In the Dutch music magazine 'Oor' there is a Velvet Revolver article. I've translated the complete article, here it is;
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Is anybody still waiting for Chinese Democracy? I dont think so. It's an other world these days and there is one heck of a rockband in it which has 3/5 of the Guns N' Roses blood going through its veins.
VELVET REVOLVER7 Songs were written by ex Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum with Dave Kushner (ex-Wasted Youth and school friend of Slash) before Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland paid them a visit. When Scott delivered the lyrics for the music of Set Me Free they knew it, Scott was the frontman for whom they had been looking. A frontman with a drugs-problem maybe but hey, didn't Duff and Slash had that excessive past as well? And didn't they found 'peace' as well?
ParanoiaThe cooperation went smooth. With Scott in the role as a conductor/arranger/....... they guys quickly wrote the rest of a debut album in Scott's studio in Burbank. Contraband was eventually recorded within 3,5 weeks. It's a good, decent rockalbum without too many modern touches but it's not an old fashioned album either because especially Scott is too 'nowadays' for that. We didn't have to expect the urgency of Appetite For Destruction either cause they are experienced Rock & Roll animals aren't really hard up.
The expectations for a Velvet Revolver record weren't as big as for the a new Guns N' Roses record in the early 90's, nevertheless the band did feel the tention before the release of Contraband. Because the guys were afraid for illegal distribution of their music. One watermarked copy of the cd for each band member, more of them haven't left the safe of the record company. Slash: 'You remember, the Illusion albums? They were released on a perticular day, and everybody had big expectations. At midnight all the shops opened and there were lines of people waiting....Now it's totally different. The paranoia in the industry! And you don't have a choice really, you have deal with it. In 1999 and 2000 I was confronted with all possible musicbusiness shit you can think of, that was a pretty big hit for me (<=dunno if i translated that in the right way). Bad management, Guns N' Roses nagging, record companies who were turned up side down, people who I worked with were fired, new owners....Plus the rise of the internet of course. That was a 'huge fuckin' reality check' for an old fashioned rock guy as me, hehehe (Slash didn't change, well except for the fact that he gained some weight, lots of hair, sun glasses, T-shirt full of cartoon-ladies with big breasts, cigarettes within arm's reach, every 3rd word that rolls of his tongue is 'fuck').
Duff: 'Downloading and stuff, that's inevitable once the recored has been released of course. But important for us was that the end of the movie wasn't known already before the film premiere in the cinema. Not a few songs on the internet before the release. I mean everything fits in the puzzle with the bandmembers and we've worked really hard to get the album done and to make it to what it is now. And to just give away that work, to just leak it out, that was a miserable idea.' (Duff is tall and thin and with his suntanned skin looks parchment, his hair straw. His shirt colourfull and hangs far open. He talks a bit like Ozzy; sober, but it looks like if he talks with a 'double tongue'.)
GUNS N' SNAKEPITSlash: 'Guns N' Roses was of course one of the best things that could happen to us. It was a good rockband which completely stood for the time in which it rised. We wont deny that we were a part of that group, but Velvet Revolver has an own sound, enough to not label it as a Guns N' Roses or Stone Temple Pilots look a like band.
Duff: 'After Guns N' Roses we all walked our own ways, none of us wanted to slow down and do nothing.
Slash: 'Live on the old glory, pfft no.'
Slash has heard few bands after the start of Velvet Revolver that inspired him, Duff goes for Queens of the Stone Age.
Slash: 'Duff even is the official spokesman of Queens of the Stone Age.'
Duff:'Yeah I think they are great. I'm the biggest fuckin' "banner-waver" (<=no idea how to translate the word 'vaandelzwaaier'
) of the Queens. Anyway, my point is; in my eyes they stand the closest to what I want to see in a Rock & Roll band. Too bad that Nick [Oliveri] has left the band now. I mean he kinda was the wild card in the band, the most dangerous part. I haven't heard the Eagles of Death Metal yet.'
Slash: 'They did a show here right? Hmm I envy everybody who tours, I want to tour as well! That'll make me perfectly happy again. I konw that because it went just like that when I started with Snakepit. Thanks to that band I got to know again why I really like making music. That feeling faded away a bit with Guns N' Roses. It all had become a bit vague, the reality completely dissapeared out of sight. Then Snakepit came, a band with young lads who were still 'hungry'. I did a real promotiontour with them, with which I could play in every hall of the world, from clubs to stadiums. I sold a lot of records because of that. I reinvented myself as a rock & roll guitarist, I really liked what I was doing again. So when I finally came back to Guns N' Roses it was like a cold shower and so I finally chose for my own band. That experience influenced me as far as that I hold on to this band in an arrogant way. It's something I really beleive in. You know, ever since I started playing guitar people tried to steer me. Back then they already told me that I should choose for drums or bass because there were too many guitarists. It always stayed that way, people always gave me advices that opposed my feelings.
That's why I have the arrogant attitude; 'Snakepit strengthened me and made me beleive in myself.'
Duff: 'I think everybody explored their horizons like Slash did. We all went our own ways and wrote better songs, and we learned to appreciate each other more. The chemistry between me, Slash and Matt is so special, I've never had that with any other band. Not with Neurotic Outsiders, not with Loaded. And then Scott who just opens his soul...I think Velvet Revolver is a rock & roll band as honest as you can wish for'.
Slash: 'Determined is the word how to describe the cooperation between these people. From the moment we rehearsed, bam! There we go. Not much talking, we didn't do it back then and we still dont. The songs just kept coming, sometimes even 1 song on 1 day. I don't like those bands in which everything needs to be discussed anyway. Everybody is free in doing what he wants. If we do our thing together then it just sounds right. I recharge with the energy that I get from the others.