SLASH On The Making Of His New Solo Album

FasterLouder.com.au recently conducted an interview with legendary guitarist Slash (VELVET REVOLVER, GUNS N' ROSES). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

FasterLouder.com.au: You've named this album after yourself, but there's more collaborators on it than any other Slash album.

Slash: Well, OK. I did that because it's my record. I made all the phone calls and all the arrangements, and I hired the producer, I did all the basic whatever to make a record. Wrote all the music and then went out and begged all these singers to sing on it. So it's still a solo record, it's not like a compilation record, you know what I mean? There's been other records that bear my name, but it was really a record company thing to put my name on there because they figured it would sell more records. But those were actually bands, and it was the same kind of arrangement as GUNS N' ROSES and VELVET REVOLVER, so it wasn't really any kind of a solo thing at all.

FasterLouder.com.au: How did you decide on who were going to work with this time?

Slash: It was easy, I wrote the music first and when I would have something — a solid idea for pieces of music or a song or arrangement — then I would think, "Who would sound really good singing this? What style of vocalist? Which of my favourite singers is this gonna fit?" And that's what I would do. I'd figure that out and then contact that individual and see if they were into it, and fortunately everyone was really great. I was really blessed when I put this record together, because everybody came on board. I think the one thing I was right in making the record was, I paired the music with the proper singers. So I didn't go to anybody and give them a piece of music that was so fucking leftfield for them that they would be like, "I don't fucking get this," you know? [Laughs] They were more like, "Oh yeah, this is right up my alley," which is why I thought of them in the first place, and I think that worked out really well.

FasterLouder.com.au: There are some people on here, some collaborations, that fit really well with what we know you for doing. And then there are some other people that are pretty different for you. People like Fergie. Or even looking at someone like Adam Levine. Did you deliberately want to work with people outside your scene?

Slash: Well, that's the thing, you know. I'm a rock guy, that's what I'm known as. I always will be. That's my first and foremost passion. But as a musician I like a lot of different stuff. GUNS N' ROSES, you know, we would branch out as best we could as a group. With VELVET REVOLVER you could only go so far outside of what the band is really capable of. So I do a lot of session work with all kinds of people that you would never expect, because as an individual I can do anything I want. So I do play on a lot of eclectic stuff which I great because I learn a lot and I meet a lot of great people. I think when you're working with brilliant people it really transcends all genres and it just becomes amazing music regardless of what type it is. So when I did this record I wrote some stuff that was pretty regular for me, and some stuff that was even heavier than you'd expect from me, and some stuff that was just different. And so I found the appropriate singers that I felt would fit the vibe, so that's where all those different people came from. But I do different shit all the time!

FasterLouder.com.au: Is VELVET REVOLVER totally over at this point?

Slash: No, no we never made any announcement like that. It's just been very dormant since I started this record, and we got back from the last tour and parted ways with Scott [Weiland], and then got together and wrote a really insane bunch of material and everyone was really happy. And we started auditioning singers again. That was sort of tedious and embarrassing and as soon as I got that feeling that we were going to rush to find someone, we decided to put it down, and we'll revisit it. So I started doing my record, and Duff's [McKagan] doing his thing with LOADED and Matt [Sorum] was also busy, and so we're getting back together next year to start working on the singer search again.

FasterLouder.com.au: You seem to really love the Twitter. Do you like the space it's created a between you and your fans? Maybe you could find a singer that way?

Slash: I love it! I hate the name of it though. It's such a stupid fucking name. If it was called something else it would be great [laughs]. It's really cool to know where your fans are coming from. You can give out accurate information from the horse's mouth without relying on press releases and publications. And just being direct with them, without having to go through the hassles of meeting on the street, or having them come to my house! [Laughs]. It's very personal. I also realise that it's taken the place of smoking. I worked that out the other day, because it gives me something to do with my hands.

Read the entire interview from FasterLouder.com.au.