Slash admits that he was getting tired of the “very predictable Marshall sound” in his music
Back in 2023, Slash’s 30 year love affair with Marshall amps began to change. The Guns N’ Roses axeman opted to use Magnatone amps throughout 2024’s Orgy Of The Damned, explaining that he had grown “disillusioned” with the sound of a Marshall amp.
Once again, Slash has reflected on how Marshall amps fell out of his favour. In the latest issue of Guitarist, Slash explains that 2023 saw him experimenting with non-Marshall amps for the first time –something that was a “big deal”, but a necessary one. “I started jamming with [different] arrangements and I just didn’t want to use my normal Marshall sound,” he explains.
READ MORE: Marshall Amps – The Complete History
The experimentation spanned from using a pair of Fender Twins, Fender Deluxes, a Vox half-stack and even a vintage Vox combo amp. However, the M-80 Magnatone was what really caught Slash’s ear. “I went through different amps and when I got to the Magnatone, which had been given to me but I’d never used before, I ended up using it for every song,” he says.
While Slash is still a recognised Marshall artist, his love of Magnatone is clear. He thought it sounded great on Orgy Of The Damned, perfectly paired for its more blues-leaning record, but he has since began using it with Guns N’ Roses, too. “It was a bit revelation, because [the Magnatone] gave me the sort of power that I wanted,” he says. “It also gave me a kind of clarity.”
“I think I was starting to get tired – as much as I hate to say it – of the very predictable Marshall sound, which I was sort of know for,” he admits. “It was starting to wear on me. I’d been using Marshall for so long that I’d never listened to anything else. I never gave anything else a shot because it didn’t have the Marshall mid-punch…”
Speaking with Magnatone in 2025, Slash also expressed similar feelings. “Over time, I started to get… disillusioned, with the consistency of my sound with the Marshall, or whatever it was,” he said. “There were things I wanted to achieve that I wasn’t really getting out of those amps.”
“I played a Magnatone one time, just by chance, really…. [Guns N’ Roses guitarist] Richard Fortus gave it to me. I went to go do this blues record [and] I wasn’t looking for a wall of sound… I wanted something that was more like a combo, 50-watt or less type of deal. So, I pulled out all these old combos that I had, and I saw the Magnatone… Out of everything I had, I kept going back to that amp.”
It seems like many guitarists are keen to shake up the formula and try new amps and experiment with guitars as of late. Even Animals As Leaders’ Tosin Abasi has recently critiqued the “crystallised” state of the guitar industry, telling Guitar Center: “The most iconic instruments have been kind of crystallised since the ’60s… a lot of guitar players get in their mind, like, ‘Oh, well, Jimmy Page was fine with that’ [so I am too].”
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