SLASH Says Record-Company Politics Kept STEVEN TYLER Off Guitarist's Solo Record

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

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Did what occurred between VELVET REVOLVER and Scott Weiland burn you out on the band concept for a bit?

Slash: No. The band concept is fine, but we had to find a new singer, and I knew that wasn't gonna be the easiest thing in the world to get. I just wanted to take that opportunity to just clear my own head, and just do something by myself. It's as simple as that. I'm still a member of VELVET REVOLVER.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You've obviously been as part of a solo group for several months now, so how would you describe the differences between being in a solo group compared to when you're usually in a band setup?

Slash: In the studio, it was obviously something that I had to do on my own from the ground up; getting the material together, calling the different singers, getting the material to the singers, setting all that up, finding a producer, hiring a backline — everything. That's way different from doing it with a band, because in a band, you've got the other four guys and you all work together. It's more of a team effort, whereas this was just something where I was responsible for putting the whole thing together. I hired new management to help work out sales and that kind of thing. At this point, I'm on the road and I'm back to the band situation. Although I'm sort of labelled the boss, I still — at this point — treat it like a group. I call the shots, but at the same time, I think of what's best as a whole. It's actually interesting going from doing a solo record to then getting a band to tour, and getting all the material together and going out, and being in a group again.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: How are you finding being the boss, so to speak?

Slash: I'm not really the kind of person, in no way, shape or form, to play the dictator role. I think everybody I'm working with is very professional, and they know exactly what their roles are. They carry their own weight, and they know what they have to do. I just guide the whole thing, and make some of the decisions (laughs),but I definitely don't treat it like I'm the boss.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: In an interview, you said that two singers you would've liked to have worked with for your solo album were AEROSMITH's Steven Tyler and MEGADETH's Dave Mustaine. If you had the opportunity, what type of tracks would you potentially record with them two?

Slash: Actually, I worked with Steven for a second, but it was just a huge conflict of interest with AEROSMITH. The song hasn't been used with anybody else, but there was no chance that the record company was gonna allow us to release it, so we had to let it go. I might go back and revisit that with Steven. The song that I did with M. Shadows [AVENGED SEVENFOLD] was originally an idea that I thought would be great for Dave, but Dave was on the road. I like to work quickly, so I never even pursued the idea because I thought M. Shadows would be cool. He's very melodic as far as heavy metal is concerned, so it just went there. I think Dave is probably one of the metal riff masters though. I think that with a lot of the shit he's done, he's naturally a genius. I used to jam with him back in the day, and with the style of riffs that he does, it would've been an interesting thing. I'm sure Dave and I will get together at some point and do something, but schedule wise, it wasn't possible at the time. I don't even think he knows (laughs),but I knew he was on tour, so... Anyway...

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Are there any other vocalists you'd like to work with in future?

Slash: Really, when it came down to it, I ended up working with everybody I had pegged for the material that I wrote. There's probably a lot of vocalists I could work with if I had the material for them, but I'm not gonna start naming names. Otherwise, things'll blow out of proportion, but there's a lot of people that I admire. It's not like I got every single singer that I like. It was just that the music that I wrote I got the right singers for. If I was gonna do another one of these records, depending on the material, names'll probably spring up.

Read the entire interview at Ultimate-Guitar.com.