GUNS FOR HIRE
Or how a trip up
to the Seattle mountains and six
weeks of kung fu, meditation and
t'ai chi moulded Velvet Revolver,
the most exciting new band in rock.
Squeezing the trigger: Geoff Barton.
THEY'RE IN A HEIGHTENED
state of sensitivity about Guns N'
Roses questions." That
phone message came through just as I
was getting ready to leave my house and
travel up to London to meet and interview
Velvet Revolver. The warning was understated,
but the implication was obvious: I should
not - under any circumstances and on
pain of death - make the merest mention
to any VR member the name of the former
Most Dangerous Band In The World.
This struck me as being
rather strange; it appeared as if I
was being urged to collude in a cover-up
bigger than the bandanna that often
stretches over GN'R singer Axl Rose's
generous forehead. And that despite
the fact that three-fifths of Velvet
Revolver were once among Axl's closest
associates: guitarist Slash, bassist
Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum.
But the problem, I would learn later,
actually centres on Velvet Revolver's
singer, former Stone Temple Pilots frontman
Scott Weiland, who, despite never having
been a member of Guns N' Roses, doesn't
want to talk about them.
But maybe I shouldn't
be surprised. That kind of irrational
behaviour -or so I am led to believe- is
par for the course for Weiland.
In their short career thus far, Velvet
Revolver have generated a vast amount
of column inches in the press, both specialist
and mainstream. Reading several past
articles as part of my research for this
story, Weiland is rarely portrayed (better
make that caricatured) as anything other
than a strung-up one-time junkie with
a hairtrigger temperament and an appetite
for self-destruction.
'He [Weiland] keeps bringing the conversation
back to his [heroin] addiction and its
consequences, and his shoulders keep
hunching up with tension,' reported a
story in Rolling Stone.
`Weiland claims he is now clean for
good, but he remains hugely suspicious
of the media,' commented The Times.
'Velvet Revolver are
an alliance of battered ex-junkies
-in Weiland's case, the "ex" is
in rather faint lettering; noted The
Guardian.
And Kerrang! this past
June reprinted the following post,
direct from Weiland himself, on the
Velvet Revolver website: `To me, the
word "journalism" is
blurred with tabloid sensationalism and
untruths. I will not stoop to the level
of these mosquitoes to simply sell records.
I won't play your fucking game.'
In response, Kerrang!'s front-cover
headline ran: 'Velvet Revolver: Has Weiland
completely lost it?'
Well, no. The good news is that he hasn't.
And what's more, his super-sized media
suspicions don't appear to include us
malarious insects on Classic Rock.
AT THE STROKE OF MIDDAY
I ENTER THE PLUSH FOYER OF LONDON'S
FIVE-star Athenaeum Hotel & Apartments,
at 116 Piccadilly. A former gentlemen's
club, brochures scattered around the
reception area claim the lavishly refurbished
venue now offers 'relaxed elegance
in the heart of London'.
In a nearby lounge, Slash is doing his
best to turn that description on its
head; 'studied decadence in the heart
of London' is probably the most appropriate
substitute slogan.
Much to the bemusement of the suits
seated on leather Chesterfields and sipping
Pimm's, the man who was christened Saul
Hudson - popularly believed to have been
born in Stoke-on-Trent; he's actually
from London's Hampstead -is enjoying
coffee and biscuits, in a small annexe,
seated behind a crisp, white cloth'd
table.
It's quite a sight to witness Slash
- replete with the obligatory tumbling
corkscrew curls, creaky distressed leathers
and disarming grin -pick up a dainty
silver jugful of cream and, with his
little finger bent just so in a style
strangely reminiscent of Dr Evil in Austin
Powers, pour a dollop of the good stuff
into his steaming cup.
It's difficult to tell
if Slash has noticed me standing in
front of him, as his coalblack-lensed
sunglasses are impenetrable. Eventually
he utters a croaky: "Hey, haven't
I met you some place before?"
