Velvet Revolver Biography

Velvet Revolver is everything the band's name suggests and much more. This is modern rock with a sense of danger and beauty that has been missing much too long. Your actual explosive debut effort, but beautiful smuggling a place to start a new band of brothers combined, Rock & Roll is a legendary story, and suddenly brighter future.

"We all seek rebirth here," says singer Scott Weiland. "We're trying to get back the same feeling we had when we were all starting to make music -. sense to do it for pure enjoyment for music and how the whole idea that got us in this raped and Sodomized . We all make in mourning are over, and if we get something back could. As it turned out that the only way everything would again have been the beginning, all new. Now we have the opportunity, and that's great. This music is just vicious, very aggressive and it forces you, your little shoes and prepare for a battle front. "


The idea of ​​Velvet Revolver is still strong. "There is no real concept for me," explains guitarist Slash. "We have decided to make music and we feel proud to play us -. music, people are happy when you think to also hear - probably wants to keep up with Jones or forging with someone other format - that is, if you use your card to lose so we just did what we do and try to get time to do this cool "..

Everything you've heard about Velvet Revolver is true. There is a band that brings together three former members of one of the greatest rock bands Guns N Roses' - Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum - together with one of the most charismatic rock frontman Scott Weiland, former Stone Temple Pilots, and guitarist Dave Kushner , ex-Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs and Dave Navarro band, among others.

While Velvet Revolver inevitably offers a few echoes of the famous former members, their sound is defiantly forward and truly fresh in all senses of the word. "Our music is very aggressive," says Duff. "It is always" F * ck the item. It's really all I know how it goes. We can not play nice or play radio. Slash, Matt and I was always so for weapons, and Scott and Dave. very like-minded people for me this is the first dangerous band that has for some time -. really dangerous people will say, 'Oh, a supergroup These guys have everything .. "And I understand that, but do not come this way. I really hope to bring some chaos in the world of rock."

"That's the real deal," says Matt Sorum. "It's all war, all of us."

Slash, McKagan and Sorum together, play for a benefit / tribute to his friend and fellow musician Randy Castillo in 2002. Buzz play together again, three thoughts. "There was something very powerful and intense between us," says Slash.

"The chemistry has never gone away," says McKagan.

Sensing enough time had passed since the connected less than pleasant departures from Guns N ', the trio with Kushner - a high school friend of Slash, Duff, who played with in recent years. "It's our secret weapon," says Duff. "She plays amazing textures and he can handle himself with Slash." After a few false starts with other musicians, they decided to try four or unusually open call for a new front person.

Documented by VH1 cameras for the upcoming special, this process proved to be a slow and sometimes painful. "We heard so many different singers and every singer lent itself to a different atmosphere," says Sorum. Unfortunately, the oscillations are generally not as good. "Once we learned that people send voice, we knew we were in trouble," remember, Sorum. "And we knew that we did not just get a little tired rock free. It should be something special."

"There were so many variations on this theme," says Slash. "And it all wrong."

As Dave Kushner remembers,.. "The experience really was brutal, it was nothing to laugh about it except that I go out and play with these guys five days a week It's really sad and frustrating but the end was because all of them. those moments that we spent with, we went to a lot of different places musically. It seemed as if we were to kill, but we were really building the foundation. "

Fortunately, the great singer search going on Duff was a lot of time socially with Weiland, then still with Stone Temple Pilots.
"I was a little bit at the end of my rope, mentally and emotionally with STP at the time, although we actually made a bit since our last explosion," Weiland says. "Duff told me that he got together with Slash and Matt and Dave Kushner also played. Now I know Dave years, because in Electric Love Hogs, which are used on bills with when STP was known as Mighty Joe Young, game was. And I was a big fan of guns. Appetite For Destruction had the same effect on me as Never Mind the Sex Pistols mess, Nirvana's Nevermind and Jane's Addiction Nothing's Shocking. appetite was one of the plates, I think, has my Bible and taught me everything. "

For Weiland, the idea of ​​joining forces with this quartet proved tempting. Then when Slash was some music from a CD, the boys have been recording, Weiland impressed. "There were like fifteen songs from the sixties, that I really could not wrap your head around," recalls Scott. "I thought if we went that direction, then we could have five animal that would be completely lethal and indestructible."

