It's GNR with
a little STP
VELVET REVOLVER: ROCK'S BAD BOYS ARE BACK
... FROM REHAB
By LIISA LADOUCEUR, SPECIAL TO THE TORONTO
SUN
VELVET REVOLVER wasn't designed as a
supergroup. It's just that when half
your band is rock royalty, you can't
give the crown to a clown. That is
why, when former Guns N' Roses members
Duff McKagan, Slash, and Matt Sorum
needed a singer for their new band,
they chose Stone Temple Pilots' superstar
frontman Scott Weiland.
"We listened to a lot of singers.
We didn't consider any of them," says
bassist McKagan, on the phone from his
hometown, L.A. "When Slash and Matt
and I got together, we said we weren't
going out unless it was amazing. There's
a pedigree we have. We can't just be okay.
We knew we'd find the right guy."
Scott Weiland was that guy, they decided.
The fact that Weiland suffers from a well-publicized
drug addiction, which has landed him in
and out of rehab and court, was not a problem.
The problem was that he was already in
a band. And so, the three musicians with
reputations bigger than Sunset Strip hairdos
circa 1985 went looking for a real rock
singer. They struck out.
Still, on the GNR name alone, they were
asked to contribute music for films The
Hulk and The Italian Job. Just then, Stone
Temple Pilots broke up.
"I called Scott and told him we had
these two soundtracks and he said, 'Tell
me when to be there,' " says McKagan. "The
moment he walked in, we knew he was the
first real guy. A lot of guys come in and
see Slash and can't take it, but he swaggered
in, and wasn't intimidated by us. It was
perfect."
For their part, the band wasn't intimated
by Weiland's addiction.
Having recovered from substance abuse
themselves, and having worked with notorious
egomaniac Axl Rose in GNR, they can handle
anything.
"Scott's a piece of cake compared
to Axl," says McKagan, laughing. "He's
one of the fellas. A lot of people freaked
out that we got a singer with a drug problem.
Really, Slash and I, our problems were
10 times worse."
Velvet Revolver's debut album, Contraband
(out June 8) sounds like what you'd expect:
GNR topped with STP. But mashing two great
rock bands together doesn't automatically
equal brilliance. (See: Audioslave.)
McKagan says the veterans were determined
to inject Velvet Revolver with a sense
of danger, and for the most part, they
succeeded. Recorded in just under three
weeks, the disc is loud, rife with big
riffs and unabashed solos on standouts
like Big Machine and Do It For The Kids.
It's not revolutionary, but it rocks hard.
Lyrically, Contraband bleeds with Scott's
honest accounts of life as a broken man
dealing with divorce through drugs. It
seems like an eerie sequel to Alice In
Chain's 1992 disc Dirt. Thankfully, there's
hope that Weiland won't suffer the same
fate as Alice singer Layne Stanley, who
died of an overdose in 2002. Contraband
is playful, not despairing, with a relieving
sense of redemption.
Clearly though, Weiland is still at risk.
To shoot the video for Contraband's first
single, Slither, the singer required a
day pass from rehab. In the clip, designed
to mimic Parisian catacombs, Weiland appears
frighteningly skeletal. Still, a Velvet
Revolver tour is a go, including a sold-out
show at Toronto's Kool Haus Friday.
"Scott's come a long way," says
McKagan. "He's got his family back.
He's very grateful. So it'd be hard for
me to imagine him doing anything to shoot
himself in the foot. He doesn't want to
let us down, he's going to do everything
in his power to make this work."
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