Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash finally got to perform a song live that he’s never done before—he performed a rendition of “Don’t Damn Me” with Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators. The song featured on Guns N’ Roses classic 1991 album Use Your Illusion I.
Videos by American Songwriter
It’s the first time the song has been played live. The group performed the song Tuesday (January 23) in Mexico City. Many assume the song is Axl Rose’s defense against the negative headlines he garnered throughout his early career.
However, perhaps the song ended up being a bit too wordy for its own good. In an interview, Slash opened up about the difficulties in performing it live. It was a bit too much to include.
“There’s just too many words,” the guitarist remarked during a 2014 interview. “You know, it’s a cool song and everything. I think even [with] Axl [Rose], we never did it because it was just too many words without a breath, and it just makes it really impossible to do it live.”
Slash Opens Up About Keeping Music “Interesting”
In another interview with USA TODAY, Slash opened up about performing Guns N’ Roses songs live. The guitarist said he always approaches playing live from a carefree space. While the sounds are the same, Slash likes to change the way he actually plays the songs. This keeps things fresh and prevents him from getting burnt out. He said he likes most of the catalog, adding there’s not one particular song that he ever gets tired of playing.
“Our approach to our material has a very devil-may-care thing to it, where you can make up (expletive) in the middle of songs,” he said. “You just keep it interesting. It sounds the same to [audiences], but the way I’m playing it is different and that keeps me occupied. ‘Paradise City’ is a song that you can play in a lot of different ways. So I’ve never fallen into that rut of resenting having to play a song every single night.”
Slash had a very public feud with Axl Rose for a number of years, but the bandmates appear to have officially buried the hatchet.
“It was nice that it happened,” Slash said. “I don’t know if I would have had the wherewithal to call him, just because I’m introverted and it might have been hard for me. Not during that initial phone call, but after that, it was really good to be able to get rid of some of the negative baggage that we’d been carrying around for a long time. It’d been 20 years of not talking and letting this bad blood continue to be perpetuated by the media. It turned into something way bigger than what was really going on, so it was good to get past that.”
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella
