Best Slash solos
By Sergio Ariza
Between all those pointed
and flashy guitars, between enough lacquer to destroy the ozone layer and so
much artificial pose, in the 80s Slash and Guns'N'Roses
appeared to return to the best essence of classic hard rock once more. With
his top hat and a tuft of hair that made it impossible to see the features of
his face, Slash was a kind of bastard son of Jimmy
Page who, like him, carried the blues to the aggression of rock and, in
Slash’s case, the dirt of punk. He also recovered one of the most important ‘binomials
of rock’, the Les Paul and Marshall; although his main guitar was a handmade replica
by Kris Derrig. Here are some of our
favourites solos of his career.
November
Rain
This song represented the
biggest change in Guns'N'Roses’
career, as it took them from being the most incendiary and dangerous band in
the world to a stadium rock band. The fact that Axl played it with Elton John at the 1992 MTV awards, gave
the impression that he wanted to become a kind of John of 'hard rock' but this
was not true: in fact the singer had pointed out two years before its release
that his favourite album at that time was Something
/ anything by Todd
Rundgren. November Rain is one of
the best-known ballads in history and, to some extent, his Stairway to Heaven or, if you prefer, his Bohemian Rhapsody. As he had done with Sweet Child O'mine, it is Slash who gives the heart to the song
with his solos. It is impossible to separate this song from the band’s
spectacular video in which the guitarist appears wearing Joe
Perry’s legendary 59 Les Paul Tobacco Sunburst (although he recorded it with
his beloved Derrig replica), a guitar that
Perry would end up ‘returning’ to Aerosmith
as a birthday present. This is the solo for which Slash will be remembered
eternally and I do not think he can complain; it is the musical equivalent of
having a broken heart, showing that behind that hair and the top hat hides a
desperate romantic.
Sweet
Child O’ Mine
This song provided one of
the most iconic riffs in the history of rock, up there with Satisfaction, Smoke on the Water or Whole Lotta Love, and which, possibly,
is the best known song of the band. Although the beginnings of the song could
not have been less promising, with Slash creating the riff while ‘fooling
around’ with the drummer, thinking that he was playing a "circus" tune, it was Izzy Stradlin who asked him to repeat it and added the chords, and Duff McKagan a bass line. Axl Rose, who was in another part of
the building, listened to what they played and liked it, and wrote a lyric
there and then, based on his relationship with his girlfriend Erin Everly (the daughter of one of the
Everly Brothers) and finishing the
song the next day. Of course, the absolute cherry on the cake is Slash's solo;
not in vain was it the favourite part for Axl himself, who became a beast when
MTV decided to cut the solo for its broadcast. It was not for nothing, because
with this solo Slash showed that he could sound sweet without losing a bit of
the fierceness that characterized him on the rest of the album. It is one of
those melodic solos that remain etched in the memory and that anyone can sing
note by note. He got it in the first take and could not have improved it even
if he had recorded it a hundred times more. For the sound of the riff in the
recording studio, a Roland SRV-2000 Digital Reverb was used, and the solo was
again the combination between his replica of Les Paul and the Marshall.
Estranged
It is evident that Appetite for Destruction is Guns 'N'
Roses’ greatest album but that does not mean that the two volumes of Use
Your Illusion lack value. At the height of their fame, the
group of Axl, Slash, Izzy and Duff released two double albums at the same time,
which in their first week sold more than half a million copies and placed them in
1st and 2nd place of half the world’s charts. It was not surprising that the
albums were filled with grandiloquence, something that can be appreciated in
all its fullness in the more than nine minutes (the second longest song in
their discography) epic Estranged.
But that does not mean it does not work, Estranged
is a perfectly orchestrated song, with several differentiated parts and without
any refrain, in which Axl chronicles the failure of his relationship with model
Erin Everly. And, yes, the great hero of the song is again an incendiary Slash
whose Les Paul is unique every time he takes the lead on four separate
occasions; highlighting the dramatic force of the final single.
Nightrain
Let me tell you the story
of how Slash finally found his sound. Guns'N'Roses went on to record Appetite For Destruction in early '87, and
by then Slash's lead guitar was a B.C. Rich Warlock with which he recorded the
basic tracks. But he was not at all satisfied with his sound, so much so that
for My Michelle he used a Gibson SG
that ended up crushed against the band’s van. The manager of the band took note
and decided to stop by Jim Foote's
instrument store to see if they had anything. Foote did not hesitate to show
him a replica of a 59 Les Paul that Rick Derrig had made, a man who made these
replicas to make improvements to his car. Niven was delighted and paid about $
2,500 for it. When he took it to Slash, and he plugged it into his Marshall JMP
1959 Super Lead, he knew he had found his sound. This you can see on this jewel
of Appetite For Destruction that used
to be the one that opened their first concerts. It was Slash's favourite song
to play live, where he used to go crazy in the fantastic final solo. But back
to the beginning of the story, Appetite
was released on July 17, 1987 and sold over 18 million copies making it one of
the most successful debut albums in history. Everything indicated that Derrig
was going to become immensely rich and he was going to be able to buy the car
he wanted but it was not like that. The man who made these incredible replicas
of Les Paul, and who tried them out by playing them over Allman Brothers albums, died two months earlier, on May 17, 1987.
