The classic rock album Slash called “out of this world”
Rock music was in a strange place during the late 1980s. Glam metal and the remnants of classic rock dominated the mainstream, while underground indie, punk, and experimental sounds were incubating, poised to become cult forces that would rise to prominence by the start of the next decade. Amid this cultural polarisation, Slash and his band Guns N’ Roses occupied a unique middle ground, bridging these largely antithetical environments.
Guns N’ Roses had much in common with their commercially successful but critically derided Californians in Mötley Crüe and other glam metal acts such as Van Halen. Wailing vocals, bombastic music, big hair and hedonism were aspects that united them, despite Slash describing much of the West Hollywood scene that his band emerged from as “very superficial” and soulless. He’s even contended that his band was the “antithesis” of groups like them.
The guitarist was absolutely correct in his point, but somewhat paradoxically, he characterised Mötley Crüe, a band that typified the soulless glam metal of the time, as “America’s Sex Pistols”. While they had catchy songs, he noted that they were all about attitude and image, which, in his mind, qualifies them as punk.
This skewed worldview went a long way in seeing Slash and his band positioning themselves in the middle ground between typical rock grandiosity and its antithesis, punk. As the lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, his playing was the tip of the group’s sonic spear, meaning that although he might have packaged punky grit into his approach, such as on ‘It’s So Easy’ and ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, he always had much more in common with classic rock acts than punk ones.
Sure, he liked meaty bar chords and played a Les Paul like Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, but his tendency to solo and showcase virtuosity blocks any other connections to the genre that spawned ‘God Save the Queen’ and ‘Babylon’s Burning’. Moreover, they had absolutely nothing political to say.
A firm believer in hollow attitude and image, two bywords for the classic rock era, as opposed to the punk aesthetic and outlook being authentic when it emerged seeking to do away with the established order, as well as openly lauding some of the early 1970s’ favourite guitarists as his ultimate heroes, it becomes clear that Slash has more in common with traditional rock.
He’s all but admitted it himself, too. With Led Zeppelin’s own Les Paul-wielder, Jimmy Page, introducing him to “hedonism” and sleazy rock, Slash’s context becomes clear. Additionally, he holds the likes of Jeff Beck, Mick Taylor, and Eddie Van Halen as key influences, confirming that he emerges more from this classic rock realm rather than that of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Siouxsie and The Banshees.
When listing the ten records that changed his life for Music Radar in 2014, Slash made his connection to classic rock clear, with no albums not from this epoch in his collection, except for a record from ’70s power pop maestros Cheap Trick. Offering in-depth insight into how his approach forged, one of the key records he listed was The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1967 debut, Are You Experienced. He defined the late Seattlean’s playing as “out of this world”.
He said: “Talk about impactful. To this day, I’m in awe when I listen to this record. It’s just flat-out brilliant, and Jimi’s guitar playing is out of this world”.
A raw and endlessly refreshing album even today, this almost jam-like character certainly fed into Slash’s work and Guns N’ Roses’ energetic 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction.
