The guitarist that Slash never considered real rock: “It doesn’t have any heart”
There aren’t many other rock stars that seem to embody the mentality of the genre more than Slash. Although he has been one of the quietest guitar gods in rock history, seeing his silhouette with a guitar strapped around him and his signature top hat on is about as iconic as any guitarist has gotten this side of Jimi Hendrix. Since he’s been in the game for so long, Slash knew when he saw someone that wasn’t up to rock’s standards, and for him, Buckethead wasn’t the kind of musician designed for a group like Guns N’ Roses.
From day one, Guns N’ Roses seemed to carry themselves like a street gang. Regardless of how much animosity built up between the members once they hit the big time, it truly felt like the band could kick your ass on a random city street in LA if you so much as looked in their wrong direction.
But behind the scenes, Slash seemed to be one of the most easygoing musicians in the world. Despite taking his craft incredibly seriously, Slash was the kind of guitarist who could add his signature schtick to almost anything that Axl Rose threw at him, whether it meant playing something erratic towards the end of ‘Paradise City’ or managing to turn in a banner performance on ‘November Rain’.
After Rose decided that the entire GNR enterprise was supposed to belong to him, Slash remembered it not being fun anymore. Even though he had no conception of being a solo artist any time soon, Slash ditched Guns in the mid-1990s, partly because he had no time to put up with Rose’s antics and perfectionist attitude.
So, where do you go when you lose one of the best guitarists in the world? Well, the exact opposite direction. Although Slash was a bit rough around the edges, Buckethead was the kind of musician who could make almost any guitar sound good, bringing a certain sonic sheen to half of the songs that he worked on that would eventually land on Chinese Democracy.
While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with a guitarist that can play that precisely, Slash knew that what he was playing was from the sleazy sound that Guns N’ Roses was built on, telling Howard Stern, “I don’t really know his work, but I know he’s a very accomplished guitar player. But he’s not a rock guy. I’ve heard some of his stuff, and it’s technically proficient, but it doesn’t have any heart.”
It’s hard to really make the case that someone who plays at that blazing speed is a bad guitarist, but Slash came from a much different world. Regardless of how many notes Buckethead could cram into just one solo, Slash made sure that every note he played counted when he took a solo, usually coming up with melodies in his solos that people would be playing in their heads for years.
And considering the reception to Chinese Democracy, it seemed like the fans agreed too, favouring Slash’s band Velvet Revolver instead of Rose’s new glorified tribute band to Guns N’ Roses. Still, Buckethead can play his ass off, but he just might not be the best guitarist suited for one of the rawest acts to come out of California.
