2005.05.20 - Asbury Park Press - Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Matt)

HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN

By Chris Jordan

"Rock is dead," sang The Who.

That was in 1974. Seemingly every year since then, someone makes a prediction that rock is about to become extinct, but at least one band has overcome the odds.

Velvet Revolver, composed of ex-members of Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots, have sold more than a million copies of its 2004 debut album "Contraband" (RCA). The band is in the midst of an amphitheater tour that brings it to the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel tonight.

Rock certainly is not dead when Velvet Revolver is on stage.

"We're only on our first album and we're already doing much larger venues than I expected we should be doing," said drummer Matt Sorum. "Once people see the show and see the excitement of the music, hopefully that will catch on like it used to."

Contraband is full of swagger, menace and abandon. The guitars of Slash and Dave Kushner cut, burn and twist riffs; the rhythms of Sorum and bassist Duff McKagan never relent, and the pipes of singer Scott Weiland sneer and curl.

This is central casting rock at its most dangerous. Weiland was an original member of STP and Slash and McKagan were original members of GNR, the angry, disheveled 1980s hard-rock band that gained notoriety largely because of singer Axl Rose's eccentricities. Rose still fronts a version of the Guns that reportedly has been working on a new GNR album for 10 years. Slash, McKagan and Sorum first performed together after more than five years at the wake of Ozzy Osbourne drummer Randy Castillo in 2002.

That jam was the first step toward Velvet Revolver.

For Sorum, it's a first. The Long Beach, Calif.-native left the Cult and joined GNR in 1990, so he's never been an original member of a big-time band.

"I wasn't an original Guns member and I wasn't an original member of the Cult," Sorum said. "This is, like, my band for me. This is my one really great shot at doing it, and when I did it, everything really turned around in my life and for the other guys in the band.

"It's full-steam ahead."

With precautions. Members of Velvet Revolver have become infamous for past drug use and addictions, with both Weiland and McKagan being labeled "junkies" in the press. Sorum and Slash also have had their share of problems.

"We cover for each other," Sorum said. "Me and Slash have known each other for a long time, and we know each other enough to know that it's not always going to be rosy days. One guy might be a little down, or somebody's tired.

"We know we have a good thing," Sorum said. "If somebody's getting out of line, we got to pull it together: "Hey man, you're being a (expletive),' or whatever. So we kind of deal with it like that. We just can't say "(expletive) you, (expletive) it,' whatever."

The guys of Velvet Revolver are looking forward to recording their next album in the fall.

No time to look back.

"I don't think about how great it would be to be playing in Guns or any of that ————," Sorum said. "If I think about anything, I think about the fun I had doing it or some stripper I had sex with in Saskatoon."

Now that's rock 'n' roll.