The artist Slash thought was “difficult” to work with: “He was irretrievable”
The lifestyle of a rock star may seem glamorous, but it often comes with significant challenges. While the idea of spending just a few hours on stage each night might sound appealing, the reality involves constant travel from city to city and dealing with reporters who are more interested in a quick soundbite than a meaningful story. It’s no surprise that even the most seasoned musicians eventually crave a break. After leaving Guns N’ Roses, Slash managed to survive the tumultuous world of rock and roll, but when he teamed up with Scott Weiland for Velvet Revolver, he found himself back on the same exhausting ride.
For the few years after he left the fold, though, Slash went on a wilderness period where he played with any group he decided to form. While Slash’s Blues Ball never got around to releasing any decent records, Snakepit was the first time that he seemed to capture the spirit of Appetite for Destruction, only for a lot of the golden hooks to not come quite yet.
But Guns N’ Roses’ dissolution wasn’t always about the entire band imploding. It was about how Axl Rose wanted to rule the entire production with an iron hand, so why not get the old guys back together and replace Rose?
It was far from a bad idea on paper, but Weiland was still a bit of an odd choice. After all, alternative music was the antithesis of what Guns N’ Roses stood for, but Stone Temple Pilots never fit into that mould in those days, and since Weiland had tried on some of his best David Bowie moves on albums like Tiny Music, it seemed at least plausible that he could pull off a stunt like this.
On the surface, records like Contraband are incredibly solid in terms of what they are. No one was expecting Guns N’ Roses Mk. II or anything, but listening to Slash playing blistering leads over borderline metal riffs on ‘Do It For the Kids’ and ‘Slither’ became his introduction to a new generation of rock fans.
In the background, though, Weiland was in even rougher shape than Rose, becoming more and more strung out on drugs throughout his work with the group. Despite translating that into magic onstage, Weiland was also in trouble with the law during the recording of their projects, including a brief stint where he had to stay in a halfway house so he could get clean.
Looking back on that era of the group, Slash thought that working with Weiland didn’t seem that much fun after a while, telling Louder, “Velvet Revolver was always a difficult situation. A lot of people involved with the band had a major agenda. And Scott was difficult. All things considered, he was irretrievable. Everybody had told me about that when the band first started, but I just did not know anything about Scott up until I started working with him. But like I said, we had some good times in that band too.”
There might have been more than a few rough patches in Velvet Revolver’s career, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they represented one of the final eras of sleazy California rock and roll for the 2000s. And given the fact that half of the supergroup is back in Guns N’ Roses, it’s anyone’s guess whether we might see any Velvet Revolver tunes in the setlist.
