No great record is ever discovered without a little bit of grunt labor. Writing songs may be simple, but mastering their arrangement and mixing usually takes a lot of work. It might be difficult to even put 30 seconds of material together such that it sounds complete. When it comes to any kind of rock and roll song, Slash was usually up to the challenge. But when he started working on Appetite for Destruction, he was in trouble.
This is odd, as Slash can recall the songwriting sessions with such ease. Unlike musicians striving for a single masterpiece, the band’s music flowed freely during rehearsal. During jam sessions, songs like “Welcome to the Jungle” came together in a matter of minutes.
The band’s approach was straightforward as soon as they began working on their numerous demos: perform it just like you would on stage. Mike Clink proved to be the perfect man for the task. He knew how to make the music jump out of the speakers, following a botched attempt to record with Paul Stanley of Kiss. Slash had everything at his fingertips; he simply had the wrong guitar.
You can probably visualize Slash holding a Les Paul in your mind if you were to imagine him without looking at any photos. Slash could only afford cheap guitars when he was still cutting teeth. These guitars resembled the high-end instruments a novice may use when they first started practicing.
After thinking he had everything figured out, Slash told Rock Icons, “I went in to do basic tracks, which are scratch tracks anyway, and I listened to those guitars on the monitors and went, ‘Oh fuck, I need to get this together because that sounds horrible.” Slash was horrified by what he heard coming out of the speakers.
Although Slash gives the impression of being a man who can play any guitar with a lot of soul. He vented a lot of his resentment outside of the recording studio. Even the band’s manager, Alan Niven, remembered that the guitarist had made the entire place look like a war zone. He went so far as to jam a guitar through one of the rental vans.
Despite Slash’s desire to quit, Niven ultimately gave him the Les Paul clone from ’59 that would give him his sound. “It wasn’t even made by Gibson, but it looked like the real thing,” Slash subsequently recounted. I tried three or four different Marshall heads before deciding on the one that sounded best with that particular instrument.
Upon closer inspection, the sight of a Les Paul is now almost as synonymous with Slash as his trademark top hat. He has even acquired iconic guitars that were once owned by Joe Perry of Aerosmith. Guns N’ Roses was already in dire straits when they were recording their first album. It felt more like an act of God than anything else when Slash finally achieved their signature sound at the last minute.
