Velvet Gold Mine

Deaths, Rehab, Freak outs... Yep, the making of Velvet Revolver's second album was business as usual. But are their hearts and souls in it, or is the 'Supergroup' schtick just a way of separating us from our money?

"We are really careful to protect this as a band, it's not a platform for me and Slash, as much as there are people who try to make it out to be that way. It's a rock 'n' roll band and that is what's so great about it - because there aren't that many great, grand rock 'n' roll bands anymore."

Velvet Revolver are on a roll again, and so is their flamboyant, combustible, more-than-occasionally-self-destructive lead singer Scott Weiland, dressed in smart/casual rock designer chic, eyes enveloped by a pair of Bono-esque fly shades, in one hand he clutches a pack of Camels, in the other a tin of old-school lozenges. Constantly alternating between sucking and smoking, he approaches each of our questions with caution - like a blind man in a dark tunnel manoeuvring each step to avoid potholes or, in this case, any chance of a critical backlash.

VR guitarist Slash has been waiting for this since the bands inception: "I've always had a strong feeling that from the beginning everybody wanted to really hate us," He sighs. "it just seemed that anybody who had a pad with a pen was conspiring to a negative experience regardless of the fact that people were coming to gigs and having a good time. We were getting a lot of attention but it felt like people wanted some kind of drama. It's not a big deal: I've been through that before."

There's no doubt that VR have courted controversy from the get go. Spawned from rock royality and featuring a frontman who's private life makes Pete Doherty's look like cover material for Ideal Homes [a UK mag], they seemd to arrive on the scene with more baggage than you'd find at Heathrow airport's lost property department. And the drama continues: during the recording of the new album both Scott's and drummer Matt Sorum's brothers died within days of each other. Both fatalities were coincidently and tragically drug related. Even more recently, Weiland hit the headlines of the gossip columns after an altercation with his wife who - in a bizarre reversal of roles - destroyed a hotel room and set fire to Scott's wardrobe (this was eventually blamed on a bi-polar disorder).

In the midst of all this choas Velvet Revolver have managed to rehearse, record and master their second album, Libertad, in a matter of months - approximately the amount of time it would take one of Axl Rose's recording engineers to brew a pot of tea. To there ears it's of far superior quality to its predecessor. More solid, organic and cohesive, Weiland sounds like he's definitely got his feet under the table: his presence and unique vocal styling give the group the egde and melody that would be missing if they had hired a more pliable, down home vocalist (like, say John Corabi). As Slash admitted: "Had I known that it would have taken someone as complex as Scott to be in the band when I was auditioning singers, then I probably would have been too intimidated to try. There is alot of shit going on but, again, it isn't anything I haven't seen before. "And lets face it, we could have got someone else who wasn't as capable, and squeaky clean, and it would have been boring."

Classic Rock is in LA for a head-to-head with three of Velvet Revolver's main players - namely Scott, Slash and Duff McKagan - where we managed to cover a varierty of topics, including a last minute change of producer, GNR ....and of course, Drugs, Junkies and Whores.

Let's start off with the new album, Rick Rubin was meant to produce it but he was replaced by Brendan O'Brien. What happened?

Duff: We need to go back a bit before that, We had come off the road after touring for 18 months. I don't care who you are, if you're five guys on the road that long you are going to get sick of each other. So we took some time off and it was hard getting started again. We don't talk alot. We don't talk about Music, We don't talk about Business, anything like that. What we do well is play music and we kind of forgot that. Once we got in one room again it was all good. So then Rick Rubin comes around and he wanted to do the record and we said: "We're ready to go." He said "Great", so we picked a rehearsal space that he really liked, he showed up about a week later and said: "I'm going on vacation - you need to write some more songs." four or five weeks pass and we find out he wasn't on vacation, he was working with U2. He came back - and by this point we had about 50 songs - and told us to write more songs. When a guy like Rick Rubin comes along and says "Write more songs", you begin to doubt yourself.

