Slash releases “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” video featuring Demi Lovato

May 17, 2024 Pete Francis 1 Comment Demi Lovato, Slash

To celebrate the release of his new album, Orgy of the Damned, Slash has released a music video for his new take on “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” featuring demi Lovato.

“Slash is a legendary talent and friend I’ve known for years, so I was thrilled to collaborate with him again for his project,” said Lovato. “He brought such an amazing energy when we were in the studio and reimagining this iconic song together was effortless and fun. He had such a clear vision for the song and I’m grateful that he wanted to honor my story. I’m so proud of what we created!”

“This song is the most left-of-center for a sort of blues cover record because it’s a song by The Temptations, which is really R&B,” says Slash. “From 1972, I grew up with this song and it was a really popular song in the early ‘70s when I was a kid. It’s a cool song, and an adventure in and of itself. The original version is super long, as in 10 minutes long, if not longer. And it’s got this an amazing instrumental arrangement to it. I mean, the whole song is amazing. We used to jam it back in the 90s with another band that I had called Snakepit that Johnny Griparic, our bass player, was also in. So, I definitely wanted Demi to do this song because the subject matter of the song is basically about the unsavory habits of an absent father who eventually passes away that the kids are asking their mom about, as in ‘What’s this about our dad that we’ve never met, and we hear all these stories about?’ It’s a very dark and personal kind of subject matter, therefore whoever sings it can’t just cover it for the sake of covering it, they have to be able to relate to it in some way. I’ve been friends with Demi Lovato for a few years now and I wanted a strong female voice to sing it. She has that really young and powerful voice that has this kind of, not an entirely innocent delivery, but definitely an almost childlike quality to it. I asked her to do it because Demi’s had some interesting stories in her past and she jumped at the idea. I had no idea how she was going to react to the question, but she totally knew and related to the song. Demi came in and did an amazing job. It was really, really fun to do this song with her.”