For a man who has been known to die
occasionally, Slash has got quite a memory
for faces. Apart from a brief encounter
in 1995, when he played with his band
Snakepit at the Castle Donington Monsters
Of Rock festival, the last time I'd chatted
to him must have been 17 or 18 years
ago. As a hip young Guns-slinger, Slash
had visited the old Kerrang! offices
at the bottom end of Camden Town, in
north London. As the guitarist breezed
in brandishing a full bottle of Jack
Daniel's, my phone rang and I answered
it. By the time I'd finished my conversation
- it wouldn't have lasted any more than
two or three minutes -Slash had gulped
down every last drop of his JD. I remember
looking up to see him propped on the
corner of my desk, flourishing his empty
bottle and grinning gleefully.
"Yeah," I nod to Slash in
reply, "it was when you came up
to see us all at Kerrang!, in the early
days when you were just starting out
in [I take a deep breath and prepare
for him to adopt a heightened state of
sensitivity] Guns N' Roses." But
Slash just smiles. "Guns?" he
chortles drily. "Yeah, that's right.
I came in with a bottle of Jack." He
stirs his coffee absently. "Would
you care for a biscuit?"
I JAM OPEN THE DOOR
TO ROOM 307 WITH A WEDGE JUST IN CASE
I MISS Duff McKagan as he walks by.
I needn't have bothered. The guy's
so thin he could probably squeeze through
the crack between a closed door and
its frame.
McKagan is smoking a pungent cigar and
carrying a can of non-alcoholic beer.
His corn-yellow hair looks meticulously
unkempt, and is teased around his creased
face. Dressed casually in pale denim
with, apart from a shiny silver bracelet
or two, the minimum of rock-star-bling
accoutrements, McKagan is very tall and
his body shape has no definition, it
just falls straight from his shoulders
to the ground. To say that he tumbles
into the chair in front of me like a
bag of bones is not quite fair; it's
more like a giant puppet that's just
had its strings cut. Whatever, it's certainly
a long way away from Duffs bloated, blundering-around-the-stage-in-a-daze
image that long-time GN'R fans will remember.
McKagan seems chilled
and relaxed, and when I offer a hearty
congratulation on his new band Velvet
Revolver's burgeoning career he simply
shrugs and says selfeffacingly: "Well,
so far, so good."
It's rare for Classic
Rock to feature
a brand new act on its cover, but for
Velvet Revolver the decision is justified.
The band's genesis began on April 29,
2002 when the ex-GN'R alliance of Slash,
McKagan and Sorum reunited to play a
benefit show for drummer Randy Castillo
(of Ozzy Osbourne/Motley Crue fame) who
died from cancer a month earlier, at
the tragically young age of 51.
That fund-raising gig featured Buckcherry
frontman josh Todd on vocals, and away
from the steely-eyed control freak that
is Axl Rose, the former Gunners were
delighted to discover that they really
enjoyed playing together again. So they
brought in a second guitarist, Dave Kushner,
and began the long haul to find a permanent
singer, with a view to forming a full-time
band.
After an exhaustive but fruitless search,
a well-timed event fell into place: Stone
Temple Pilots -the LA band that got unfairly
dumped in with Seattle's grunge scene
- imploded. A little bit of collusion
between Duff McKagan and Scott Weiland's
other halves (both ex-models, Duff and
Scott's wives- respectively, Susan Holmes
and Mary Forsberg -are long-standing
friends) resulted in the former Pilots
singer being brought into the frame as
a VR trooper.
Why Weiland? Matt Sorum
explains: "Scott
is a completely different frontman in
Velvet Revolver than he was in Stone
Temple Pilots. If anything he's even
more aggressive; there are similarities
with Iggy Pop and David Bowie; he's got
a punky edge to him.
"We made the choice
of vocalist based on the way we thought
our music should go. Before Scott,
we tried out some, if you like, traditional
rock singers, but it came out cliched.
But with Scott it's vibrant and fresh."
However, to start off with, Slash, Duff
and Matt must have wondered if they'd
simply swapped one incendiary vocalist
(Axl) for another (Scott): in May 2003,
shortly after Weiland had signed the
contracts and agreed to join his new
band, he Scott was nicked for narcotics
possession. Cynics shrugged and said
this was something of an everyday occurrence.
All the same, it was hardly the most
auspicious of beginnings for the singer's
Velvet Revolver career.
McKagan raises his eyebrows
in mock despair: "Well, everybody said this
thing would never happen in the first
place," he sighs. "Me, Slash
and Matt got back together and the attitude
was: 'Oh fuck, this bunch of Guns N'
Roses losers are going to try to do something
together again'. So yeah, there were
a lot of naysayers.
