Features: Velvet Revolver: Hit Men
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Talking from his Southern California home on a "beautiful day," Saul Hudson emits an air of relaxation that is both friendly and disturbing. Saul Hudson, of course is better known as Slash of Guns N' Roses and, most recently, Velvet Revolver. But as he reflects on the phone about his old band, preparations for the new addition to his household (he and wife Perla Ferrar are awaiting the summer birth of their second child), and his first tour with his new band, he sounds like a Saul Hudson kind of guy.
Meanwhile, Scott Weiland is missing. Not missing in an Amelia Earhardt way or anything, but in a way that has his public relations crew sounding a little like White House staffers on the day of a book release. "Yeah, we can't seem to track down Scott," they answer glibly and a little nervously, suggesting that the "boys will be boys" leash we usually give Scott Weiland's ilk may not be currently applicable. Scott Weiland, of course, is a junkie. A very famous junkie who was the lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots and is currently teaming up with Velvet Revolver, but a recovering junkie nonetheless whose very safety and existence are tested when people can't "track him down."
Indeed, the game has changed dramatically for two of the architects of some of the '80s and '90s most innovative and popular hard rock and their union provides an eloquent snapshot of the very fine line between living and simply surviving in the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. And just as Scott Weiland can't simply disappear anymore, Velvet Revolver cannot simply release their first record, Contraband (RCA), without a veritable onslaught of questions about its past, present, and imminent future.
But as he awaits the arrival of his second son (London was born in 2002), Slash sounds like the rock 'n' roll child -- giddy with possibility. "It was just a case with this record that everybody was on the same page as far as what we wanted to end up with," he relays of the formation of the band's sound. "And I think that it was just getting back to having fun in rock 'n' roll. You know, Duff [McKagan], Matt [Sorum], and I had been through the whole Guns N' Roses thing and trying for the millionth time to make that work. And I think that Scott was at the same point with STP where if they weren't officially broken up then it was pretty close to it. I think that we all just wanted to leave all of the bullshit behind and get down to having fun playing rock 'n' roll again, you know?"
If the former jobs of Slash, Sorum, McKagan, and Weiland raise expectations and sonic possibilities, Contraband seems intensely focused on eliminating the word 'supergroup' and all of the bloated and/or watered-down music that it implies from listeners' lips. A dark, often-ferocious set of 13 tracks, the record is an intimate look at the members' first instincts; a careening, slightly punky drive through rock's back streets. And for better or worse, Weiland is at the wheel.
"The magic really started the day that Scott walked in. I mean, up to that point we had spent about a month and heard about 300 singers and it was all just really bad," laughs Slash when he remembers the open call for a vocalist that was documented by VH1 for an upcoming special. "When Scott came on he just seemed to have the grasp of the music and a direction lyrically that nobody else seemed to have a clue about."
Slash quickly shed his other rock star responsibilities. "Well I was working on another project at the same time that this all started to come together and I had to call those guys back and explain to them that, you know [laughing], 'Hey guys, this thing has kind of come up.' I did that for about two weeks and then I realized that this was going to take off."
Rewinding a bit, the foundations for a post GN'R band initially were set in 2002 when Slash, McKagan, and Sorum played together at a benefit for friend/musician Randy Castillo. "There was still something very powerful and intense between us," recalls Slash of the night. The trio linked forces with Dave Kushner, a high school friend of Slash's and alum of Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs, Suicidal Tendencies, and Dave Navarro's band and the often-brutal search for a lead singer was on. "There were so many fucking variations on the same theme," laughs Slash now, "and all of them wrong."
While the musical foundation of the band was beginning to be set via countless jam sessions and conversations regarding the band's direction, the induction of Weiland into Velvet Revolver seemed like the band pointing an actual gun at its own head: perhaps ultimately destructive, but thrilling in the meantime. Weiland wasted no time in hijacking Contraband and making it his own thematic theater through a marriage of the band's new brand of speed metal and his own tales of the dark side. "It was kind of funny how much our ideas kind of meshed, really," says Slash of the early exchanges between band and lead singer.
Rock star membership has its privileges and the band was able to land a song ("Set Me Free") on the soundtrack for The Hulk. A subsequent gig at El Rey in Los Angeles helped the group realize that it had a tiger on its hands in regards to playing live. "We fucking rocked, man. I'm not going to lie to you."
Fueled by essentially a massively released demo and some confidence onstage together, the band quickly got down to work. "We had given Scott about 60 songs, a lot of shit really to listen to," relays Slash. "He was able to connect immediately to about 15 tracks, all instrumentals, and that was pretty encouraging as far as trying to figure out how the creative process was going to go."
Where it went was through the rather hellish year that had seen Weiland go through a divorce and continue his struggle to kick a heroin habit that at one time had reached three grams a day . . .
--Marty Behm
For the full interview, pick up the June print edition of Illinois Entertainer magazine -- available throughout Chicagoland.
I kind of sort of looked to see if this had been posted yet, but didn't see it. I still haven't mastered the board's search function. It would be cool if somebody could get the rest of the article.
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