SLASH Discusses 'World On Fire' Artwork In New Video

A new clip of Slash discussing the cover artwork of his third album, "World On Fire", can be seen below. The cover was designed by American contemporary artist Ron English, who previously worked with the axeman on the 2010 collaborations album "Slash".

"World On Fire" will be released on September 15. Slash and MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS recorded 17 songs for the follow-up to 2012's "Apocalyptic Love". Among the other tracks on the record are "Shadow Life", "Automatic Overdrive", "Wicked Stone", "Bent To Fly", "Battleground" and the title track, which also serves as the set's first single.

Slash told Music Radar about the new CD, "I wrote the majority of the music when I was on the 'Apocalyptic Love' tour. You know, just sitting around in dressing rooms and hotel rooms for a year, I accumulated all these ideas. Then in September [2013] I sat down and went through everything I'd recorded on my voice memo on my phone and picked out about 20 different ideas then we went into pre-production in October and just started jamming. We were there for a couple of months, holed up in Mates rehearsal studio in Los Angeles. There was the whole writing process then once we had all the songs down we rehearsed the shit out of it, and then we brought the producer, Mike Baskette, in. And so we went through another phase of fine tooth-combing everything and getting the arrangements together. Myles came down and started working on his vocal parts… and by the time we were done with all that we were ready to go in and just bang the stuff out. It was a very quick process in the studio."

He continued: "The one thing about this record is that it was almost like it wrote itself, it was very effortless. And that happens very rarely, when there's a certain energy that carries the creative process and it's almost like you're not in control of it and you just ride that wave. That's how this record was. I can't think of any outside influence other than just going with this creative flow."

Slash also spoke about the musical chemistry between him and his bandmates, telling Music Radar: "I think basically everyone's a great rock 'n' roll player. They're real rock musicians at heart — deep down. So when we get together, we've built up a certain chemistry. We started out with a certain kind of chemistry and we're just evolving from there. At this point, everybody feels very comfortable just being themselves and doing what it is that they do best. It's just an unsaid, natural synergy that happens. For example, this is probably one of Brent's [Fitz, drummer] best records as a player, being able to do all the things he wanted to do. And the same with Todd [Kerns, bass] and the same for me. But having such a great rhythm section means I have to really fuckin' put together some great guitar bits on top of it. The other thing that's cool is Mike Baskette was great. One of the reasons why I really wanted to work with him was he just loves guitars and it's rare to get anyone who brings any ideas other than the ones you bring to the table as far as sounds and tones or anything like that. And that's a limitation: you can only do as much as you know how to do in the studio and sometimes you really need to work with an engineer who knows something in the recording studio that you don't know. That's what Mike brought into it. He was so enthusiastic about getting guitar sounds. He would put as much time into that as I could possibly put it in — sometimes more so. It was really inspiring. I haven't had that in a long, long time."

Slash released his first self-titled solo effort in 2010. On that album he employed a different vocalist on each track, before settling on ALTER BRIDGE member Kennedy for both touring and eventually recording.

"Apocalyptic Love" earned Slash his two first-ever No. 1 U.S. rock radio hits with "You're A Lie" and "Standing In The Sun".

The former GUNS N' ROSES member and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee is taking his band on the road this summer for both headlining dates and a tour with AEROSMITH.

Slash discussing "World On Fire" artwork: