Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has revealed that he once recorded a song with the late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington, though it’s not clear if we’ll ever hear it.
Ever since Slash came to prominence back in the late ’80s thanks to his work with Guns N’ Roses, he’s become one of the most legendary guitarists of the modern era, having recorded countless songs and working a multitude of different musicians.
In fact, when Slash recorded his debut solo album back in 2010, he teamed up with the likes of Dave Grohl, Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, and even Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale. However, it turns out that one song was supposed to sound a whole lot different.
Speaking to Variety recently, the Guns N’ Roses guitarist explained that he recently rediscovered a song that he had recorded with Chester Bennington that never made the final cut of his solo record.
“I forgot all about this until just recently, when I was doing my first solo record, I worked with a lot of different people, some of whom, for whatever reason, didn’t end up on the record,” Slash began. “One was with Chester. We did a song and Linkin Park at the time didn’t allow it to happen, so I did it with Lemmy [Kilmister, late Motörhead frontman].”
“The guy who engineered my demos sent it to me and I sent it to Chester’s family. But it was a trip cause the song really speaks to his state of mind.”
While the final version of the song – which was titled ‘Doctor Alibi’ – was released with Lemmy’s vocals in the mix, Slash says that it’s up to the discretion of Bennington’s family as to whether we ever hear the original version of the track.“His family has got it so it would be totally up to them,” Slash explained. “It was really good. He was awesome. It would be fine with me if they wanted to [release] it.”
“Musically it’s basically the same as the Lemmy song, but the lyrics are really poignant.”
While July of this year marked the first anniversary of Chester Bennington’s death, his Linkin Park bandmate Mike Shinoda also opened up in regards to the future of the band, admitting that he’s not sure what’s in store at this point.
“I don’t really know where it’s gonna go,” Shinoda explained. “I’m basically trying to keep everything really open (right now).”
“I’m more excited about shows now than any time I can remember, just even doing a club show the other night for 600 people,” he continued. “I’d written like a set for 60 minutes and I was onstage for 85, just kind of milking it. I was actually talking a lot, I added songs to the set and I was just enjoying being up there. We were just having this really cool, communal energy or something.”
“So I’m really just looking forward to more of that and wherever that takes me.”
While there’s no definitive answer as to whether we’ll eventually hear what Slash’s collaboration with Chester Bennington sounds like, it will definitely get fans excited knowing that there’s unheard vocals from the Linkin Park frontman still out there in the world.
Check out Chester Bennington on Linkin Park’s ‘Numb’:
