In a recent interview, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has discussed his preference for using Gibson’s famous Les Paul model of guitar compared to other brands.
Speaking to Ernie Ball, Slash talked about his ongoing relationship with Gibson and his use of the Les Paul model, saying: “The Custom Shop models are very exclusive, they’re pretty expensive and very specific, so it’s nice to be able to do something with the USA which is still at the top of the line of guitars but they are a little bit more accessible and more affordable, and they’re top quality.”
“But not such that it’s a limited edition, one style, one model kind of a quick run. This is something that’ll be there for a long time. The AAA top is just one of the nicest maple tops that you can get, so what you want to do with all the USA guitars is to get the music of as high quality as possible,” Slash continued.
“The Appetite Burst was influenced by Custom Shop ‘Appetite for Destruction’ Les Paul we put up a few years back, limited edition, and it was basically based on this guitar that I recorded [1987’s] ‘Appetite for Destruction’ with, so this is basically that same guitar the USA format.
“The ‘November Rain’ guitar was actually Cesar’s [Cesar Gueikian, Gibson CMO] idea. He has Tobacco Sunburst and he’d seen the ‘November Rain’ video where I used a vintage Tobacco burst for that particular song.
He added: “The Vermillion is just I think it’s an I want to say some Italian word for a type of bread, and I just think it’s a great name for this kind of colour. And the Anaconda burst is that deep green kind of thing, because I’m a big fan of the Anaconda snakes, so I wanted to do a guitar with Gibson that had this sort of rich green emerald color to it and call it Anaconda.”
“The neck profile is C-profile and I think is what I’ve become over the years most comfortable with. Sand-tapered necks, I’ve had a couple and I can adapt to them, but I think C-neck I’m most comfortable with.
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“And as far as pickups are concerned, the ones that I’ve been using for years and years have been Alnico II pickups and they’re about medium output, they don’t have too much gain and they’re not obviously jazz pickups that are too clean, so it’s just a nice, honest electric-guitar sound.”
Check out ‘Paradise City’ by Guns N’ Roses:
