Feature Photo by Libby Coffey
Slash—who has long starred as the lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses—is an icon. But since the release of 1987’s Appetite for Destruction, and on through to today, he’s most known within hard rock and metal circles.
But all that changed with Orgy of the Damned, an album of classic blues covers that Slash dropped on May 17, 2024. From Billy Gibbons to Brian Johnson to Beth Hart, Orgy of the Damned is loaded with talent, but what’s most important to Slash is celebrating the music that influenced his style—which has always been rooted in the blues.
Speaking on the process of putting together the track listing for Orgy of the Damned, Slash tells ClassicRockHistory.com, “I really narrowed it down to the stuff that had the most impact on me and that I recalled being a part of the span of my life up to this point.”
Cuts like “Crossroads,” which features Gary Clark Jr., and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” featuring Demi Lovato, are just two examples of a 12-song set representing Slash’s love for the blues. But he’s not stopping there, as he’s launched S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival, a summer bash that finds many of today’s great blues artists on one bill.
“I’m really excited about that,” Slash beams. I reached out to a bunch of really cool, mostly young blues artists who I think are really great. There’s Kingfish, who is phenomenal, Samantha Fish, and of course, Eric Gales, who I’ve known since, God, the beginning of the millennium.”
To Slash’s point, there’s plenty of youth on the roster but a ton of veteran presence, too. “Eric Gales is just a monster guitar player,” he continues. “And then, Warren Haynes is on there; he’s a big hero of mine. I’m so honored he’s on board to do this. And then you have Larkin Poe and Jackie Venson, too.”
As for what the festival means for him and the scene overall, Slash says, “The S.E.R.P.E.N.T. name is actually an acronym for solidarity, engagement, respect, peace, equality, and tolerance. It’s about trying to promote people getting together, as opposed to being divided.”
He explains, “There seems to be such ugly, prevalent divides going on in society, so I just wanted to have something that was really about being all-inclusive. Something where everybody can come down and have a great time together. So, there’s a message behind all this as well.”
What are the origins of Orgy of the Damned?
I called the original guys from the Blues Ball, which is what my old band was called, Slash’s Blues Ball, and I said, “Hey, you know, I really want to make a record.” And Ted [Andreadis], who is the singer and keyboard player, pulled together some setlists from the shows we did back in 1998.
And then, I found a window [of time] during the Guns N’ Roses tour for a couple of weeks where I could go in and make the record in-between legs, you know, the tour legs. And so, we got together and put together ten songs that I wanted to do, and then, I had the idea of bringing in guest vocalists, and we just went at it.
You’re known as a rock guitarist, but if you listen, you can hear a lot of blues influence in your playing, too.
You know, there’s just this myriad of blues guitarists that influenced me, and so, I brought it all full circle. That was really my inspiration when I first started playing. But at the same time, I was, you know… I loved hard rock bands like Aerosmith, AC/DC/, which, to me, were, you know, souped-up blues bands—and the [Rolling] Stones as well. And so, that’s sort of the direction that I went to, but was all… it always stayed blues-based, you know?
How did you go about choosing the songs you wanted to cover for Orgy of the Damned?
As a musician and guitar player, you know, some of them were borderline predictable. Like, “Born Under a Bad Sign” has been done a million times, and everybody knows that song. But it was such a single-note riff and such a key to how I started as far as the style I went for when I started; I had to include it.
It was the same with “Killing Floor;’ it was such an important part of my guitar makeup that I had to include it. But there were songs like “Oh Well,” which is necessarily what you’d call a “blues song” per se, but it was written by Peter Green, who was one of my favorite blues guitarists, and that was one of my favorite tracks even before I picked up guitar and was a big influence on me.
It must have been a delicate process of paying homage to these classic songs and putting your own spin on them.
Even now, when we’re rehearsing to go on this tour, we picked out a bunch of songs that we’re doing that aren’t on the record. And it’s like, “Okay, we listened to it,” and we go, “Okay, well, in my mind, this is what I want, and I want to make sure that’s in there.” And the rest of it, we just sort of make up, you know? That’s basically how the record was done.
It’s like, “Here’s the riff, here’s the melody, here’s the vocal,” and then, once we started jamming, we insert, you know… we find our own way of playing it and change the arrangement around to how we feel is more interesting, or whatever. Whatever it inspires us to do, we did. I don’t think we really gave it that much more thought after that.
Although your style is blues-based, does your approach as a guitarist change, considering that you usually play rock music?
I just sort of play the way I play. But also, you know, there’s a lot less concentration on… I do solos that are sort of very much inspired by the melody of the songs. And they usually are not too long and fit in as part of the song. With a lot of blues, you’re inspired by the tone of the song, the melody, and the cadence of the song, but you’re improvising all the time.
That was something that I really looked forward to doing. But, you know, the guys that I play with are all really sort of career blues musicians, too. So, that has a big effect on the overall sound, you know? I’m not playing some, you know, metal guys or some real sort of hard rock guys. They’re more blues-oriented; I think that has a big effect and comes across as a whole.
Tell me about putting together your version of “Crossroads,” featuring Gary Clark Jr.
