Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum spoke to Spin and shared his thoughts about playing with Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose and the late Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland. He also opened up about Weiland’s death and its main reason.
After Slash watched Sorum’s performance as The Cult’s touring member, the drummer joined GN’R replacing Steven Adler in 1990. He performed in the band’s ‘Use Your Illusion I,’ ‘Use Your Illusion II,’ and ‘The Spaghetti Incident?’ albums and proved his talent as a musician to rock music lovers. However, the next album’s creation process caused many problems among the band members, which eventually led to their departures.
Slash and Duff McKagan parted ways with GN’R due to the disagreement with Rose. Shortly after, in 1997, Sorum was fired from the band following an argument with the frontman. These three former GN’R members reunited as a part of a supergroup named Velvet Revolver alongside Dave Kushner and Scott Weiland. So he had a chance to work with these lead singers, and Sorum was one of few people who could compare them.
During a recent interview, Sorum drew attention to Rose and Axl’s interesting personas, which contributed to greatness while performing their performances as lead singers. However, this kind of talent always comes with a price, which Sorum defined as demons. The drummer highlighted that it was so hard for Weiland to fight with them. Therefore it can be said that Rose was able to deal with them in his way differing from Weiland.
Sorum stated in his interview that:
“When you’re dealing with guys like Scott Weiland, Ian, and Axl, these guys are interesting characters. But, that’s what makes them great because they are maybe a little bit more difficult, maybe hard to understand at times. Once they get on stage, they’re the guys leading the band to the next level. You have to appreciate everything in the way they come from the demons, and otherwise, it pours into that performance they give.
When Scott Weiland passed away, I said as difficult as he was, I don’t think he would have been able to have that sort of persona or that lyrical and artistic astuteness to be able to come up with stuff if he wasn’t from an interesting and sometimes dramatic background and had all of these demons around him all the time.
He couldn’t keep them at bay, but at the same time, it made for great artistry. However, for him, it was always something he had to battle all the time, obviously, until the very end. It’s difficult to be at that level and to be a normal person, and to be able to bring that sort of artistry.”
Unfortunately, Scott Weiland was found dead because of an accidental overdose of cocaine, alcohol, and methylenedioxyamphetamine on December 3, 2015, during one of his tours with Wildabouts. Weiland’s shockingly early death devastated everyone around him. According to his former bandmate, Sorum, it was the end of his battle with his exceptional talent, a demon that came from his artistic talent.
