Guns N' Roses' Slash says Michael Jackson was 'such a treat to be around'
Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist Slash, real name Saul Hudson, spoke about the late King of Pop Michael Jackson in an interview recently. The star had spoken about his life, the upcoming Guns N' Roses album and his friendship with the late singer. The odd couple first began their collaborations on Jackson's 'Dangerous' album in 1991. Slash revealed that he had received a call one day from his manager who told him: "Michael is trying to get in touch with you," to which his reply was a shocked "Wow."
The world-famous guitarist told Kerrang!: "So I called him back and he wanted me to play on 'Dangerous'. We made a date and I went down to the Record Plant in Hollywood and he was there with [actor] Brooke Shields. That was very surreal."
He continued: "These were two people that I’d sort of grown up with, in a way. So we hung out for two minutes and they went off to dinner and left me with this song. I did my thing, he really dug it and afterward, he kept asking me if I’d be into doing this or doing that. I’d do some shows here and there and it was fun because he was such a pro, and he was such a f*cking talent from on high."
Slash played the lead guitar on the Jackson single 'Give In To Me' from the 'Dangerous' album in 1991, as well as the opening riff for the hit song 'Black or White' from the same album. Then, in 1995, he played the guitar on 'D.S.', which was a song on Jackson's 'HIStory: Past, Present, and Future, Book I' album that was controversial.
He also appeared in the song 'Morphine' from the remix album 'Blood on the Dance Floor: History in the Mix' in 1997. A few years later, in 2001, Slash played on 'Privacy' from Jackson's very last studio album, 'Invincible'. He also joined the late singer on stage many times with the most notable one being at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards playing 'Black or White' and the intro to 'Billie Jean'. Slash also made two surprise appearances in the 1992 'Dangerous' World Tour in Spain and Japan and even supported the 1999 charity concerts called MJ & Friends in both Seoul and Munich.
The very last time the two giants shared a stage together was on both the 2001 'Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special' concerts that took place in New York City. He played 'Black or White' and 'Beat It'. Speaking about Jackson in the interview, Slash said: "That was the main thing: he was so amazingly musically fluid. Such a treat to be around."
When asked what it was like to be around the megastar, Slash replied: "Onstage, his whole professional thing was really where he clicked. When he wasn’t working, or in production or whatever, it was then you could see that he was sort of at the mercy of his own success. All the people he had around him, the tugging, and the yes people, you could tell that he knew 90 percent of them were full of sh*t."
After everything he witnessed being around Jackson, Slash did say that he felt sorry for the late singer. He said: "I felt sorry for him in that sense. I did a couple of shows with Michael in Tokyo and saw how this whole massive f*cking thing worked, and he was the center of it. The only time I really felt like he was in any kind of comfort zone was when he was actually onstage."
He concluded: "Right after that, Guns came to town and did our shows and our success was massive, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as what Michael was going through. It was just an interesting light, looking at the two things and being careful about what you wished for."