SLASH On Recording Solo Album: 'I Needed To Get It Out Of My System'

Steven Rosen of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with legendary guitarist Slash (VELVET REVOLVER, GUNS N' ROSES). A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: We spoke back in September of 2009 and you were already talking about a solo record then. This project must have been a long time in the making.

Slash: What happened was I wrote this book ["Slash"] and one of the passages in the book, I said something about, "The next record I'd like to do would be a record where I could get a lot of people that I've worked with to come and sing on my record as opposed to me always going and jamming and doing sessions for other people." And I was starting to think outside of the box at that point because the VELVET thing I knew wasn't gonna last much longer than that tour. At least the lineup that we had.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: That's when you started giving thought to a solo album?

Slash: So I was starting to think of other things and I needed the outlet. I needed to do something where I was just captain of my own ship for a minute. I'm not saying that I want to do this permanently but I just needed to, after all the stuff with GUNS 'N ROSES and then VELVET REVOLVER, I just needed to do something to sort of get my own ya yas out.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You didn't want to do another SNAKEPIT-styled record?

Slash: I didn't want to put together another band. SNAKEPIT was a band; everybody wrote, everybody had equal input even though I had my name on it. I'm so used to being in a band that I just never really tried to do anything else. So what happened was we finished the tour and Scott [Weiland] got fired right after we walked off the stage in Amsterdam. So as soon as I got home I started compiling material and started looking at a solo record. I started writing and doing all that kind of stuff. I also scored a movie so I was spending a lot of time just sort of creating.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You were in a really musical place?

Slash: I put together a bunch of material and I started thinking who would sound good. I did one song and said, "This would sound great for Ozzy" or the Fergie song ("Beautiful Dangerous") was totally pegged for her. And that's how the whole record was.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You say that Fergie was the perfect person to sing this track you had written. You didn't have any other choices, for example, but Fergie on that music you were putting together?

Slash: Yeah, exactly. There were a few songs I didn't know who was gonna sing but for the most part I put something together, listened to it, and thought, "Who would sound great on that particular track?" And most of it worked out; there were a couple people that I didn't necessarily get but it all worked out for the better because who I ended up getting on it was way better than my original idea.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Were you thinking about vocal melodies during the demo stage? Did you have any rough ideas for vocals or anything?

Slash: It was really sort of an open canvas for any singer that I chose. I was thinking more along the lines of I was putting choruses together and I'd put a bridge in. Sometimes it would only be two parts; sometimes it would be more of a song structure and just say, "Have at it. It's totally open to your interpretation and we change the arrangement if need be. Whatever it is."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Ozzy actually recorded this at his home studio. Were you there when he cut the vocal?

Slash: Yeah. It was great; I'm glad you brought that up. I've known Ozzy for a while; we met in the late '80s. He's one of those icons that I sort of grew up with and I've had defined experiences listening to SABBATH and listening to Ozzy growing up. It's like the background music to my life. Anyway to be sitting next to Ozzy working on one of my songs and him singing into the microphone, to have that voice just sort of casually singing right next to me was definitely an experience. It was very cool. He was writing and working on the lyrics and singing into the microphone.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Having Lemmy in the studio doing "Doctor Alibi" must have been cool.

Slash: That was another great moment; having Lemmy come down. Because Lemmy was one of those guys that I so looked up to and I still do. When I was a kid, I was one of those Lemmy fans that would bow in his presence. And we got to be friends and he's always sort of taken me under his wing kind of thing and he's always been really cool. Lemmy is one of those kinds of guys who can have a real serious attitude if he wants to. He's actually a really nice guy in general. I always thought he was sort of intimidating but he was always really nice to me. And I've had a chance to work with him; I've played on one of their records ["March or Die"] and I've done a lot of gigs with 'em. I asked him if he'd be interested and I sent him the thing and he got it right away and he came down to the studio.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Lemmy must have been a little crazy in the studio?

Slash: We had bottle of Jack Daniels and a couple bags of potato chips and it reminded me of when I used to show up at sessions. It was great. And the song is all about how the doctor told him how he might have to quit partying and then another doctor said, "No, you need to continue." It's a great personal thing; I'm really honored to have it on there.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: When you really think about it, you making this type of record really makes sense. Because you have done all these different kinds of sessions and worked with different types of musicians on their albums so you do have all these different musical experiences.

Slash: I needed to get it out of my system. But the timing was such that I couldn't have made this record anytime prior to this particular period. The motivation was there but also it took all these years to collect enough credibility to call up a guy like Steve Ferrone and say, "Hey, would you come down and play on a track?" It was nerve wracking just to make the phone calls and see whether they would do it or not. But I'm sure it might not have been as easy had I not established these relationships with people. And it was a perfect time to do it because VELVET at least with Scott had run its course. I couldn't go through that process of auditioning singers and get that all back together to do another VELVET record. I really needed a break from the band vibe. So maybe it was in the cards to do this now.

Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com.