He begins with an apology, followed by the perfect excuse. “Sorry I’m late,” Slash says as he connects with TG on a video conference call from his home in Los Angeles, 20 minutes after the scheduled start time. “I was actually just practising on one of my Les Pauls,” he laughs, “and I lost track of time.”
The legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist’s new book, The Collection: Slash – the first release from Gibson’s newly founded publishing arm – explores his museum-like vault of guitars in great detail. The range of instruments is vast, from the 1980 BC Rich Mockingbird seen in GN’R’s You Could Be Mine video and the Travis Bean TB1000 used for the slide work on tracks like Bad Obsession, right through to his Guild doublenecks and mouth-watering acoustics, with even some Strats and Teles thrown in for good measure, including the Fender Bass VI heard on parts of Welcome To The Jungle and Live And Let Die. But there really is just one guitar we tend to picture in the hands of this particular guitar hero. As the man himself says: “When it comes to looks, tone and feel, Les Pauls have always been the guitar I’m most comfortable with.”
As he discusses his love affair with Gibson’s storied singlecut, there is an amusing moment when his focus turns to what he can see to one side of TG’s correspondent – a 1969 Les Paul Custom. “I have to admit I’ve been sat here talking to you while looking at that guitar at the same time,” he smiles. “It looks very cool.”
But he starts by taking us all the way back to the early 70s, when as a young boy he was blown away by Jimmy Page’s playing on Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, and got a Les Paul copy as his first electric guitar…
Do you remember the exact moment you realised these magical Les Pauls would be your instrument of choice?
They are definitely magical instruments, but that’s actually a complicated question. I think all guitar players, or at least most of us, start off by trying to find the instrument we’re most comfortable with. We all go through that period of trial and error.
