Slash has opened up about how he got AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson to feature on his upcoming album.
The Guns N’ Roses guitarist will drop his upcoming blues record, ‘Orgy Of The Damned’, on May 17th via Gibson Records, and has shared its lead single, a cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’. The song features Johnson and Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler on harmonica duties.
Speaking to Audacy’s Check In, Slash said: “I had the song and I was trying to think who would be great to do it. And Brian came to mind. And I’ve known Brian for a pretty long time now. And he just has that great kind of grit to his voice. And I called him up and it turns out that he’s a huge fuckin’ Howlin’ Wolf protégé.”
The guitarist continued: “And also, he was telling me that he’s doing something at present where he’s putting together sort of a blues-orchestra thing. Don’t quote me on that, but something to that [effect]. Anyway, and so he was excited to do that particular song anyway. And that’s the key thing that you’re looking for, is that when you call any of these great artists up and you have a cover song that you want to attack and if they would be willing to participate, that the song speaks to them, that it has meaning to them too, not just me. And that’s how it was with Brian. He was, like, ‘Oh, fucking great. Yeah, let’s do this.'”
The track also features Steven Tyler on harmonica. Speaking on how Tyler’s involvement came about, Slash said: “He came in to do the harmonica or he just happened to have a harmonica with him. I can’t remember, but I played him the track. It was, like, ‘This is great.’ So it was very spontaneous. It was very just sort of inspired in the moment, which is a great thing to be able to capture, especially nowadays because people just, by and large, don’t make records like that now. Everything is very well thought out and cultivated and homogenized and produced, and this was just very, very off the cuff.”
Pre-order/pre-save the album here and check out ‘Killing Floor’ below:
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Slash announced ‘Orgy Of The Damned’ earlier this month. It is due to feature guests such as Iggy Pop, Chris Stapleton, Demi Lovato, Dorothy, Paul Rodgers, Chris Robinson, Tash Neal, Beth Hart, Gary Clark Jr. and Billy Gibbons. Slash is also set to cover several blues standards such as Robert Johnson’s ‘Crossroad Blues’, Albert King’s ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’, Willie Dixon’s ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and more.