Popular YouTube guitar instructor Marty Schwartz has made a remarkable claim, revealing in a new video that Guns N’ Roses legend Slash personally told him that he had learned “really cool blues-style techniques” from his online lessons. Schwartz, who has over 4.5 million subscribers, recounted the memorable and “validating” encounter, which he called “one of the greatest professional days of my life.”
The meeting took place in the hallway of a Gibson office building, around the time Slash released his 2024 blues cover album, Orgy Of The Damned. Schwartz was there for a documentary interview when he came face-to-face with one of his childhood heroes.
“I was just like, ‘Whoa, hey Slash,’ and he says, ‘Whoa, Marty, oh my God!’” Schwartz recalled (as trancribed by Guitar.com), adding, “And I’m getting chills right now even just saying that. He was like: ‘It’s really cool when you watch someone a lot and then you get to actually meet them in person.’”
It was during this brief exchange that the iconic guitarist made the surprising admission. “He said he had some of my instructional stuff saved on his computer and there were some really cool blues-style techniques that he learned from some of my stuff,” Schwartz stated. He was quick to add: “I’m only saying this because it’s absolutely true, it sounds like a flex but I’m only telling it to you because it is the truth.”
For the YouTube teacher, the moment was profound. “He was so nice and complimentary… That was one of [those] moments in my life where everything felt validated,” he said.
Slash‘s interest in learning new blues techniques, even from a modern online source, aligns with his own descriptions of his musical DNA. In a previous interview with Classic Rock, the guitarist explained that his playing is deeply rooted in the blues.
“When I first picked up the guitar, the guys that I was inspired by were all heavily inspired by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson, B.B. King and Albert King,” Slash said. “So that is really the root of where my guitar playing came from.”
He noted that even his formative hard rock influences were blues-based. “The bands that I was really influenced by in that realm were AC/DC, Aerosmith and bands in that sort of area of hard rock,” he explained. “Not so much metal, but more of a blues-based kind of a thing anyway.” The story illustrates how even legendary musicians continue to absorb new information and techniques, bridging the gap between rock royalty and the digital age of music instruction.
