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Music

Slash: New Technology, Same Ol' Shredding

The legendary guitarist talks about SXSW party days, his new album, and the Jimi Hendrix riff he wishes he had written.

The first time Slash hit Austin for South By Southwest was 2002, not surprising it took him that long as it would’ve been hard to picture the Appetite For Destruction-era Guns ‘N’ Roses playing Stubbs. Imagine them rocking “Mr. Brownstone” while a bunch of industry-ites ate BBQ. Uh, no.

But having long moved passed that phase of his career, this Slash is sitting in an office building high rise, having just judged the first annual “Hackathon,” an event designed to show off new tech gadgets he hopes can be used for music.

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While he is one of the judges and name on the event, the iconic guitarist doesn’t see himself as a tech guy, and talking about the new album he is presently at work on, the conversation quickly turns to analog. Noisey spoke with Slash about SXSW party days, the new album, and the Jimi Hendrix riff he wishes he had written.

Noisey: Last time I saw you was House Of Blues in LA. How have you been?
Slash: I’ve been good, I think I told you I was gonna work on a new record, so now I’m in the studio, I start the tenth song doing guitars, it sounds fucking… it just has to come out, I don’t want to pre-build it up, it’s just really fucking awesome. So I’m very excited. I normally am very stoic about these things, but it just sounds so fucking bitchin’. The songs are really great, the playing is amazing, the producer, Mike “Elvis” Baskette, that we’re using has been such a welcome addition to the whole thing. I’d never even heard of him, but he produced the last Alter Bridge record and the last Alter Bridge record, the drums and bass were seriously fucking punchy. So I talked to him on the phone and I was seriously thinking that he was one of these Pro Tools guys cause that’s how all the new bands record, but he was originally a tape guy and then we started talking about recording to tape, and guitars. I said, “Let’s go for it, let’s see what happens.” He came down to pre-production and all the little things I overlook because I don’t have the patience, he makes us do. And we just worked our asses off but it’s been so worth it. It just fucking sounds great and he gets great sound, so I’m just stoked.

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Is there a timeline for when it will be out?
I figure it will be released in September, fall record.

What brings you down to South By and what are your impressions of the festival?
The first time I ever came to South By it wasn’t that long ago, it was 2002. And I came out on a plane by myself and just came out here because I was looking for a singer and I just knew there were a lot of artists here, a lot of new bands and whatever. And I just came combing the streets, looking for anybody that seemed interesting to either pull out of a band or just seeing if happenstance would present itself and I would just meet somebody. And I ended up walking around and just being overwhelmed at the fucking intensity of the whole place and the amount of information and the amount of artists that were here. But I loved it and I spent the better part of it after that just getting drunk with Billy Gibbons in the bar of the hotel that I’m at now. It was cool.

So I’ve been here many times. It’s not tradition, I’m usually on the road so I’m not here every year, but I love being here when it’s happening. I played with the Yardbirds here when they got back together a few years back.

What brought you out today was the Hackathon, what is that?
We had this idea, because I’m not a tech guy, but I do find that there are different applications, music-related and some social networks or whatever that I use. I’ve got a fucking zillion apps on my phone and thought it’d be great to start looking, get ahead of the curve and see if there’s any people with some new ideas that I might be able to utilize, that I think would be practical or explosive or anything like that. So we set this thing up and it was the first actual Hackathon, I’ll probably do it once or twice a year and some interesting things came out of it.

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Were there any ideas that really stood out to you?
I can’t say anything really blew me away. There were a lot of interesting ideas where I thought I could see using that, but the main guy that won was something that has no practical application whatsoever and that was the fucking make your own videos. It was just like taking the stickers and being able to move them on a backdrop of whatever, like a stage or whatever, and do it to the rhythm of whatever you feel like, but using music and then being able to record it and have that as something people will do like crazy with their spare time, especially if you have access to fucking endless amount of stickers, that could be anything. You could have midgets, dancing girls, kangaroos.

I live in the analog world, so it’s weird juxtaposition where I’m looking at tech stuff and I sort of live in this other world all together. But every so often I stumble on something that is actually really handy and not totally obvious. So I’m just waiting to see if anybody’s got anything that inspires me. There’s one thing that somebody’s working on, which is an analog app so that when you’re recording, it has analog sound, which I would’ve said would’ve been my idea had they not thought of it. Other than that, I don’t have any ideas where I’m going, “God, this is something I could really use.”

You talked about getting drunk with Billy, what are the one or two best South By memories?
I guess that was one, playing with the Yardbirds was another, and then I jammed here, it was a great fucking night, I can’t remember who the fuck I was playing with, I pretty much jammed here every time that I’ve been here. But there was one particular evening I was jamming on some club in a corner and it was just one of the fucking free-wheeling evenings, something I don’t want to get into [laughs]. But it was just a really great South By night, let’s put it that way, a lot of playing and a lot of the extra-curricular activities that went with it.

This brings us full circle because the first time we ever talked was when you were doing a Hendrix tribute at San Diego Street Scene and here you’re playing a Hendrix tribute. If you could pick one or two Hendrix songs you would most love to play what are they?
I love, and I’ve never played it funnily enough, but “Dolly Dagger” is one that I’ve never played with anybody, that is one of my favorite Hendrix licks and something that I wish I could’ve wrote.

What do you want people to take from the record when it comes out in September?
I just want them to go, “That’s a fucking rock and roll record.”