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APPETITE FOR DISCUSSION
Welcome to Appetite for Discussion -- a Guns N' Roses fan forum!

Please feel free to look around the forum as a guest, I hope you will find something of interest. If you want to join the discussions or contribute in other ways then you need to become a member. We especially welcome anyone who wants to share documents for our archive or would be interested in translating or transcribing articles and interviews.

Registering is free and easy.

Cheers!
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2024.05.23 - Rolling Stone France - Slash: (Not) Lonesome Blues

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2024.05.23 - Rolling Stone France - Slash: (Not) Lonesome Blues Empty 2024.05.23 - Rolling Stone France - Slash: (Not) Lonesome Blues

Post by Blackstar Sun May 26, 2024 7:42 pm

From the June 2024 issue of the magazine, released on May 23.




Transcript (French):

Translation:
____________

Slash
(Not) Lonesome Blues


After a fifteen-year solo career, which has not prevented him from reuniting with Guns N' Roses, Slash is exploring new musical territories with his first blues album, featuring a number of prestigious guests.

By Mathieu David

Ray-Ban and top hat firmly pinned to his head, Slash, on the eve of his 60th birthday, releases his... very first blues album, Orgy of the Damned. An orgy of sounds and solos, featuring an ultra-high-end cast. "I had a blues cover band in the late 1990s," he explains. "Some of the musicians are actually on this album. It wasn't a very serious project. I wanted us to make a record, but I had other things on my mind at the time."

Far from being inactive, Slash set about making this record during a break between two Guns N' Roses tours: "I had this three-week break, so I thought it was the right time to record, since the Conspirators [musicians from his solo project, editor's note] were busy on their own." Using the songs he had covered at the time as a basis, as well as a handful of others, he went on to record Orgy of the Damned. It lasted three weeks.

A plethora of guests feature on this opus, which is as sincere as it is delightful, and on which he was able to bring together Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Chris Stapleton and even Brian Johnson (AC/DC). A winning team for a vibrant tribute to the greats, but also to those dear to the guitarist's heart. "I decided myself who would sing on what and called the guests involved, with the exception of 'Awful Dream', with Iggy Pop." The collaboration with the "iguana" came about differently: "Johnny [Griparic, bass] informed me that Iggy Pop wanted to do blues. I called him up and when I asked him what song he wanted to cover, he gave me a straight answer: Sam Hopkins," he recalls. We recorded it acoustically in just two takes. I'm particularly proud of it, because I know it was important to him."

For the cover of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone", the musician turned to soul-R'n'B singer Demi Lovato. "In the original version, the story is told by adult voices, which works for the retrospective aspect, but I wanted to cover it with someone young, to make the story even more poignant," continues the guitarist. "I thought of Demi for her falsetto range and soulful feel." Greatly emotional, Slash can't resist recalling his absent friends: "My biggest disappointment is not having Lemmy [Kilmister of Motôrhead, who died in 2015]. I had a few ideas and it would have worked perfectly," he laments.

However, he doesn't want to be seen as a blues guy: “I listen to a lot of contemporary blues artists who play it full-time and make serious albums," he continues. I don't want to step on their toes, as that would be intrusive and they might take it the wrong way! [Laughs]" Nevertheless, he's been listening to [the blues] since he was a child: "My father was a music fanatic and I was exposed to the Kinks, the Yardbirds, the Who and Moody Blues from a very early age, when I was still living in England," he recalls. I got into the Stones when we moved to the States, but it's all still very much rooted in the blues. My grandmother also made me listen to B.B. King, and when I started playing guitar, British blues influenced me enormously."

A hard rocker at heart, he was eager to cover the great standards of such artists, but "louder, faster and more chaotically". In fact, "Guns N' Roses is the perfect blend of all that, between my vision, Axl Rose's vision, with punk-rock and glam elements." If one doesn't think of the blues when listening to "Welcome to the Jungle", rock'n'roll "has its roots in it", and this prompted Slash to take up the guitar. "I'll never forget the moment I played those four notes, which formed a blues scale. It was as if the heavens opened up to me. It's still ingrained in the music I play, and yet I've never really done it with my bands."

COMPOSITION

While Orgy of the Damned is a tribute to the greats of the genre, the guitarist slipped in "Metal Chestnut", an instrumental of his making. "We were very busy with the arrangements, which we had to finish in time for me to go back on tour. Then [producer] Mike Clink asked me if I had an original track to hand, as if I was supposed to have one ready! I wrote the song in a hurry and showed it to the band the next day. It came out quite spontaneously."
Blackstar
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