The origins of the supergroup Velvet Revolver began with drummer Randy Castillo who played
with Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford and Motley Crue among many others.
It would be his passing in the early 2000’s that brought one half of Guns N’ Roses and
one part of Stone Temple Pilots together with mixed results.
Velvet Revolver went from being one of the most highly anticipated bands of the 2000’s
to imploding on stage half a decade after their formation.
This is the story of Velvet Revolver.
Former Guns N’ Roses and The Cult drummer Matt Sorum was close friends with drummer
Randy Castillo.
Sorum would reveal in his autobiography that he was initially offered the job to fill in
for Tommy lee following his departure from motley Crue in the late 90’s.
It was around this time that Sorum’s old band The Cult reunited.
Sorum would turn down the offer instead suggesting Castillo for the job.
Castillo would play with Motley Crue on one record, but struggled with health issues dealing
with cancer until his death in 2002.
Sorum would organize a benefit show with his former Guns N’ Roses bandmates Slash and
Duff McKaganin in addition to Stevne Tyler, and Buck Cherry members Josh Todd and Keith
Nelson Sorum would recall how electric the gig was
and how the next morning he got calls from both Slash and Duff saying they should form
a band with the guys from Buck Cherry.
Within a few weeks though, Slash walked away from the band saying he was out.
He would tell Sorum he couldn’t work with singer Josh Todd, but Slash according to Sorum,
wasn’t the type of guy who could fire people so the drummer fired the singer and the group
soon became a quartet.Shortly afterwards Slash couldn’t work with Keith Nelson claiming
the guitarist just doubled whatever he was playing so Sorum fired him too.
. Accoding to Slash’s 2007 autobiography he would reveal the reason he couldn’t work
with Josh Todd saying “Josh’s voice was just too linear and grating, it was a distraction
from the music, not to mention just a tad off-key.”
Soon enough, former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin joined his old bandmates to
write some songs.
According to Slash’s book, izzy suggested the band be a quartet with himself and Duff
handling vocal duties and they would just play small clubs while doing a van tour.
The band didn’t entertain the idea and soon enough, Izzy split.
Duff would suggest a friend of his and high school mate of Slash named Dave Kushner to
be band’s new guitarist.
All they needed now was a singer.
The band would put out ads in music magazines and on radio holding open auditions for singers
for their unnamed project.
It would take the band almost a year before they settled on a singer.
It would turn that Stone Temple Pilots broke up around this time in 2003 and frontman Scott
Weiland was suddenly free.
Duff McKagan knew Scott previously and suggested the singer's name and had him come audition
for the band.
The band would record their first song with Weiland called Set Me Free.
The band’s manager got them a licensing deal with the Hulk movie in 2003 for a whopping
$1.6 million.
While the band was off to a good start, they still didn’t have a name.
They would throw around a couple ideas including Revolver, Dead Velvet Revolver before finally
settling on Velvet Revolver.
The band would be the subject of a bidding war between labels before finally signing
with Clive Davis’ RCA Records for a whopping 8.5 million dollars for 3 albums.
In what should have been foreshadowing of what was to come, Scott Weiland seemed like
a problem from the start.
Not helping things were the egos, bad management and lack of communication between the band
members.
Before the band secured a licensing deal with the Hulk, the band had to have a showcase
for the movie's producers.At that showcase Weiland showed up over an hour late under
the influence, but still performed well enough to get a movie deal.
When the band sat down to review their 8.5 million dollar contract offer, Scott showed
up last at the band’s rehearsal studio wearing a pin stripe suit with no shoes and a giant
gash on his forehead according to Sorum’s book.
Weiland would tell his bandmates that he got the gash on his head from playing squash.’They
all knew he was still using but still went ahead and signed the recording contract.
A few days after they signed the recording contract, Weiland was arrested for drug possession
jeopordizing the band’s chances of recording their debut album and touring on it
Weiland would be shipped off to rehab, but was still allowed to come back to the studio
in between to work on the group’s first album.
A police escort would have to accompany him between trips from rehab to the studio.
Having a police escort isn’t cheap and the band’s management decided to eat the cost
rather than have Scott pay for it himself.
The police escort cost the band around $500/per day per officer.
And as Velvet Revolver’s manager put it in sorum’s book “it’s just the price
of doing business with Scott Weiland.”.
Rehab seemed to do little to stop his out of control behavior though.
Sorum would recount in his book how Scott would go missing for days and Weiland would
dispute this claim, saying he was sober for his first several years of the band.
Somehow the band managed to miraculously finish their debut album titled Contraband and it
would come out in June of 2004 at the number one spot on the charts.
It would go on to sell over a quarter of a million units in its first week and the the
album was propelled by the singles Slither and Fall to Pieces, both of which topped the
rock charts in America.
The band would also go on to win a grammy for the song Slither, which was a first for
Duff, Matt and Slash if you can believe it, considering they were in Guns N' Roses..
Matt and Duff would recall the moment that made them feel like they had a new identity
in their career and it was when a fan came up to them and said ‘hey your matt and duff
from velvet revolver.’
Several months after the album came out, the band was in europe for a summer tour and trouble
was already brewing.
