BIG GUNS

SLASH AND GIBSON’S CESAR GUEIKIAN TALK US THROUGH THE COMPANY’S UNPRECEDENTED NEW SLASH COLLECTION OF SIGNATURE GUITARS, FEATURING LES PAULS IN APPETITE BURST, NOVEMBER BURST, VERMILLION BURST AND ANACONDA BURST — PLUS (FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER) TWO SLASH J-45 ACOUSTICS

- RICHARD BIENSTOCK

WHEN GUITAR WORLD sits down to chat with Slash on a sunny California afternoon, the guitarist is holed up in a hotel room near the Anaheim Convention Center, where the NAMM Show — the massive music industry trade event that gathers upwards of 100,000 professionals and fans under one roof — is currently underway.

Note that the operative word in this sentence is “near.” Because, as Slash points out, the last time he actually stepped foot inside the Convention Center during NAMM, the experience was, to put it mildly, “overwhelming.”

And how could it not be, given that Slash is — and this is hardly hyperbole — maybe the most iconic and instantly recognizable guitarist of the past 30 or more years? For him to walk that convention floor amongst tens of thousands of devoted players and fans would be to create an outright frenzy of near-riot proportions, which he seems to be humbly acknowledging.

But even while Slash himself does not make an appearance at this year’s NAMM (although he does still headline a killer Gibson party later in the evening; see page 36), the guitarist — and, more to the point, his guitars — are still the talk of the show. The reason? The unveiling of Gibson’s new Slash Collection.