Slash has officially announced his new blues guitar album; it’s going to be called Orgy Of The Damned, it’ll feature an all-star cast of guest vocalists, and the first single finds the Guns N’ Roses guitarist covering Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor with Brian Johnson of AC/DC on vocals.
It is hard to top that, the gravelly Geordie pipes of Beano on one of the foundational blues tracks of all time, but Slash has the means and the contacts book to take it one step further, calling in Steven Tyler to play the harmonica.
That’s right, the Aerosmith frontman pops by the studio to play harmonica. Incredible. You might also recognise Tash Neal on rhythm guitar, playing a Gold Top with P-90s, very nice. Johnny Griparic is on bass guitar, Teddy Andreadis on keys, Michael Jerome on drums.
Orgy Of The Damned features guest spots from Iggy Pop, Billy F Gibbons, Gary Clark Jr, Dorothy Demi Lovato, Paul Rodgers, Beth Hart, Chris Stapleton and Chris Robinson. It’s not all strictly blues; Neal sings lead vocals on a cover of Stevie Wonder’s Living For The City. Slash closes the album out with an all-original composition titled Metal Chestnut.
But it makes sense that Killing Floor is the first track we’ve heard off the album, which drops on 17 May via Gibson Records. This was a track that got Slash when he was just starting out.
“Killing Floor is one of my favorite Howlin’ Wolf songs, but also one of the iconic blues riffs that turned me on as a young guitar player,” says Slash. “I’ve always wanted to cover it in some capacity and this record was the perfect vehicle. But playing it with this band, and with Brian Johnson singing, it was an achievement I would never have imagined back then. Let alone Steven Tyler providing the harp.”
Everything was tracked live in the studio, just as Slash did with his previous studio album, 4. The video for Killing Floor is a briskly edited montage of performance footage from the studio, the highlight of which is seeing Slash’s guitar solo, which has an old-school rock ’n’ roll blues feel and is performed on a Bigsby-equipped Gibson ES-335 in Tobacco Sunburst.
Though watching Johnson crooning lava into the mic is pretty cool too. It looked like a fun time was had by all.
“When Slash asked me to sing on Killing Floor, I said yes immediately,” says Johnson. “It was one of the first songs I learned in my very first band, and when he played me the backing track it was a no-brainer, and Steven's harmonica is so bloody hot. I had a ball with Slash in the studio, and I think we did this great old song justice. Rock on.”
Orgy Of The Damned is available for pre-order via Gibson Records.
