2018.08.22 - Loudwire - Interview with Slash

Transcribed excerpts from Ultimate Guitar:
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Slash was recently asked by Loudwire whether his newfound sobriety in the past decade had any impact on his creativity, to which he replied (transcribed by UG):

"That's a good question. A lot of that material from the old days - I can pick particular songs that were definitely written under the influence, but I can pick other songs that were written under the influence of a couple beers. Not that big a deal, right?

"But I found out that when I got sober, sort of looking back from the time I started playing to 2006 - my partying thing was really a matter of killing time in between gigs. I wasn't really using on the road, I wasn't really using when I was in the studio. I was always focused on music.

"So when I got sober, all that effort that I had put into what had turned into a massive addiction at that point, I took that and just put it straight back into the music. And it wasn't really relying on me being buzzed or inebriated to create stuff.

"I was fortunate. I really just put everything into writing and felt really comfortable sober. ... For the most part, I wasn't trying to bury anything because I had like a massive insecurity or something I was trying to bury in my past. I was really just partying because it was fun."

You grew up with a lot of famous people because of your parents [father Anthony Hudson, an artist who created album covers for Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, and mother Ola J. Hudson, a costume designer for David Bowie]. David Bowie was around the house a lot, your dad always had artists, David Geffen was at your house before you got signed...
So, an average day for you was really exciting to the everyman. Do you think that when you were out on your own, you were used to your average being that level of excitement and you were trying to seek that?

"That's a good point. When I was a little kid, it was exciting, it was a massive turn-on to be around people who were creating music - being in the studio for a Joni Mitchell recording or whatever was going on - it was exciting, but I didn't recognize it as being exciting when I was a kid. You know what I mean? It was just the environment that I was raised in."

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Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash was recently asked by Loudwire on how Myles Kennedy became the lead singer of his solo band, to which he replied:

"I had two songs left over [while making my 2010 self-titled debut solo album] and during the entire making of the record I could never figure [out] who should sing these two songs.

"I had been hearing a lot about Myles for years but I never met him, and I wasn't even really familiar with his voice but he had just recently been flown over to England to do this possible [Led] Zeppelin [reunion] tour thing.

"I said, 'Well maybe that guy because he's got to be good. If Jimmy [Page] called him, he's got to be really good.' So I cold-called him..."

Slash then remembered that the first song Kennedy delivered was "Starlight," calling it "fucking awesome."

Loudwire added:

"But when Slash thought about who could sing all of the material on the album - plus Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver songs - for the subsequent tour, he determined Kennedy was his man. After one tour the combination stuck, and the new band was born."

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/slash_how_important_drugs__alcohol_were_for_my_creativity.html

Another snippet from this interview (video added in the OP). Loudwire:
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Slash Says 'Maybe' to Future Dave Mustaine Collaboration

More than three decades ago, Slash and his then-neighbor Dave Mustaine jammed together after Guns N' Roses released the Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide EP in 1986. "He was a true, complete fucking maniac and a genius riff writer. We'd hang out, smoke crack and come up with major heavy metal riffs, just fucking dark and heavy as hell," Slash said in his autobiography. Over the years, Slash has collaborated with a wealth of artists and we asked him (video above) if there's a possibility of Mustaine being featured as a guest on a song in the future.

"I haven't ever talked to him about it," Slash admitted, going on to say, "He's pretty prolific in doing his Megadeth records the way that he does them. I don't see myself guesting on a Megadeth song. I don't think it would work in the context of what Megadeth does, but maybe Dave on one of my things — I don't know."

"It was so cool," he beamed, reflecting on the riffs they conjured up together. "I really love Mustaine's whole riffing style; I really love where he's coming from. So when we were hanging out together, granted it was heavily under the influence, it was a blast," he added. "We sort of got our shit together and went back to our respective bands, but we've jammed a couple times. I played with him recently at a concert where myself and I think Zakk [Wylde] and a couple other guys got up and we jammed on something and it was pretty cool."

https://loudwire.com/slash-maybe-future-collaboration-megadeth-dave-mustaine/

To which Dave Mustaine responded (Loudwire, August 28, 2018):
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Dave Mustaine: Slash’s Playing Would ‘Certainly’ Fit With Megadeth

The combination of Megadeth's Dave Mustaine and Guns N' Roses legend Slash would seem to be a potent guitar force, at least on paper. In our recent interview with Slash, we asked him about his jam session with Mustaine in the '80s, which he wrote about in his autobiography. We wondered if there is any potential for a future collaboration. "I don't see myself guesting on a Megadeth song. I don't think it would work in the context of what Megadeth does," he admitted, adding, "but maybe Dave on one of my things — I don't know." Mustaine, however, couldn't disagree more.

"Slash is a terrific talent and I disagree wholeheartedly with what he said: that he couldn't play on a Megadeth record. He's a brilliant guitar player," Mustaine told us today (Aug. 28). He explained, "I basically play in the pentatonic scale and that's like the go-to blues player scale" and mentioned that he's tried to surround himself with "really, really good players" over the years.

Going back to his early days as lead guitarist in Metallica, Mustaine continued, "It was easy to do a little bit more movement on the guitar on the neck [in Metallica]." Returning to his split role within Megadeth, he commented, "When you start singing you have two roles and unfortunately I wasn't really able to play and sing as much as I wanted to. [Because of this,] the songs are set up for a bluesy kind of player, which Slash definitely is."

In his autobiography, Slash said that the pair came up with "major heavy metal riffs," Mustaine revealed that some of that material actually wound up on record. "When we played together I seem to remember that there were a couple riffs that showed up around the Rust in Peace period that he and I were noodling around on. That's when all this went down: during the Rust in Peace era," he added, suggesting that the complexity of the guitar parts on that album "Might be why [Slash] says that he can't do it, but he certainly can."

"He makes it look effortless and it makes me mad! It just looks like water running over a smooth stone, it's just perfect. He's done this every day of his life and he was made for the exact moment to stand on that stage and play that solo and have all those thousands and thousands of eyes focused on him," Mustaine said.

When asked if there's potential for the two to write a song together, Mustaine declared, "I would definitely be interested in doing anything with Slash."

He stressed there's no desire to leave Megadeth behind in pursuit of something new. "It wouldn't be a band change predicated on a single with another artist," he cautioned, expressing, "But boy I would love to do that."

Even if it were to happen, Mustaine does not want there to be any confusion about his dedication to Megadeth. "I don't want to be hypocritical because I've really tried to just stick with Megadeth and not go around and play with a bunch of other people just because I don't want people to think I'm unhappy with Megadeth," he said, reassuring Megadeth fans of his primary focus.

Megadeth are currently eyeing their follow-up to 2016's Grammy-wining Dystopia record. Mustaine has already suggested the possibility of new elements — blast beats — creeping into Megadeth's sound with the addition of drummer Dirk Verbeuren and confirmed that at least one new song will be released in 2019 with hopes of the full album being out next year as well. Will Slash guest on the recording? We'll have to wait to find out.

https://loudwire.com/dave-mustaine-slash-certainly-fit-megadeth/