The Rolling Stones’ best guitarist, according to Slash
Some artists can be a bit sensitive when it comes to discussing their influences, often insisting that their work is entirely original rather than drawn from a diverse blend of inspirations. However, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has always been refreshingly open about those who inspired him and the musical context from which he emerged.
To fans of Slash, the tradition from which he arose is clear, and its hallmarks are placed at the front and centre of his craft. From his bluesy, expressive licks to explosive bursts of hard rock fire and even the use of the Gibson Les Paul, it doesn’t take much to realise that he was almost born at the wrong time, with him heavily stylistically indebted to the classic rock guitarists who were in their pomp when he was a child in the 1970s.
While Slash might have displayed his artistic nouse by fusing the inspiration of the genre greats with flecks of contemporary glam metal and Generation X’s fury through their love of punk, there can be no doubt that without those who bridged rock’s past and present, he likely wouldn’t have risen to his status as the last true guitar hero.
One band that the Stoke native has regularly named as his ultimate heroes are The Rolling Stones. Describing their back catalogue as his “favourite music of all time” and going one step further, revealing that they are the only group he can “always listen to” – despite his shifting moods – he took a lot from their bluesy, swaggering rock. It can be found in everything from ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ to ‘Paradise City’, and of course, the dramatic rock epic, ‘November Rain’, which contains distinct flecks of more melancholy tracks such as ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Angie’.
As Slash is such a devotee of The Rolling Stones, like all of their fans, he has his call for their best guitarist. Although the most lauded of them all is the everpresent songwriter Keith Richards, for him, it is Mick Taylor, another Les Paul-wielding blues-rock maestro, who played with them from 1969 to 1974, contributing to some of their finest, most emotive moments. His highlights include ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Sweet Virginia’.
Although Slash believes that for much of their career, The Rolling Stones had such an “ensemble sound” that listeners can barely differentiate between Richards and the other guitarist, he states that you could separate players during the Mick Taylor era. For him, that was his favourite period, as Taylor went toe-to-toe with Richards, and their dovetailing approaches created real potency.
He explained: “The period that Mick Taylor was in the band, as far as lead guitar was concerned, that was my favourite Stones period. That was very much the background of my youth. But when I started playing guitar I recognised how wonderful the lead guitar was and a lot of that Stones material that I loved so much, a lot of it had to do with Mick Taylor’s voicing.”
Despite Slash taking a lot from Taylor’s heartfelt voicing and passionate string bends, after Guns N’ Roses had broken out and many parallels were drawn between the American band and the British legends through their music and notorious hard-partying lifestyle, he would humbly play down any comparisons. He even claimed he once avoided Mick Jagger and his group because the media would have sensationalised their supposedly spiritual connection via unadulterated rock ‘n’ roll and hard-partying.
