RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL

He may be "a hard rock guy at heart", but with his latest album - a selection of classics of "the devil's music", each sung by a different guest singer - Slash is the latest rock superstar to take the blues road.

- David Sinclair

Slash is holed up in Birmingham, preparing for the second night of his UK tour with Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators. But, to paraphrase Billy F Gibbons, his head’s in Mississippi as he talks with urgent passion about his new album of mostly blues songs, featuring a host of star singers and players including Gibbons, Brian Johnson, Iggy Pop, Chris Robinson, Beth Hart, Chris Stapleton, Steven Tyler and Gary Clark Jr, among others. It’s called Orgy Of The Damned, which sounds like quite the party.

“It’s roughly a blues covers record,” Slash says. “And I thought with all this collaboration with all these different people, and blues historically being considered the devil’s music and taboo - you know, hide your kids from the fucking blues stuff - that Orgy Of The Damned seemed like a fitting title. I didn’t really think about it. It just sort of popped up.”

With the album title decided, some appropriately garish, Slash-style cover artwork commissioned, boom! - a collection of songs written and first performed by blues legends including Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters is once again back in circulation on the top table of rock. So what were those guys doing 60, 70 and even 80 years ago that was so special?

“It depends on who you speak to, because everybody has got a different idea as to what it means to them,” Slash says. “For me it’s totally about the feel of it, the cadence of it, the attitude of it, the spirit of it, and of course the rhythm to it.”