've got a bunch of rock and roll gear on there. Some mugs, hoodies, t-shirts, you name it. Rock. One louder and I'll see you the next one.