FEATURE – SLASH on new album ‘4’: “Recording live the way we did it was something I have wanted to do my whole career”

Interview Q&A with Slash by Carina Lawrence / Dark Art Conspiracy

Legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has kept busy with his solo group. His latest project is his fifth solo album and fourth with Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, hence the album name ‘4’. The album is out on February 11th 2022 via Gibson Records in partnership with BMG. The new album ‘4’ will be the first-ever album released on the new Gibson Records label, headquartered in the iconic American instrument brand Gibson’s hometown of Music City, Nashville. Considering the long partnership between Gibson and Slash, with Slash named the first global ambassador for the brand, it makes perfect sense that ‘4’ would be the first Gibson Records release.

Slash and the band worked with Dave Cobb for this album, a producer he had never worked with before. We at Dark Art Conspiracy were fortunate enough to get to ask the iconic guitarist in a special album Q&A event via a Zoom webinar about what it was like working with Dave, recording in Nashville at the famous RCA Studio A and getting to lay down all the tracks live. A first for the band and something Slash has always wanted to do:

“I had not heard of Dave before, and he was suggested to me, and I looked at his discography, and it was primarily country music, but it was really great and down to earth, very sort of raw and human country music which is something I haven’t heard in a long time because country music has really gone the sort of way of pop music in that sort of filter of making everything sound the same, anyway, so that was really refreshing, but on top of that he has done all the Rival Sons records which is one of the newer rock ‘n’ roll bands that I really like, and I think they sound great. So I gave him a call, and when we had this conversation and that’s where Glyn Johns came up and recording live. Recording live the way we did it was something I have wanted to do my whole career, and no producer has afforded me the opportunity to do it because they just don’t like the risk of having bleed on the mics and so and so forth. Anyway, that sort of locked me in with Dave Cobb right there and then when we got to Nashville, the studio that he works out of is a real famous studio called RCA and its studio A and its this legendary room where all these really iconic country artists recorded, from Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash to Dolly Parton and the walls have got candid black and white photos of them recording all over the studio so your really sort of immersed in this very creative kind of aura, so that was very inspiring. Then we just set up, and we just started jamming in this big room that they have got there and we really had a good time. Dave was great. He was sort of like the sixth Beatle. He came in, and he had his tambourine, and he just hung out with us while we played, and he is very enthusiastic and had great ideas, and it was a good experience working with him.”

Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators

Check out some of the singles from the upcoming release:

Slash ft. Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators – The River Is Rising (Official Music Video)

Slash ft. Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators – Call Off The Dogs

On Friday, February 11th at 11am PT celebrate the release of ‘4’ by tuning into the exclusive live stream performance of the album in its entirety, only on Facebook and YouTube

Slash feat. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators – 4 tracklisting:

1. The River Is Rising
2. Whatever Gets You By
3. C’est la vie
4. The Path Less Followed
5. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
6. Spirit Love
7. Fill My World
8. April Fool
9. Call Off The Dogs
10. Fall Back To Earth

Pre-order ‘4’: https://slash.lnk.to/4AlbumFA

Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators ‘4’ will be released on February 11th via Gibson Records.

SLASH Featuring MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS will kick off a North American headlining tour in February 2022.

GUNS N’ ROSES rescheduled US tour will start in May 2022 and Europe in June 2022, and they will close the year in Australia/New Zealand in November/December 2022.

For more on SLASH:

https://www.facebook.com/Slash