2010.04.04 - Toronto Sun - Slash: New Song Not About Axl

Slash: New song not about Axl

By JANE STEVENSON, QMI Agency

On Slash’s self-titled solo debut, in stores Tuesday, the legendary guitarist of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver fame appears to have included a new song about his former GN’R bandmate Axl Rose.

But appearances can be deceiving.

It was actually Ozzy Osbourne, Slash’s collaborator on the track, Crucify The Dead, who penned and sang the lyrics that seem to reference Rose: “A loaded gun jammed by a rose, the thorns are not around your head, your ego cut you ’til you bled.”

“It was an Ozzy thing,” said Slash, 44, during a recent interview during Canadian Music Week.

“He said the song represents the situation he’s had in his relationships with other musicians. Yes, there were some key lines in there that were very suggestive of my experience. But he said, ‘No, this is just an overall picture of the issues.’ ”

Still, Slash admits there remains some “bad blood” in his relationship with Rose, who he hasn’t spoken to in 15 years after officially quitting GN’R in 1996.

But at this point, he’d really love it if everyone else moved on, like he has.

“Axl’s the way he is and I sort of appreciate that, only because that’s why he’s so phenomenal,” Slash said. “But at the same time it makes it very difficult to co-exist with him in a professional situation. So obviously I got to a point where he really forced my hand and I had to leave.

“But you know, that said, 15 years later, I can’t really sort of sit here and just be bitter about it. So I sort of accept him for who he is and I moved on a long time ago.”

In the meantime, Slash’s long-awaited solo debut features a variety of A-list stars singing and writing lyrics to his hard rock music that brims with his signature solos.

In addition to Osbourne, he collaborates with the likes of Fergie, Chris Cornell, Dave Grohl, Adam Levine, Kid Rock, Iggy Pop, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister.

“It’s hard. You can never think you’re cool enough to just call all these people up and go, ‘Hey, would you sing on my record?’ And they’re all going to jump to it,” Slash said. “So I started with people I was friends with and that was Iggy and Lemmy and Ozzy and those guys also happen to be some of my biggest heroes. But I’ve gotten a chance to meet them and know them over the years. And that’s what really got the ball rolling.”

Slash said all his years of session work really paid off while organizing his solo project.

“I’ve sort to learned how to control my intimidation factor,” he said. “So when somebody walks in I might be starstruck as hell, but I know how to handle it. You have to throw yourself out there and take chances and really face your fears to be able to sort of grow and to be able to work with people that you really admire. So I think really I couldn’t have made this record at any other time.”

Slash said the timing for the solo album was also perfect given the 2008 unravelling of Velvet Revolver as Scott Weiland left the band, which includes former Gunners Duff McKagan on bass and Matt Sorum on drums, and Dave Kushner (Wasted Youth) on rhythm guitar.

“After the whole really tough year with Velvet and parting ways with Scott and just the band dynamic and managers and that whole thing, I was like, ‘Since we’re starting over fresh, I just want to do something on my own for a minute,’ ” he said.

Slash is quick to point out that Velvet Revolver, which asked to be released from its contract, is far from dead in the water.

He said they band actually has written new songs and plans to reconvene in 2011, when hopefully it’ll have a Weiland replacement.

“It wasn’t that Velvet Revolver as a whole unravelled,” Slash said. “We started to revisit a lot of the issues that happened with GN’R in Velvet Revolver with Scott.

“The main issue at the end of the day, on the last record and the last tour, was we just couldn’t seem to nail Scott down. He wasn’t showing up. We had to cancel tours. And I said, ‘I’m not doing that again.’ Because that was very much mirroring what I went through with Guns. So we fired him.”

Slash is touring in support of his solo record starting in June with just one vocalist, Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge, who sings two songs, Starlight and Back To Cali, on the album, and three other musicians.

Kennedy first came to Slash’s attention as a possible Weiland replacement because of the rumour a few years ago about him joining a Led Zeppelin reunion tour (which never materialized).

“Myles was the last guy that sang on the record,” Slash said. “And he was sort of a new discovery for me. ... He got asked by Zeppelin if he wanted to do the tour and went down and jammed with them. I was thinking, ‘Well, anybody’s who’s good enough for Zeppelin’s got to be pretty good.’ So I was like, ‘Do you want to come do the tour?’ And he said yes. He can really sing just about anything.”

Slash designs own album cover

The cover artwork for Slash’s new solo album, due in stores Tuesday, shows a skull wearing the guitar player’s trademark top hat, with a banner underneath bearing the letters RNFR, standing for Rock N’ F------ Roll.

The artwork was designed by Slash but actually painted by an underground pop artist named Ron English.

“I told him give me a good skull in a top hat ’cause that’s my signature,” Slash said.

“My regular signature has a skull and cross bones. And so that‘s like an embellished version of my own signature.”

So does Slash, born Saul Hudson 44 years ago before he became one of the most recognized guitar players in the world with Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver, plan to be buried in that hat?

