One of the planet’s most successful, hard-rocking supergroups, Velvet Revolver, announced on April 1st 2008 that they will be parting ways with lead singer and all-round nutcase Scott Weiland. With a hiatus announced, the group made up of ex Guns N’ Roses bods Slash, Duff McKagen, Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner as well as Weiland went their separate ways into the rock wilderness.
The split came as a result of a number of different shits hitting the fan, with the first one hitting at a show in Glasgow two months prior to the break. Weiland, announcing that it was to be the band’s last tour, sparked a media frenzy of reports that a bitter war of words had broken out between the singer and the rest of the band.
At the time of the announcement, Weiland said that the reason for his ‘band’s last tour’ speech was due to an obligation he had to his family to get off the road. Now, two years since the Glasgow show, Slash reveals the mental and physical state of the band, as well as the reason for their eventual destruction.
Slash, speaking to Spinner website during a promotion visit for his debut solo record, said, "Velvet Revolver was intended to be a lot of fun and we started off having a great time, but I think that we all had a lot of chemical issues as that thing wore on. I definitely went way down the f---ing drain for a minute there after the 'Contraband' record came out and we went on tour for two years."
It might have been a case of old habits die hard as most of the guys in Velvet Revolver went straight into self-destruct mode as soon as they hit the road for the support of Grammy award-winning album ‘Contraband’. Slash states that in order to keep the band together and retain that creativity, he had to pull himself as well as the rest of the group out their chemical spin in order to create the 2007 follow-up ‘Libertad’.
"During the 'Contraband' tour I started drinking heavily and revisited my opiate passion, then had to come out of it so eventually I had to say that's it. Certainly Scott had his issues, even Duff and Matt went down the same road. The only one that stayed sober during the whole thing was f---ing Dave Kushner," Slash said amused.
"We all eventually came out of it and made the 'Libertad' record, which I thought, musically, was a good record but we lost Scott and we never regained that. I thought the overall spirit of everything was declining at that point so by the end of the last tour Scott was here and we were here [motions with hands in different places] and cancelling that Australian tour was the final blow."
Even though the band and Weiland separated under bad feeling, Slash retains that the both he and Scott are still on good terms. "It's actually not that big a deal. He went straight back to Stone Temple Pilots, which was sort of planned -- he was going to do a summer tour with them anyway -- and now that he's back in there I'm sort of happy for him. I think STP actually belongs together. No matter how difficult it is, it seems to be their destiny to work out their shit.”
Continuing, Slash revealed that the split was nowhere near the severity of the Guns N’ Roses break down. "I still love the guy and there's not really any hard feelings about the whole thing. I even hung out with him recently. It's definitely not like the Guns N' Roses situation, which is f---ing deep and nasty, this is no big deal."
With the band taking the majority of 2008 and 2009 off to find a replacement for Weiland, the future of Velvet Revolver is far from over. Now, with Slash and other members of the band taking time-out to work on solo projects, according to Slash Velvet Revolver will return to start again sometime next year.
"We're going to reconvene next year, look at the singers again, and try to find the right guy to make the most bitchin' Velvet Revolver record," he says. "Oh yeah, Velvet Revolver still exists.”
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