"Then Scott came
in and people said: 'Oh yeah, great,
a fucking junkie. They won't make a
record.' Well, we made a fucking record.
We'd heard all this negative stuff.
But as soon as we got together in the
same room it was just pure fucking
amazing energy... We knew what we had.
"The naysayers
began to fall by the wayside as we
made the record, as we completed the
record. But then when we started playing
club gigs the naysayers kinda regrouped
and started to sneer: `They'll never
finish this American tour.' Well, we
finished the American tour. We made
two videos. And we're halfway through
our first set of European dates, and
Scott's got his family back, and everything's
great. This band functions so well
together." McKagan shrugs
his sharp shoulders and adds: "We've
all been there, we've all done that,
we don't need to talk about how many
drugs we've done, or how much we've drunk.
Everybody fucking knows about that crap.
We don't have to prove anything to anybody
about who we are. When people see us
together as a band, they always come
away with their blinkers well and truly
off. And all that stuff about, 'Oh, they're
those hopeless wasters from Guns and
that drug-addict casualty who used to
sing in Stone Temple Pilots'... all that
stuff is gone."
To start with, the morbid
interest of the naysayers-as Duff continually
calls them -centred on the various
Velvet Revolver members' long years
of supreme debauchery. McKagan, for
one, consumed drugs and drink in such
vast quantities that his pancreas exploded.
That was some 10 years ago. Slash now
describes the 40-year-old bassist as "the king of health,
fitness and fucking kick boxing; he's
amazingly healthy".
Scott Weiland, meanwhile, got weaned
off heroin by McKagan a mere two weeks
before Velvet Revolver played their debut
gig, at the art-deco El Rey theatre in
Los Angeles, on June 19, 2003. (More
about Duffs rehab tactics, plus how they're
linked to the video for the band's new
single, 'Fall To Pieces', a little later.)
Velvet Revolver performed six songs at
the El Rey show: the Sex Pistols cover
`Bodies', `Set Me Free', the GN'R cover
'It's So Easy', the STP cover `Sex Type
Thing', 'Slither', and the Nirvana cover
'Negative Creep'.
"It was like pure
elation, you know," McKagan recalls. "It
was this incredible release. It was actually
one of the most amazing gigs I've ever
been a part of."
But still doubts lingered about Weiland's
ability to carry this thing through.
Slash recently said warily: "There's
still a sense of unpredictability going
on with Scott." Duff, although reluctant
to place a wager on the singer being
clean in a year's time, countered: "I
feel very, very secure being in a band
with Weiland." In further substance-abuse
news, Matt Sorum has never been arrested
like Scott has, but the drummer guarantees
he did a lot more drugs. These days,
like McKagan no doubt, an abstemious
Sorum finds "a good cigar is better
than crack".
He tells me: "I do
enjoy smoking those things. Especially
in Europe, it's nice to get Cuban cigars,
because they're illegal in the States.
It's nice to know I can do something
that's still a bit illegal, ha-ha!" Later,
Slash's guitar sparring partner Dave
Kushner will inform me guardedly: "I've
had my problems too, although obviously
they've not been as well publicised."
Slash is the only member
of Velvet Revolver who still drinks.
Strangely, he finds the other members'
sobriety to be beneficial: "It's
sort of good in a way; it helps with
my self-discipline. I'm pretty much the
same guy I always was, although I don't
put a lot of fucking narcotics into my
system any more-and these days my wild
nights out are few and far between."
McKagan adds: "To
me, it's almost kind of cool that we've
got Slash, the one guy that gets fucked
up once in a while."
I remark to Duff that a photo in Classic
Rock issue 70, of a Velvet Revolver live
show at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, showed
a bottle of energy-charging, non-intoxicating
Gatorade standing prominently next to
Weiland on the edge of the stage. "Yup.
Well. That's fine," he responds
bluntly.
So anyhow, like McKagan
said, Velvet Revolver made their album...
and somewhere along the way, while
they were building up to it, they piqued the
interest of RCA's Clive Davis, an old-school
record mogul, who promptly signed the
band to his label.
