Credit: Far Out / Tidal
By the time 1994 rolled around, Guns N’ Roses were not on the best of terms. Axl Rose had already established himself as one of the biggest dickheads in the music industry and set about firing the band’s guitarist Gilby Clarke.
Slash had been upset at Rose’s handling of Clarke’s sacking but still wanted to remain in the band himself. They had not been playing in the studio, so when the offer came in for the rock icons to record a cover version of the Rolling Stones’ classic ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ for use in Interview with the Vampire, it was simply an opportunity he could not pass up.
Slash had initially been keen on providing the cover, as he was a fan of the book the film was based on. “I was up for the idea of doing this cover because I was very familiar with the Anne Rice books,” he said. “I thought they were great, which is why I had a hard time imagining Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise playing those roles.”
Slash and Axl Rose were treated to a screening of the show before recording the cover version of the Stones’ tune, and it was at this point that Slash began to regret getting involved in the project. He wrote in his memoir, “Axl and I went to screenings of the film separately and completely disagreed on what we saw. I hated it; I thought it was crap. Axl, on the other hand, loved the movie; he thought it was brilliant, and he wanted to do the song.”
The sessions for recording the track sounded equally awful. Rose was barely in the studio, and when he was, he insisted that Slash redo his guitar solo in order to sound more like Keith Richards. “That was the last thing I wanted to do,” Slash admitted. “Keith’s playing is so awesome on that song that I didn’t want to even come near it, but I did. And doing so left me feeling even more pissed and put out than ever.”
“If there is one Guns track I’d like to never hear again, it’s that one.”
Slash
The whole experience left a sour taste in Slash’s mouth. “I couldn’t have been more disappointed, pissed, frustrated, and confused,” he added. “The only upside I saw to signing off on it was that it would accomplish what we’d been unable to do to any degree in the past seven months: it would actually get all of us into the studio.”
Indeed, it was a move that had been a feeble attempt to get the fires burning in the Guns N’ Roses camp once more, but it proved a step too far. Slash would depart the group just two years later. “If you’ve ever wondered what the sound of a band breaking up sounds like,” he noted, “listen to Guns N’ Roses’ cover of ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ If there is one Guns track I’d like to never hear again, it’s that one.”
In many ways, Guns N’ Roses’ version of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ became an unintentional snapshot of a band already collapsing under its own weight. What should have been a celebration of one of rock’s greatest songs instead exposed the widening fracture between Rose and Slash, with every disagreement in the studio reflecting how disconnected the group had become.
By the time Slash eventually walked away two years later, the warning signs had already been immortalised on tape, turning the cover into less of a tribute to The Rolling Stones and more of a eulogy for Guns N’ Roses’ classic lineup.
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