Slash: I've known Rick for a long time and I don't want to disrespect him, but his way of working was too slow. Rick had about four different projects going at the same time - one mnute it's U2, then Metallica, and then Linkin Park - and he kept telling us to write songs, We're pretty diligent, we have alot of intergrity when it comes to songwriting. After a few months working with Rick we started to get a little disinterested. At some point there was a business glitch and that raised a red flag and we said: "y'know there's other producers out there..." That's when Brendan's name came up.

Scott: We needed somebody to get into the frontlines with us. We had to move forward and get off the fence. We had to make a decision because the fence post was sticking up our asses. We called Brendan O'Brien and it just so happened that a project he was on [Bruce Springsteen] fell through the day before. He was with us a few days later and that's when things took on a life of their own.

Is it true that Libertad was initially going to be a concept album?

Duff: That was a comment made by Scott, He had that idea. But it was even before we wrote the songs. We had the title of the record before we even started recording, which was something new to us.

Scott: I've made nine records including this one and I didn't want to make just another rock record. So initially I had an idea that I wanted to make a concept album but, as we started writing, the market place got littered with concept albums and so we scrapped that idea. But along the way some things happened on a personal level that were pretty heavy for me and some of the guys. things also happened on a global level, I've never been a person who's politically overt in the songs I write. On past records I was consumed with my own state of being, being a heroin addict for a long time took up a lot of writing space. So after three and a half years of not having to worry about being a junkie [it] freed up alot of space in my notebook. Since then, when listening to the final mix on headphones, I've come to the conclusion that without trying to make a concept record there is actually a theme throughout the record, it's about the undeniable search for freedom, the eternal struggle, and that theme rings out in every song. I think fans probably wouldn't expect some of the different directions and sounds from the guys that used to be in GN'R. All we did was drop the various influences and have the balls to put them on record.

Did the sucess of your first record, Contraband, mean there were external pressures with this album?

Scott: No, actually it was quite the opposite. I think to sell three million albums regardless of who we are individually is quite a feat these days, it doesn't happen very often. With this record I think we all felt a complete sense of freedom and daring and I believe that allowed us to push even further.

Slash: They call it the sophomore jinx. I think because there's a certain amount of collective arrogance with us that we refused to accept that. But at the same time, because we couldn't get our shit together to get in the studio to do the record, it was sort of like this distant black cloud the fuckin' second record thing. But we refused to believe it.

Duff: I never felt outside pressure. We're our worst critics. We're pretty brutal on each other. We're so insular when the whole writing process is happening, I don't even know what's going outside, working with Brendan, he thinks about the single and that kind of stuff. I don't know what makes a great hit, I've never figured out the fomula, I just grew up listening to great music.

With the recent demise of Audioslave are you wary of being labelled as a supergroup?

Duff: I though that about Audioslave when they got together and I’m sure people are thinking that about us. It doesn’t play into a band’s collective psyche. So long as the feeling is there… We don’t have this master plan to make three records and call it a day.

Slash: The supergroup thing... granted that’s an easy label to put in us. But we have no interest in being tagged with that. We had a lot of press when the first album came out and there were a handful of key questions that we got sick of, and that was one of them, I feel sort of vindicated that we’ve done another record and we’ve managed to grow over the course of time. Had we really been set in that ideology of being a supergroup that was created to sell a lot of records we probably wouldn’t have gone too far. We wouldn’t have had the creative tenacity to be able to hang on because it’s a lot hard work [laughs].

Scott: We all grew up as kids right around the punk rock thing, and having that as a major influence as to what we’re all about, that’s always cast a shadow on how you perceive your music. There are certain little idiosyncrasies that are attached to a massive rock band or supergroup that I cringe at. The thing with STP is that we sold over 50 million records, GN'R have sold 70 million – there’s not much more commercial than that, but I think what enabled those bands to maintain a certain level of success is the integrity that there is in the music. It’s all about protecting protect your legacy. And that’s the same thing we do with Velvet Revolver.

