2007.08.24 - Star Tribune - Bittersweet Homecoming (Matt)

Music: Bittersweet homecoming

By Jon Bream

Velvet Revolver's return engagement Wednesday in St. Paul will be special for the Sorums because the drummer will honor his brother who died of brain-stem cancer in March at age 11. Some proceeds from the concert will go the Daniel J. Sorum Scholarship Fund, to be given to a student from the Community Christian School he attended in Willmar.

"I'm getting ready to go on the radio on 93X, where fans can call in and sell some tickets to the concert and whoever sells the most will come back and meet the band," said Sorum, 46, who clearly knows his way around Minnesota. "And we're going to throw an after-show banquet where people can pay a nominal fee that's going to go toward the scholarship for some kid to go to college."

The Los Angeles drummer usually makes it to Minnesota twice a year. The trip for Daniel's funeral was especially tough.

"I flew in, landed and turned around and flew into New York the next day," he said, "because I had a gig there -- at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; we inducted Van Halen."

As a kid in California, Sorum often spent his summers in Minnesota, with his grandparents in Edina and at their lake home in Spicer. Rock 'n' roll homecomings have always been special for him.

"It's been that way since I was in the Cult and came up there to play with Metallica at Met Center in 1989," he said Monday from Philadelphia. "I called my dad up in Paynesville, Minn., and said, 'I'm playing at the Met Center.' He said, 'What do you mean the Met Center? The Met Center Met Center?' And I said, 'Yeah,' and he said, 'Wow!'

"I just remember all my aunts and uncles and cousins and my great-aunt, who lived in Willmar, coming down."

The following year, Sorum replaced Steven Adler in Guns N' Roses for a wild seven-year ride at the pinnacle of decadent rock 'n' roll. In 2002, he co-founded Velvet Revolver with ex-GNR members Duff McKagan and Slash plus ex-Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland.

This summer, the Grammy-winning band released its second album, "Libertad." Sorum is very pleased with the results. "It's a more musical record," he said. "'Contraband' was a straightforward rock 'n' roll album, a lot more aggressive. We felt our first album had a modern sound; we didn't want to be taken as a retro act. Now we wanted to show a little more of our roots and our musicianship.

"We had a great experience working together as a band in the studio on this record. It was probably the best we've ever gotten along."

Among the songs that stand out are "Last Fight" and "For a Brother," which Weiland reportedly wrote about his brother who died of a drug overdose.

"Scott has his interpretation because he's writing the lyrics," Sorum said. "Those have different meaning for me than probably for Scott."

Gossip run wild

Quotes from Sorum in a recent Rolling Stone magazine made it sound as if the about-to-implode Velvet Revolver was ready for a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode after only two albums. The prominent article prompted a band meeting.

"A lot of that stuff I said was taken out of context," the drummer explained. "We're getting along pretty good right at this moment. We have days here and there where we have a beef just like anyone else who might be in a working relationship or like a relationship with a husband and wife. It's about 10 million times better than when it used to be when Guns N' Roses was running back in the day where everything was so dramatic all the time."

What does Sorum make of rumors, as that Rolling Stone story suggested, that GNR and STP might reunite?

"We don't know anything about it," he said. "I'm sure our managers and agents and everybody else probably have got something up their sleeves. We're so in Velvet Revolver right now; we're booked on this tour for another year. [The reunions] are not going to happen anytime soon. There's never been any mention of it between us."