Slash is holed up in Birmingham, preparing for the second night of his UK tour with Myles Kennedy &The Conspirators. But, to paraphrase Billy F Gibbons, his head’s in Mississippi as he talks with urgent passion about his new album of mostly blues songs, featuring a host of star singers and players including Gibbons, Brian Johnson, Iggy Pop, Chris Robinson, Beth Hart, Chris Stapleton, Steven Tyler and Gary Clark Jr, among others. It’s called Orgy Of The Damned, which sounds like quite the party.
“It’s roughly a blues covers record,” Slash says. “And I thought with all this collaboration with all these different people, and blues historically being considered the devil’s music and taboo - you know, hide your kids from the fucking blues stuff - that Orgy Of The Damned seemed like a fitting title. I didn’t really think about it. It just sort of popped up.”
With the album title decided, some appropriately garish, Slash-style cover artwork commissioned, boom! - a collection of songs written and first performed by blues legends including Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters is once again back in circulation on the top table of rock. So what were those guys doing 60, 70 and even 80 years ago that was so special?
“It depends on who you speak to, because everybody has got a different idea as to what it means to them,” Slash says. “For me it’s totally about the feel of it, the cadence of it, the attitude of it, the spirit of it, and of course the rhythm to it.”
Blues remains the genre that sits at magnetic north on the classic-rock compass. But by rejuvenating such wellworn songs as Hoochie Coochie Man, Crossroads, Killing Floor, Born Under A Bad Sign and Stormy Monday, along with rock and R&B standards including Oh Well, The Pusher and Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Slash is putting his neck on the line twice over; not only is he boldly appropriating the work of the original blues masters, but he is also inviting comparisons with the greatest rock bands of the 1960s including Cream, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and all the rest.
“You know, if I were to think about it in those terms, then I would pack it up and go home,” Slash says, solemnly. “A lot of people have been asking me a lot of really deep questions and, man, it just wasn’t about any of that. It was really just, y’know, I like this song, this is the way that I would play it, and we jammed it, this is the arrangement we came up with and so-and-so sang it, and there you go. There’s a lot of really serious blues purists out there. Really studied and well-learned, well-researched blues guys out there, and they’re great players and they stick to a certain blues guideline, and they know all the notes and everything’s perfect. This isn’t that. This is just me having a good time. It’s not even all traditional blues in the first place. It’s a mix of different things. But it was just kind of a fun thing that I don’t want anybody to over-analyse or try and pick it apart, because it just wasn’t put together with that many pieces to begin with.” ➤
