Slash has revealed that he has a new solo album in the works, and the as-yet-untitled release will welcome a number of guest vocalists to the studio – one of whom will be Demi Lovato.
The Guns N’ Roses guitarist was speaking to Yahoo when he shared the news, offering few details but just enough to confirm that the setup will be similar to his eponymous solo debut from 2010, on which some legendary singers lent their pipes – and there is the tantalising prospect that we'll hear him play some blues guitar on it.
There was Ian Astbury of the Cult, Fergie, Chris Cornell, Lemmy (who also played bass guitar), Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne and more. Myles Kennedy of course featured and we would bet good money that Kennedy would appear again, given the pair’s ongoing concern with the Conspirators.
This time around, Slash describes the music as “more blues-oriented”, and it will feature Demi Lovato – who has already recorded her track. Slash told Yahoo he first got to know Lovato through a shared history of addiction recovery.
“I’d been sober for a little while and she was still struggling a little bit, having just gone through a relapse,” he said. “And then I talked to her just post-that, and she was sort of trying to get it back together and whatnot. That’s how we initially started sort of talking, and she’s just really cool and she’s a really intelligent and talented girl. And so, we’ve just been friends ever since then.”
Slash has already returned the favour, with the GNR legend dropping some electric guitar on Lovato’s reimagined Sorry Not Sorry, which was released last Friday (14 August). The single is taken from Lovato’s forthcoming album, Revamped, which turns a bunch of tracks from her back catalogue into rock tunes.
Not all of the tracks or guests have been confirmed. It would be interesting to see if Nita Strauss will feature on the album, having left Alice Cooper to tour with Lovato last year. Strauss has since returned to the Coop’, but given that she likes to keep her schedule packed, don’t rule her out.
As for Slash, he said his part was tracked when Guns N’ Roses were on tour and had a day off in Norway.
“I told her, ‘Hey, if you ever need me to put some guitar on something, just let me know and I'll do it!’ And so she hit me back about two weeks, three weeks later, and said she's got this song that she's doing a remake of and asked if I'd put some guitar on that,” he said. “[Guns N’ Roses] did a show in Norway and I had a day off, so I found a cool engineer and studio in Norway and just put the guitars on there. It's amazing how fast it came out.”
Slash said we can expect his solo album sometime in 2024. And you can expect Slash onstage in Athens tomorrow evening as GNR play the Olympic Stadium. Their tour continues through the summer. See Guns N’ Roses for full dates.
