Guitar For The Practicing Musician - November 1992
by John Stix
Slash - Guitar From The Gut
The spirit of rock 'n' roll
guitar playing is spontaneous, free and rambunctious. It evokes a sense
of surprise and wonder and requires just enough knowledge to get the emotion
across but not so much that you can hear the music "think."
This spirit has found a generational voice in such players as Chuck Berry,
Keith Richards and Joe Perry. Just as Keith revered Chuck, and Joe looked
up to Keith and Chuck both, so now the guitar voice of the next generation
looks back and honors these past masters, acknowledging their contribution
while forging ahead with its own voice in their spirit. Today's voice
of dominance belongs to Slash. Via Guns N' Roses' co-headlining stadium
tour with Metallica and special guest Faith No More, Slash had the opportunity
to assert his guitar voice and accept his place at the top.
When you were young did you ever fantasize
you were part of your favorite band? Maybe Joe Perry was sick and Aerosmith
invited you to play?
No. As far as playing guns, I was just
doing it because I was doing it. I wanted to do shows, and I wanted to
play live. I got a huge kick out of getting in front of people, for no
real reason other than it was fun. I'm very ambitious. I strive for perfection
in a lot of ways, but at the same time, I don't compromise my gut feelings.
I try and keep it fresh and interesting even though it's nothing different
as far as notes go. But the melodies seem pretty unique compared to what's
going on around town these days. For what I do, I seem to be getting a
little bit more respect for guitar playing these days. That kind of stuff
you described was all very fantastical. I'm not that type of a person,
as far as that goes. I'm very cut and dry. Everything's in black and white.
I just do things spur of the moment.
Most of us had parents that didn't
want us to do something in music. You grew up with a musical family. Did
your parents' acceptance of your musical career influence you?
I have no complaints as far as the average
rock 'n' roll person [who] has got all kinds of rebellious runaway stories,
and of having to deal with their parents. I came up completely different.
When I got involved in the actual playing and quit school and started
working full-time to support it, I didn't get too much flak about it.
Once it was established that I was going to be a musician everything with
them was cool and they were supportive.
I don't know if rock 'n' roll has
to be about rebellion, but usually there's an element in there, and parental
friction is strong in many cases. Do you think there is anything different
about how you developed because you got the acceptance?
One thing that stems from the way that
I was treated as a kid was that I wasn't intimidated by the guitar, or
particularly shocked by anything going on in the music business. That
had a definite effect on how I learned how to play guitar. A lot of people
feel like they have to reach a certain point, and that point is always
hanging over their head. They're always trying to reach it, but it's a
lot more difficult. Wherever I was fine. I just kept working hard at it,
but I wasn't working towards anything. It's really a naive approach to
learn that way.
When you started playing, you attacked
learning the guitar. you played for 12 hours a day because you wanted
to get better.
It wasn't me trying so much to get better,
it was trying to play whatever was in my head. So whatever it took to
be able to play something and have it sound right, in my mind, was basically
the direction my work was in.
Has that changed at all?
No, and I still don't like to sit down
and practice for the sake of practicing. I warm up before shows because
I found that it's a necessity, and I do play better during the show. I
have a guitar solo section in the show now, which I always want to be
as cool as possible. But the only time I ever sit down seriously with
the guitar, outside of the show, is if I have something in my head that
I'm writing. It's always been like that. If I have a lick in my head I
have to be able to execute it and have it sound exactly the way it sounds
in my head. That I don't like to compromise.
When you attack the guitar to play
what's in your head, do you give yourself a specific time to get it down,
a goal to reach for?
Nope. I'm a bit more spontaneous than
that. If I have something that I want to play and I'm thinking maybe I'll
throw it into my guitar solo that night, then I'll sit down and make sure
I know it. I'll play it 15 or 20 times to make sure I don't fuck it up
when I'm on stage. I'm my own worst critic, so I don't give a shit about
trying to play it for anybody else and getting acceptance. I don't set
any goals as far as time goes to pull it off, unless it's the night of
the show and I'm learning something like that. I play themes from movies
a lot.
What about the idea of setting aside
time to write music?
Oh, that one has never worked. You write
when you feel like it. It's whenever it comes to me. A lot of the time
I write songs I hear in my head, and they're almost finished when I actually
apply them to guitar. I don't have a diary, I just keep it in my head.
