Guitar behemoth Slash has hinted that fans can expect new music from both Guns N’ Roses and his musical side-project Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators in 2021. The rock legend’s comments in an interview with Ohio newspaper Cleveland.com that “I would like to think that we’d have some new stuff out next year — from both camps, I guess” have led to speculation that a new GNR album or EP could be in the works.

Slash’s new interview for @clevelanddotcom…

When do you think we’ll hear some of this music?

Slash: I would like to think that we’d have some new stuff out next year — from both camps, I guess. It’s hard to say, but I would like to think we’ll have stuff out next year, yeah.

— Appetite4Distortion (@TheAFDShow) December 23, 2020

In the interview, the London-born, Stoke-on-Trent and LA-raised guitarist said “[Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators] did a week of initial pre-production, and there’s 20 songs and we’re gonna start back up next year. I spent a lot of time writing and demoing that stuff. And prior to that, Duff (McKagan, GNR bassist) and I did some jamming and we also worked on the Guns record, and I’ve had a couple of ancillary recordings and jams on top of that, so there’s been a lot of stuff going on. I’m really not good at slowing down and just sitting around.”

McKagan and Slash (real name Saul Hudson) were absent from the last Guns N’ Roses record, 2008’s Chinese Democracy, which was dogged by delays, litigation and spiralling production costs. However, both have been complimentary about the controversial LP since re-joining the band in 2016. In an interview with Guitar World in 2018, Slash said of the album “You know, it’s very different… it’s really cool stuff, but it was played by guitar players that are very different from me style-wise. I’ve sort of adapted my own way of playing those songs to where I feel comfortable with them, but without losing the integrity of how the guitar parts go.”

He added “I also want to give credit where credit’s due — the guitar players that played on ‘Chinese Democracy’, Buckethead being one of the main ones — are fucking amazing guitar players. I have to give those guys a shout-out because that stuff was cool. Very different from what I normally do. So it’s been interesting learning some of the stuff that was on that record. I definitely had to figure out ways to adapt to it.”

2021 will mark the 30th anniversary of Guns N’ Roses’ epic third and fourth studio albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, and classic tracks from both LPs are sure to feature on the band’s 2021 world tour, which includes three dates in the UK. The hard rock veterans will play at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Friday 18th June and Saturday 19th June next year, with a gig at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park also scheduled in for the following week (Thursday 24th June). Limited tickets are still available for the shows via the band’s website.

Slash’s last musical offering with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators was 2018’s Living The Dream, which reached number four in the UK Albums Chart. In a glowing review at the time Rolling Stone compared the record to both Chinese Democracy and early 90s GNR.  They described it as “a character study in Slash the guitarist” adding that “the music all bears his fingerprints – a biting blues filigree at the end of a riff, weeping solos full of long notes, boogie-woogie riffs.“