Velvet Revolver operated on a simple concept: Take the best parts of Wasted Youth, Guns N’ Roses, and Stone Temple Pilots and make a band. And while they were well received with two albums, toward the end of 2008, it seemed as if things were falling apart as Scott Weiland was out the door, leaving Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum and Wasted Youth guitarist Dave Kushner to go about their own business. But in a recent interview with MTV News, Slash said that the band could see new life again, even without its charismatic and troublesome vocalist.
As it turns out, Weiland’s departure may actually be a bit of a blessing creatively for the band. The new material the band worked on after its tour, without Weiland’s influence, was more in line with Slash and company’s original intent.
“It’s a lot heavier than what Velvet Revolver has put out, so I’m dying to put out the quintessential Velvet Revolver record,” Slash said. “When Duff and Matt and I first got together, we wrote a ton of material that never saw the light of day, and that was all very heavy. It’s definitely our natural way of doing things. But when we started working with Scott, we started to lighten things up a lot, and we progressively got lighter. As much as I love the two records we did do, one of the things that was progressively more and more frustrating was the direction the band took.”
And while the new and improved Revolver is without a singer, Slash confirmed the band would, in fact, find a new singer, someone “who can front that band and not something we have to conform to.” So, when can we expect this harder Revolver? How does sometime next year work for you?
“I’ve been doing this record (his solo album), and there’s a tour and Duff’s been playing with Jane’s Addiction, so everybody has been pretty busy,” Slash said. “But at some point early next year, we’re going to reconvene and take a good serious look at everything that we’ve got.”
As always, stay tuned for more news.