He never knew that the guitar he had made became one of the most famous of all
time.
Paradise
City
A perfect anthem to sing ‘at
full lung’ in a stadium, without thinking too much about how silly the lyrics
are ("Where the grass is green and
the girls are pretty"). It has a perfect start and a section with a
spectacular riff that makes it little matter what is actually being sung, which
could be "la, la, la, la"
and would still be as effective. In fact, it might have been much more fun if
they had left the phrase that Slash wanted to use, "where girls are fat and have big tits." His final solo allows
us to see that, despite being a guitarist based on blues (and therefore, more
on feeling than on speed), Slash is able to jump vertiginously up and down the
neck demonstrating that, like Samuel L.
Jackson in Pulp Fiction, he is also a Bad
Motherfucker.
Civil
War
In this harrowing anti-war
song Slash finds a depth and a desperation that fits perfectly with Axl's lyrics.
It provides proof again of his diversity, as he manages to sound different
every time, on occasion using his beloved Cry Baby wah pedal. It is difficult
to choose one over the rest but, perhaps the one at the end is the most
expressive, until you reach that nod to Hendrix at which point Axl asks "What's so civil about war, anyway?"
Welcome
to the Jungle
In 1987 the 'glam metal'
scene in Los Angeles was at its height, but you could see that it was something
totally hollow, more concerned with makeup and 'girls, girls, girls' than doing
something really dangerous to boost rock and roll. And into that situation arrived
these few guys talking about the less 'glamorous' face of the city: listening
to this song people could see the broken bottles, syringes and used condoms on
the floor. All this around an amazing riff that seemed to announce the arrival
of Armageddon and that seemed all twisted, while the boundless throat of Axl
Rose warned you that you had just arrived in the big city, "do you know where you are? You are in the jungle Baby, you're going to
die! " The funny thing is that Axl had written the song about him many
years before when he exchanged rural Indiana for New York. Even so, his ‘warning
to the clueless’ is still the moment in which the rock'n'roll discovered his reference
band for the 80s. This solo is most interesting because it is one of the few
occasions in which we see Slash use the slide, in addition to his
characteristic 'bends' and his unique vibrato.
Rocket
Queen
I had to stop when making
this list to try to not only put in songs from Appetite for Destruction but it is one of the best rock albums of
all time. Rocket Queen is the song
that closes it and is one of its great moments. The song begins at 40 seconds
with a powerful riff which is quickly followed by the voice of Axl posing as
his 18-year-old friend Barbi Von Greif,
the queen of the 'underground' of Los Angeles, ("I may be young but I'm not naive ") to make way for an instrumental
bridge in which he added the orgasmic noises of Axl having sex with Adriana Smith - the girlfriend at the
time of drummer Steven Adler (you
never get bored with this band) - then at 3 minutes and half returning with
another much more classic riff and closing with Axl going on to add his own
perspective and offering his support to Barbi, "if you need a shoulder or a friend, I'll be here until the bitter
end." The conclusion again shows Slash demonstrating his mastery of the
vocabulary of blues.
Double
Talkin' Jive
Another song by Izzy
Stradlin, on which he also takes the lead voice, which has led some fans to
think that the solo before the Spanish guitar is his as well; also because it
is different from what we are used to from Slash. However, I believe that the
solo is 100% Slash, which he plays with oriental and Spanish influences, until
he reaches that haven of peace that the Spanish guitar brings and that proves
the creativity and diversity of the guitarist's influences.
Always
On The Run - Lenny Kravitz
Slash had commented that Lenny Kravitz's debut album, Let Love Rule, was his favourite album
to make love to. Upon learning that, Kravitz invited him to the studio for his
next album and when he accepted and they saw each other, they realized that
they had gone together to the same college in Los Angeles. Slash took his
Gibson Les Paul Standard 59 replica to the studio to record Fields Of Joy's solo but, between takes,
he played with a riff he had, but that did not suit his band. Kravitz did not
hesitate a second and turned that funky riff into one of the best songs of his
career, Always On The Run. The
curious thing is that Kravitz also owned a replica Les Paul by Kris Derrig, of
which there are only 24, which makes it clear that these two were born to play
together. So it's clear that when Kravitz yells "Slash!" he is honouring the person who gave him one of the
best solos of his career.