Slash Sets the Record Straight on Velvet Revolver Split

Velvet Revolver -- the group made up of ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagen, Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner -- announced on April 1, 2008 that they were parting ways with lead singer Scott Weiland, putting one of music's most successful supergroups on an indefinite hiatus and sending the two factions on a quest to recapture their place in the rock zeitgeist.

The split was a culmination of events that began when, during a Glasgow show two months earlier, Weiland announced it was to be the band's last tour, sparking a media-fuelled war of words between the singer and the rest of the band. At the time, Weiland claimed he had an obligation to his family to get off the road. Two years later, Slash sheds more light on the mental and physical state of the band, and the reason for their eventual dismantling.

"Velvet Revolver was intended to be a lot of fun and we started off having a great time, but I think that we all had a lot of chemical issues as that thing wore on," Slash tells Spinner during a promo stop for his eponymous debut album. "I definitely went way down the f---ing drain for a minute there after the 'Contraband' record came out and we went on tour for two years."

The members' appetite for self-destruction returned as soon as they hit the road for that Grammy award-winning album, however Slash claims that, in order to keep the band together and creatively viable, he had to pull himself and the rest of the group out of their chemical hole in order to create their 2007 follow-up 'Libertad.'

"During the 'Contraband' tour I started drinking heavily and revisited my opiate passion, then had to come out of it so eventually I had to say that's it. Certainly Scott had his issues, even Duff and Matt went down the same road. The only one that stayed sober during the whole thing was f---ing Dave Kushner," he laughs.

"We all eventually came out of it and made the 'Libertad' record, which I thought, musically, was a good record but we lost Scott and we never regained that. I thought the overall spirit of everything was declining at that point so by the end of the last tour Scott was here and we were here [motions with hands in different places] and cancelling that Australian tour was the final blow."

Though the band and Weiland may have parted under uncomfortable circumstances, Slash insists that the two are still on good terms.

"It's actually not that big a deal. He went straight back to Stone Temple Pilots, which was sort of planned -- he was going to do a summer tour with them anyway -- and now that he's back in there I'm sort of happy for him. I think STP actually belongs together. No matter how difficult it is, it seems to be their destiny to work out their shit.

"I still love the guy and there's not really any hard feelings about the whole thing. I even hung out with him recently. It's definitely not like the Guns N' Roses situation, which is f---ing deep and nasty, this is no big deal."

As for the future of Velvet Revolver, after spending most of 2008-2009 searching fruitlessly for Weiland's replacement, the band eventually decided to take some time working on solo projects. According to Slash, however, the band is far from over.

"We're going to reconvene next year, look at the singers again, and try to find the right guy to make the most bitchin' Velvet Revolver record," he says. "Oh yeah, Velvet Revolver still exists."