Slash dropped the first single/video from his upcoming blues covers album last week. “Killing Floor,” a Howlin’ Wolf classic, features AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson on vocals and Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler on harmonica.
In a new interview with Audacy Check In, Slash talked about the album and was asked how he came to colloborate with Johnson and Tyler on the track.
“That’s a good question,” Slash said. “I had the song and I was trying to think who would be great to do it. And Brian came to mind. And I’ve known Brian for a pretty long time now. And he just has that great kind of grit to his voice. And I called him up and it turns out that he’s a huge f*ckin Howlin’ Wolf protégé. And so he had been in cover bands before AC/DC and even before (Johnson’s pre-AC/DC band) Geordie. And also, he was telling me that he’s doing something at present where he’s putting together sort of a blues-orchestra thing. Don’t quote me on that, but something to that [effect].”
Slash continued: “Anyway, and so he was excited to do that particular song anyway. And that’s the key thing that you’re looking for, is that when you call any of these great artists up and you have a cover song that you want to attack and if they would be willing to participate, that the song speaks to them, that it has meaning to them too, not just me. And that’s how it was with Brian. He was, like, ‘Oh, f*cking great. Yeah, let’s do this.’”
“And then Steven Tyler came in. He came to my studio after Brian had already done the vocal. And I’m trying to remember exactly… I mean, he came in to do the harmonica or he just happened to have a harmonica with him. I can’t remember, but I played him the track. It was, like, ‘This is great.’ So it was very spontaneous. It was very just sort of inspired in the moment, which is a great thing to be able to capture, especially nowadays because people just, by and large, don’t make records like that now. Everything is very well thought out and cultivated and homogenized and produced, and this was just very, very off the cuff.”
Watch Slash’s full interview and scope out “Killing Floor” below.