With Weiland, the project was live band. "This guy survived," says Matt. "Where we were, as a musician - and the kind of frontman we were in all these years - it's pretty hard for any guy to increase immediately and must be in a position to the next guy like Slash or Duff meet these guys are rock stars . in their own right. frontpage of this band, we needed someone who is outside and we are one. "

"I thought that there are some great rock frontman," says McKagan.

He adjusted quickly to five works. "We recorded a song for Hulk (" Set Me Free "), but the only way to find out whether you really want a band to the concert can be made possible," says Scott. "So we take a concert at the El Rey [in Los Angeles] in June and answered all questions. It was more than any time in the studio or hang. It was undisputed, and the most sonically violent thing I was ever part. Singing "It's so easy" [from Appetite For Destruction] with the guys at the El Rey was fantastic. When I say "Sex Type Thing," wrote [from STP's debut album], it was a bit inspired, sing low, "It is so simple. "



For Slash, "We were like a bunch of kids who have learned how to play the same chord together. That's what it was, as always, when we do something together. We are thrilled with how" Hey, we písen ' 'Hey, we wrote a concerto played, "Maybe that's why it works -. Because we are actually the opposite of tired!"

But for all the good will of Velvet Revolver start was not always easy, especially the late frontman publicly through some personal turmoil. "It was very tough year for me," says Scott. "The whole thing divorce really leave me keyhole emotionally so I fell back on the narcotic slide and pay had. But the guys there to catch my fall. She was like a gang. And it helps that" all have a million times, so there are no judgments. Everyone was drugs, so it's not like I lonely addict in the group, or am I the only one to which it is dig to three grams of heroin per day despite all the problems I've been through, white, all were there, is I want it more than ever -.. more than I have ever experienced before. "

"We went through a lot of things, with Scott," Duff says. "We have him in the mountains of Washington State to come, and he learned martial arts and learn to live differently. Whatever happens, he has some other tools that did not have before."

"I feel that Scott is still struggling in some areas, but it's all meant to be," says Matt. "At least we hope that this strong positive influence - and he knows where we were all in rock and roll joy -. We will pull together through this"

Early in its development, released the group the song "Set Me Free" for Hulk soundtrack and recorded a cover version of "Money" by Pink Floyd for the next film, The Italian Job. When it came time to sign an agreement and decided their first album, the band RCA in part because the interest of Chairman Clive Davis. "Clive actually flew here and courted us, and he watched us practice together with his little band," Slash says. "It was very flattering, because it's like an icon, and he has so long, and can really learn something."

He decided it was time for Velvet Revolver, that the objectives and their first album.

Smuggling is a rock & roll song cycle with an eclectic range and Sonic nervousness. It is rock-hard headphones classic for a new generation, which affects the player of the Beatles and rejected for obvious reasons a little Guns N 'Roses and Stone Temple Pilots reflects, too.

After sampling, the number of selected manufacturers of Velvet Revolver, go with Josh Abraham, co-produced the album with them. "Josh was a lot for us a new face," says Matt. "We went out and we tried other producers and we tried to the best of the old school, but we needed to go in another direction, we need young, fresh and modern elements together -.. Whatever it is, that we wanted to compete, and would, we are now represented. "

"If the work is important, and Josh and the people with whom we worked on this album, it feels effortless," says Slash. "She has it felt like we are."

"If we sounded smooth, we are a little more than half of its over-produced super rock band," says Duff. "But it was just a rock band and the album growl, as if we live to play together."

Music came into sharp focus when Weiland added his deeply felt, deeply personal lyrics to the mix. "In short, this whole album is for me a lot of poisonous, toxic relationship, where I was, and the devastating consequences of my fate, and the subsequent divorce has on me," said Scott. "It's completely honest so if people relate, great."

Each song is about where I was in that situation, which in that day. As you say, a few days I have it better than others. This is the biggest effort I ever put on something. I have so much trouble in the first STP album, but now I know much more. "

The smuggling in the last days of 2003 is complete, Velvet Revolver now looks forward to an album in the spring 2004 issue of the leaves and heavy. "We can not wait," says Slash. "I look forward to the tour, I've never really end up with weapons. That's what I like, but we never do a lot of things, for reasons that still makes no sense. I just want to play."

"We go down into the ditch and play dirtbag clubs and want to play big stadiums," says Matt. "And that's how we always were. We are not expensive."

But ultimately, Velvet Revolver to not shoot past. It's about what you can do these five men together in the future. "You know, that all the options there," says Slash. "And we do not want to miss this time."