The magic behind any good rock and roll song was never lost on Slash whenever he started playing.
Although there were many pieces of Guns N’ Roses that felt new and refreshing when they burst onto the LA music scene back in the day, there wasn’t anything Slash played that he hadn’t learned from everyone, from Joe Walsh to Eric Clapton to Keith Richards, whenever he started playing. He was a student of all things rock and roll, and he knew to bow down to the true legends in their field.
Across Appetite for Destruction, though, Slash didn’t really need to hide his influences. Each song is practically a history lesson through the different stages of guitar playing, whether that’s having the sustain of someone like Clapton, the ferocious intensity of someone like Jeff Beck, or the occasional lead break that had the same tight groove that you would have heard out of an early Aerosmith song.
A lot of what Slash was about centred around having fun playing the most in-your-face solos possible, but really, is there any other way that he was supposed to do it? No rock stars get to become legends by simply playing on a stool, so it was almost expected that you would see that mane of curly hair jumping across the stage whenever the riff to ‘Paradise City’ started. But for as chaotic as it ended up getting, the reason why the band worked always came back to the groove.
That sense of feel isn’t something that you can read about and study to get good at. It all comes from chemistry, and while that was altered the minute that Steven Adler left the group, the kind of camaraderie they had tearing through that debut record felt like a bunch of street urchins finally finding a way to make beautiful music together. And when looking at the bands that they idolised, every one of them had that signature fifth element whenever they played as well.
The Stones were the obvious comparison back in the day, but as far as Slash was concerned, there was something about AC/DC that felt like rock and roll perfection whenever they played. While Slash might have been able to play circles around anything that they were working on, he knew that it was bound to be a cold day in hell the minute that anyone managed to hold a candle to what they could do.
Because as much as he liked making down and dirty rock and roll, the guitarist knew the Australian rockers really were the pinnacle of what the genre could be, saying, “AC/DC is – bar none – with the exception of Stones, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band ever. There are no other bands that actually play that brand of really ’50s-influenced straight-up rock ‘n’ roll like AC/DC. I love them for that. I think Phil Rudd is one of the best drummers of all time. So anytime he was not in the band, I was always disappointed.”
While the drummer might not be the most important member of the band in most people’s minds, it’s important to differentiate between each era of the group. Although Malcolm Young gets a lot of the credit for being the engine of AC/DC while he was alive, Rudd’s attention to detail and never straying from that consistent four-on-the-floor backbeat is what makes a lot of their greatest songs work so well.
And it’s easy to pick up on a lot of that when looking through Guns’ discography, too. Sure, every iteration of the band had their fair share of highlights, but the way that Adler sounded behind the kit when playing off of Duff McKagan’s smooth bass lines is the reason why Slash was able to soar as high as he did whenever he played.
Not all of AC/DC’s music were absolute classics by any stretch, but their greatest strength was them mastering the art of good rock and roll. Yes, they haven’t changed a thing since the days of Back in Black, but judging by how much those songs are still resonating, was there any reason for them to change things up?
