During a recent conversation with Ultimate Classic Rock, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash looked back on when he started performing with Myles Kennedy while no longer a GN’R member. Apparently, when he started working with Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, the guitarist actually missed playing GN’R material.
Guns N’ Roses released the long-awaited albums ‘Use Your Illusion I’ and ‘Use Your Illusion II,’ which debuted at no. 2 and no. 1 on the U.S. chart. Although the band achieved success with the ‘Use Your Illusion Tour,’ the conclusion of the tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 17, 1993, marked the last performance of Slash with the band until 2016. The reason behind his departure in October 1996 was due to the creative and personal differences with frontman Axl Rose with whom Slash had previous feuds.
In addition to this, the band failed to agree on the materials that were supposed to be turned into an album, and other band members rejected the guitarist’s offers. However, Slash stated that his decision to leave the band was not based on creative differences with Axl Rose in his 2008 autobiography. According to his words, his departure was based on Rose’s constant lateness to concerts, the alleged legal manipulation he practiced to control the band, and the departures of Steven Adler and Izzy Stradlin.
After 20 years of not seeing eye to eye, Axl Rose and Slash eventually buried the hatchet when they talked things through. The guitarist rejoined Guns N’ Roses to headline at Coachella 2016 and has been performing with the band ever since. Because the musician is on good terms with his bandmates now, he recently admitted that he missed performing the Guns N’ Roses material on stage when he first started working with Myles Kennedy.
However, the guitarist said that after getting back together with Guns N’ Roses, he realized that he could just concentrate on Myles and Company and not include GN’R songs on their setlist. Nonetheless, he admitted that he occasionally misses playing the stuff he created with Velvet Revolver. As for the upcoming tour, Slash said that they might play tracks from Velvet Revolver not because they don’t have enough GN’R material to fill the setlist but because it would be fun.
Slash’s statement follows:
“I have to admit, I really missed playing the Guns material when this thing first started, so it was a great outlet for me. But having gotten back with all my buddies in Guns, after a while, I was like, ‘I don’t really need to do it with Myles and Company,’ so we don’t have any Guns songs in the set. That said, I sort of miss the occasional Velvet Revolver song. So I haven’t put any Velvet songs in the set as of yet, but I might at some point put one, at least, just for the fun of doing it.”
Though Slash reunited with Guns N’ Roses in 2016, he has continued pursuing projects as a solo musician. In fact, the guitarist is set to release his fourth studio album entitled ‘4,’ featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators on February 11, 2022.
