Cover Story: Slash • Raised on the Blues
Over four decades, Slash has established himself as one of the greatest guitarists in the world. It seems he’s done it all. Aside from laying down iconic riffs for Guns N’ Roses, he’s worked with just about anyone you can think of: Lenny Kravitz, Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Miles Kennedy, Carole King, Iggy Pop, Ray Charles, Rihanna, Ozzy Osbourne, and Ronnie Wood to name a few.
He’s been inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame, has earned tons of accolades, has been named the second greatest guitar player ever, has sold millions of records, he’s even starred in video games (that Guitar Hero 3 battle against him still gives me nightmares). But there was one thing that kept nagging him. Something he’s been begging to get out of his system for years: a blues record. Though everyone thinks of him as the go-to rock guy, he’s a huge blues fan.
Growing up in England, he listened to bands like The Yardbirds, The Moody Blues, and The Kinks, who were all influenced by American blues. When he and his family moved to the States a few years later, his grandmother introduced him to traditional blues artists like B.B. King, Albert King, and Howlin’ Wolf. From there, he was hooked. When it was time to pick up the guitar, he used blues as a big influence.
“I’m a blues guitar player, to begin with. Everything I do in the hard rock genre has always been all blues guitar, and then you mix it,” he says. “There’s a lot of different influences in, say, Guns N’ Roses, so it comes out sounding a lot more eclectic than just straightforward blues. But if you were to isolate all my stuff, that’s all my playing is. The biggest influence on me when I first picked up the guitar was all blues guitars and blues music. I used to jam a lot and still do sit in with bar bands and blues cover bands all over America and in other countries. Just go out and scratch that itch to play some laid-back blues with somebody.”
This isn’t the first time he’s dipped his toes in the genre. In 1996 during a break from Guns N’ Roses, he felt the blues tugging at him, so he called up some friends and formed Slash’s Blues Ball as an excuse to play blues covers and have a good time. “It was just for the fun of it where we played all these really great covers. We actually toured around and had a great time doing it. I thought, you know, it’d be great to record this, but at that moment in time, it wasn’t my first and foremost priority because I had other things going on. So, I never recorded it.”
That familiar itch crept up again last year while on tour with Guns N’ Roses. He couldn’t ignore it any longer. It was time to make a blues record. He called up his old Slash’s Blues Ball bandmates bassist Johnny Griparic, keyboardist Teddy Andreadis, and drummer Michael Jermone to pick up where they left off over two decades ago.
“I had a break during the last Guns N’ Roses tour in between legs, so I called up my bandmates from Slash’s Blues Ball, who I’ve been friends with all this time, and said, let’s go in the studio and make that record. So, we got together and put together ten influential songs I grew up listening to and learning. Then I had the idea of getting different singers, which was going to be a lot of fun. Having the different singers helped make it a little bit more eclectic.”
The result is Orgy of the Damned, a collaborative blues cover project that finds the musician working with a variety of musicians from the Blues world and beyond. The tracklist includes songs Slash used to play with his blues buddies. He even went back to those old setlists to help outline the album. After cutting out songs that were fun to play in bars, but are maybe “too cliché for the record,” Slash turned to songs he loved growing up. “I didn’t want it to be a straight-up blues record. There are so many of those. I narrowed it down to the songs that had a direct influence on me. Songs that were really important to me growing up and are still majorly influential to this day. Then I narrowed it down to just ten of those.”
Though the tracklist features blues standards like “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Born Under a Bad Sign,” and “Cross Road Blues,” it also has a few surprises like Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well,” Stevie Wonder’s “Livin’ for the City,” and Steppenwolf‘s “The Pusher.”
“We got the songs together and went into the studio for a week and just banged them all out. We did some of the vocals live in the studio. For the rest of them, I would take the tapes and fly out to wherever the artist was and record them in a studio over there. We did the record a year ago, and I just couldn’t release it [until] now because I was on tour with Guns followed by a Conspirators tour that just ended last month.”
Alongside his old bandmates, Slash called up other famous friends to help him out, like Iggy Pop, Demi Lovato, Gary Clark Jr., Chris Stapleton, Brian Johnson, and Beth Hart, to name a few. The album’s star-studded lineup spans multiple genres: blues, rock, pop, and country, but this wasn’t intentional. Slash just wanted to get the right singers for the right songs.
“Every song [on the album] made me think of a singer I thought would fit it. I wasn’t trying to be like it has to be within this genre or that genre. It was just what I thought would be good for [the song]. In some cases, it was a little bit more predictable, like Paul Rogers doing an Albert King song was very fitting. Chris Robinson doing ‘The Pusher.’ But then, you know, Chris Stapleton doing a Fleetwood Mac song was probably left of center to most people. But I thought it was a really good idea because his voice would be a great fit for that particular song. I never thought of anybody else but the singers that were on the record for each song. I didn’t realize how eclectic it was going to be really until it was done.”
A standout inclusion is Demi Lovato, who sings on the cover of the Motown classic “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” Most people wouldn’t expect to see her on a record like this, but Slash couldn’t think of anyone else who could knock out the song.
“We didn’t do [that song] in Slash’s Blues Ball. I did a version of it in a band called Snake Pit a little bit after that, and I really enjoyed playing it. So, when we were doing this record, I wanted to do that song. But rather than have a guy sing it, I wanted to have a young girl’s voice who was telling the story about the infamous estranged late father. I just thought it would be more poignant.
