A snippet of a previously unreleased collaboration between Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington has surfaced online.
The track, Crazy, was written and recorded during sessions for Slash’s star-studded 2010 solo album Slash, which featured guest vocals from Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Iggy Pop, M. Shadows, Black Eyed Peas vocalist Fergie and many more. With Linkin Park set to release their A Thousand Suns album during the same year, their ‘people’ were apparently anxious about the prospect of a competing Chester Bennington track drawing attention from their own album, and so the release of the song was blocked, leading Slash to re-record it, as Doctor Alibi, as a collaboration with Lemmy instead.
Slash referenced the collaboration in a 2018 interview with Variety, saying, “when I was doing my first solo record, I worked with a lot of different people, some of whom, for whatever reason, didn’t end up on the record. One was with Chester. We did a song and Linkin Park at the time didn’t allow it to happen, so I did it with Lemmy [Kilmister]. The guy who engineered my demos sent it to me and I sent it to Chester’s family. But it was a trip cause the song really speaks to his state of mind.”
Asked at that point whether the song would ever be released, the guitarist told Variety, [Chester’s] family has got it so it would be totally up to them. It was really good. He was awesome. It would be fine with me if they wanted to [release] it. Musically it’s basically the same as the Lemmy song, but the lyrics are really poignant.”
More than a decade after it was due to be released, a one-minute clip of the song has been leaked by producer Big Chris Flores, who worked on Slash, and recorded a bass track for the song. Flores says that the track will be released soon to benefit 320 Changes Direction, the mental health awareness organisation launched by Bennington's widow Talinda.
And for comparison purposes, here’s how the same song sounded when recorded with Lemmy’s lyrics and vocals.
