Slash

Guitar God

Slash is more than just a guitar hero – he's a modern-day cultural icon, achieving what many believe to be the impossible, by hitting the big-time not once, but two times – first with Guns N' Roses in the late '80s/early '90s and then again today with the Grammy-winning, multi-platinum, supergroup Velvet Revolver. Slash's double-barreled success has proven that lightning can indeed strike twice. In fact, in the 21 years that have passed since the classic G N R debut, Appetite for Destruction, was unleashed on the unsuspecting public, the résumé Slash has built up for himself is nothing short of staggering – it's literally made him a living legend.



Today, Slash's star is shining brighter than ever – Velvet Revolver's sophomore album Libertad is a worldwide smash; his self-titled autobiography is a best seller; he's just completed a wildly popular 10 month run as a Guitar World columnist; he just won the "MVP" and "Best Rock Guitarist" titles in the 2008 Guitar World Reader's Poll by landslide margins; he's the face of the biggest selling video game on the planet, Guitar Hero 3; and Gibson is just about to launch three Slash Signature Les Pauls.



Slash recently took a break from Velvet Revolver's current sold-out world tour to visit Guitar Center Hollywood for a photo shoot and also to record some radio spots for an upcoming, exclusive Sessions tour of select Guitar Center locations to promote his new Signature Les Paul series. Needless to say, we jumped on the opportunity to conduct this impromptu interview. As always, Slash was his usual eloquent, endearing and entertaining self. Here's what was transpired...

Guitar Center: First and foremost, congratulations on having not one, but three signature Les Paul Standard models about to hit the stores.

Slash: Thanks! I've always been a Les Paul player and I'm incredibly proud and humbled to have my own range produced by Gibson and Epiphone. I've done Slash models with Gibson before but it's always been pretty low profile. In the past, Gibson has been good enough to afford me the opportunity to have personal guitars done to spec exactly the way I wanted and then made them available as a limited edition to anyone that wanted one but, like I just said, it's been very low profile. So to now be at the point of having these models come out, which are just as personal as the ones that I've had done before but available to such a wide market – and also have Gibson and Guitar Center really out there promoting the whole thing – it's quite an honor.

How did this all come about?

Interestingly enough, I was in Las Vegas at an Electronics Convention where Gibson had a booth. I went over there and I was looking through one of their pamphlets, which had all these guys with signature models advertised in it. As we've just discussed, I'd never had one of those made readily available so I mentioned it to Henry [Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson] and he said we probably should do something like this. That's where it started... and now it's three models with a couple of variants too.

The fact your Signature line includes an Epiphone is sure to be great news for a lot of people.

Well, funnily enough, when this all got started Henry had Matt Ferguson [Gibson Artist Relations] call me up and he told me the catalog you were looking at was actually an Epiphone one! I immediately said, 'we should definitely do an Epiphone, because those are affordable!' It's turned out great – it's a really good, solid and resonant guitar. It's funny, the first time I played the final version my immediate reaction was: "*#$%! I would buy one of these."



So the Slash Signature Series effectively sprouted from that Epiphone seed then?

Yeah, once we got the wheels turning on the Epiphone idea, Matt came back to me and said "let's do a signature Gibson model too." The timing was perfect because at that particular moment I was designing a new Les Paul just for me personally to take on the road as my main guitar, just like I've done for years. And then he said, "Well, why don't we just do a Slash line? And, while we're at it, let's do an 'inspired by' guitar – do you have one that would make a good model for the 'inspired by' series?" I went, "Yeah, there's that 1988 Les Paul Standard I've been using as my main guitar for the past 20 years!" That's how it all started...

So the three main models are the Slash Inspired By Vintage Original Spec (VOS) guitar, the Gibson USA Slash Signature Les Paul Standard model and the Epiphone Slash Les Paul Standard Plus?

Yeah. And there are a couple of guitars they're making where you'll have a chambered body that makes it lighter. There's also going to be a limited edition aged version of the "Inspired By" one.

The pickups in all three are Seymour Duncan Alnico IIs. Those are my favorite pickups, hands-down. There are no real bells and whistles really. When all's said and done, we're talking about a real simple, basic Les Paul. The only thing that makes it different than your regular, over-the-counter Standard is that the neck has got a certain kind of width and thickness to it, which is very important. It's an exact copy of the neck profile of my original '88.

As expected, the finish on your "Inspired By" VOS is the exact same faded cherry sunburst as your original. The finish on the Gibson USA and the Epiphone is a stunning Tobacco flavored one. What was the inspiration behind that?

It's actually another variation on Tobacco sunburst, which is my favorite sunburst color. I actually got that from the '58 Les Paul of Joe Perry's that I had for a while. Before I actually owned that guitar, I was like any other kid with all the posters of my favorite bands on the wall, and in one of my Aerosmith posters Joe was playing that particular Les Paul. I always thought that out of all the Les Pauls I'd ever seen that one was the coolest finish because it was the grungiest looking, y'know! So, even though I gave that guitar back to Joe [see 'From Slash with Love' sidebar], I've always wanted to sort of keep that kind of color-scheme going. So what we did was we took that tobacco sunburst idea, made it just a little bit more sort of "steely" and then matched with a flame top.

When you say "steely," do you mean more metallic?

Yeah, it's got some hints of almost dark grey in the brown, it's hard to explain exactly what that is but it's a very unique finish. I was just using it the other night at a Velvet Revolver show; it's just an amazing looking guitar.

And I guess that 'steely' edge just adds to the desired level of 'grunginess!'

Exactly (laughs)!


FROM SLASH WITH LOVE
Joe Perry gets a surprise 50th Birthday gift

Throughout the '70s, one of Joe Perry's mainstay guitars was a 1958 Les Paul. Sadly however, when he left Aerosmith to pursue the Joe Perry Project and times got lean he was forced to let it go. "I sold it in 1981 because I was broke and needed some money for Christmas," Joe recollected to me a few years ago. "Then, in the early '90s I said, 'man, I wish I could track that guitar down.' We were better off by that time y'know, and I would've loved to get it back. So, I started making some calls and then Brad [Whitford] goes, 'I know where that guitar is' and he opened up Guitar Player magazine to a centerfold shot of Slash's guitar collection and there it was, right in the middle. So I called Slash up and said 'I'd really like to buy it back' and he said, 'Oh man, I can't. It's the one you wore in the '70s and I saw you play it at the blah, blah, blah Civic Center in 1979... I'd love to but I can't!' I understood exactly where Slash was coming from and what he was going through. I mean if I had a chance to get hold of the white Strat Jeff Beck played on Wired I'd have a hard time letting go of it!

"Anyway, Slash got wind that it was my 50th birthday [Sept. 10th, 2000] and must've figured, 'I guess it's time.' Cheap Trick played at my party and I was up on stage jamming with them when my guitar tech walked out and handed it to me. I didn't know it was coming down and I nearly died when it happened because I hadn't physically seen the thing since I let it go in '81. Slash just sent it to me as a present... it was amazing. And you know what? I heard later that his original hat from the Guns 'n' Roses days had been stolen and three days after he sent my guitar out, his hat came back. Good karma I guess (laughs)!"




You've made it to the top twice – first with Guns and now with Velvet Revolver. What would you attribute that to?

It's a combination of different things. Some of it is either sheer luck or the planets aligning or something! A lot of it is also perseverance, a lot of really hard work and just hanging in there and not going away! (laughs).

Do you still play every day?

I keep a guitar with me at all times just so that it doesn't become like a foreign object. I feel like I'll forget how to play if I don't pick up a guitar inside of 24 hours. So I'm always working on it.

Are you one of those guys with a Les Paul in every room of your house?

Yeah, sort of... I can't keep 'em just laying around the house anymore though because I've got a 5 and a 3 year old who think the guitar is the ultimate toy! That said I have one in the bedroom and one in my office... so there's always one close at hand.

When you hear someone play something great, do you still get the desire to sit down and learn it... or are you past that now?

I'll never get past being completely fascinated and absorbed into what some of my hero guitar players are doing. That's never changed for me, y'know. It's great getting a lot of attention, but as far as I'm concerned I'm not really that great. I want to be really great and I have my moments, but it's just not up to par with some of the people that I grew up listening to. So, I'll always probably have that desire to be as good as that for probably as long as I'm alive.

Does literally being "the face" of Guitar Hero 3 ever weird you out? It's everywhere.

Well, it does when I'm actually standing next to somebody who's actually playing me in the game. I try to avoid those kinds of situations! It's been really cool though because it's actually introduced me to a fan base that I might not normally have because they're so young...



Based on what you've just said, you pretty much can't go into any major electronics chain store then.

I actually did once by mistake! I walked in one of those stores without thinking and there was a bunch of kids in there playing Guitar Hero. They looked at the screen then looked at me, put two-and-two together -and it was just like the whole place sort of turned upside-down! It started a whole wave of autographs and this, that and the other – which is cool but it was a little overwhelming because I was by myself and I had no real escape route!

Thanks for taking the time to chat Slash, it's been a blast.

My pleasure. It's great to be working with Guitar Center on this. I've been friends with Dave Weiderman at the Hollywood store for many years and he's always been cool to me – even back when I had no money! I've got my place in the Guitar Center Rockwalk now, which is a huge honor, so it's cool that we're having the new "Slash" Model Les Pauls launch through the Guitar Center chain.


Interview: Nick Bowcott
Photos: Ryan Hunter

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