“I’d been using Marshall for so long that I’d never listened to anything else. I never gave anything else ashot”: Slash on what made him finally change up his sound – and why we’re living through a renaissance for blues guitar

Slash poses with a Gibson ES-335.

Back in the ’90s, just after leaving Guns N’ Roses, when he was slinging his Les Paul solo, Slash hit local LA bars and clubs playing blues standards. The project was called the Blues Ball and, according to the musician, it wasn’t remotely serious.

“It was basically just a drunken excuse to go out and jam,” Slash tells Guitarist. But nearly 30 years later, his love for blues – and the gear that inspires it – has turned serious. The result was 2024’s Orgy Of The Damned, a blues cover album featuring a who’s who of all-stars – and plenty of vintage guitars and amplifiers, among them Magnatone combos that have replaced his beloved Marshall stacks.