It saves the trees [laughter]. I don't know how I do that, but if it's
a cool melody, it sticks with me. I've written a lot of stuff which I've
forgotten because I didn't have a guitar with me. Usually if I sit down
and play, it might pop up, or sometimes, three months later, it'll pop
up again in my head.
What's your warm-up routine before
the show?
I change all the time. Currently what
I've been doing is taking the guitar into the hospitality room. Me and
whoever else is hanging out sit there, and I play and talk at the same
time. I have a drink, watch TV, and just try and keep my fingers moving.
I do fast picking, but not any particular pattern. I play the way I play,
and maybe stretch my fingers a bit across the neck.
Do you play a wider neck than you're
going to use in the show?
No, I'm not that complex about it.
It's more thoughtless and mechanical?
Exactly. I can't even hear the guitar.
I don't plug it into an amp, which is really important.
Are you playing at the top of your
game all the time?
I try to. One of the things I cannot stand
is to fuck up (laughs). I mean, we all make mistakes, but we try
to do our best not to. It sort of lessens the chance of screwing up an
entire solo if you try and do it as best you can. I probably overdo it.
I start at the top and if I'm lucky, I get even higher.
You have an eclectic listening background,
including your enjoyment of Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens. Does that ever
creep into the music?
Yeah, it does. I jammed with Carole King
once. Just to get on stage with her was a highpoint in my career. She
knows my mom and we got to be friends. I talked to her about playing on
something when she gets back to the studio. Everything that I enjoy listening
to I'm gonna play.
Guns N' Roses fans might be surprised
that you are in awe of Carole King.
Or Chaka Khan! I think everybody'd be
surprised that I like listening to classical music, and I do that a lot.
My average listening is typical of what people might expect it to be as
far as what we do. Listening is a really personal thing. My favorite song
on a record might not necessarily be something that somebody else would
like. I'm a huge fan of Stevie Wonder. I'm one of the few guys in the
band, or one of the only members of the band, that's really heavily influenced
by that sort of '70s brand of funk rock. I use that a lot. It has a definite
effect on my playing.
Do you enjoy hearing your songs on
the radio?
Yeah, when I hear them I enjoy it. I haven't
had too many instances where I listened and didn't. You get so close to
the material by putting it together, producing it, mixing it, and mastering
it that you just don't want to know about it any more. It's impossible
to be objective about it after a while. You wrote the stuff, you recorded
it, and after it's all said and done, to hear it on the radio is great
but you don't want to sit around listening to it.
With the passing of time can you now
be objective about Appetite?
I can be, at this point, because it's
years old, but I don't listen to that either. When I hear it, it sounds
a little bit immature to me, in some ways. It just sounds as old as it
is. It's cool. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm still proud of it because
even though it's years ago, there's nothing on it that I don't like. I
still think the playing on there and the attack were really cool. There's
certain things in the mix on certain songs, like in "Jungle,"
where it wasn't heavy enough for me. I think about that. As far as the
experience goes, the only nightmare that I can remember from Appetite
was trying to count in that "Sweet Child O' Mine" riff
(laughs).
Now that you have the spotlight, do
you feel any extra responsibility to do your best? It's like the difference
between high school sports and professional sports.
I have to say it is sort of a pressure,
because there's a certain level of excellence that you need to have, especially
in front of that many people. You can play a small club and screw around,
but you can't really do that in front of 50,000 or 80,000 people. So there's
a little bit of pressure, but [I'm] not that conscious [of it] at the
time. It's just before you go on stage.
Can you remember when you recognized
that you had a style?
No. I never gave it that much thought
either. Someone had to tell me that (laughs). I know what I sound
like. I know what the whole band sounds like. When I hear us playing,
I know it's me and I know it's Duff, and Axl, and all that, so I never
gave it much thought. And I never ripped off anybody's licks to the point
where if I hear myself playing I hear somebody else.
In the guitar community you're known
for your heavy, Pentatonic blues playing, but you also have the chops.
Bless them, thank you. All that shit is
more or less subconsciously important to me to be able to have it sound
right. I scrutinize everybody else's playing to the point where I wouldn't
make that same mistake twice. Do you know what I'm saying? When I hear
a guitar, I listen to it. I listen to licks that other people are playing
and go, "God, he could've hit this note and it would've been really
cool." And so when I'm playing, I try to hear exactly what I want
to hear and have it come out of my fingers.
In order to do that, are you aware
of the chord voicings, or say, the bass adding the 7th?
No. I'm not well-schooled technically
compared to guitar players these days as far as patterns and scales and
things like that. I think about what I am about to do and my fingers will
be on that note. I have to hear it in my head first, and then go for it.
It just takes experience to know exactly what every note on the guitar
sounds like so you can pull it out of the hat.
When you do a solo it's really just
from the gut. You don't have any patterns, or a place that you want to
get to?
Right. And also, I've only got so many
years of experience. I'm not so good that when we're playing live every
solo's perfect. I don't always pull it off and I don't always reach the
note that I'm going for. You know, you just have to learn from that, and
try and remember that if you fucked up the last time, try and get it right
the next time.
So in preparing a solo, you'll think
it, but then you'll have to play it, as opposed to picking the whole thing
through in your head?
Yeah. I don't usually listen to a song
if we're recording and think about the melody. I usually just go right
in and jam it first and go for the gut feeling. Then I might listen back
to it and change a couple notes so it's exactly like what I wanted to
hear.
Did you hear the opening melody to
"Sweet Child O' Mine" in your head?
No, "Sweet Child O' Mine" was
a joke. It was a fluke. I was sitting around making funny faces and acting
like an idiot and played that riff. Izzy started playing the chords that
I was playing, strumming them, and all of a sudden Axl really liked it.
I hated that song because it was so stupid at first (laughs). I
hated the guitar part. Now I really like it because I've gotten it to
the point where it sounds really good when I play it live, and I'm so
used to the song so I like it a lot more. But it definitely wasn't something
I hummed out in my head. It was more like me fucking around with the guitar.
On stage, you're walking around almost
all the time. You're playing to the monitors as opposed to the band. It's
not like the club days where you would sweat and it would hit Duff.
Yeah, (laughs). Well, that's part
of the price of headlining in arenas. I don't even use the monitors. They're
just vocals (laughs). I'm hearing the house and my amp, the drums,
and everybody else in the band. But it's not the monitors.
Is that enough of a community spirit
to make for a great show?
Yeah. When we have a magical show it's
the same as playing anywhere and having a good show. It does take a little
bit more work. You have to be a bit more aware of where you are at any
particular time on stage. Even if you're not thinking about it and you
run 50 yards one way, when you end up wherever you're going you've got
to make sure that it sounds pretty cool over there.
Do you map out a "sweet spot"?
At soundcheck, because every building's
different. I do try to find places where I know that I'll feel comfortable.
Certain shows you just cannot get it right and it's always a drag because
I cannot get it off my mind. It has an effect on my playing but you have
to play the show. You can't go, "Well, I can't find the place on
stage, so we'll leave it." I try to find the best possible place
for certain kinds of sounds. One of my problems is I hardly ever play
in front of my amps. I'm getting better at it now, but I usually don't,
so to do my solo segment for the show, where it's just me, I can pretty
much estimate which places are going to be cool. If it's a hard building,
then I might have to adjust a little bit but I won't know until I get
there.
Is there any song that's more demanding
of you as a guitarist?
The songs that are more subtle are the
ones where I really have to buckle down and make sure I've got it, especially
if the guitar part's the main voice of the song. On songs like "Estranged"
and "November Rain," I have to stop for a second and slow myself
down, make sure that I hit the notes correctly so that they don't go out
of tune, or the vibrato's not too hectic.
Which of the songs do you enjoy playing
the most live?
I enjoy playing "Patience" and
"Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Jungle." I'm basically
cool with everything. But those are the ones, probably because we've been
playing them for so long, that they never intimidate me. "Estranged"
is something that I like playing, but I have to concentrate, because I
have to make sure those melodies are happening. I love playing "Paradise
City" and "Civil War." Sometimes it's because they're comfortable
and sometimes because I can put in more energy without compromising the
quality of my playing. Sometimes it's a give-and-take thing.
What longtime tune has worn the best
with you?
"Paradise City." I dig the groove.
Always have.
How important is the guitar solo spot
to you?
I never used to do that. I've never been
a long soloist, which is why my solos are so inconsistent. When I'm playing
by myself I'm not really inspired. Lately I've been getting better at
it. My best ones are real fluid and it all fits together.
