Rare Slash And Chester Bennington Collaboration Finally Released

Slash (Instagram @gunsnroses)

JAKARTA - A complete demo version of the unprecedented collaboration between Guns N 'Roses guitarist Slash and late Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington can be heard on YouTube, the "Appette For Distortion" podcast centered on Guns N 'Roses.

The song titled Crazy was meant for Slash's first solo album, although he finally recorded the song for the album under the title Captain Alibi with the late Motorhead vocalist, Lemmy Kilmister on vocals.

The footage of the song Crazy was published by music producer Big Chris Flores, who worked on Slash's album more than a decade ago. In early 2022, Flores returned to the studio and recruited Matt Starr (Mr. Big) and Doug Pinnick (King's X) respectively to play drums and bass in the song, which is reportedly due to be officially released in the not too distant future to benefit 320 Change Direction, a mental health awareness organization launched by Chester's wife, Talinda Bennington.

"We sent him a demonstration and prepared a session. Chester came maybe for a few hours, recorded him and said, 'Hey, tell me to take a walk for a while?' and that's the last one. It took one or two times when he got here. Actually, there's nothing," Flores told about his cooperation with Chester during an appearance on the podcast "Appette For Distortion" in 2021.

The reason Flores never released the song was the respect he had for Chester.

"We're waiting for Linkin Park to release whatever they're going to release with Chester and then give Talinda and her mother time to find out if they want to do something with the song. Slash hasn't heard anything from them and it's just forgotten," Flores explained.

Meanwhile, Slash discussed his collaboration with Chester in an interview in 2018 with Variety.

"When I made my first solo album, I worked with a lot of different people, some of whom, for whatever reason, were not included in the recording. One of them was with Chester. We made a song and Linkin Park at the time didn't allow it to happen, so I did it with Lemmy. The person who engineered the demo I sent it to me and I sent it to Chester's family," recalls Slash.

The guitarist added that the song may be released someday, saying: "The family has got it, so it's entirely up to them. The song is very good. He (Chester) is amazing. It doesn't matter to me if they want to release it. Musically, it's basically the same as Lemmy's song, but the lyrics are very painful."