2024.08.05 - Creative Loafing Tampa Bay - Before Clearwater gig, Slash talks gear, new blues album, and more

Interview: Before Clearwater gig, Slash talks gear, new blues album, and more
The river is rising.

By Josh Bradley

Even Slash knows that one of the qualifications to be a guitar legend is to be somewhat fluent in blues.

The 59-year-old shredder’s new, all-covers album Orgy of the Damned has seemingly been a long time coming. Just before the turn of the century, he founded Slash’s Blues Ball, a six-piece specializing in celebrating blues icons that came before it.

“We had a really broad setlist, but there were specific songs that had a really big influence on me as a guitar player, and just had an impact on me growing up,” Slash told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay during a recent phone call.

The group must have been on his mind sometime in the last few years, because two former members helped him construct Orgy, in more ways than just instrumentation. “[Keyboardist Teddy Andreadis] managed to save some of the setlist from back in 1998. So, I picked some songs off of that,” he added, also stating that Andreadis is part of his current touring repertoire.

The rest of the album’s guest list is immaculate, too. Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers makes a rare appearance on “Born Under a Bad Sign,” Demi Lovato continues to truck through their rock era on “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” and is it really a modern blues collaborative project if Gary Clark Jr. isn’t in the mix? Though his vocals on “Crossroads” would wow anyone in that scene, Billy F. Gibbons embodying the soul of Muddy Waters on “Hoochie Coochie Man” is the highlight of the 12-tracker.

“I had to chase him down to get this recording,” Slash told CL. I had to find him in a place where there was a recording studio, get the tape to him, and let him do his thing. And I'm so happy that I did.”

The ZZ Top legend won’t be with Slash when he arrives at The BayCare Sound in Clearwater, but a trio of bands and artists cut from a similar cloth are set to kick off Saturday's S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival tour stop. Steel pedal whiz Robert Randolph—who opened for Eric Clapton’s second-most-recent Tampa Bay gig in 2008—as well as blues singer-songwriter ZZ Ward, and roots-rock outfit Larkin Poe will all play respective sets though, and Slash has already thrown around the idea of releasing a live recording of a performance in Denver, and making the tour an annual affair.

“Now that we're in it, it's really working out, so I definitely want to look into doing that,” he told CL Tampa.

Read our full Q&A with Slash below.

Hey, Slash. How you doing?

I'm good. How are you?

Pretty good, thanks. Really appreciate you taking the time for me today.

Oh yeah, no worries.

How was Denver last night?

It was great. It was a lot of fun. It was an awesome crowd, and we streamed the gig last night, which was sorta cool, and I think we're gonna make a DVD out of it.

Nice. I'm a little jealous. But anyway. I heard that you handpicked all the performers on the bill for this tour. You've got Larkin Poe, ZZ Ward and Robert Randolph on deck in Clearwater. Tell me a little bit about your first encounters with some of them.

Well Robert, I know, and I’ve actually jammed with him a few times. He's just a fantastic musician and artist. ZZ Ward is somebody who I’d gotten introduced to more recently, in the last few years, I guess. She's great, and I just love her sound. These really authentic blues, and almost a little bit of a country influence in there. It's very sincere and from the heart, and I love that. And then Larkin Poe is just amazing. I’d never met them, but I've liked them for years, and I was really excited to be able to get them on the bill. I didn't know if they would do it, but they're one of those kinds of artists that are just mesmerizing, you know? Very soulful. I mean, all the artists that we put on on this tour are really great, and I'm very happy and honored that they would come and do this.

Right on. You've described this tour as a traveling festival in a sense. Do you see yourself making this an annual thing? Kinda like Willie Nelson and his Outlaw Music Festival.

Yeah. The idea in my mind was that if this went well, I would like to do it annually or semi-annually. But now that we're in it, it's really working out, so I definitely want to look into doing that. And also taking it overseas to Europe and stuff. I think it would be really well-received in other countries.

Totally. Let's talk about Orgy Of The Damned a little bit. When you were making that, what was your criteria for selecting a song to cover? Like, was there anything that helped you condense so many choices down to 11 tracks?

Well, I had a band with a couple of the guys on this record back in the late ‘90s. And so, we had a really killer setlist back then, and Teddy Andreadis, who plays keyboards and whatnot on the record—and also sings on the tour and B3 and all that—he managed to save some of the setlist from back in 1998. So, I picked some songs off of that. Now, we had a really broad setlist, but there were specific songs that had a really big influence on me as a guitar player, and just had an impact on me growing up.

So, it's sort of easy to narrow down those ones that you really remember specifically when you first heard them, and how they influenced you. And then, there are a couple of songs on the record that I was thinking of that I hadn't covered before, but had a really big impact on me as a musician and as a person. So, we could have made a double record, I'm sure, but I didn't want to do that, so I just narrowed it down to these.

Fair enough. The guest list on here is unbelievable, of course. How did you choose who you wanted to collaborate with? Because Billy Gibbons embodied Muddy Waters so well on it.

Yeah. I mean, that was one of those calls that…I was so happy that it actually happened. Because Billy is a very busy guy. He's much like me - he’s always on the road, and you can never really nail him down. So, I had to chase him down to get this recording. I had to find him in a place where there was a recording studio, get the tape to him, and let him do his thing. And I'm so happy that I did.

But with every song, we put the arrangements together and whatnot, and at the same time, I was thinking “who would sound good on each given song?” And whoever came to mind, I would call, and we went into record the record. We recorded the whole album live in about…in a week! And we recorded some of the vocals in that session, so Beth Hart was recorded live with us, and Gary Clark Jr. was recorded live with us. But the other ones, I had to go out to different locations, bring the tapes with me, and go out and do it where they were. But when I called them, they related to the songs. They had a history with the songs. The songs meant something to them, which was super, super important. So I was really fortunate that I called the right people for each song. And then, they would just be really excited to do it because of that. It was a lot of fun to do it.