What are you thinking of during the
solo spot?
I make it up every night and the only
thing I have to worry about is going into "The Godfather" and
what key I'm in before I do it. I play a lot of different things. I play
the beginning of "Young Frankenstein," the violin piece. I play
"The Godfather," I play Hendrix stuff sometimes. I have certain
killer melodies which I don't mind copping because I really love that
stuff, even though it's somebody else's. I play "Red House."
I play "Voodoo Child" before "Civil War" all the time.
I play the "Scarface" theme sometimes.
When you do your guitar solo on stage,
where do you start?
The bass and drum solo before it is in
G, and for a long time there I was just playing in G, to come out of their
part. Lately I've been going from G to D.
Do different keys mean anything to
you as a player?
I think they do to any player. There's
keys that you tend to feel comfortable with. For guitar players, especially
rock guitar players, it's usually E, A, D and maybe C. Those are standard.
The song "Get in the Ring" is in Bb, and I had to
think about it a bit more when I was writing the guitar parts than I would
if I was playing it in A.
What does playing in E mean to you
as a guitar player?
I have to admit it's just the standard,
heaviest part of the guitar, as far as sound goes. The octave up on the
neck in E is a place I'm really comfortable in. I like playing in C a
lot, and I like playing in D. I like to have that Pentatonic scale, the
typical scale, in a place where it's not too high on the neck, but it's
just high enough so that I can make it scream. Sometimes I write songs,
and I switch the keys around when I'm writing it to the point where it
just sounds better. It might need to be a little lower or to be a little
bit higher. Even though I was more comfortable playing it somewhere else,
to get the sound right I'll change keys and work with it that way.
Who would you have in your dream band
if it could include any musician, living or dead?
The guys that are in my band. That's why
we do it. I really have to say we're all together because in our eyes
we're the ultimate people to play with. But if I was gonna jam with somebody
else, I've got to jam with Rory Gallagher on guitar, John Bonham on drums.
I'm sure you hear that one a lot. I would love to jam with Jeff Beck.
Duff's fine on bass (laughs). Janis Joplin on lead vocal. The Water
Sisters on background vocals. Piano? Ray Charles would be a great one.
Any saxophonist (laughs). I love saxophone. I can't think of anybody
in particular. Oh, the guy from the Stones, though, is great. And I'd
name the band "Old Aerosmith."
How did Matt, Gilby and Dizzy get introduced
to the band?
Matt I found after being seriously frustrated
looking for a drummer. It was a crucial period where we had to get it
together if we were gonna stay together. He was playing with the Cult.
I saw him a few months before I called him. I had to sit down and go,
"Okay, who's the best drummer I've seen, regardless of what band
he's in?" I remembered being blown away by Matt with the Cult. So
I thought, "I'll just give him a call. The Cult's off the road."
I called him, and he came down and we hit it off right away.
How about Gilby Clarke?
We knew Gilby when me and Axl were in
Hollywood Rose, which was ages ago. He was in another band, and I met
him then. He was a cool guy then and I hadn't talked to him in all these
years that Guns N' Roses had been together. I discreetly went through,
like, 15 guitar players trying to find somebody to do the spot because
we only had three weeks before the first show. Someone mentioned Gilby
and I thought, "Yeah, I know him." I talked to him on the phone.
He was the only guy that I actually rehearsed.
Did you steal him from his band?
No, I don't think Kill for Thrills were
doing anything at the time. But he's fit in great. He's got a great guitar
sound, and he can play all the songs (laughs) and play them well.
And what about Dizzy?
Dizzy's an old friend of the band's, too.
When Guns were all living in one room off of Sunset, he was in the room
next door with his band. We used to have big parties in the parking lot.
We always liked him. Axl thought that he was the only guy that could play
like Axl enough to alleviate the pressure on Axl to have to play and sing.
Jerry Cantrell said it was actually
more important that you could hang out with the guys than just being able
to play music with them.
Those tow things go hand in hand. If you
can play, that means you can hang (laughs). That's what it takes
to be able to play well together.
Ear Essentials
(as chosen by Slash)
Axis: Bold as Love - Jimi Hendrix
Rocks - Aerosmith
Led Zeppelin II
Led Zeppelin III
Physical Grafitti - Led Zeppelin
Layla - Derek & the Dominos
Let it Bleed - Rolling Stones
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