Slash names the most “ominous rock ‘n’ roll record”
Like every guitarist of historic proportions, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has an array of influences from across the timeline of music. A lover of punk, glam, and many other forms of guitar music, he is particularly indebted to the classic rock era.
Even taking one brief glance at the man and his work makes his connection to the bold players of the late 1960s and early 1970s clear. A longtime proponent of the gritty humbuckers of the Gibson Les Paul and a user of atmospheric effects such as delay and the wah pedal, not to mention his propensity for championing Marshall amps, he ticks almost every box that the figures who made rock expansive before him did.
This is not coincidental, either. Given the frenetic musical style of Guns N’ Roses, their aesthetic, and controversial hellraising, it might suggest that their members and Slash are deeply bound to glam metal acts such as Mötley Crüe. Yet, for their top-hat-wearing lead guitarist, it was always the likes of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor who were the most important to his style forming.
While Page was the man who introduced the young Slash to the momentous possibilities of playing the electric guitar and the hefty dose of sleaze that would course through his work, it was often overlooked Rolling Stones guitarist Taylor, whom he calls his “biggest influence”. Speaking volumes about the earthy Les Paul context he emerged from, he said that the English maestro had a “really cool, round-toned bluesy sort of thing that I thought was really effective”.
This expressive, blues-based tact can be heard in many of Slash’s most lauded moments, including the harmonious chimes of ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ and the bombastic ‘November Rain’, which features a maudlin solo straight from Taylor’s handbook. Efforts such as these go a long way in separating the Stoke native from the outrageous glam metal zeitgeist he is so often linked with.
However, Slash is not a one-dimensional player. There has always been a darker edge to his approach. Although there is a noticeably punk spirit imbued within some of his early efforts with Guns N’ Roses, including ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘It’s So Easy’, scratching beneath the surface further, it’s clear that some of these muscular cuts – which brought the dark underbelly of the Los Angeles of their era to the fore – have a distinctly doom-laden essence.
Inspired by real-life events in Los Angeles and New York City, lyrically, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ concerns the constantly hazardous nature of these sprawling metropolises during the 1980s when the streets were rife with crime and danger was all around. ‘It’s So Easy’, another classic from the band’s 1987 debut Appetite for Destruction, tells the tale of the band being broke and living off their hangers-on, a hard-partying and hollow time, which brings to mind aspects of Bret Easton Ellis’ descriptions of the ‘City of Angels’ in this period.
Mirroring such intense words, Slash’s work on the guitar is pulsating with a sinister angle. Just take the main riff of the latter track; it’s one of his hardest-sounding guitar parts, offering a counterpart to the sugary mainstream melody of ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’.
Unsurprisingly, regarding this aspect of his playing, Slash is a lover of a band that echoed the terror of their times: Black Sabbath. Breaking out just as the hippie dream had collapsed into abject horror and the world was sucked into a socio-economic mess, their de-tuned, sludgy tunes and descriptions of haunting supernatural elements resonated with him on their self-titled 1970 debut. He thinks there is “no more ominous rock ‘n’ roll record” than it.
Listing his favourite albums for Music Radar in 2014, Slash said of Black Sabbath: “This was another very eventful record for me, Sabbath’s debut album. In my opinion, there is no more ominous rock ‘n’ roll record than this one. I don’t care what band you come up with – Black Sabbath’s first album tops them all”.