"Clive is very much a music guy
and he totally understood," McKagan
offers. "He flew out to Los Angeles,
to our little rehearsal place, and it
was hot and loud. He sat there and watched
us play- it wasn't an audition, he just
wanted to come and see us-and he loved
it on a musical level."
Before they released their debut album,'Contraband',
Velvet Revolver contributed songs to
two movie soundtracks: 'Set Me Free'
for The Hulk, and the Pink Floyd cover
'Money' for The Italian Job.
Arriving in the shops this June, 'Contraband'
reached No.1 in the US chart with the
largest ever week-one sales of a debut
album from a rock act in American chart
history. That's an extremely impressive
statistic. But to begin with I was of
the opinion that Velvet Revolver had
a much better record in them; 'Contraband'
only seemed to contain a handful of halfway-decent
tracks. Before long, however, the album
started to burrow beneath my skin like
a blood-thirsty termite.
Three songs made an immediate impact:
the tightly coiled sleaze-fest that is
the aforementioned `Slither' (a US No.1
rock single); the steamrollering `Big
Machine' (with Weiland spitting the words:
'He's a junkie piece of shit because
he says so' with some considerable feeling);
and the big power ballad 'Fall To Pieces'
(with Slash's guitar cheekily recalling
passages from GN'R's 'Sweet Child O'
Mine').
But initially - to my ears at least
- the remaining tracks, including statement-ofintent
opener 'Sucker Train Blues', sounded
overwrought, sludgy and blurred. That
disappointment didn't last for long.
After two or three extended plays of
'Contraband', a terrible insidiousness
crept in: Slash's deceptively simple,
jarring riffs (augmented by Kushner's
edgy rhythm guitar) commenced their tormented
assault; McKagan and Sorum's craggy backbeat
grew ever more mountainous; and, especially,
Weiland's chilling, self-absorbed lyrics
started to judder the soul.
But all that barely
mattered to the hordes of closeted
teenagers who snapped up 'Contraband'
the first day it went on sale. The
fact is, they'd never heard anything
quite as insurrectionist as Velvet
Revolver before; to them, the quintet's
painstakingly cultivated brand of fuck-you
debauchery was a brand new thing. For,
as McKagan insists: "This
is the first dangerous band that's come
around in a while."
WHICH BRINGS ME NEATLY
BACK AROUND TO GUNS N' ROSES, WHO WERE
once described - as I mentioned earlier
- as the most dangerous band in the
world. McKagan grimaces: "Well
I think it was me who actually originally
said that, and I've been fucking kicking
myself ever since;"
So what sums up a 'dangerous' band?
"Kind of just a band that wears
its heart on its sleeve," McKagan
replies blandly. "We feed off the
audience, and every night is going to
be a different thing. Look, I've got
a little story for you. Me and my wife,
we have two small girls, and we employed
an au pair who came from Guatemala. For
some reason the au pair wanted to go
see Nickelback, so I took her to one
of their shows in Los Angeles... and
I swear I couldn't last. l had to give
her the cab fare home. f had to leave..."
Why was that?
"Because it was such fucking crap;" McKagan
groans. "I don't mean to dis the
guys in Nickelback personally. After
all, they found this little formula that
enabled them to enjoy themselves, and
to go on and play around the world. But
to me it was really watered down and
[sighs] boring. There was the band and
the audience, but there was nothing connecting
the two.
"So, a good rock'n'roll
band, and a good rock'n'roll show,
should involve a good amount of bruises
and blood, and an outpouring of emotion.
It should be something you leave behind
with the attitude of. `Fuck, that's
something I'm never going to forget'.
With us, there's an element of. what's
going to happen next? Like it used
to be with Guns N' Roses."
I was warned before I came here not
to talk to you about Guns.
"Oh, it's not me, really," McKagan
discloses. "It's just that Weiland
got asked too many fucking times: `How
does it feel being compared to Axl Rose?'
Which is, like, nonsense. These are people
who haven't seen Velvet Revolver play
live yet-and we're not Guns N' Roses.
Guns N' Roses played their last gig eleven
years ago. In a musician's time-frame,
that's a lifetime ago.
"Let me give you
a comparison. I recently went to the
Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, where
they had a Monet and Manet exhibition.
For Manet's work, they had about a
twenty-year span. Before he started
doing Impressionism he was just doing
straight-up things, like seascapes.
