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VELVET REVOLVER
brief description: a press-conference reveals
all on Slash's new guise
location of interview: london, uk
date: winter 2004
‘It’s not a supergroup,’
stridently declared former Guns N’
Roses guitarist Slash of his newly formed,
star-studded Velvet Revolver.
 Yes
– unfathomable, since VR includes Slash’s
G’n’R compatriots Duff McKagan
and Matt Soren, as well as Dave Kushner
of Wasted Youth, and, oh yeah, former Stone
Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland. Yet
Slash adamantly insisted upon the band’s
roots as being assuredly ‘organic’
at a press conference in the Gibson Guitar
Shop near Soho last week (Weds 24th March).
‘We had no intentions…
of making it what you call a supergroup.
We were so f**king innocently just wanting
to f**king play,’ Slash detailed, lounging
in flaming leather pants, classic bike jacket,
and signature hair flowing freely. In a
gravelly, phlegmy timbre, McKagan too reiterated
the natural genesis of the group; ‘the
stars aligned, and this thing f**king happened’,
apparently.
VR took derivation in 2002
at a benefit concert for Randy Castillo,
wherein Slash, McKagan, and Sorum musically
reunited, and sparks flew. With a ‘chemistry
too f**king perfect to ignore,’ as
Slash felt it to be during the benefit,
the G’n’R boys decided to act.
Slash, McKagan, and Soren soon enlisted
Wasted Youth guitarist Dave Kushner to join
their metal militia, but the vacancy remained
for that idyllic lead singer.
‘It was like pulling
teeth,’ sighed Slash of the frontman
audition process; hell, listening to over
200 vocals on tape every week would wear
on anyone’s nerves, you envisage. Yet,
after searching for about nine months, Stone
Temple Pilots happened to break up (conveniently),
and Scott Weiland was free to roam –
well, almost.
‘Scott was my favourite
rock and roll singer more or less since
Guns came out. At the end of the day, he
was the one we all wanted and nobody else
even came close,’ enthused Slash. After
being prepped with some VR musical material,
Weiland then came into the studio to see
if his collaboration would complete the
dream team.
‘He swaggered in,
he got on the mic, and f**king sang this
thing with the same passion, with the same
language that we (Slash and McKagan) speak,’
said McKagan of Weiland’s instinctive
connection to their musical patois.
But some tweaking was necessary
– Weiland has had his plate somewhat
full of late, dealing with every rock-star’s
essential mid-career slump: drug rehab,
and a divorce. When asked if Weiland’s
troubled narcotics history gave the other
VR members hesitation, Slash was quick to
refute any puritan snobbery, admitting that
Weiland’s drug problems ‘... actually
attracted us... That made us feel a little
bit more comfortable...’
Yes, no strangers to a
life of sensational debauchery, Slash and
McKagan understood and empathised with Weiland’s
recent plight – especially easy enough
to believe seeing as they chain-smoked throughout
the entire conference. And, besides, according
to Slash, Weiland is ‘amazingly f**king
focused,’ and ‘doing great.’
Recent press reports that he has been released
from hospital, with the approval of his
doctors.
 But
the actual sound of this ‘non-supergroup’?
Inevitably a natural history of rock and
roll of the last 20 years, with a little
forward focus. With Weiland’s grunge-era
vocals, and Slash’s chillingly sharp,
virtuoso solos, Velvet Revolver create a
harder, darker sound than either G ‘n’
R or STP had on their own.
Of the material... single
‘Slither’ boasts grappling guitar,
drilling steadily behind Weiland’s
sensual drawl, and when the vocals end,
the hair-metal guitar solo begins, and listeners
either raise an almighty fist to the air,
or gag. The not entirely-unmelodic chorus
of ‘Sucker Train Blues’ juxtaposes
a lingering chorus with staccato verses,
crafting an aural speed chase and atmospheric
outro that could, should last longer. And
ballads are not forgotten. ‘Fall To
Pieces’ has a touch of a recycled ‘Sweet
Child of Mine’ in the chord-structure,
and while not unpleasant, bears not the
precious fruits of VR’s emotive angst.
Clearly, ‘supergroup’
or not, it’s evident that VR blend
historical rock-eras which have in turn
informed one another: G’n’R enlightening
the grunge movement; and Weiland now bringing
his inimitable vocals to the fore of a barrage
of baroque rock.
‘We’re gnarlier
than ever… we’ve gotten into more
of an aggressive mode than probably ever,’
McKagan reflected conclusively with childlike
enthusiasm for the new project.
And while watching Slash
strut into the dusky twilight across Charing
Cross Road in full leather garb and sunglasses
some few minutes later, his dark locks floating
in the breeze, ‘gnarly’ couldn’t
suit the whole thing better. One can almost
hear the seminal guitar solos start up already.
-Lauren Gallagher
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