You know, initially, we were gonna do like the Robert Johnson sort of approach. And then, we played it that way a little bit, and it just didn’t have as much energy as I wanted it to have. And so, I thought, “Well, you know, maybe I’ll just go back to the Cream kind of version of ‘Crossroads.'” I know how much that’s been done, but that was one of the things that actually inspired me to play guitar in the first place.
I decided, you know, I thought that was a great excuse to call Gary to play with me. I really love Gary’s playing, and we met not too long ago. I just thought, “Maybe we can get him on this record,” I called him up, and he was in the studio in Texas making his record, and he jumped at the chance to sort of take a break from working on his thing just to get away from it for a second.
So, he flew to LA, and I just showed him the arrangement that we put together, and he just jammed with us and sang. And it was great; it was one of the only two live vocals on the record that were done. When we actually do all the music, you know, recorded all the music, that was the one live one. It was a fun, fun time, and he’s got his stuff on there. It was just amazing.
What was it like working with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on “Hoochie Coochie Man?”
I knew I wanted to have Billy on the record. I asked him, and he’s like, “Well, what song are you doing, kid?” I said, “‘ Hoochie Coochie Man,'” and he goes, “Well, you know….” I could tell that he was a little bit reticent because he didn’t know what kind of version, or what kind of record I was putting together, or how I was going to bastardize this song, or whatever. [laughs]
And so, it finally took… after a couple of months of this, I finally made him a demo. He was like, “Oh, cool.’ So, he went down to a studio that a friend of mine owns in Palm Springs and went in there, and out this fucking great note-perfect solo on there. And it’s probably one of the best vocals of that particular song I’ve heard outside of Muddy Waters. It was a really big moment to have him come in there and do that.
Speaking of vocals, everyone from Brian Johnson to Demi Lovato is on this record. Does the vocalist you’re working with impact your guitar tracks at all?
Well, we’re a five-piece, right? We went into the studio, and we only had a week to record this material, so, you know, most of it was pre-recorded for all the artists. So, basically, they would just put their vocals on top of it. But with the one I did with Demi “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and Beth Hart “Stormy Monday”, I came back in and put some extra guitars on there because I knew that I couldn’t do the fills without the vocals. But the rest of the album was done live in the studio, and we just served it up to the singers after the fact.
Photo by Libby Coffey
You’ve mainly used Les Pauls in your career, but you’re breaking out a lot of new gear that we haven’t seen lately. That must be refreshing.
Usually, for me, it’s all primarily hard rock, overdriven. But with this, I wanted it to be more raw, sort of, you know, very pure-toned. I wanted different kinds of guitars that were basically a little less output than your average Les Paul because that gives you a little more of the sound of the strings on the fretboard.
Even if you’re pushing the amp a little bit, a [Gibson] ES-335 still has this sort of open kind of sound, which is great. Joe Bonamassa put it best when he said, “335s are my best Les Pauls.” They have the humbuckers, and they’ve got that sort of Les Paul kind of thing, but they’re a little bit cleaner. When you’re doing any kind of chord voicings, they just have… there’s something about the 335 that when you really get into them, I really like.
And then, I was playing a [Fender] Tele, you know, I played this Tele on there because I really wanted that kind of sound, which you usually really can’t pull off on a Les Paul convincedly. And I pulled out a [Fender] Strat for “Oh Well” because I wanted to have that sound. I also wanted to have the tremolo bar. But there were a few Les Pauls on there still, but some vintage ones. There’s a ’58 and a ’59, and I pulled out a ’54 gold top, but the 335 made it onto three or four songs.
And how about amps? You’re not just plugging into Marshalls this time around.
I brought a lot of my combos out. I have my Dumble and this Magnatone combi, which is like a 50-watt combo. The first time I heard it, I was like, “Wow, this thing sounds great.” So, for every song, I would try a couple of different amps and a couple of different guitars to get the right sound. I ended up using that Magnatone on every song, so I recorded the whole record with it.
Have you taken the same gear on tour?
I swapped out my Marshalls on the Guns tour when I went back on the road because, like I said, we only had three weeks to make this record, and I had to go back out. So, I swapped out the Marshalls for the Magnatone, so I’ve been them ever since. I’m using a couple of 50-watt Magnatone amps.
And then, I’m going to have a couple of Les Pauls, a couple of 335s, and some [Gibson] Firebirds with soap bars [pickups]. I have a really cool [Gibson] Explorer that I’ve been using, which is a replica of Big Ed, an infamous ’58 Explorer that Gibson has in its vault. This is like a replica that was made for me, which sounds amazing. I used it on the record as well.
What did the experience of celebrating the blues with Orgy of the Damned mean to you?
Well, making the record was just a lot of fun. It was something that we really did for the fun of it, and we just had a great time putting it together. And the session was great; [producer] Mike Clink was great to do it with. And all the engineers and everybody who went in there and just sort of jammed this thing out were, too.
It was a really good time, and all the people who came in said it was a really great experience.
And now that it’s out—because we did this a year ago, and I just had to sit on it because I had other things going on and had to wait—and there was a window where I could release it without any other distractions, it’s been well-received.
I’m really excited about having the opportunity to jam with this band for two hours every night and do things I have had the chance to do since the Blues Ball was around, which was more of a drunken cover band; I don’t remember much of it. [laughs]
Slash with Gibson-ES-335 Photo credit Gene Kirkland
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