And then he started to get fuzzy and
Impressionistic, and to do the work that
made him famous. And as a musician, I
think it's kind of the same thing. Guns
N' Roses were a long time ago. It's a
great legacy to have, but Scott's not
singing in Guns N' Roses, you know. This
is not Guns N' Roses. We've grown as
players just as Manet grew as a painter."
McKagan continues: "Guns
N' Roses played together eight years
at best-and, as I say, eleven years
ago we did our last gig. So a lot has
happened in-between times. And this
- Velvet Revolver - is a whole new
animal. So for Scott to get all those
questions about Axl is just kind of
like: 'Oh, do you really, really have
to go there?' l think it's a very non-intellectual
question. Its retarded. The question's
fucking retarded."
Velvet Revolver, McKagan
explains, have tapped into some kind
of long-lost rock'n'roll spirit: "Well,
after all, I had the objectivity. I
went to college recently [postGuns,
Duff worked on a degree in finance
at Seattle University], and the kids
I was going to school with -cightcen-,
nineteen-, twenty-year-old kids-they
were saying to me: `We don't have our
own rock band. We all got cheated, all
we have are Nickelback or Creed or *NSync
or whatever.'
"Things just go
in cycles," Duff
contemplates. "When Guns came out,
I remember when our album 'Appetite For
Destruction' finally hit the top ten
the other records on there were, like,
Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli, Debbie Gibson And
recently there's been a lot of bubblegum
pop that probably started with The Spice
Girls.
"The record companies
latched on to this kid audience; they
knew their parents would buy the records.
It's a cash cow. So they went to where
the cash was, and although the rock'n'roll
scene was still around, it just wasn't
getting into the mainstream. Not at
all."
Duff smiles: "I
think there's a resurgence of kids
who want something that's honest and
brutal and inventive, and not just
spoon-fed to them."
SCOTT WEILAND IS AN
HOUR LATE FOR CLASSIC ROCK'S PHOTO
SESSION IN the Athenaeum hotel's apartment
complex. He rushes into the suite like
a whirlwind-and I catch a glimpse of
a shock of short black hair, a pair
of deep-set cheekbones, and another
hyper-thin, angular body. The rich
American husband-and-wife couple climbing
the stairs recoil in horror as they
hear a crash of furniture and Weiland's
demand: "Where's the fucking
eyeliner?"
I don't get to see him close-up again.
Such is the pressure of Velvet Revolver's
European schedule-and the problem of
co-ordination in a band that has three
separate managers; a legacy from GN'R/
STP days - that my interview with Weiland
is conducted by phone almost two weeks
after the photo session, perilously
close to this issue's deadline. I'm
in London; Scott is in his room at
the Hyatt Regency hotel in Cologne,
Germany.
In-between times Velvet
Revolver have played three dates in
the UK: at Glasgow Academy, Manchester
Apollo and London's Hammersmith Apollo.
With the honourable exception of The
Sun newspaper's Bizarre column, which
compared Velvet Revolver to Spinal
Tap, the reviews of the band have been
very positive, and Scott is little
short of ecstatic. (He closed the London
show with the riposte: "This
ain't Guns N' Roses or Stone Temple Pilots...
this is fucking Velvet Revolver!")
"I thought the British shows were
great, " the singer gasps. "I
had a feeling they'd be good, but they
surpassed my expectations-particularly
the London show. With London having such
a major musical history and tradition,
it rakes a lot to impress a London audience.
But as soon as we hit the stage... from
the very beginning to the end it was
a great crowd. The energy from the band
surged into the crowd, and then it came
back from the crowd into the band; it
was a great synergy."
Sadly, our conversation time is limited:
I only have a handful of 10-pence pieces
with which to feed the Classic Rock payphone,
and Scott, emitting the occasional quiet
cough, wants to preserve his voice for
VR's gigs on the continent. So our chat
centres on two intriguing stories that
came out of the earlier interview with
Duff McKagan: how the bass player helped
Weiland get off heroin, and how the video
to 'Fall To Pieces' turned out to be
a self-purging experience for the singer.
As Duff told me: "When
Scott got in this band he said: `I've
got a habit, I've lost my family, and
I want to get off of this shit'. Scott
knew I got sober through martial arts,
so I took him twelve-hundred miles
away from LA, up to these mountains
to see this martial arts, kung fu master
that I know. I had a bag full of fucking
drugs that this doctor gave me, for me
to wean Scott off the shit - and I'd
have to shoot Scott in the ass a couple
of times a day. It was like a boot camp
- but it worked."
