Slash Track-By-Track: 'World On Fire'

World On Fire    

It’s just a simple rock song. It doesn’t have any big message or anything like that. It’s just about sort of taking it to the limit, you know, and really is a straight-ahead guitar song. I write all the music ahead of time and then we put it together, but sort of in a group forum. So it starts with the music, usually.  
 

Shadow Life  

  
Ah, Shadow Life is, I can’t really tell you – I know that the lyrics were influenced by a TV program that Myles [Kennedy] was watching and I’m not really at liberty to say what that was, haha, ‘cause I cant remember. And the music – it was actually, ah, the main riff in that song used to be in a song called You’re A Lie back on the last record and I ended up taking that riff outta that song and changing the chorus of that song. And so we still had the riff so we revisit it on this record.

Automatic Overdrive    

Automatic Overdrive, let’s see. I remember writing that on my couch at home when I was waiting for a car to pick me up [and take me] to the airport [laughs]. And lyrically, when it comes to lyrics, you know, I usually don’t like to speak on Myles’ behalf on what he’s trying to convey. But that’s a cool song. It’s one of [my favourites], yeah. I try to shy away from saying anything about which one’s a favourite ‘cause there isn’t really a particular favourite. It’s definitely one of the songs that I’m looking forward to playing live; I’m really excited about playing live… I mean, they’re all recorded in a live setting so they should all translate in front of an audience delivered that way. So they’ll all sort of get their moment, you know, over the course of the next whole tour – we’ll end up probably playing the whole record.

Wicked Stone    

Wicked Stone, that’s something I remember writing on the road and I introduced [it] to the band during soundcheck and was really excited about that particular groove on that song. And it came together really nicely. That’s the only time to do it, but I’ve always got my guitar with me, y’know, so it works out well.

30 Years To Life    

30 Years To Life is basically a song about life and how you can be living in the moment and everything’s going a certain way, and in an instant everything can completely change. And the music was written on the road as well and it was just something that – an idea that sort of crept in there. I remember showing it to the guys at soundcheck once again and then just, like, um, you know, having those first chord changes and seeing what that felt like with bass and drums and then going back and sort of adding on the other parts. I can have something and if I think it’s good enough to show the guys – ‘cause, y’know, we’re only in soundcheck for a certain amount of time – I‘ll bring it there and just, like, right off the cuff, drumbeat and the bass will play along. And then Myles often records some melodies into his phone and starts keeping a little sort of diary of different parts and this and that. [Continuing work on a song], if there’s something cool, it probably won’t be after the show; it’ll probably be the next day ‘cause we usually drive for god knows how long after the gig and everybody’s fuckin’ beat.

Bent To Fly    

Bent To Fly is a coming of age song. I showed it to Myles backstage at [The Tonight Show With] Conan O’Brien – I think it was Conan O’Brien. And then the song is basically just about leaving home and moving on, and leaving your family behind and chasing whatever your dreams are. But also it has a different connotation, I found recently: some friends of mine who lost a son some years ago, when they first heard the song thought it was exactly about their boy. And that totally took me by surprise, I’d never looked at it from that point of view, but the song actually did speak perfectly in those terms as well. It’s great when a song can reach different people on different levels and mean different things.

Stone Blind    

Ah, Stone Blind, let’s see. Well, I think everybody’s been in a relationship where the other person is not what they appear to be. And I don’t even remember where that riff came from; it’s just something I made up. But it was closer towards pre-production, like, you know. I think I made it up after the [Apocalyptic Love] tour was over.

Too Far Gone   

Too Far Gone, um, that is probably one of the oldest riffs on the record, because I started writing that – I came up with the riff when we were actually in the tail end of pre-production for the last record, like, right before we recorded. So it was too late to get into it then. So that has been kickin’ around all through the tour for, you know, the Apocalyptic Love tour. So we started doing it in soundchecks and stuff like that. Um, I can’t explain exactly what the lyrics were going for, but it was definitely one of those person-to-person kinda directed songs. I can’t remember exactly what Myles was saying about it when he wrote it, but it was pretty funny at the time. It came together pretty fast, but it was around for the whole – all of last year. [The track wasn’t played live back then, because] the thing about playing live nowadays is, everything comes out instantly. I’ve always been the kind of person that would always like to play something in front of an audience way before it’s ever been released and I used to do it all the time, but as of late, you know, it just gets out there and it sort of deludes the song.

Beneath The Savage Sun    

That is a song that’s directed towards: it’s a point of view song from – the animal that we were talking about was the elephant and it was really an anti-poaching song. And [there’s a] very sort of heavy sentiment in that particular song and it’s also very epic. And its origins, musically – it was just a very, very simple riff that turned into this constantly evolving musical journey [laughs]. And it ended up being I think it’s, like, six minutes long or seven minutes long.

Withered Delilah    

That’s another relationship song and just a simple rock riff that I came up with on the road that we actually jammed a lot at soundcheck during the tour last year. Delilah is just a name. There’s no background on the name Delilah, I don’t think, it just happened to be the name that [Myles] thought fit the character in the song. No, there’s no Samson.

Battleground    

That’s a very definite relationship song, which is basically about the dynamics of a relationship that’s going south and, ah, it’s a pretty long track as well. But it’s the real ballad on the album.

[Get given the wind-up. One minute remains of our chat.]

Dirty Girl    

Yeah, Dirty Girl is exactly what it sounds like. Haha.

Iris Of The Storm    

Iris Of The Storm – that’s a really cool song. That’s one song I can’t really speak on Myles’ behalf on the subject matter of it, um, but definitely a cool track.

Avalon    

Avalon was influenced by Rory Gallagher and it’s just a good party song.

The Dissident    

The Dissident is the only real political song on the record.

Safari Inn    

Instrumental.

The Unholy    

The Unholy is a song – it’s sort of political in its own way, but it’s written basically because I think it’s sort of [about] the exposure of priests who were taking advantage of the pages in some of the churches around the United States and a lot of the stuff that was going on news-wise about that. That’s what that song’s about.