On Slash’s self-titled solo debut, in stores Tuesday, the legendary guitarist of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver fame appears to have included a new song about his former GN’R bandmate Axl Rose.
But appearances can be deceiving.
It was actually Ozzy Osbourne, Slash’s collaborator on the track, Crucify The Dead, who penned and sang the lyrics that seem to reference Rose: “A loaded gun jammed by a rose, the thorns are not around your head, your ego cut you ’til you bled.”
“It was an Ozzy thing,” said Slash, 44, during a recent interview during Canadian Music Week.
“He said the song represents the situation he’s had in his relationships with other musicians. Yes, there were some key lines in there that were very suggestive of my experience. But he said, ‘No, this is just an overall picture of the issues.’ ”
Still, Slash admits there remains some “bad blood” in his relationship with Rose, who he hasn’t spoken to in 15 years after officially quitting GN’R in 1996.
But at this point, he’d really love it if everyone else moved on, like he has.
“Axl’s the way he is and I sort of appreciate that, only because that’s why he’s so phenomenal,” Slash said. “But at the same time it makes it very difficult to co-exist with him in a professional situation. So obviously I got to a point where he really forced my hand and I had to leave.
“But you know, that said, 15 years later, I can’t really sort of sit here and just be bitter about it. So I sort of accept him for who he is and I moved on a long time ago.”
In the meantime, Slash’s long-awaited solo debut features a variety of A-list stars singing and writing lyrics to his hard rock music that brims with his signature solos.
In addition to Osbourne, he collaborates with the likes of Fergie, Chris Cornell, Dave Grohl, Adam Levine, Kid Rock, Iggy Pop, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister.
“It’s hard. You can never think you’re cool enough to just call all these people up and go, ‘Hey, would you sing on my record?’ And they’re all going to jump to it,” Slash said. “So I started with people I was friends with and that was Iggy and Lemmy and Ozzy and those guys also happen to be some of my biggest heroes. But I’ve gotten a chance to meet them and know them over the years. And that’s what really got the ball rolling.”
Slash said all his years of session work really paid off while organizing his solo project.
“I’ve sort to learned how to control my intimidation factor,” he said. “So when somebody walks in I might be starstruck as hell, but I know how to handle it. You have to throw yourself out there and take chances and really face your fears to be able to sort of grow and to be able to work with people that you really admire. So I think really I couldn’t have made this record at any other time.”
Slash said the timing for the solo album was also perfect given the 2008 unravelling of Velvet Revolver as Scott Weiland left the band, which includes former Gunners Duff McKagan on bass and Matt Sorum on drums, and Dave Kushner (Wasted Youth) on rhythm guitar.
“After the whole really tough year with Velvet and parting ways with Scott and just the band dynamic and managers and that whole thing, I was like, ‘Since we’re starting over fresh, I just want to do something on my own for a minute,’ ” he said.
Slash is quick to point out that Velvet Revolver, which asked to be released from its contract, is far from dead in the water.
He said they band actually has written new songs and plans to reconvene in 2011, when hopefully it’ll have a Weiland replacement.
“It wasn’t that Velvet Revolver as a whole unravelled,” Slash said. “We started to revisit a lot of the issues that happened with GN’R in Velvet Revolver with Scott.
“The main issue at the end of the day, on the last record and the last tour, was we just couldn’t seem to nail Scott down. He wasn’t showing up. We had to cancel tours. And I said, ‘I’m not doing that again.’ Because that was very much mirroring what I went through with Guns. So we fired him.”
Slash is touring in support of his solo record starting in June with just one vocalist, Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge, who sings two songs, Starlight and Back To Cali, on the album, and three other musicians.
Kennedy first came to Slash’s attention as a possible Weiland replacement because of the rumour a few years ago about him joining a Led Zeppelin reunion tour (which never materialized).
“Myles was the last guy that sang on the record,” Slash said. “And he was sort of a new discovery for me. ... He got asked by Zeppelin if he wanted to do the tour and went down and jammed with them. I was thinking, ‘Well, anybody’s who’s good enough for Zeppelin’s got to be pretty good.’ So I was like, ‘Do you want to come do the tour?’ And he said yes. He can really sing just about anything.”
