No More Heroes

Album: Apocalyptic Love (2012)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Slash explained his guitar playing on this song to MusicRadar.com: "I used my neck pickup with the tone off for the main riff. It had a longer solo originally and we shortened it because it was going on and on and on. I was trying to get the same amount of punch out of it in a shorter amount of time. That was a little tricky for me at first – I kept wanting to go off.

    And I'm sure some people will say, 'You should have gone off', but it sort of lost the direction of where the song should go – and the effectiveness of the arrangement. After a couple of plays through it worked itself out."
  • For those of you who recall the late 1970s era of safety pins and spiky hair, this is an entirely different song to The Stranglers 1977 punk classic of the same title.
  • Speaking with Guitar World magazine, Slash said for the Apocalyptic Love album, he let vocalist Myles Kennedy "do whatever he wanted when he was writing his parts." The former Guns N' Roses axeman added: "And sometimes that even changed my parts. For instance, there's a song on the new album called 'No More Heroes' that is a classic example of a 50/50 kind of collaboration between us, where I had a riff and a whole arrangement that I put together, but it was all still open to interpretation.

    So Myles took the chorus idea that I had and just completely raped it, and came up with a new, insanely great chorus. And that was a moment where it was like, 'Okay, we have a good thing going... it makes for better music overall.'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Pam Tillis

Pam TillisSongwriter Interviews

The country sweetheart opines about the demands of touring and talks about writing songs with her famous father.

Concert Disasters

Concert DisastersFact or Fiction

Ozzy biting a dove? Alice Cooper causing mayhem with a chicken? Creed so bad they were sued? See if you can spot the real concert mishaps.

Jimmy Webb

Jimmy WebbSongwriter Interviews

Webb talks about his classic songs "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman" and "MacArthur Park."

Julian Lennon

Julian LennonSongwriter Interviews

Julian tells the stories behind his hits "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes," and fills us in on his many non-musical pursuits. Also: what MTV meant to his career.

Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy and Black Star Riders

Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy and Black Star RidersSongwriter Interviews

Writing with Phil Lynott, Scott saw their ill-fated frontman move to a darker place in his life and lyrics.

Amy Lee of Evanescence

Amy Lee of EvanescenceSongwriter Interviews

The Evanescence frontwoman on the songs that have shifted meaning and her foray into kids' music.