There was a rumour that the band are not going to feature and GNR or STP songs in the show any more.

Slash: Okay, this is the deal, I did say that, but the way it came out is not necessarily what I meant. What I said was that as this point I’d rather not have to lean on those songs. It’s like Pete Townsend not wanting to smash his guitar every night. We originally did it when we first started because we didn’t have enough songs. We’ll still be playing those songs, but I don’t want to feel like we have to. And there’s not a whole lot of songs by either of those bands that we feel comfortable doing.

Looking at it from a fan’s point of view, how would you feel if you went to see a band and they didn’t play any of your favourite songs?

Slash: I don’t know… I feel there’s enough strength in the new record that we can do all that and get to the end and then maybe do a Doors song [laughs] . I’m not trying to erase my legacy with GNR.

Talking of which, this year is the 20th anniversary of Appetite For Destruction. Any comment?

Duff: it’s an awesome legacy to have, it’s hard to believe that we were 21 when we wrote those songs. That was a big part of my life, but it was just a part of it. I remember some of it – I don’t remember a lot of it, it gives me something extra when we play the world – people know me, we didn’t reinvent the wheel we just happened to be connected to punk rock and the 70s Nazareth thing. It was a weird mixture of things that a whole generation latched on to.

Slash: It’s something that the record company’s not recognised. There’s no new special release.

How do you feel about that?

Slash: That’s record companies, fuck ‘em, I care, but what are we going to do? I don’t deal with those people any more. I’m sure Axl wanted to do something but nothing came out of it.

Have you heard any of Chinese Democracy?

Slash: No, I’m sure it’s got some amazing shit on it cos I know Axl and what he’s capable of. So I’m interested to hear it, but patient enough to wait until he figures it out. Because I don’t have anything to do with it. It’s easy for me to say that [laughs].

Slash, you’ve recently been to rehab and cleaned up your act right?

Slash: Yeah, I’ve actually been clean for about 10 months, so we’ll see how long that lasts [laughs]. I don’t really get into talking about it that much. One of the catalysts was I was having problems at home, problems with my wife because she has a problem. And we came from two different problems. And there was all this bullshit with the band, toward the end of the tour I was drinking bottle of wine after bottle of wine, cos I know how to do that [laughs].

So at one point my wife came to the conclusion that she needed to go to rehab. So when she went I knew when she came out I was going to have to go, because that was the only way we could sort things out. So while she was gone I went on a fuckin’ smack binge. Well it was Oxycontin – it’s easy stuff, you get it from a doctor so you don’t have to deal with dealers and all that shit. That went on for a couple of months, then I went into rehab and got some clarity.

Being loaded worked for me in the early days but nowadays I cannot be effective or as convincing to anybody stoned, I guess it just doesn’t fly anymore [laughs]. Sometimes the idea of having a drink sounds nice but I know it won’t stop at that. And the whole smack thing – I knew when I was doing it, it was wrong. No matter what anyone tells you, trying to do a world tour with a heroin habit has got to be one of the most excruciating things ever.

How does being sober sit with the image you project – the rock ‘n’ roller with a bottle of Jack Daniels?

Slash: I don’t know, There's a part of me that's used to hiding behind that stuff because I’m not necessarily the most outspoken person. So that was my crutch. As far as image goes, I don’t know how important that is. Worrying if I could be creative without dope wasn’t an issue because when I was working I made sure it was just a couple of drinks and that was it. I’ve written some great stuff smacked out but not the majority of it.

Finally, do you feel that you’ve grown up as a band and worked through your various personal problems?

Scott: Yeah, defiantly I mean it was like that from the beginning. That was one of the main reasons that I joined a band again. I would not have joined the band if they weren’t a bunch of junkies and whores, no matter how successful they could have been, cos those are the only types of people that understand me and have my back.

- Libertad by Velvet Revolver is out july 3rd and is reviewed in next months Classic Rock.