The band minus Sorum wanted to replace their existing manager and soon enough members had
different managers within the group creating communication problems.
On top of that, the band members wives were getting involved in the business affairs and
politics of the group.
Just like adding fuel to a fire, substance abuse started to creep in as well.
Matt Sorum broke six years of sobriety after learning of his dog’s death, while Slash
was off the wagon, in addition to Duff Mckagan and as well as Scott during the tour to support
the group's first album.
Sorum would look back at the band’s first tour revealing in his book
The tour lasted eighteen months, which was at least two months too long.
It really burnt us out, and by the time we got home, we didn’t even want to see one
another.
We actually didn’t meet for six whole months, and by the time we next hung out, Slash had
gotten hooked on heroin again, Duff had become a pill popper, and I was drinking as much
as I had been before rehab.
In other words, the guys who gathered in the studio I’d built out the back of my new
house in West Hollywood were total wrecks.
It was during this time the band enlisted producer Rick Rubin to work on their next
record, but creatively the band was grasping at straws.
Rubin would drop by the studio once a month and listen to the tracks the band was working
on and each time he’d leave unimpressed and tell them to keep writing.
Frustrated, Weiland would suggest producer Brendan O Brien who had worked with Stone
Temple Pilots.
Once O' brien came on board things started to proceed for the group’s next album, but
the band once again ran into a problem with Scott.
According to Duff Mckagan 2011 autobiography he would reveal that Scott wanted to be both
in Stone Temple Pilots who were reuniting at the time as well as Velvet Revolver and
while that wasn't a contentious issue with the band, the way he went about it was.
Weiland was being very secretive of a possibility of a Stone Temple Pilots reunion and didn't
even discuss it with his bandmates.
On top of that, Weiland insisted that he get to write all the lyrics for their sophomore
effort which Duff felt was a waste of everyone else's talents.
It was a concession the band made and Scott also wanted a bigger share of the publishing
rights since he would write the lyrics.
On top of that Scott’s brother died during the making of their second record and he slipped
deeper into substance abuse.
Their sophomore album Libertad got released in the summer of 2007, but the band’s underlying
issues were unresolved.
Despite the album receiving positive reviews, commercially it was a flop not even going
gold in America.
As Velvet Revoler hit the road to support the record, band meetings would result in
screaming matches according to McKagan’s book.
The bassist would blame bad business managers for appeasing Scott at every turn.
As the band continued to tour Weiland’s marriage fell apart and Scott’s performances
and behavior suffered severly.
During this time, it appeared scott’s relationship with Sorum got to the point where they almost
had full on fist fights.
Weiland would tell classic rock in 2008 ”Matt and I had come close to fist-fights so many
times that it’s ridiculous.
He had an attitude with lead singers.
It’s a problem he had before Revolver – in Guns N’ Roses and The Cult” he'd say.
A few months prior to Velvet Revolver split ,the magazine classic rock did a story on
the group.
The band was in the Middle East playing a show in Dubai and Classic Rock was doing a
piece about being on the road with the band, but you could tell from the article, that
there was major tension in the group.
By the time the article was being edited the news had broken that the band was done at
least with Scott Weiland.
The Article frequently asked the question were the f is Scott Weiland?
while the rest of the band are hanging out together.
Even within the article Slash even asks the interviewer when is the article coming out
and the reporter responds in may - to which Slash smiles and says well it should be very
interesting by May.
So even by that point in time it appeared that the band was going to fire Scott at some
point.
As showtime approached the article described how the members were ready to hit the stage
and Scott is nowhere in sight.
Several minutes before showtime, Weiland shows up at the last minute, doesn’t speak or
make eye contact with his bandmates and goes on stage.
Matt would remember in his book how he reached a boiling point with Weiland revealing
Like always, Scott turned up when he felt like it.
He was just like Axl in that respect, with the major difference that Axl usually sounded
incredible when he finally got up onstage.
Scott was drunk and high when he grabbed the mic that evening, and he sounded terrible"
he'd remember.
During one of the band's final gigs together in Glasgow Scotland in late March, Weiland
would tell the crowd that night the crowd that that night was going to be the last time
Velvet Revolver would be performing together and that the band was breaking up.
His bandmates had no idea he was going to make an announcement and the band had already
planned to fire him before the tour was over but Weiland beat them to the punch.
Velvet Revolver would play their final show in early April in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands
and the band would spend the next several years searching for a new singer but coming
up empty handed.
The band would reunite with Weiland for a one off gig for charity in 2012, but the band’s
pretty much dead since then.
With Slash and Duff reuniting with Axl Rose in 2016 and touring under the Guns N’ Roses
moniker over the last 4 years Velvet Revolver probably isn’t on the back of their minds.
Matt Sorum would even reveal in his book that since the reunion he doesn’t really talk
a whole lot with Slash and Duff.
saying and i quote
"Our friendship wasn’t the only thing that had ended—our twenty-eight-year musical
partnership was over too.
I wouldn’t be able to call Duff or Slash and ask if they wanted to play with
me.
The GNR machine had taken them back.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to rely on those guys any longer.
For the first time, I felt completely on my own" he'd say.
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