Revolver Sticks To Its Guns

Velvet Revolver called its 2004 debut album "Contraband," implying the dictionary definition of unlawful or prohibited trade.

In truth, theirs was more of a forgotten and discredited trade - swaggering hard rock, practiced by a supergroup formed out of the detritus of two of the biggest bands of the late '80s and early '90s. Glam metal gods Guns N' Roses provided guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum, while singer-lyricist Scott Weiland came from arena alt-rockers Stone Temple Pilots.

So maybe it's cheating a little bit to say that "Contraband," which opened at No.1 on the Billboard charts and has sold close to 2 million copies, is the fastest-selling debut ever in America. After all, this was a new band with a lot of history, featuring alumni from the most hedonistic band of the '80s and fronted by the most famous rehab rocker of the '90s, making what sounded like last-chance music - loud, angry, dangerous and powerful.

"It's so natural," Weiland says. "We don't try; nothing's contrived. This just happens to be a group of guys who do what we do and everything happens to come out that way. It's a kind of vibe you just don't see anymore. It must have been what people saw when they saw the Rolling Stones in the '70s. But it's a whole new millennium. We're kind of like 'Sticky Fingers' on steroids!"

Velvet Revolver's rise is phoenix-like because its feeder bands had consumed its members, along with gargantuan amounts of illegal drugs and alcohol. Legend, and publicity, herald a dozen near-deadly drug overdoses among the band's now-clean-and-mostly-sober members. The other major problem had to do with actually making music. Guns N' Roses released only three albums between 1987 and 1993, and in the mid-'90s, slightly loco singer Axl Rose disappeared under the weight of the infamous "Chinese Democracy" album, now a decade in the making and still with no release date in sight. A frustrated Slash, who has not spoken to Rose since 1996, formed Snakepit, and McKagan and Sorum the Neurotic Outsiders (with Sex Pistol Steve Jones and Duran Duran's John Taylor).

But the guitarist and the Gunners' rhythm section hadn't played together for years before performing at a memorial service for latter-day Motley Crue drummer Randy Castillo in March 2002. At the time, Slash was looking to form a band with Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman and was auditioning bassists.

"But when I hooked up with Matt and Duff again, I thought, 'Why am I spending all my time doing this when everything I'm looking for is right here?' " Fifth wheel and second guitarist Dave Kushner, formerly of Wasted Youth, has been Slash's pal since junior high.

According to Slash, "the Guns N' Roses split was so (expletive) distasteful but it had nothing to do with those guys. It was between myself and Axl and, inevitably, everybody else. For years, we'd subconsciously avoided being seen in any kind of spotlight as 'Guns N' Roses Without Axl' or any Guns N' Roses-like thing. When we finally did walk into a room after six years, it was pretty much water under the bridge, and it felt so good that we just did it."

What they also did was start casting about for a singer. Slash says, "Scott was the first guy I thought of because he has this great Jim Morrison-David Bowie-Alice Cooper-John Lennon rock voice - he's really got a chameleon thing going. I'd never met him or seen an STP concert, I'd only heard him on the radio, but he was the first guy that came to mind when we made a very short list of well-known singers."