SLASH Says Playing With THE CONSPIRATORS Is A 'Refreshing,' 'No-Pressure, Laid-Back Gig'

In September, Slash joined forces with Myles Kennedy and THE CONSPIRATORS for their first tour together in three years, a month-long American trek that wraps up on October 16. The following month, the guitarist will rejoin GUNS N' ROSES for what will apparently be the final leg of the "Not In This Lifetime" tour, after which he will soon once again hit the road with THE CONSPIRATORS.

Moving forward, juggling two active bands will likely be his new reality. "For all intents and purposes, I would imagine that I'd be able to do the two things [simultaneously]," he recently told writer Clay Marshall. "Granted, you have to sort of look at it a little bit in advance. GUNS is doing a southeast Asia tour coming up in November and [I] was looking to see what it was going to be doing next summer so I could plot out my whole thing. You have to be very conscious of one in terms of the other, but as far as the big five-year plan or any of that kind of stuff, I'm never one to really sort of plot out the future."

Slash said he's received no push-back from anyone in the GN'R camp over releasing his new solo album, "Living The Dream", prior to the completion of the "Not In This Lifetime" tour. "It's all sort of out in the open and understood, whatever anybody is doing outside of GUNS," he said. "It's very transparent."

Touring with THE CONSPIRATORS is a drastic change of pace from the "Not In This Lifetime" tour, Slash explained. "It's a really no-pressure, very laid-back gig. It's very simple, [and] for me, it's almost refreshing. You can just book a tour and go out and play and there's no other bullshit, and there's not a lot of fanfare, I guess. I think I've always needed that because GUNS N' ROSES became such a big thing with so many moving parts and so many people involved, although it is way cooler now than it was in the '90s, where it was just a behemoth thing with all these inexperienced people at the helm trying to figure out how to take advantage of it, and I think it became a big hindrance for the band in the long run and had a lot to do with why things happened the way they did. In this instance, now it's way more professional and way more down to just the band, but it's still as big as it is no matter how you look at it. So yeah, I do find it's nice to be able to have this simple, little thing that doesn't require all that much attention. [Laughs]"

Now that he's rejoined GUNS N' ROSES, Slash said he feels less of an obligation to perform GN'R songs live with THE CONSPIRATORS. "We have a pretty decent-sized catalog of original material. With GUNS, obviously I've been doing that for a while, so we'll narrow it down to one, maybe two songs in the set, and leave it at that. The same with SNAKEPIT – we had like, four or five songs out of those two albums [on past CONSPIRATORS tours], so we'll probably do one, maybe two. We were talking about doing 'Beggars & Hangers-On', but I'm like, 'Oh, then I've got to break the slide out.'"

Still, he said he's excited to get back on the road with a group he feels has grown considerably during past tours. "I was aware as we progressed that the band started out at a certain place," he said. "We were doing 'Apocalyptic Love', and we were at the peak of our game at that moment, and then we went on the road. Being on the road always turns it into the best it can be, because you're jamming every night and there's a lot of synergy happening, a lot of improvising and whatnot. As a group, you get that much better, and you go in with ideas for the next record, and if you're fortunate, you're inspired, [and] it comes out that much better. It's definitely a natural kind of upward motion, progression. I think that's where we ended up with 'World On Fire'. If all goes well, the next record we do will be that much [better]."

"Living The Dream" was released on September 21 via Slash's own label, Snakepit Records, in partnership with Roadrunner Records.