McKagan continued: "So Scott came
out of that experience clean, and slowly
but surely he won his wife back, and
his kids. So that fight we have, in the
'Fall To Pieces' video, is all part of
that; and then ['m shown hugging him,
and I'm saying: 'It's okay, you've got
yourself through it, it's going to be
alright."'
In response, Weiland expands: "Oh
yeah. That experience up in the mountains
was a real purge for me, naturally. It
was actually quite surreal. We had a
master in about six martial-art forms,
and his wife is a master in t'ai chi.
So we would get up in the morning and
meditate and go into t'ai chi, and then
there was a schooling session, and then
there was some running, and we would
finish with a hard training session later
on in the day. And it went on like that."
Duff said you came to him when you were
desperate for help.
"That's right," Weiland
affirms. "It
all came to a head after I was arrested
for narcotics possession, and the day
after was when I really fell to pieces,
so to speak. I had always looked to
Duff as a sort of mentor. I was very
interested in how he got sober through
martial arts. So I asked him for help.
And he suggested that we get on a plane,
fly up to Seattle, where he's from,
and then drive up to the mountains.
We ended up staying up there for about
a month and a half, and it was completely
cathartic... although even that word
seems to be taking it lightly." And
the 'Fall To Pieces video tells the
tale of that experience?
"All that and more," Scott
reveals. "The song is the crux of
the album; it's really the turning point.
Without Duffs help, I wouldn't have my
wife and my children back; and I really
can't tell you if I would be even talking
to you today, to tell you the truth.
So for the `Fall To Pieces' video I called
up Kevin Kerslake, who I've worked with
many times in the past with Stone Temple
Pilots, and I told him what my idea was:
to tell the whole fucking story. And
he said: 'If that's what you want to
do, you're going to have to be really
brave about this and dig deep, and go
to a place that could be scary. You're
going to have to go back to some experiences
over the last couple of year; that were
really dark for you.'"
Even though Weiland
forced himself to relive some of his
bleakest moments in the video, "there were some beautiful
times too", he sighs. "Because
my wife actually plays herself in the
video, and there are flashbacks back
to when we first fell in love twelve
years ago. When I first met her I had
a job at the agency that she was modelling
for, and I used to drive her around to
her castings in my old Chrysler."
I remark to Scott that,
contrary to my expectations, he sounds
very amenable. I was expecting a barrage
of invective...
"It depends who I'm talking to," he
replies. "I'm not a person who judges
a book by its cover; I give everyone a
fair hearing. That's the kind of man I
am. Everyone deserves respect. But I also
demand respect - and if I don't get it,
l don't give it."
Regarding his sensitivity
toward Guns N' Roses questions, Weiland
retorts "It's
like this - I'm no fool. I know Stone
Temple Pilots didn't tour that much in
Europe. I'm not going to name names,
but there was one member in my old band
who hated touring in Europe. He absolutely
despised Europe. Whereas I'm the opposite,
I absolutely adore London, for example,
and would love to have a flat here."
"So Stone Temple
Pilots were never over here that much,
and we never sold the kind of records
that Guns N' Roses did here; in the
States, Stone Temple Pilots sold nearly
thirty million records. But even when
I'm back home I don't like being asked
Stone Temple questions during Velvet
Revolver interviews. I don't like being
asked questions that are tabloid-esque,
because I don't think that's respectful.
"So when I'm doing
a Velvet Revolver interview in Europe,
and I'm sitting next to Slash or Duff
and they're being asked Guns N' Roses
questions that eighty to ninety per
cent of the time have to do with their
relationship with their former singer...
that's tabloid fodder; they're trying
to get an emotional rise. And I don't
appreciate that. It doesn't have anything
to do with Velvet Revolver."
As the interview begins
to wind down, I'm surprised to hear
Scott deliver the following, unprompted,
comment: "I
just want to say one thing: I think the
magazine that you're writing for is one
of the best music publications out there.
I read it all the time. There's a music
stand by my house where I pick it up.
Classic Rock is an absolutely great music
magazine. It's a true music magazine
for true music fans."
