http://www.slapmagazine.com/new_site/issues/6_05/velvet/Starting with the history of things, after Guns ?N? Roses broke up did you begin to starve for another band as big as Guns were?
When the band got real successful things got out of hand in an un-fun way. There were major drug habits and everybody got secluded from each other, and it was real hard to pull it all back together. Axl got so hard to deal with that those last few years of playing stadiums were not as much fun as people might have thought they were. What we used to do was bury our sorrows in alcohol, and it was a real fucking chore. When the (Use Your Illusion) tour ended the first thing that I did was I put together this band called Snakepit and went out and rediscovered doing clubs and playing in theatres with a band that really wanted to do it, and everybody had a great time. I have to be working, that?s sort of what almost keeps me alive, that?s like my oxygen. And it doesn?t have to be in a stadium band or anything like that but just being in a working situation with people that you like to work with and you have some chemistry with. Then the record company pulled the plug on that once I?d sold a certain amount of records and sent me back home to work on the Guns? record. I told them Axl was not ready to make a record, but no one wanted to listen. I went back and there was nothing going on, and it was really in my absence that it turned into this kind of surreal over-bloated rock star situation where we were using an expensive studio with expensive equipment and nobody was doing anything. So I quit the band and basically went on to start just gigging around all the time, because that?s what I love doing. I wasn?t making any money. I was just putting jam bands together, going and playing on people?s sessions, going up and jamming in clubs, fucking anywhere that I could go and play for years. So as far as Velvet Revolver?s concerned I was in the process of putting another band together for no other reason than to go out and play when Duff and Matt and I jammed for the first time for that benefit for Randy Castillo (Ozzy Osbourne?s drummer). Everything that I was looking for in a band was right there. So that?s how the three of us started. And Dave Kushner, who had been playing in Duff?s band (Loaded), came into it and I had known Dave since I was in junior high school. Instantly you have sort of a gang, which I think is the most important aspect of a rock and roll band; five guys who all think alike and back each other up. So while we were working on songs and looking for singers it wasn?t just to go back to being where Guns ?N? Roses left off?because that was a nightmare. It was just to have a really good band and have a really good time and then just go out and do what we can do, make a record and tour. You want it to be successful in the sense that you hope people like the record and you can go and play in front of an audience and that they like the show, but that?s pretty much where the real motivation stops. With this band it?s sort of cool to have enough experience and perspective to keep the really important things close to you and not to focus too much on the stuff that?s not necessarily important. If the day comes and the band gets really big, that?s great. But at least hopefully with this band given the collective experience of all these different guys we?ll know how to handle that a lot better, not to mention a lot of other fucking pitfalls along the way that we?ve all been through.
So when Scott Weiland first walked in and sang with you guys for the first time he just fit right in?
Well, yeah. When it was Duff, Matt, Dave and myself we wrote a bunch of instrumental stuff. Then the time came when it was like, ?Okay, now we should start looking for a singer,? and Scott was the first guy that came to my mind. I?d never seen STP, didn?t own a record and I?d never met the guy, but I knew his voice from songs on the radio and I always thought he had the coolest voice. Given that he was in STP still we then spent the next nine months listening to other singers and auditioning, and then we found out that he wasn?t in STP anymore and that he was interested in coming down. The first day that he walked in he just fit in right away. When we first started working on a couple songs together we just had that seamless kind of interactive connection, which is hard to find. Then there was the whole thing about, well, he?s got a drug problem. After everything I had seen in my time?and especially in dealing with my old band?this was something tangible, a problem that you can rectify. So he made a commitment to try and do that and to want and continue working with us, and vice versa. We just knew that it was worth it to do it and he was the fucking guy and that was it.
How have the live shows been?
When we played at the El Rey Theatre (VR?s first show June 2003) it was the first time I had ever seen Scott live let alone play live with him. I?d already played with Duff and Matt and I?d seen Dave play so I knew that this would be an awesome band, but there was that question mark with Scott. So when we got on stage we had this fucking amazing energy where everything was connected, and that?s when I knew that no matter what this is an amazing live band. Knowing that every time we go step out on stage that we?re the kind of rock and roll band nobody ever sees but also the kind of rock and roll band that is totally relentless and unforgiving and fucking goes out there and does its thing. So that?s how I know that this band is great, because people keep showing up.
Do you think that people were dying for a genuine rock band around the time that Velvet Revolver started?
Kids now only have so many years to go back on to listen to cool bands. If you?re 15 in the year 2005 you?re only going back to 1990, that?s all the music you?ve really grown up with. There are no fucking real rock and roll bands. The only thing that they have is from 1990 to like 1995, and that?s it. Everything since then has been some sort of fucking hip-hop, heavy metal, nu-metal crap. So for kids coming to see us right now there?s this whole enigma about rock and roll bands that came out before they were even old enough to go and see them, bands like STP and Nirvana, and before that Guns ?N? Roses and stuff like that. So for us, I think the reason that we draw so many kids is because the music is old school rock and roll, but it still sounds new enough to fit in. It could have been just a mish mosh of STP fans and G ?N? R fans, but we have all these kids anywhere from 13 to whatever. What surprises me is the 13- to 19-year-olds that are pretty much like the mainstay at our gigs. I think a lot of it has to do with, yeah, they like the music, but there?s this whole fucking thing about rock and roll bands before they were old enough to see them. I think in the next two- to five-years it should be a pretty interesting thing to see how rock evolves. I?m feeling like there?s a movement coming but when you?re in the middle of it, it takes a lot longer than it does when you?re on the outside. The cool thing now is at this point kids come up on the street and actually recognize ?There?s Slash from Velvet Revolver,? as opposed to ?Slash from Guns ?N? Roses.? I haven?t been in that band for so long; it gets a little old.
People just don?t want to forget it.
Yeah. I mean, it?s something I wear on my sleeve and I?m very proud of, but at the same time it?s cool to be recognized for doing something current.
Did you feel like you had to do something different on guitar with this band and on the album?
I didn?t feel like I had to do anything different on guitar other than hope that between whenever it was that I started playing until now that I?ve progressed as a player. When we were doing the Contraband record sometimes I would try out a different amp, or this, that and the other, but it?s pretty much my main gear that I?ve been using all the way since 1980 or whatever. It was the same Les Paul guitar and maybe a different Marshall, but a Marshall nonetheless. I?m still sort of holding a lead guitar player torch at this point. I love doing it, man. I was up until six o?clock this morning working on something and I put the rhythm guitar on down, but then I put the guitar solo on, and it?s like that?s what I do. I?m a lead guitar player. I?ve stuck to my guns and I guess I?ve just been myself through this whole thing.
Rumor has it that you met Steven Adler while skateboarding at your junior high school in Hollywood?
I was a BMX guy but Steven was on a skateboard and I came up in that whole period when all my friends were either skaters or bikers. But when I saw that this was for a skater magazine on my day sheet for today the cool thing is that in the heyday of when Tony Alva was real popular and all those guys, we just started taking bicycles into skate bowls and into the pools. We were all connected. So when Dogtown was really happening it was like a whole subculture into itself, and then there was this big BMX thing and they were interconnected. We used to hang out a lot together, the whole skate scene and all those kids; I was friends with them. So that?s what I was doing all the way up until I started playing guitar. Then all the sudden I just fucking clicked over to guitar. It?s cool too, because I keep up with all that kind of shit because still I?m fascinated with what kids have done with skateboards, where they?ve taken gravity and done something with it that is just amazing. It?s come so fucking far.
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