Top hat. Aviator glasses. Les Paul guitar.

That's Slash's usual uniform for his concerts, which you'll be able to check out this weekend in Omaha when he opens the show for Ozzy Osbourne.

Slash gave us a call before he headed to town and talked about Ozzy, his new album, singer Myles Kennedy, his favorite guitar and what's going on with Velvet Revolver.

Kevin Coffey: You guys were just here over the summer.

Slash: Yeah. We had a good gig.

KC: I'm looking forward to this weekend with you and Ozzy.

Slash: I'm looking forward to it, too. We're coming back to Omaha and doing an arena and playing with Ozzy. I don't do the opening slot, unless it's AC/DC, Ozzy, Aerosmith — some of those bands that I just love. I love having a really great double bill with two artists that just get together. It's exciting.

KC: Myles Kennedy is your singer on tour, but I wanted to know how did you choose the singers when you were writing your latest album?

Slash: I basically wrote the music just for the pleasure of writing stuff, you know?. When I decided I wanted to do the record where I had people guest on my record — you know, because I guested on so many people's records and I wanted to do my own where I got people on my record — I just let the music dictate who would be the right singer for each song and that's how those vocalist choices came up.

I would establish who would be the right person to sing a particular song and then just go after them.

KC: Sounds almost like you were casting a movie.

Slash: Yeah! It was funny. It was a lot like being a producer of a movie.

KC: How did you end up with Myles as a singer for your live shows?

Slash: I didn't know Myles when I did the record. It was really a fluke that he got involved on the album. I had pretty much finished the record and I had two songs that I couldn't figure out who to have sing and I kept procrastinating on making that decision because I really liked the music and I kept doing the (other) songs and knew who was supposed to sing them. And all the sudden I was done with the record and I had these two songs staring at me and I was adamant about doing them and getting them done.

So, I was sort of running through that endless vocalist rolodex in my head. The newest addition to that was there was a lot of attention around this Myles Kennedy guy. The guys in Velvet Revolver wanted to audition him for Velvet. Jimmy Page called him up and had him come down to Zeppelin and all this stuff. I was like, “Who is this guy?”

I had seen him on YouTube with Alter Bridge and realized, well, he's got a great voice, but that's all I really knew about him.

I thought, “Who could sing these songs? What about that Myles Kennedy kid?”

I called him up and he was interested and I sent him one of those pieces of music and he sent back a demo of this song called “Starlight,” which is on the record. I was like, “Wow, that's really cool.”

So, I flew out to LA and we recorded the song and I just sorta really liked him as an a person and also as an artist — he's a very, very talented guy.

And so we hit it off and I asked him if he wanted to do the second one. He did that and that's a song called “Back From Cali,” which is one of the singles on the record.

At that point, I was auditioning singers to do this tour and I asked him, just sort of casually, if he'd be interested in maybe doing it and he just happened to be on a break from Alter Bridge so he said, “Yeah.”

I just knew he could handle all the material. We had two weeks of rehearsal and we went out and we've been basically touring ever since.

KC: Wow, it seems like things really worked out well that way.

Slash: Yeah! It's a little bit of a Cinderella story. You know, between him and all the other guys in the band, who I didn't know either, the way things worked out, it was sort of a blessing.

KC: With the album, was there any singer you didn't get on the record that you'd want to try again?

Slash: There was definite schedule issues with a couple different people. I won't name names though.

Somehow it sort of worked out for the best. I think fate had a hand in this.

It was no big deal. Some people were on tour. My biggest problem was with the record company who wouldn't allow certain people on the record. (Laughs)

KC: Oh, that sucks. With Ozzy and this tour, are you going to pull him onstage for “Crucify the Dead?”

Slash: It would be cool if that happened, but it's not a huge deal. The band knows that song if he should choose to do that. I'm looking forward to just doing the tour with Ozzy and doing my thing and him doing his thing and having that whole production matchup.

KC: You guys are going to do everything, like GNR, Velvet Revolver?

Slash: Yeah. It's a 50-minute set, so we do a little bit of everything.

KC: What's going on with Velvet Revolver right now?

Slash: I'm going out on the road right this second, everything's just at a standstill until I get back. We've been working towards getting a new singer and I know there's been a lot of rumors that we've made that decision already, but we haven't actually. So, right now, it's just quiet.

KC: You have a lot of guitars, but what's your “go-to” guitar?

Slash: A Les Paul, right? (Laughs)

On the road, I have two sets of eight. I have one rig that's gonna be out in the states with us and I have one international that's on its way there right now.

I have one main guitar that's tuned to standard then I have another one that's tuned a half step down and another tuned to low D and, like that. So, those are all main guitars.

In the studio, I have one. That's an old — it's old now, it wasn't old then — it's an ‘86, hand-made Les Paul. It's actually the guitar that the Slash model that came out last year is modeled after.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com

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