The Big Lesson Slash Learned From Bob Dylan Session
Slash recalled the lesson he learned after recording a guitar track for Bob Dylan in 1990.
The Guns N’ Roses guitarist was invited to work on Dylan’s song “Wiggle Wiggle,” which appeared on his album Under the Red Sky – but without the main element provided by the younger musician under the supervision of producer Don Was.
“It was a real basic one-four-five blues kind of thing,” Slash told Gibson TV in a recent interview (video below). “Don had suggested me to play the solo for this particular song, which was like an acoustic kind of thing… I went down to the studio and I went in and did what I thought was a really great one-off. So I said, ‘Don, make me a tape when you guys are done and let me check it out.’”
He continued: “So he sends me a tape the next day of the rough and the song's moving along – the lyrics and chorus go by, and the solo section comes in and it's just me playing acoustic, strumming… And then back into the song. I said, ‘What happened to the solo?’ [Don replied,] ‘Bob thought it sounds too much like Guns N’ Roses.’ So it was a great lesson learned for me. At that time I hadn't done a lot of session work and it was a great learning experience.”
Slash also discussed his appearance on Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous, describing it as “an opportunity to grow as a player and learn to adapt to other people's situations.” He reported: “We met at the Record Plant [studio] and he was with Brooke Shields. I was sort of freaked out – it’s Michael Jackson and there’s Brooke Shields, and it was sort of a, ‘Whoa!’ kind of thing. We met and exchanged niceties, and he took off to dinner and left me with the producer, and I just did my thing. That was it. That's sort of what he was always like: ‘Just do your thing.’”
Watch Slash on Gibson TV