The “subliminal” influence of Led Zeppelin on Slash’s guitar
During a time when the world of rock seemed to be growing stale, Slash, the guitarist, injected some much-needed venom into the Los Angeles music scene.
When you listen to the work he did with Guns N’ Roses, there is no escaping the fact that the man knows his way around a riff and a solo better than anybody else. His style is unlike anything that you could hear at the time, and there were plenty of different musicians who contributed towards this unapologetic style that he championed so well.
Of course, this sound doesn’t just exist within Guns N’ Roses, either. A lot of people thought Slash may have peaked when the band originally called it quits, but he went on to have a great solo career where he worked with plenty of different artists. These ranged from rock legends such as Ozzy Osbourne to pop icons like Fergie, and he brought out the best in all of them when they performed.
“I got hip to Fergie being probably as good or better a rock singer than she is a pop singer,” said Slash when discussing performing with her, “I heard her do ‘Barracuda’, the old Heart song, and I was like, fuckin’ wow! I ended up doing a couple of shows with her where she sang ‘Barracuda’ and ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’. She’s one of the most phenomenal rock ‘n’ roll singers, male or female, I’ve ever heard.”
To be able to develop a style of guitar playing that works with both rock and pop singers is a real talent, and it comes from being a fan of great musicians. While there are a lot of bands he looks up to, one of his major influences whose impact bleeds into everything he does is Led Zeppelin. Slash admitted that every time he writes something, he thinks the work of Page plays a part in his creativity, specifically, he thinks about the song ‘Whole Lotta Love’.
“One that really had an impact on me was the Zeppelin II record. The song that means the most to me because it had such an impact on me would be ‘Whole Lotta Love’,” he claimed, “I think that sort of speaks to a subliminal thing that later on, when I started to play guitar [was] what I was drawn to. So a lot of the music I was really into as a kid, without ever having thought [about] playing guitar, turned up later as having a really big influence on me.”
Slash isn’t alone in his adoration for Zeppelin either. The majority of rock bands you listen to that came after them were somewhat impacted by the versatile sound that they kept at the heart of everything they did. You had those killer, hard-hitting riffs, but you also had a band that wasn’t worried about dabbling in other genres, paving the way for a variety of rock artists, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone with the talent of Slash is a big fan.
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