“So, I called Demi because I know what great fucking falsetto she has. It’s very soulful, but she also has this sort of young singing voice, and it fits perfectly. She had a connection to the song, which was really important because that was sort of the telling factor. This was only going to work if the song meant something to her because you were going to get the most sincere, emotive reaction from them vocally. So, in Demi’s case, it worked out great. She really dug that song, and it had personal [meaning] for her.”
Lovato wasn’t the only artist who found meaning in their chosen song. Accomplished blues singer Beth Hart delivered a powerful rendition of “Stormy Monday” that’s downright chilling. The girt, hurt, and sadness are bleeding from her voice, and that was no accident. “She had just come back from Jeff Beck’s memorial that day,” reveals Slash. “So, she was really emotional, to begin with. “’ Stormy Monday’ is probably the most traditional blues approach because she’s a blues singer, but even then, we changed the way the song was from its original to where we did it in a minor key. It just made it a whole different sort of flavor than the original or the other versions of it.”
“She belted out that song while we were rehearsing. I didn’t even know she was in the booth. We had only just started playing that song in this different kind of mode on that day. So, we were really trying to rehearse it just so everybody was on the same page. And she just started singing. It was the only take we did because when she was done, she was floored. She gave it her all.”
With the album finished and finally released, Slash couldn’t wait to take it on tour. But when the opportunity to curate a festival was presented to him, he couldn’t refuse. Introducing the S.E.R.P.E.N.T (Solidarity, Engagement, Restore, Peace, Equality N’ Tolerance) Festival, “a celebration of blues” featuring artists like Larkin Poe, Samantha Fish, ZZ Ward, and Warren Haynes Band. Just the idea of the festival takes Slash back to his childhood.
“I jumped at the chance [to do a festival] because I wanted to pick the artists that were going to play the festival. To be able to pick artists I really like and put them all together and have a concert that’s during the summertime in these outdoor sheds – it’s pretty much the ultimate musical experience for me. I’ve always had a thing for the spirit of the summer outdoor music festival. I used to go to so many of them as a kid. I still do a lot of summer festivals with Guns and The Conspirators in Europe.
“But to do something that was blues based – I used to go to a lot of summer jazz festivals that were during the day when I was a kid. And that vibe, the spirit of that, was always so positive. All these people being together and enjoying a bunch of music all day long, it was just a really pleasant human experience.”
To further encourage the positive vibes and togetherness he felt at festivals, Slash used these shows to help give back to his favorite charities: The Equal Justice Initiative, Know Your Rights Camp, The Greenlining Institute, and War Child. A portion of the proceeds from each VIP package and S.E.R.P.E.N.T. festival tickets will directly support these organizations.
“I thought we could use [the festival] as a vehicle to promote togetherness because we’ve been in such a polarizing time over the last bunch of years, and it doesn’t seem to be getting much better. So, I wanted to do something that promoted people of some sort of exclusivity.
“Music really brings people together, so I thought it would be a really great thing and try to use the proceeds to help people who are having a hard time in a lot of different areas. Mental illness is a big one. You know, people are having to deal with racial inequality and issues like that. I think all [the charities] help humanity in a kind of way that’s sort of on a personal level.”
In some ways, Slash is bringing back the social activism that used to be an integral part of festivals like Lollapalooza and Woodstock. When these festivals first started, it wasn’t just about bringing together great bands for a day of amazing music. It was also about raising awareness about issues such as gun control, the environment, voting, HIV/Aids, and LGBTQ issues. You even saw it in the ’80s with events like Farm Aid, Live Aid, and Band Aid. Over the years, festivals have strayed further away from these causes, focusing more on big headliners and the almighty dollar.
“I hadn’t actually thought about the fact that it’s less so nowadays than it was back in the 60s, 70s and even the ’80s. In the ’90s, too, there was a lot more consciousness going on about social issues or environmental issues. We’ve sort of gotten away from it. It just seemed really important to me that if we were going to be able to reach this many people, we have to offer something in that direction.”
The festival kicks off in July with a different lineup playing each night, and Slash is eager to start playing. “I can’t wait for the tour to get underway. We’re doing a setlist of about 20 songs. There are all these other great old standards we didn’t do back in the 90s that we’re doing now. So, it’s going to be a lot of fun.” Hopefully, this is the start of a new tradition with plans to bring it overseas. But for now, he’s just excited to play the blues every night.
With the old blues band reunited and the record underway, you may think Slash is ready to leave his rock days behind him. Fortunately, that’s not happening any time soon.
“I’m very much a blues musician; at the same time, I’m still a hard rock guy who plays blues,” he says. “So, I didn’t want to be jumping on the bandwagon and saying, hey, I’ve switched gears. I’m a blues guy now. I just wanted to do a bunch of blues covers for the fun of it.”
For Slash, the blues goes beyond a type of music he enjoys. It’s something that connects him to his childhood, played a big influence on his guitar playing, and, most importantly, provided a community he hopes to bring to others. “The blues is a really great vehicle for bringing people together. It’s the kind of music that really is about that.”
Slash’s new album Orgy of the Damned is out now.
-Ashley Perez Hollingsworth
Category: Cover Story, Featured, Monthly