“I don’t dwell too much on the past and I don’t think too far down into the future so how I’m going to be buried is not in my regular train of thought,” he said. “But since you asked, that might be a cool little touch (laughs).”

And the sunglasses too?

“Oh, that would make it really cryptic, don’t you think?” he said.

Slash said when he’s not working, he can go incognito in his hometown of L.A. just by tieing his hair back and ditching the top hat and sunglasses.

“I sort of hide out as much as possible. My wife is always like, ‘Well, take off the earrings.’ I don’t like having to bend too much but I do try and keep the whole rock thing a little bit more low-key.”

And for the record, his driver’s licence has his birth name.

“I definitely have Saul Hudson,” he said. “I think it’s asking for trouble if you have Slash on your driver’s licence.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20100408172552/www.torontosun.com/entertainment/music/2010/03/31/13425461.html

But Ozzy would say it was about Axl. VH1 Radio/Blabbermouth, May 28, 2010:
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Ozzy Says 'Crucify The Dead' Lyrics Are What He Would Say To Axl Rose If He Were Slash

Ozzy Osbourne was one of the featured guests on the recently released solo album from former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. The Prince of Darkness sings on a track called "Crucify The Dead" and as Ozzy told VH1 Radio Networks' Dave Basner, the legendary Black Sabbath frontman helped with the lyrics, too. In fact, Osbourne says the song is about what he would tell Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose if he were in Slash's shoes.

"Slash sent me the music of it and I worked on the melody and some lyrics for him and what I did with the lyrics, I thought, what's always gotten me about the Guns N' Roses guys and I say to Slash all the time, 'Do you realize what you guys did? You'll never understand. You guys could've been the next Rolling Stones, the next superband,'" Ozzy said. "And what I wrote in the song, 'Crucify The Dead', is if I were Slash, what I would send in a message to Axl.

"I've never met Axl but I would be pissed off and the lyrics are about that."

In a recent interview, Slash denied that the "Crucify The Dead" lyrics had anything to do with Axl, explaining, "It was an Ozzy thing. He says the song represents the situation he's had in his relationships with other musicians."

Slash continued, "Yes, there were some key lines in there that were very suggestive of my own experience — but, no, this is just an overall picture of the issues."

"Crucify The Dead" lyrics (written by Ozzy Osbourne):

The fire started long ago
The flames burned out, still embers glow
So charred and black
There's nothing left to burn, to burn

We had the same dream
Lived life to extreme
A loaded gun jammed by a rose

The thorns are knots around your head
Your ego cursed you till you bled
You cannot crucify the dead
To me you're dead, yeah

The future is unset in stone
Decisions past leave you alone
Betrayed us all with your own selfish greed, your greed, yeah

New soldiers now say
That your beggars collect
Re-crucified and paid by you

The thorns are knots around your head
Your ego cursed you till you bled
You cannot crucify the dead
To me you're dead, yeah

We were like brothers with the world in our hands
You always have too much to say
Someday you look back and you wonder why
You let it all slip away, yeah

[Solo]

Crucify the dead
Crucify the dead

The thorns are knots around your head
Your ego cursed you till you bled
You cannot crucify the dead
To me you're dead, yeah

https://blabbermouth.net/news/ozzy-says-crucify-the-dead-lyrics-are-what-he-would-say-to-axl-rose-if-he-were-slash/

A comment on this:

Slash said that a song containing the line "a gun jammed by a rose" had nothing to do with Axl, and that he had been told by Ozzy that the lyrics were inspired by his own experience with Black Sabbath. That claim was, of course, hardly convincing.

Then Ozzy said that the lyrics were indeed about Axl and that he just came up with the idea, all by himself, to write a song about him, even though he'd never met him.

I wouldn't completely rule out that it happened like Ozzy said, although it's a bit unusual and odd. But I think that it might have been a similar case with at least some of the lyrics for the first Snakepit album (for which Slash later said that Eric Dover was the "filter"). I've noticed that Ozzy used the verb "helped" [with the lyrics], and in an another interview he said that he wrote "some" lyrics. This assumption is additionally supported by the common knowledge that Ozzy hasn't been much of a lyricist. Most of Black Sabbath lyrics were written by other members, and it's been debatable that Ozzy has even written any of the lyrics for his solo albums all by himself (although he has written the vocal melodies in both cases):

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/did-ozzy-write-any-of-his-own-music.169107/

https://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/bob-daisley

So what you are saying is that you are more inclined to think the lyrics were mostly penned by Slash?

Soulmonster wrote:So what you are saying is that you are more inclined to think the lyrics were mostly penned by Slash?

Or partly.

Blackstar wrote:

Soulmonster wrote:So what you are saying is that you are more inclined to think the lyrics were mostly penned by Slash?

Or partly.

Not unlikely at all.

I find Slash's audacity when it comes to lies a bit baffling. All it would take was Ozzy to come clean and Slash would be caught lying.