Rock guitarist Slash has been a regular fixture in the rock and roll circuit for at least 20 years now, but it only took him until Tuesday of this week to finally release his first solo album.
The former lead guitarist of the multi-platinum selling band Guns & Roses, and more recently, "Velvet Revolver," released early this week a thirteen-track CD of original songs that features a host of guest rock and roll singers that includes Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne and Chris Cornell, and pop vocalists that include Fergie of hip hop group Black Eyed Peas and Adam Levine of Maroon 5.
Simply titled “Slash,” the 44-year old guitarist admitted that he “got to a point where I needed to do something on my own,” and added that “It’s one of the few things that I hadn’t done in my musical career.”
Slash first broke into the music scene in 1987 thru his former group Guns & Roses’ multi-platinum smash ‘Appetite For Destruction.’ After parting ways with singer Axl Rose, the guitarist bounced around several bands that included Slash’s Snakepit, and more recently Velvet Revolver, a band that included former members of Guns & Roses and Stone Temple Pilots' vocalist Scott Weiland. Slash also played as a sought after session musician recording music with Alice Cooper, Sammy Hagar, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. But his most notable work as a sessionist was with Michael Jackson on the song “Give In To Me,” and eventually, in the music video for “Black Or White.”
"I thought, you know, that would be a fun thing to do, where I get a bunch of different people to guest on my record as opposed to me appearing on everybody else's records,'" he said with regard to his decision to record an album with guest singers.
Slash’s first single, entitled “By The Sword,” features singer Andrew Stockdale from the band “Wolfmother.”
Fans of the guitarist were surprised by the variety of talent he recruited to sing in his first solo album. Fergie for one, seems an unlikely choice for Slash but he defended his choice by saying that the Black Eyed Peas singer has “this amazing rock 'n' roll voice and she's sort of a closet rock 'n' roll singer,” and furthered that “She's got a lot of balls. For a female rock singer she's one of the best women I've ever heard." Slash made a guest appearance at a recent Black Eyed Peas show playing a version of “Sweet Child Of Mine” with Fergie singing lead.
Slash did not single out any one song from his solo album saying that "It's all pretty much in the spirit of rock 'n' roll, even the slower songs, even the ballads." The guitarist is scheduled to embark on a six month worldwide tour in support of his solo debut.
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