travis shinn
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the lead vocalist
Please be upstanding for Slash. The guitar hero and King Conspirator talks “couch riffs�, not being a dictator and the perils of keeping a guitar in the bedroom. Words: Mark Blake
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O
ne morning – a very late morning probably, in April 2014, shortly before finishing his new album World On Fire – Slash woke up, feeling decidedly fragile. It wasn’t a hangover – he’d given up booze and drugs years before. Instead, the guitarist was coming down with the flu. It was a minor inconvenience for a musician who’d famously survived three near-fatal heart attacks and more than a decade’s worth of high living back in the good old bad old 1980s and 90s. However, instead of staying in bed or shrouding himself in a blanket and vegetating in front of daytime TV like a regular human being, Slash decided to play a gig with Motörhead. After all, the show was local, at Club Nokia, a bijou venue on LA’s West Olympic Boulevard, and Motörhead are one of his favourite groups; still touring despite their dogged frontman Lemmy’s current health scares: a haematoma and heart issues at the time of writing. In fact, having played one gig with Motörhead, a debilitated Slash decided to play a further two shows with the band. And so it was that the guitarist, felled by what he described as “the worst fucking flu”, ended up in the Colorado Desert 24 hours later playing on the encore of Motörhead’s performance at the annual Coachella Festival. To make his life even harder, Slash decided to drive back to Los Angeles and then back to Coachella a couple of days later for Motörhead’s second festival appearance. At the show, a growling Lemmy introduced Slash as “your friend and ours”. Any indication that Slash might have crawled from his sickbed was immediately dispelled. Instead, it was business as usual. The brim of the omnipresent top hat was pulled down so low it was almost touching the bridge of the sunglasses; the shirt-tail was flapping over the black leather trousers, and the trusty Gibson Les Paul was slung just below the waist. Within seconds of his arrival on stage, Slash’s bracelet-wreathed wrist had become a blur as he helped spin out the riff to Motörhead’s calling card Ace Of Spaces, quickly followed by their punk-metal anthem Overkill.
I need to do.” 8 classicrockmagazine.com
travis shinn/kevin nixon
ple “I jam with other peo because it’s something
THE INTERVIEWS
Live love: “Playing in front of an audience is my main gig.”
Band of brothers: “We play together so cohesively.”
Playing live with his old-school heroes was clearly the best medicine money couldn’t buy. But in good health and bad, it’s always been this way for Slash. “I jam a lot with other people,” he says. “Why? Because it’s actually something I need to do.” We’re talking a month after his Motörhead appearances. Classic Rock is holed up in rain-soaked London; Slash is in sunny Los Angeles, gearing up for the first wave of promotion for his latest album, World On Fire. The album has just been finished, but its creator shows little sign of slowing down. Two days earlier, Slash had rocked up on stage at Club Nokia to make a guest appearance with Ozzy Osbourne. In fact, so far this year, as well as making the new album, Slash has also shown up to jam with – deep breath now – MC5’s Wayne Kramer, The Doors’ Robby Krieger, Kings X’s bassist Doug Pinnick, ex-Runaway Lita Ford, Los Angeleno singer-songwriter Beth Hart, his occasional covers ‘supergroup’ Kings Of Chaos (see page 21) and Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators’ current touring partners Aerosmith. What emerges from any encounter with Slash these days, or even back in the day, is how much of an unashamed rock fan he is, and how much he thrives on playing live with both his contemporaries and the musicians that inspired him in his youth. A similar enthusiasm and energy thrums throughout the 17 songs that make up new album World On Fire. classicrockmagazine.com 9
travis shinn
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the album
HOTlist
The
Songs about sex, love, murder and conscientious objectors: Slash and Myles Kennedy’s track-by-track guide to World On Fire. Words: Mark Blake & Paul Elliott
classicrockmagazine.com 25
the tracks
World On Fire Slash: A riff I wrote on the road and jammed at soundcheck last year. The working title was I Wanna Pull Your Hair – it was all about sex. Myles picked up on that and turned it into the ultimate “Let’s do it now!” song: “This might be the last moment on Earth, so let’s do it like it’s the last moment on earth.” Myles: The title track is about seizing the day and living for the moment. Above all, it’s about living your life with no regrets. Doing what you want – doing whatever makes you happy. Carpe diem.
Shadow Life
rex features
Slash: When we did Apocalyptic Love, there was a song called You’re A Lie. We wrote that when we were rehearsing before recording. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t flowing. So on the spur of the moment we tore out the riff, wrote a new chorus and that became You’re A Lie. After that, we were racking our brains what to do with the riff. I kept dicking around with it and writing new parts. It was the most laboured song on the record because of its origins, but we found a good chorus and it became the song it is now. Myles: I loved the TV show Mad Men, and that was the inspiration for this. The main character in Mad Men, Don Draper, leads this kind of double life. The song illustrates how complex life can become when you’re trying to lie to yourself and lie to your family.
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the album
Automatic Overdrive Slash: I was sitting on the couch in front of the TV waiting for the car to come and pick me up to take me to the airport as we were going to France. I had my guitar and was playing this riff, and it stuck in my head for however long I was in Europe. Myles: This is about trying to keep up with the consummate party girl – basically, someone who’s living on 10 all the time. We’ve all known those people who have that kind of dynamic. That song makes me smile.
Wicked Stone Slash: It’s another riff from the road. I listened to it again when I came home. It evolved in the studio and went through so many changes when we recorded it. Myles: This song could pertain to a lot of different things, but it’s really about someone who’s in the throes of addiction and coming to terms with wanting to fight for a better existence. It’s a subject matter I’ve touched on before, and I felt like the music in this song called for that again.
