The words “Slash” and “Gibson Les Paul” go hand-in-hand. You can’t think of the Guns N’ Roses rocker without picturing him holding his favored single-cut. Likewise, when you see a Les Paul, Slash usually springs.
Indeed, that’s what happens when you spend an entire career largely playing one particular electric guitar – but for his new blues solo record, Orgy of the Damned, Slash did make quite a notable exception.
No, we’re not talking about the ES-335 he played in his cover of Killing Floor. We’re talking about the fact he swapped Les Pauls for Fender Stratocasters – and Telecasters – for some tracks on the album.
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Speaking in the new issue of Total Guitar, the Les Paul loyalist revealed he’d opted for Fender single-coil sounds on two songs: Oh Well and Living For The City.
“For me that song was one of my favourites,” Slash says of his cover of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac classic Oh Well, for which he’s joined by Chris Stapleton. “I remember when they used to play it on the radio back in the ’70s, and I always loved it.
“Y’know I’ve jammed the riff a few times but I have never played the full song. My take on it is a little bit more hard-driving than most, right? It was a hell of a lot of fun to play. And I’m playing a Strat, too, which you never hear me use.”
As for why he wanted to play a Strat on the song – especially since Green himself is so closely associated to the Les Paul, thanks to the legendary ‘Greeny’ – Slash continues, “It just sounded like a Strat to me. I used a Strat on that, and I used an old ’50s Tele on Living For The City.”
Despite his affiliation with the Les Paul, Slash is a notable admirer of the Strat. Back in 2018, he described the model as “probably one of the most versatile guitars there is”.
It wasn’t just Fender guitars Slash turned to while recording his blues album, either. As he goes on to reveal, he also recorded using some Fender amps – as well as potentially one of the last Dumbles ever made before Alexander Dumble passed away.
“I’m funny with amps,” Slash says. “I have obviously been a Marshall guy forever, and I love Marshalls – nothing gets the Marshall sound, right? But I also love old Fender Deluxes.
“I love old Fender amps for lots of different kinds of things, and they pop up here and there for clean stuff on a record or whatever. But I pulled them out, a couple of old Fender ’50s Deluxes.
“I had a Dumble Fender Deluxe that he (Alexander ‘Howard’ Dumble) built for me, just before he passed away. I think it was the last one he ever built.”
Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Total Guitar, which features interviews with Slash, St. Vincent and Kerry King
