2007.05.15 - The Boston Herald - Slash & Burn (Slash)

Slash & Burn

By Jed Gottlieb

Slash is a chatty guy.

Unless the subject is a guy named Axl.

Articulate and with surprisingly clear diction, the former Guns N' Roses, current Velvet Revolver guitar slinger will wax poetic about most anything. Renowned for his face-obscuring curly locks and top hat, mouth-dangling cigarette and iconic riffs, Slash -- who plays Avalon on Wednesday with Velvet Revolver -- will tell you straight up that the guitars on Revolver's debut CD were no good and that it was the press, not the music, that put grunge and metal at odds.

But he won't talk about his former colleague, Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose. Faster than you can say "take me down to the paradise city," Slash will firmly dismiss any questions about Rose and their past, current or future relationship.

"Sorry, but every time I talk about Guns N' Roses it comes back to bite me on the ass," he said from a tour stop in Chicago. "It was a band that I was in. I'm very proud of it. But let's move on, thanks."

In the decade since GNR's downfall and the Axl/Slash feud the media loved to fuel, the guitarist has gotten on with his life and career. With fellow former GNR bandmates bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum, former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland and unknown Dave Kushner, Slash formed Velvet Revolver in 2002.

Now squarely focused on the present, Slash is giddy -- or at least as giddy as a guy named Slash can be -- about the band's guitar-heavy sophomore album, "Libertad," due in early July. After Revolver's debut, which suffered from acute guitar anemia, Slash promises this one goes to 11.

"On the last record, the producer we worked with, Josh Abraham, didn't know how to record guitars," Slash said. "We were lucky we got any guitars on the record. I never really used to say anything about that, but the guy that we worked with, who is a great guy, he had no experience recording guitars.

"It was hard to find someone for the second album, but we got Brendan O'Brien of Pearl Jam, STP-producing fame. He's the only guy we found that had any rock 'n' roll chops. He had the perfect attitude for it."

But more of the guitarist's famed Gibson Les Paul doesn't mean "Libertad" sounds like a GNR/STP mash-up. Anyone expecting that will be disappointed.

"We're not here to fulfill anyone's dreams of what this band is supposed to be," Slash said. "There were a lot of expectations for us in the beginning, but I don't give a s---. The first record, regardless of if there are enough guitars on it or not, is a cool f------ record. This one is even better."

Just to make sure the band stays one step ahead of fan predictions, Revolver has decided to buck the music industry suits by touring clubs and European festivals before the new CD hits stores. Slash describes the move as a mix of ignorance and genius.

"We like the challenge of going out and playing five or six songs off a record nobody has heard," he said, letting loose a gravelly chuckle. "We've got people telling us, 'But, but, but (fans) won't know the material.' That's the whole f------ point. We just want to go out and play."