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Long Slash Interview (3)
Will there ever be a Gibson Slash model?
At one point they had an idea for a Slash Les Paul. I gave them my best live guitar; they had it for six months, trying to get the weight and density and everything right. God bless the guys who worked on it, 'cause they're really cool, but they sent me four instruments and none of them sounded anywhere close to it. I'm sort of pissed off at Gibson, because in the six-odd years that I've been with them, I've only gotten three gold-tops that I can use live. And I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on old Gibsons. We just cannot seem to get a sound that I'm happy with from the new ones.
Are you looking for any other guitars?
I wanted a black strat with a bar and humbuckers, so I had two built by Performance Guitar in Hollywood. I use one with a talk box during the show
RECORDING USE YOUR ILLUSION
How do you setup to record?
For the basic tracks, I play with the band, using headphones; we're all in one room. The main goal is to get the bass and drums down. It's a great vibe and I wish I could record my final tracks that way, but I can't. I need to be in my own studio-away from where the basic tracks are done ~in the control booth. I don't let anybody in from the band, if I can help it. On "Shotgun Blues" [illusion II] AxI and some friends popped in, and I did the solo in one take. Sometimes you just want to fuckin' jam in front of somebody. Usually no one was in the studio except for Mike [Clink, producer] and Jim Mitchell, our engineer. That's really my element. I love it.
What happens after the basic tracks?
I redo all my parts. There are a lot of guitars on the album. Izzy has only one guitar throughout the whole record; he comes out of the left speaker. He recorded most of his stuff during basic tracks. I did all the overdubs and harmonies, plus my regular rhythm track. There are a couple of songs, especially ones I wrote, where I beefed up the tracks over on Izzy's side, 'cause he's got a particular sound that doesn't necessarily...
weigh as much.
Yeah, exactly. It falls out of balance. I did all that, the acoustics, and my other instruments in five weeks. For 27 songs, it was pretty quick.
Did you cut all your rhythm tracks and then do all the solos, or did you complete one song at a time?
Because there was so much material, I debated both approaches. But I ended up going in and doing the entire song. If there were four different parts on that song, I'd just get into it and do 'em. Otherwise, even if you switch rhythm sounds for each song, you'd end up playing all your rhythms the same. You need to get mto one song at a time, so when you go to the next one, it's a whole different entity
How do you set up for overdubs?
When I was doing my guitars, I stood out in front of the maln monitors with Mike and the engineer. Just blasting as loud as possible.
Playing through the monitors, how did you get your trademark feedback?
That's a major problem that I've been battlling for a long time. Normally, you go out into the studio and stand in front of your Marshall. With headphones on you can't even hear the tracks-I don't know how people deal with it. Anyway, my techs came up with a trick [see Welcome To The Equipment Jungle, page 44]. I bet them that it wouldn't work. They set it up so I was coming through the monitors and a MESA/Boogie [Mark III combo]. I had the monitor so loud that even though the Boogie was right in front of me, I could still hear the band and sit in the control room. I got a lot of feedback that way
Did you have to stand in certain places?
I'd find a cool spot and put a piece of tape on the ground. Then girls would come down to the studio and hang out. I'd get in the next day and find these shapes on the floor where they'd had a ball with the tape. I was completely confused: "Where's my spot?" Or somebody would come in and tidy up. I'm like, "Fuck, do not touch anything, leave everything alone!" I love things to be a complete disaster. For every beer we drank, we'd stick the label on the [control room] glass-we almost covered the whole thing. One day we got to the studio and the manager had cleaned up. The whole environment was shot-all the porno pictures were taken down.
For your Dobro and slide parts, did you play in standard or open tuning?
The Dobro in "You Ain't The First" [illusion 1] is in standard tuning. I used something I picked up from Keith Richards for "Bad Obsession." You take the low-F string off and just have five strings. That's how I play it live, too, in open G [GDGBD, low to high]. I think those are the only slide tunings I used.
And the banjo in "Breakdown" [Illusion II]?
It was a 6-string banjo tuned like a guitar and played with a flatpick. I don't know shit about real banjo.
Your classical guitar solo at the end of "Double Talkin' Jive" [Illusion I] is poignant.
Thank you; I enjoyed doing it. That Ramirez was one of my better finds ~expensive, but beautiful. It's really satisfying to hear that the solo has some emotion. It was done pretty quick. Actually, I didn't spend too much time on anything. It was always one or two takes, more or less. If the intonation was really off, Clink would tell me, and I'd go back and maybe punch in. But we never spent entire days on guitar solos. We'd take an entire day and do a whole song. Of course, for the really long songs, it would take two days to get all that shit right. But I'd like to think that it was more rock and roll than what most bands are doing these days.
What steel-string acoustics do you play on the album?
I have several Guild~a nice 12-string and a couple of great big dreadnoughts. I used a Gibson J-100 too.
Do you use the same picks for electric and acoustic?
Yeah. I'm real simple minded about that. I use the heaviest picks I can find for everything. I don't believe in switching picks like people switch guitars. It would probably be worthwhile, especially for strumming an acoustic-a thin pick is definitely easier to use. Mine are purple [Dunlop] Tortex, really rigid. I have to work harder for certain subtle things: Sometimes when I get up the neck to play soft, I really have to pay attention to the pressure I'm putting on the strings to get the right sound, whereas with a light pick you can strum away. But I can't be bothered to change. And I can't be bothered with string gauges, either-I stick to Ernie Ball .010s and that's that. I'm really simple when it comes to equipment. I don't like to switch around too much.
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