From his earliest days with Guns N’ Roses, it was clear that’s Slash’s lead guitar style – be it the direct, deep-in-the-pocket pentatonic licks and gritty double-stop bends of Welcome to the Jungle or the emotive, vocal-like phrasings that characterized Sweet Child O’ Mine – was heavily steeped in the blues.
And yet, he came up in a time and place – 1980s Los Angeles, to be exact – when hard rock had largely eschewed those stylistic hallmarks in favor of an acrobatic and highly technical approach that emphasized speed and flash over feel and, sometimes, taste.
