Slash (album)

History and recording

In his 2007 autobiography, Slash mentioned he was planning a solo album, and listed some of the vocalists with whom he would like to work. He stated that the album would be called Slash & Friends (although & Friends was later dropped from the title). Slash's wife Perla mentioned in a 2008 interview that the album would include "everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Fergie."

On January 16, Slash made an appearance at the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show where it was announced that his debut solo album will be released in the U.S. on April 6. The CD will be made available in Europe via Roadrunner Records.

On January 19, 2010, Slash teamed up with Linkin Park's Music for Relief, along with Alanis Morissette, The All-American Rejects and others, and donated a previously unreleased track to aid the victims of the earthquake tragedy in Haiti. The song released was titled "Mother Maria" and featured Beth Hart. According to the track listing, "Mother Maria" will be featured as an iTunes bonus track for the record.

On February 1, 2010, Ultimate-Guitar.com revealed the official track listing and cover artwork of the solo album. The cover art was produced from a painting by Ron English, a prominent Pop Surrealist artist and friend of Slash.

On February 8, 2010, Slash announced that the album would be made available in the United States via EMI. A world tour was prepared for spring, to promote the album with Myles Kennedy as singer.

In the United Kingdom, the album was set to be released on May 10, 2010, although a limited-to-1000-copies edition of Classic Rock magazine covering the whole of Slash's career complete with the album, amongst other memorabilia, would become available on April 7, 2010.

The single "By the Sword" (feat. Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother) was premiered on February 27 on spinner.com. It was released as a digital single in the US on March 16, 2010 and in the UK on March 28, 2010.

On March 4, 2010, it was announced that another song featuring Myles Kennedy, entitled "Back from Cali," was added to the album's track listing at the last minute, making Kennedy the only person to be featured on more than one song on the album's standard track listing. Slash also announced that Izzy Stradlin is the only other person who played guitar on the record, performing rhythm guitar on the song "Ghost," featuring Ian Astbury.

On March 19, 2010, Slash exclusively released in a newsletter the instrumental song "Watch This", which features Dave Grohl and Duff McKagan.

Ultimate-guitar.com published on March 20 the session notes with the gear used for the recording of the album.

On March 23, 2010, the songs "Crucify the Dead" (feat. Ozzy Osbourne) and "Ghost" (feat. Ian Astbury and Izzy Stradlin) were premiered on Amazon.com. On the same day, the songs "Starlight" (feat. Myles Kennedy) and "I Hold On" (feat. Kid Rock) were premiered on ESPN Radio. "I Hold On" was also featured on the season one episode of Hawaii Five-0, entitled "Malama Ka Aina," which aired on October 4, 2010; it was featured as Steve and Danny drive to the pizza shop.

On March 26, 2010, the song "Back from Cali" (feat. Myles Kennedy) premiered on Amazon.com along with "Beautiful Dangerous" (feat. Fergie). On the same day, the song "Nothing to Say" (feat. M. Shadows) premiered on his MySpace page. The next day, "Promise" (feat. Chris Cornell) premiered on Amazon.com. On March 29, 2010, "Gotten" (feat. Adam Levine) and "Doctor Alibi" (feat. Lemmy Kilmister) premiered on Amazon.com.

On April 6, 2010, the Best Buy exclusive version was released, which includes both the album and a Slash T-shirt. Best Buy also sells an exclusive digital version of the album that includes 2 bonus tracks on Napster.com: "Baby Can't Drive" (featuring Alice Cooper/Nicole Scherzinger/Steven Adler/Flea) and a cover of Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" (featuring Fergie/Cypress Hill).

On April 23, 2010, Slash revealed that he would have wanted Thom Yorke to sing "Saint Is a Sinner Too" but that he was too nervous to call the Radiohead singer.

In an interview with the Finnish Soundi magazine, Slash also stated that he would have wanted the record to also feature his friend, former-Hanoi Rocks lead singer, Michael Monroe, but there was not a song that Slash thought fit him.

As of April 18, 2010 the album has gone gold in Australia. The second single, after "By the Sword," was "Back from Cali".

2010 World Tour

On February 4, 2010, Slash announced via a MySpace blog that "Myles Kennedy is going to be fronting the band for the upcoming tour. Something I'm really stoked about. Myles sang a killer track on the record & I think he is by far one of the best Rock & Roll singers out there today. I'm really honored & proud to be working with him." Concert dates and ticket information had not yet been released but the guitarist confirmed, via Twitter that he was in talks with England's Download Festival promoter Andy Copping regarding an appearance with Kennedy and the rest of the touring band at the festival. Slash confirmed that he will play his own solo material and songs from Guns N' Roses ("Civil War", "Sweet Child O' Mine," and "Nightrain" among others), Velvet Revolver, and Slash's Snakepit, as well as Alter Bridge material ("Rise Today").

The touring line-up for the upcoming tour, besides Myles Kennedy and himself is Bobby Schneck (Slash's Blues Ball) on rhythm guitar, Dave Henning (Big Wreck) on bass and Brent Fitz (Alice Cooper) on drums. He then announced via Twitter that Todd Kerns (Age of Electric, Static in Stereo, Sin City Sinners) would be performing bass duties on the tour instead of Dave Henning.

Slash performed "By the Sword" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on April 6, and on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on April 9. While performing the song on Jay Leno's show, Slash was wearing an "I'm With Coco" pin, to show support for former Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien. There are very few close-ups of Slash during the song, but TMZ caught one second where the pin was displayed on camera. Slash also played "By the Sword" on Lopez Tonight on April 9, 2010 and performed "Back from Cali" on the show on April 12. Slash and Adam Levine performed "Gotten" on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on May 11.

Release and reception

Upon release, Slash entered the Billboard 200 charts at number 3 (also at number one on the Rock, Hard Rock, Digital and the Independent Albums Chart) with 61,000 copies sold during the first week. The album also debuted at number one in Canada, Austria, New Zealand and Sweden while it also broke into the top 20 in Germany, Finland, Australia, France, Norway, Poland and Switzerland.

The album's first single, "By the Sword" (feat. Andrew Stockdale) peaked at number 41 on the Rock Songs Chart and number 78 on the Canadian Hot 100. "Beautiful Dangerous" (feat. Fergie) charted at number 11 and number 58 on the Heatseekers Songs and Canadian Hot 100. The cover of "Paradise City" (feat. Fergie & Cypress Hill) also charted on the Canadian Hot 100 at number 75.

The album has received generally mixed-to-positive reviews, scoring a 56 out of 100 ("mixed or average reviews") on Metacritic. MTV News Writer Kyle Anderson called the album "a tremendous collection of hard rock songs that center around the axe man's signature chunky, swirling riffs.... On balance, it's an excellent album, and it feels good to have that classic Slash sound back." Writer Shelby Powell took note of Slash's precision on guitar, rating the album 3.5/5 thumbs, but took off points for "a little too much reverence paid to the 90s and some of the feature selections may have old head purists poking their bottom lips out and putting their lighters down," but concludes that "the assortment of genres blends well."

As of the summer of 2010, the tour has been promoted as "Slash featuring Myles Kennedy".

Track listing

Notes:
*Different countries list the track title as "Watch This Dave".
**"Nothing to Say" and "Chains and Shackles" are two versions of the same song with different lyrics and production.

Miscellaneous