Slash talks going solo, Axl Rose
Guns N’ Roses guitarist says call ended feud.
No, another Guns N’ Roses album is not on the way – at least not yet.
“It’s something that we would love to do,” says lead guitarist Slash, who after two decades of strife with frontman Axl Rose reunited with the group in 2016 for an ongoing reunion tour.
In the meantime, the 53-year-old rocker, whose real name is Saul Hudson, is gearing up for the release of “Living the Dream,” out Friday, his third album with singer-songwriter Myles Kennedy and band The Conspirators. Largely written in 2014 and 2015 before the GNR reunion and recorded this past spring, the album is “leaner” and “more uptempo,” he says, than his previous studio effort, “World on Fire,” which was “more densely populated with random riffs and had a lot going on.”
Slash sat down with USA TODAY.
Question: What’s the significance of the title, “Living the Dream?”
Slash: It was just a tongue-in-cheek remark about domestic and global politics, but people have been looking into it as being something about what it is that I do. Which it applies, but that’s not where it came from.
Q: Was any of the new music inspired by what’s going on in the news?
Slash: This one is actually less political than the last one. It’s more about personal experiences for Myles and a couple shared experiences, but not so much politics. But I did have to say something, so I titled the record the way I did.
Q: “Civil War” is arguably GNR’s most political song. What do you remember about writing and recording that with Axl?
Slash: That was something I just came up with on acoustic and an idea that Axl had, and the two just came together. It’ll be interesting to see what’s on the next Guns N’ Roses record if we get around to doing that. I’m not wanting to be a political advocate myself, but it’d be interesting to see what Axl comes up with. He definitely is more outspoken in that area.
Q: Who are some of your favorite rock acts right now?
Slash: I love Foo Fighters. My favorite band consistently has been Queens of the Stone Age because they always put out cool, interesting records. But I still listen to a lot of old stuff because the rock ’n’ roll that turned me on as a kid, not too much of it exists.
Q: I understand that it was Axl who reached out to you a few years ago, after a couple decades of not speaking. Was that cathartic?
Slash: It was nice that it happened. I don’t know if I would have had the wherewithal to call him, just because I’m introverted and it might have been hard for me. Not during that initial phone call, but after that, it was really good to be able to get rid of some of the negative baggage that we’d been carrying around for a long time. It’d been 20 years of not talking and letting this bad blood continue to be perpetuated by the media. It turned into something way bigger than what was really going on, so it was good to get past that.