Ha! Put that mosquito
swatter down. I think we should scrap
that `Where Legends Live' slogan straightaway.
Perhaps we should leave
the final word to Slash who, when I
asked him how far this Velvet Revolver
thing can go, said: "One
thing I never want to do again is go
in the same direction as Guns N' Roses
did... At one point toward the end we
were on this big stage with dancing girls,
horn players, pianos and all that fucking
crap.
"Velvet Revolver
will always stay a streamlined rock'n'roll
band. There aren't going to be any
more big steps for us. The big step
was just getting this fucking band
going in the first place."
Ex-Guns N' Roses losers?
Not us, says
Velvet Revolver's Matt Sorum.
WHEN VELVET REVOLVER
STARTED OUT, A FAIR AMOUNT OF SCEPTICISM
GREETED THE unholy re-alliance of ex-Guns
N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan
and Matt Sorum. "I really don't know why
people would feel that way," says
Sorum. "It's a kind of shitty attitude.
We were never the guys who fucking let
anybody down. That was somebody else.
We stopped Guns N' Roses at the top of
our game - we were playing stadiums,
we were the biggest fucking band in the
world, and then we just stopped.
"So for anyone
to chastise us for wanting to play
music together again is kinda fucked
up. We were the underdogs, and we never
let down the public. It was Axl who
did all that. 'As far as the 'supergroup'
moniker goes, I think we've already
shot that one down. All we want to
do is keep this thing going as an honest
rock'n'roll band. If people like it,
that's cool, and if they don't... whatever."
Who's Dave Kushner?
Introducing Slash,
Duff, Matt and Scott's 'secret weapon'.
BEFORE JOINING VELVET REVOLVER, GUITARIST
DAVE KUSHNER WAS IN AN ECLECTIC collection
of bands including Electric Love Hogs,
Infectious Grooves and Spread (Jane's
Addiction's Dave Navarro's group). He
also played in Loaded with Duff McKagan,
and is a former schoolmate of Slash's.
Duff McKagan describes you as Velvet
Revolver's 'secret weapon'.
So I've heard. Maybe that's because
no one knows who I am! But I guess it's
just because I don't really play much
like you would expect a rhythm guitarist
in this band to play. I try to play parts
that are more like something the guitar
player in Filter would do, as opposed
to the sort of stuff Izzy [Stradlin]
would've done in Guns N' Roses.
What was it like going to school with
Slash?
We went to Bancroft junior high and
Fairfax high school together. He was
a good BMX bike rider back then, before
he started to play guitar. We were at
the same schools between the ages of
maybe fourteen to seventeen, something
like that. He looked similar back then
- although his hair was a little bit
shorter.
Did you know Scott Weiland before he
joined Velvet Revolver?
Yeah. I'd known Scott for about fifteen
years. He was in a band that kind of
became Stone Temple Pilots. That band
and my old band used to play together
all the time. My band was Electric Love
Hogs, his band was Mighty Joe Young.
Your first impressions of him?
I can honestly say Scott was not the
singer he is now, not even in Stone Temple
Pilots. In Mighty Joe Young - from what
I remember, it's a little vague - it
was leaning toward a Red Hot Chili Peppers
kind of thing. It was almost like the
music back then didn't give Scott the
right outlet. He's matured as a singer
a hell of a lot in Velvet Revolver.
Are Velvet Revolver trading on their
past, or are people thrusting the heritage
of GN'R and STP upon the band?
I remember seeing Slash
the day that he went to meet with Axl
and Duff and all the lawyers to quit
Guns N' Roses. I just happened to have
been at the dentist, and I had gone
into this bar next door to the dentist.
I was in there and Slash was in there,
and Geffen Records [GN'R's label] was
across the street. You know, Slash
has always been the guy that just wants
to play guitar. I said: "What's
going on? Why are you quitting Guns N'
Roses?" And he said: "It's
just so not about the music any more.
All I want to do is play guitar."
And Slash plays guitar every day - he's
the only guy in this band that walks
into his hotel room most days with a
guitar. That's part of why he's so great
- he's a musician, not just the rock
star from Guns N' Roses.
He's a musician. And that's all most
of us are. We're very stubborn, and we
want to prove ourselves. And we're certainly
not trading on the past.