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THE INTERVIEWS
With the world at his feet: Myles Kennedy, Los Angeles, spring 2014. 60 classicrockmagazine.com
THE INTERVIEWS
Welcome back Myles Kennedy. The moonlighting Alter Bridge frontman and voice of World On Fire talks Elvis, dirty girls and shih tzu puppies.
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Words: Paul Elliott
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THE INTERVIEWS
I
n the 1960s, soul music legend James Brown named himself ‘The Hardest Working Man In Show Business’. Right now, that guy is Myles Kennedy. When the singer speaks to Classic Rock about the new album he has made with Slash, he’s on tour in Europe with his other band, Alter Bridge. Kennedy has been operating in these dual roles for the best part of five years now – ever since he first toured with Slash back in 2010. “In the beginning,” he says, “it was challenging. To have these two things going on simultaneously, it was pretty intense. But after almost five years of doing this, I feel like I’m starting to get a handle on it.” The proof is in the music. Alter Bridge’s Fortress was one of the best rock albums of 2013. And now, with World On Fire, the group officially known as Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators have delivered what is one of the best rock records of 2014. In an hour-long conversation at his room at the Sheraton Hotel in Amsterdam, Kennedy talks about the making of World On Fire and his relationship with Slash; his hectic working life and how he deals with its pressures; his childhood and the music that shaped him; and the “surreal’ experience he had six years ago, working with members of a band he idolised as a teenager – Led Zeppelin. And while many visitors to Amsterdam embrace the city’s liberal attitude to the enjoyment of soft drugs, Myles Kennedy, on this warm summer day, is content with nothing stronger than herbal tea. “I don’t frequent the coffee shops,” he laughs. “That’s not really my level of expertise.” You lead such a busy life. Is it all work and no play? Right now, there’s not a lot of downtime. Things are so dense, schedule-wise. But, you know, it’s all good. You must like it that way. It’s interesting, because when I hear a year in advance that there might be a window, I get excited. Like, “Oh, I have some downtime!” But when it actually comes down to it, generally those windows are shut pretty quickly. Something will fill it. And I find I’m kind of relieved. Why relieved? I think it’s the same with any artist or entertainer: you’re afraid that the phone will stop ringing. And I went through periods in the past when the phone didn’t ring. So now that I’m able to do what I love and play music all the time, it just continues to drive me. It’s the entertainment industry – I guess it’s inevitable that this isn’t going to last forever. Not at this pace. So I’m just trying to enjoy it and do it while I can. 62 classicrockmagazine.com
Is there a downside to being so successful? Well, at this point in my life, I live on the road, more or less. I’m home usually about six weeks a year, total. But I do love to tour. Really, the only hard part about touring is trying to get your body to shift time zones. You don’t miss home when you’re in another boring hotel room? No. With any hotel room, I just throw my clothes all over the place and get it as close to my bedroom as humanly possible! You know, I feel like I could write a book about hotel rooms. I’ve become kind of an expert – I’m in hotels more than I’m in my own home. But I get lots of great decorating ideas, that’s for sure! I could write a book about bathrooms, too… Don’t be silly, Myles. I’m serious! I spend so much time in bathrooms. Before a show, when I do my vocal warm-ups, I lock myself away in either the back of the tour bus or in a bathroom somewhere in the venue. A few months ago I was on the road with Alter Bridge and I was in yet another bathroom warming up, and I realised I really should take a picture of every one of these bathrooms and do some sort of book – Bathrooms Around The World. With hotels and bathrooms, I’ve become kind of a specialist and a connoisseur. The glamour of the rock’n’roll life… Yeah – far from it! The problem is, pretty much everyone sounds good when they’re singing in a bathroom. Right. It does fool me sometimes. I’ll be warming up and thinking, “Alright, it seems to be working tonight!” And then you go out on the stage and it’s not sounding as good as in that tiled room. Working with both Slash and Alter Bridge, do you get any headspace to clear your mind? Not really. I kind of have to learn stuff really quickly. There’s only so much time. But when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. How did your commitments to Alter Bridge affect the making of this new record with Slash? I was on tour with Alter Bridge last fall, early winter, and it wasn’t until after that tour was over that I started playing with Slash and Todd and Brent in the same room. Prior to that, there were a few things that Slash and I would shoot back to one another while I was on tour. He’d send me an idea, something he’d recorded, and I’d put a melody on top of it and send it back. For the most part, a lot of the things Slash sent to me came with the arrangements well on their way, and then I’d put the lyric and the melody to that.
On fire: “When I came into the studio, I just knocked out the vocals in about two weeks.”
scott uchida
uitar, g t s ir f y m t o g I n e h “W my grade point average dropped overnight. Literally.� classicrockmagazine.com 63
the guitars
Beautiful Slash brings out the big guns and talks Classic Rock through his weapons of choice, and the gear he used on World On Fire. Words: Grant Moon Photography: Scott Uchida
n the past he’s duelled with Izzy Stradlin, Dave Kushner and Myles Kennedy, but for World On Fire, Slash elected to play all the rhythm guitars himself, as well as all the solos. This made his choice of instruments all the more important. Since the Appetite For Destruction days, his trusty Derrig Les Paul replica has been his mainstay recording guitar, and if you pan speaker right, that’s what you’ll hear. However, when it came to recording the second guitars, speaker left is where things got really interesting. “When I was doing those, we started using all these other amps and guitars,” Slash says. “It was pretty much the first time I’ve done it this way – usually I have another guitar player. I took a lot of guitars down to [producer Mike Baskette’s studio] Barbarosa but I didn’t end up using them all. I go through every one and find one that works. There’s a certain thing that appeals to me, a certain warmth and tonal quality. There’s something specific you wanna hear. You don’t know how to describe it but you know it when you hear it.” Read on, then, as Slash gives us an insight into his tools of the trade, the gear that set the world on fire…
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