2004.03.DD - Rhythm Magazine - Welcome Back: Matt Sorum

by **Blackstar** Fri Aug 21, 2020 2:13 pm

WELCOME BACK
OUR FAVOURITE DRUMMERS TELL US WHAT’S GOING ON...
MATT SORUM

The ex-Guns N’ Roses man spills the beans on new outfit Velvet Revolver while Rhythm sips margaritas in a California hotel room.

Velvet Revolver sees you teaming up with old bandmates Slash and Duff McKagan from GN’R. When did you decide to get together again?

“It all happened a couple of years ago when Randy Castillo (Ozzy Osbourne/Motley Crue drummer) passed away. He was a friend of mine and I organized a tribute to him after his death. I got Slash and Duff in to play to help draw a crowd and on the day of the gig Steven Tyler from Aerosmith was in town and came down and did ‘Mama Kin’ with us, which was great.

“It was supposed to be a one-off, but the next day Duff called me up and said, ‘We should be a band’. We hooked up with Josh Todd from Buckcherry, who sang for us for a while, then things didn’t work out and we ended up just writing material while we looked for a singer. Eventually Scott Weiland’s name came up, we talked to him and he came on board. The first thing we did as Velvet Revolver was a cover of ‘Money’ by Pink Floyd for the soundtrack of The Italian Job. We did an original song for The Hulk soundtrack too. By this time record companies were getting interested and after something of a bidding war we signed to RCA.”

Does it feel different playing with those guys now than it did when you were all in GN’R?

“I feel different because I helped to start this band. We’re all a little older than when we were in Guns and we connect musically and emotionally - we’re all in better shape than we were back then, on a lot of levels, and we’ve all got new hairstyles. Except Slash.”

Tell us a bit about your solo record.

“It’s called Hollywood Zen and it was produced by Lanny Cordola, who I’ve worked with on various soundtracks and things before. It’s really not a ‘solo drum record’ at all. It’s about songs and I sing and play guitar on it. Slash plays guitar on a track too, which is cool. You can get it from my website - www.mattsorum.com .”

Has the process of writing, playing and recording Hollywood Zen changed the way you play drums?

“I’ve always been aware of playing around vocal phrasing - accenting certain phrases or leaving space for lyrics to come through. But I’m so much more switched on to that stuff now having been through the experience of making this record. Because I’m playing drums and singing, I know exactly where all the space needs to be, and I’ll be taking the lessons learned on it into everything I do.”

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Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050208002906/http://belowempty.com/vr/articles/2004/040301_Rhythm.php