DEATH OR GLORY

Last March, five days into sessions for his fourth album with Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators, Slash’s mobile lit up while he was in the studio. Nothing unusual about that, for a man who has spent the past five years fielding the twin demands of a reunited Guns N’ Roses and a snowballing solo career. But when he glanced at the screen he was bemused to see the caller ID of the singer with whom he was then recording at Nashville’s RCA Studio A. “It was Myles Kennedy,” he recalls today. “I was like: ‘What the fuck? He’s already here. Why is he calling me?’”

Slash gives the dark chuckle of a man safely on the far side of a cataclysm. “The first five days of making this record were the most fun I think we’ve ever had in the studio. And then – boom. Suddenly there was this dark cloud over the whole thing.”

Let’s rewind. By rights, and in a sane universe, new album should have seen Slash, Kennedy and The Conspirators – completed by stalwart sidemen Brent Fitz (drums), Todd Kerns (bass) and Frank Sidoris (guitars) – continue their swagger. “With your freshman effort,” considers