Why Slash Never Wants to Hear Guns N’ Roses’ Cover of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ Again
The Rolling Stones‘ “Sympathy for the Devil” is one of the most famous songs about the devil. During the 1990s, Guns N’ Roses put their own spin on the song. Subsequently, Slash said he never wants to hear the cover again.
Slash said Guns N’ Roses’ cover of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ sounds like the band falling apart
In his 2009 book Slash, the guitarist discussed his band’s version of “Sympathy for the Devil.” “If you’ve ever wondered what the sound of a band breaking up sounds like, listen to Guns N’ Roses’ cover of ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ which was recorded for the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack in the fall of 1994,” he wrote. “If there is one Guns track I’d like never to hear again, it is that one.”
“[Musician] Tom Zutaut arranged the whole thing and it was a great idea: it’s an amazing, classic song, the movie was going to be huge, theoretically, it would get us all in the same room working again, and it would give the public ‘product’ to tide them over,” Slash added.
Slash was surprised Axl Rose worked with a certain musician on the cover
Slash discussed the cover in relation to his band’s album “The Spaghetti Incident?” “We weren’t touring “The Spaghetti Incident?” and we had no plans to start writing the next album, so Tom was being practical — this might be our only new release for a while,” he said.
“I’m amazed that Axl [Rose] even agreed to do it, because by then he had stopped talking to Tom Zutaut altogether,” Slash said. Rose claimed Zutaut tried to flirt with his wife, Evin Everly. Even though Slash wasn’t a fan of the cover, it still appeared in Interview with the Vampire.
How ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and Guns N’ Roses’ cover performed on the pop charts in the United States
The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” was not a single in the 1960s; however, “Sympathy for the Devil (Remixes)” hit No. 97 on the Billboard Hot 100 for one week in 2003. The original version of the song appeared on the album Beggars Banquet. The album reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 32 weeks.
On the other hand, Guns N’ Roses’ cover was a bigger hit. It reached No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for eight weeks. The cover appeared on the album Greatest Hits, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for a whopping 600 weeks. None of Guns N’ Roses’ other albums lasted on the chart nearly as long.
“Sympathy for the Devil” is a famous Rolling Stones song but Guns N’ Roses’ rendition did better on the charts.
