Slash has opened up about his high-profile collaboration with Magnatone, after the Guns N’ Roses electric guitar hero seemed to switch his tried-and-trusted Marshalls for a signature amp built by the boutique guitar amp designer.
In late 2023, Slash took the guitar gear world by surprise when he announced he was working with Magnatone on a signature amp after spending 30 years playing Marshalls.
A few days after the news broke, Marshall set the record straight by affirming that Slash would still play his stacks, and that the new partnership with Magnatone – which resulted in the SL100 – would run alongside his existing collaboration with Marshall.
Now, Slash has spoken out about the move, which he says came about after he began to feel “disillusioned” with the sound of his Marshalls and other existing amps.
Speaking in a new interview with Magnatone, Slash explains, “I pretty much made my home with Marshall for a lot of years, and then over time I started to get… I don't know what's the best word for it, a little disillusioned with maybe the consistency of my sound with the Marshall or whatever it was.
“There were things that I wanted to achieve that I wasn't really getting out of those amps,” he continues. “And then I played a Magnatone one time, just by chance.”
Accidentally happening upon a Magnatone turned out to be a huge lightbulb moment for Slash, who at the time was looking for a way to reinvigorate his sound in the lead up to his blues solo record, Orgy of the Damned.
“I think Richard Fortus gave it to me,” he continues. “I mean, I went to go do this blues record a couple years ago. I wasn't looking for a wall of sound for the blues record. I wanted something that was more like a combo, 50 watt or less type of deal.
“So I pulled out all these old combos that I had, and I saw the Magnatone and I was familiar with them because Billy Gibbons was using them.
"I ended up using it for the whole process. Out of everything that I had, I kept going back to that amp. And then when we went to the studio, I did a whole record with that amp. "I started to get less and less of what I was expecting out of the gear that I was using,” he notes. “But then when I stumbled on the Magnatone side, ‘Oh, fuck.’”
It wasn’t just a studio thing, either. As Slash reveals, he also took his 50-watt Magnatone combos on tour with Guns N’ Roses, and used them in place of his previous Marshall rig.
“Going out with Guns N’ Roses a couple years ago, I took my 50-watt Magnatone combos and replaced the Marshalls on that tour, for the entire tour, and it worked great.”
In other Slash new, Marty Schwartz recently recalled the time he bumped into the GNR icon – and revealed that Slash had watched his tuition videos in the lead up to the blues record that feature his now-prized Magnatone combos.
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