Blues cover album

Guitar god Slash fulfills a long-cherished dream

Shortly before his 59th birthday, Slash looks back on his childhood and lets himself fall deep into the world of the blues.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Seven One Starwatch, Gene Kirkland)

Whether consciously or unconsciously - almost every electric guitarist has his origins in the blues. Hard rock legend Slash is well aware of this, having finally found time in his busy schedule to fulfill his dream of a blues cover album. He honestly brought a host of superstars on board for "Orgy Of The Damned".

One of the fundamental advantages of a more sober lifestyle is that clear thinking gives you much more room for exuberant creativity. Ever since Guns N' Roses guitar god Slash finally switched to a bio-sustainable lifestyle after more than one warning (keyword: pacemaker), memorable melodies no longer flow out of him like in his "Sweet Child O' Mine" days, but he has developed into a multi-tasker who can let off steam in various areas. With his Conspirators and singer Myles Kennedy, he has now released four studio albums and sold out countless arenas, the reunion with Axl Rose brought him back to the stadium and we are all still waiting for the studio album that has been teased several times. Last year, when the big machine wasn't busy again, Slash devoted himself to his old passion, the blues.

Groundbreaking insight
Sooner or later, all guitar-based artists come back to their origins and that is always to be found in the blues. Ask the Rolling Stones, the greatest of the living, who returned to their roots almost eight years ago with "Blue & Lonesome" and paid homage to the forefathers of today's electric guitar. Saul Hudson, as Slash less glamorously identifies himself in his passport, grew up as a child in Great Britain, but came into contact with the work of B.B. King at an early age through his grandmother. Even if his own sources of inspiration were later to be located more in a mixture of The Who, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, it dawned on the cult guitarist over the years that they all filtered out their origins in the timeless sounds of King and ultimately transformed them into their own style.

After the rocket launch with Guns N' Roses, Slash's preoccupation with the blues quickly faded into the background. Instead of focusing on the oeuvre of the great old men, he had to fill stadiums and empty whisky bottles. It wasn't until the mid-90s, when he and the band had to pay tribute to the great excesses, that he concentrated more on his roots, founded the fun combo Slash's Blues Ball and played not only in the USA, but also at the Hungarian Sziget Festival in 1996. "We were actually a drunken cover band," he recalls, "we jammed and it was fun." The contact with the guys from back then has continued over the last three decades and when a window of opportunity opened up between two Guns N' Roses tours, Slash pulled out all the stops last year to fulfill his long-awaited wish of a blues album.

Areturn to the past
He not only remembered his favorite songs, but also his solo debut of the same name from 2010, when he had not yet hired Kennedy as a regular singer, but leafed through his thick analog address book to hire a whole host of big names for the individual vocal parts. He took a similar approach for this blues album, aptly titled "Orgy Of The Damned", and actually brought back two companions from his humorous Blues Ball days to provide instrumental support: Bassist Johnny Griparic and keyboardist Teddy Andreadis. With the addition of drummer Michael Jerome and singer/guitarist Tash Neal, the songs were recorded in North Hollywood, Los Angeles. Many a song was already part of the Blues Ball setlist in the 90s. For example Steppenwolf's "The Pusher", Charlie Segar's "Key To The Highway" or "Born Under A Bad Sign" by Albert King. Slash has dug out others exclusively for this new album.

"We didn't do any research or try to find the right tracks - they're just songs that I like. We completely changed the arrangement on some of the songs because we just wanted to hear it played in that form. The nice thing about improvising and not thinking too much is that something interesting and unexpected can come out of it." The originality of the musical realization is particularly striking. The instrumental duo has deliberately concentrated on emphasizing the rough edges and saving the original blues feeling as much as possible for the present day. With Slash's contacts, the guest list naturally leaves nothing to be desired. ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons gives "Hoochie Coochie Man" a rugged roughness, Iggy Pop fulfills his long-cherished dream of finally singing a blues song on "Awful Dream" and Demi Lovato takes "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" into vocal spheres that have never been heard from her before.

Lush personnel cover
Most of the songs have virtually chosen the respective interpreter by themselves, while in other examples everything has come together smoothly and naturally. Sometimes there are also constellations for which most of the competition would voluntarily cut off a leg. On "Killing Floor", for example, you don't just hear AC/DC singer Brian Johnson in his profession, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler came by the studio especially to play harmonica. "Orgy Of The Damned" takes its time and comfortably rolls out the twelve compositions over a playing time of 70 minutes. With "Metal Chestnut", Slash has also included a self-written song at the end of this musical tribute, which - as is usually the case with him - increases the level of heaviness a little. It remains to be seen whether his busy schedule will allow for a blues tour, but with this project close to his heart, Slash is definitely not only pleasing his own fans, but also those who are addicted to the blues itself.