The performance Slash thought he butchered: “It’s offensive”
In hindsight, Slash appeared to be a storm that came out of nowhere. But like many of his peers, it all started somewhere familiar: “full on hard rock, high energy and all that”.
One of the most endearing traits about Slash has never been the clash of his gentle demeanour against the explosiveness of his on-stage charisma, but the fact he came from the same blues-inspired circles as many of his contemporaries and yet still managed to soar high above the rest, leaving a cloud of smoke in his wake that made others wonder how on earth he’d managed to achieve excellence seemingly overnight.
But during those seminal moments, it wasn’t necessarily about imitating blues so much as repurposing its fervour for contemporary rock ‘n’ roll, letting it guide his approach to the guitar without dictating it. As he reflected to Blues Blast last year, “Any of the bands that I’m a part of aren’t hands-down blues bands, but they’re sort of blues-based. When I picked up the guitar, the blues guitar style was what I was into. But as far as the kind of band that I wanted to be into, I was full-on hard rock, high energy and all that.”
And yet, while it’s easy to say that Slash gained his brilliance from other blues-rock purveyors like Eric Clapton, he’s never actually seemed like one to embrace his reputation or position as a guitar hero, drawing a certain humility from the spirit of blues to make rock ‘n’ roll feel more urgent, more raw, without the additional sourness of an egotistical player. And it’s something that runs fairly deep, in the way he discusses his own craft without praising it, or when he admits to his own shortcomings as a guitarist, when, at the end of the day, he’s Slash.
This was evident during his interview on The Howard Stern Show in 1995 when he recalled performing alongside Elton John. Stern, in his typical, shock jock provocation, attempted to push the guitarist into saying something revealing about the singer, laying it on thick by suggesting his band member Axl Rose has a “hard-on for him”. But Slash smoothly redirected the conversation, focusing on himself and how he struggled to perform alongside the singer on stage.
“To me the funniest video is when you’re onstage with Elton John and he’s trying to look like he’s part of Guns N’ Roses,” Stern said, to which Slash recalled, “That’s funny, because I’m doing a guitar solo and I’m, like, 20 feet in front of the stage. I can’t hear the band and I’m, like, half a note under key, and I’m playing the solo like I’m cool. And I talk to a friend of mine, Kirk Hammett from Metallica, and he goes, ‘I’ve heard you play better.’ And then I finally got to see it and I was like, ‘God, I’m half-step out.'” He added: “It’s offensive, that’s what it is.”
It’s clear that Stern’s penchant for getting guests to rage bait as much as possible was all that was at play here, as when you look at performances like ‘November Rain’ with John in 1992, there’s nothing but sheer excellence in the room, with two seemingly opposing forces coming together with the utmost finesse, like rock ‘n’ roll can look like two different things but generate the same kind of fervour it’s always been known for.
In fact, despite all other performances at the MTV Video Music Awards that year, it’s hard not to see that one in particular as the standout. And any reservations Slash might’ve had about that or any other performance and his inability to stay on key seem like nothing more than the self-critical eye of someone far too close to their own craft to see its brilliance, even when it’s not entirely up to the standard he’s set for himself.
