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Slash: ‘I always enjoy coming to Dublin. It is exciting when it is the first gig on the run’

Slash, who plays Dublin this week, on recording with AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, his new blues album and the future for Guns N’ Roses

On tour: Slash. Photograph: Helle Arensbak/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty
On tour: Slash. Photograph: Helle Arensbak/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty
Ronan McGreevy's picture
Ronan McGreevy
Mon Mar 25 2024 - 06:00
You are starting your European tour in Dublin this week, promoting 4, your fourth album with Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators. This would appear to be the longest collaboration of your career.

We have been together for 14 years. It doesn’t feel like that. It is an easy gig because there are no expectations. Everybody does it for the fun of it. Because of issues with the pandemic, we weren’t able to tour when 4 was released. So we are on tour now. We have just finished Australia, Asia and South America, and Europe’s our final leg. I always enjoy coming to Dublin. It is exciting when it is the first gig on the run.

You have released this album through Gibson, the guitar maker. How did that come about?

I have been on my own record company since 2010. I was starting to go out to put together the different distributors around the world to release this record when it was finished. I got a phone call about Gibson possibly being interested in doing this label thing and would I be interested in doing it with them. They have the wherewithal for promoting and ... It worked out great. This next one is coming out with Gibson as well.

You won’t be playing your Guns N’ Roses standards on this tour. What’s the thinking behind that?

We haven’t had Guns N’ Roses songs in the set since our tour in 2014. Initially, when it first started, this band [Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators] was thrown together for that record I did with all the singers [Slash, from 2010]. We had some songs from that record, some from Snakepit, Velvet Revolver and Guns N’ Roses. It was all the different stuff from my catalogue. Then we did a record together called Apocalyptic Love [in 2012], and we started to fuse our own songs into it. Basically, it just got to a point when we had enough of our own material that we didn’t need to do Guns N’ Roses stuff. Also, since I have been back in Guns N’ Roses [since 2016], I have no desire to do those songs with somebody else.

You have a blues album coming out in May entitled Orgy of the Damned. Tell us about that.

It was something that I have been wanting to do for a long time. I do a lot of blues jamming. I’m very much influenced by all blues guitarists. I had this band that I put together back in the 1990s which was a blues band. It was a really cool blues cover band back then. I thought some day I was going to record that, but I never got around to it. In between dates with Guns N’ Roses I thought to myself, ‘You know what, I’m going to do this record now’.

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You’ve released the single Killing Floor by Howlin’ Wolf. How did you get Brian Johnson from AC/DC involved in that?

I just asked him. I was doing Killing Floor and he was the first guy I thought of to sing in it.

Brian Johnson is often reluctant to do things outside AC/DC. Had he had any difficulties in deciding to do it?

One of the most important things about the people who sang on this record is that the song had to mean something. To do it any justice you had to have some connection to the artist. To Brian this song is huge. He said that Howlin’ Wolf was such a big influence on him. He’s doing some kind of blues project as I speak outside of AC/DC. It somehow relates to this as well. He was totally up for it.

You got Steven Tyler from Aerosmith playing harmonica on Killing Floor. Aerosmith, AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses are like the holy trinity of hard-rock bands.

We had already recorded the song. Brian had already done his parts and I was talking to Steven on the phone about something else. I asked him if he wanted to play harp on it, so he came down and brought his harmonica and his little amp. We did it in one take if not two takes.

Your first solo album, Slash, featured a lot of artists – Alice Cooper, Lemmy Kilmister, Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie. Are you trying to re-create that formula for Orgy of the Damned?

That was really great fun to do. It was all done live. Some of the vocals were done in the studio when we made the record; some we did later. The overall vibe of the whole thing was really fun, very in the moment, spontaneous – just what a blues sort of record should be. It was an honour to work with a lot of the people on this record, people that were a big influence on me growing up: Brian [Johnson], Steven [Tyler], Billy Gibbons [of ZZ Top], Paul Rodgers [of The Firm and Bad Company]. They’re some of the older guys, and then some of the younger acts – like Gary Clark jnr, Dorothy – are great. Demi Lovato, who is someone I have known for a long time, just did an amazing job when she came in. The list goes on. It was fun.

The European tour for 4 wraps up just before you release the new album. Is that the plan?

As soon as that is over we are going into rehearsals with the band that is on this record, touring blues festivals in the United States. Teddy [Andreadis], who was the original singer for my old blues-jam band, and also Tash Neal, who sang Livin’ for the City, will be singing on it.

Is there any truth in the rumour that Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses is going to be playing bass with AC/DC for their forthcoming US tour?

I thought you were going to ask if he was going to play bass with me! There’s a lot of those rumours going around. There is no truth about AC/DC, because I heard the same rumour and I asked him. He said no.

You brought out two Guns N’ Roses singles last year, The General and Perhaps. Do you think there is a chance of a new Guns N’ Roses album?

I don’t know exactly when. I definitely think there will be. I find Guns N’ Roses very hard to pin down to a date, but there will be one coming in the foreseeable future.

You appear musically to be in a very happy place with Myles Kennedy and the solo album that is coming out.

I just have a good time doing whatever it is that I am doing.

Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators play at 3Arena, Dublin, on Thursday, March 28th. Orgy of the Damned will be released on May 17th

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