Was there anyone for the record you wanted to get, but couldn't?

Well, there were two people. One of which is no longer with us, and it was just somebody who I'd been friends with for years who passed away that I love, and I know that he would have loved to have done this, which was Lemmy. Lemmy would have—I don't know what song it would have been, but he would have been amazing on this. And the other one was Steven Tyler, who is on the record, but at the time that I was going out to find different singers, I couldn't find him, and we had a very tight schedule.

He didn't call me until after the singers were picked and all the tracks were recorded. And he finally called me back. *laughs* I was like “nope, we already did it. But we’re doing this harmonica part right now, as we speak,” when he called me that day. So he got in the car, he drove over, and put his harp on “Killing Floor,” which was so huge. It was so awesome of him. But other than that, no, there was nobody that I wanted that I couldn't get.

Sick. How did the album’s instrumental, “Metal Chestnut” come about?

“Metal Chestnut” was actually sort of an afterthought, because we'd been under the gun to get all the songs arranged in a very short amount of time before we had to actually go into the studio. I was focusing on just that. You know, all these covers, the arrangements, and the singers and stuff. And Mike Clink, the producer, said “hey, do you have an original for this?” And I looked at him and went “oh yeah, I didn't even think about that.” And that would be really important, just to have some sort of original identity on the record of covers.

So I went home and I wrote that really quickly. It wasn't even something that I was working on. I just went home and I was thinking about stuff—music or something, and I just came up with this thing. It came together very quickly, and when we did it in the studio, it was very much a spontaneous, live, two takes, I think. I don't even think we exactly knew the arrangement perfectly at that point, but there you have it.

You mentioned Mike Clink, and I definitely want to ask you about him, because he's been with you pretty much from the beginning, and you've always approached him to produce your stuff. Tell me about your friendship with him.

Well, you have to understand: Mike Clink was the saving grace for Guns ‘N Roses back when we first started, because we had a very specific sound, style and direction that we put together, and we wouldn't let any outsiders fuck with that, or try to homogenize it, or try and tinker with it, or dictate to us how it’s supposed to go. So we had problems, not only with the record business—people in the business—but we also had problems with producers, and we couldn't find anybody to work with.

Tom Zutaut, who was the A&R guy at Geffen at the time, found Mike Clink and brought him to us. And Mike Clink had been working with Keith…fuck, I can't remember his name now. Anyway, whatever. But he had done a bunch of UFO records and then a bunch of Heart and Jefferson Starship, which didn't really excite us. But the UFO stuff…that, I related to. And so, he came in and we did a test run with him, where we recorded a song called “Shadow Of Your Love” with him. He just managed to capture the band as-is, and make it sound the way that it should sound, and it was a very honest recording process.

That was a killer for Guns N’ Roses, and that's why Appetite [For Destruction] works the way that it does: It really captures the band and makes it sound good. It's recorded live, that raw kind of thing, but at the same time, it doesn't sound overly sloppy or anything like that. It's hard to explain. Anyway, so we worked with him for a long time, and I've always had a relationship. I think I did my first Snakepit record with him. I didn't use him a lot after that, because everything always related to Guns N’ Roses when I was working with Mike Clink in a lot of ways. If I was to have him record The Conspirators, it would tie into that, when you’re trying to do other stuff away from that.

But I've worked with Mike on his stuff, and a lot of one-off stuff that I've done, Mike's recorded for me. So, when the idea to do this record came to me, he was the first guy that I called, because he knows how to capture the real sounds of the instruments, without having to paint them too much, or manipulate them too much. And also, as a producer, he only has input when it needs to be there. He's not trying to mold anything into his project. He goes to record it, and if there's something he needs to criticize or whatever, he'll say it, but other than that, he's just letting you do your thing. He's great to work with, and he knows how to record a guitar, which is really a dying art these days.

One more for you. My friend wanted me to ask how you select which guitar you're going to use on a song.

That's a funny one. When we were recording this record, or when I went into pre-production, really, I thought “well, we're doing this blues thing, so I'm not going to need a bunch of Marshall stacks. So I'm going to take a bunch of really cool, old combos,” right? So I did, and I also had Fender Twins, Fender Deluxes, vintage boxes, I did take a Marshall 50-watt half stack down there, and I also had this great Magnatone, so…anyway, I took those down there, and I’d just bought a ’63 Gibson ES 335 like, right before I'd even thought about doing this record, so months before. I hadn't used it yet, so I brought that with me, and I brought, you know, a ’58 Les Paul, a ’59 Les Paul, a Strat, and a Tele, all vintage. I thought “this is a great vehicle for using this stuff.” And so, going into a song, I sort of have in my mind's eye what the guitar should sound like.

When we were doing “The Pusher,” which was one of the first songs that we started practicing, it just automatically went to that 335 and the Magnatone. It just sounded amazing, and I ended up using that combination for a lot of songs on the record. And then, I've got a ’58 Gibson Explorer that's a replica by Leo Scala, which is an amazing sounding guitar. I use it with Guns N’ Roses, but I took it into this session, and I used that for “Born Under a Bad Sign” because I just had this idea in my mind.

So, what happens is that I get a picture in my mind of something—a sound or whatever—and I just go to whatever I think will make that happen. And I’m pretty good when it comes to guitars. It was the same thing with picking singers. Like, I have a picture in my mind of what it should sound like, and I would think of the right singer that would do it. So yeah, there's no rhyme nor reason - I just have an image, an audio image in my mind of what guitars would sound right for what song.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

https://www.cltampa.com/music/interview-before-clearwater-gig-slash-talks-gear-new-blues-album-and-more-18329285