2022.02.09 - The Chronicle - Slash: Still Rocking The Old-School World

Still rocking the old-school world

SLASH IS LOCKING IN FOR OZ TOURING WITH THE GUNNERS AND HIS OWN BAND

By KATHY McCABE

Slash has seen the future of rock ’n’ roll. While the mainstream record industry and streaming gatekeepers have put rock out to pasture, the appetite for loud guitar-driven music remains strong at the concert box office.

And a new generation of aspiring rockers are revelling in its newfound status as pop culture’s underdog, doing it old-school, getting in the van, playing tiny clubs, just like Guns N’ Roses did in 1985 – and just like Slash’s son, London, is doing now. The 19year-old plays drums in a new LA indie punk outfit S8nt Elektric.

“What’s really great about the young bands out there is they don’t want to conform to the industry standards … all these kids know they’ve got to do it on their own, there’s no money in it but they’ll have a good time doing it, so it comes from the heart,” Slash says. “It’s its own little rumbling scene.”

Slash enjoys a bigger picture of rock’s future from his vantage point on the stadium stages commanded by Guns N’ Roses. Those front rows are full of teenagers wearing Appetite for Destruction T-shirts who thrash out on guitars and drums in their own garage bands.

Before Gunners resume their world tour this year, playing Australian stadiums in November, the guitar hero will introduce his Covid baby called 4, the fourth record from his celebrated side hustle with singer Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators band.

This was the musical future Slash didn’t see, a side project now more than a decade old, its records made independently from the label overlords.

4 is the first release on the new Gibson Records label formed by the fabled guitar makers who Slash has worked on instruments with for 30 years.

Slash wasn’t looking for a deal so when Gibson came calling, he immediately looked “for the catch” when overtures were made.

“I’ve been my own record label since 2010 and that’s the way I was just going to continue doing it … I was adamantly opposed to being on any kind of corporate label,” he says. “But Gibson, I know these people, we’re partners on this so we’ve both got skin in the game. And it’s in a musical environment that’s not like what these other record companies are like now.”

After “acclimating” to the reality of being grounded by the pandemic – he has been a road dog for almost four decades – Slash channelled the restless nature that he used to quell with drink and drugs before he got sober – into working on new songs for his band.

“If this had happened in the ‘80s, I’d be dead! I wouldn’t have made it,” he says, laughing.

After swapping demos – complete with him playing “fake drums” – with his bandmates, they made a plan to meet in Las Vegas, get tested for Covid, and travel in a tour bus bubble to Nashville to record the new record.

They blitzed through the tracks in five days and then singer Kennedy fell to the virus. As they were all sharing a big house together on the outskirts of the fabled country music capital, it was inevitable others would be infected, with Slash the last of the group to test positive.

“I went and finally got a vaccination and then two days after that, I tested positive,” he says. “But meanwhile, the other guys were feeling a little bit better so we sent some equipment over to the house so they could do the background vocals from the f...ing Covid empire.”

The new record was heralded in October last year by the single The River Is Rising, an uncharacteristically politically charged commentary attacking the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories during the Trump administration and the pandemic.

“It’s one of those things that we try not to be political advocates – I don’t want to toot my own horn when it comes to my opinion,” Slash says. “But, all things considered, it was hard not to have some mention of the most crazy, f...ing psychotic year – well, few years, actually – that culminated in 2020.”

When Kennedy was sharing his lyrics back and forth as they worked on the songs, Slash interpreted the album’s next single, Fill My World, as an ode to loved ones lost during the darkest days of the pandemic’s first wave.

Instead, it turns out to be a love letter to Kennedy’s pet, a Shihtzu called Mozart.

The singer has said the song was inspired after a flight home was delayed and he checked in on his little dog at home, via cameras he could access from his phone, to see the poor thing freaking out because of a thunderstorm.

“It was heartbreaking to watch. It terrified the little guy. So, the narrative of the song is inspired by what I imagined he might have been thinking as it all went down. And his plea to us to come home,” Kennedy says.

“When you listen to it, it could apply to a relationship between humans. But I thought it was interesting, at least for me, to sing it from Mozart’s perspective. And to be really honest, as I was singing the song in the studio, at one point you can hear my voice crack a little bit. It was getting to me.”

4 was written to be played live. Slash wanted to record it live, with all his bandmates together in a big room. It’s a challenging scenario in an era where a lot of tracks are made on computer and capturing the sound of players actually playing together is a lost art. But revered Nashville producer Dave Cobb wanted to realise Slash’s ambition so they set up in a historic RCA Studio A where everyone from the Beach Boys to Loretta Lynn have cut tracks.

“It doesn’t matter to anybody but me, right?” Slash says. “I’ve never been part of the status quo, to try to sell a million records by doing what everyone else is doing.

“All I have ever wanted to do is chase that rock ’n’ roll thing and getting that to sound good … and I’ve always loved the energy when a band plays live. I think that is crucial to a rock ’n’ roll sound.”

Slash heads out on an American tour with Kennedy and the Conspirators this month. By the time he lobs in Australia with Guns N’ Roses to finally perform their stadium shows in November, he hopes he will have confirmed his own return tour here with his side project in 2023.

“If there’s anything this pandemic has taught us, it’s how much we love playing. Having to sit out for a while, made us really, really, really crazy,” he says. “So yeah, I will be bringing the band back to Australia after we finish.”