MATT SORUM On GUNS N' ROSES: 'It Was A Great Time In My Life, Something I Look Back At'

KINGS OF CHAOS, the touring project featuring former GUNS N' ROSES members Matt Sorum, Gilby Clarke and Duff McKagan. along with former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach, DEF LEPPARD's Joe Elliott and Glenn Hughes from BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION and DEEP PURPLE, will make its Australian live debut at the Stone Music Festival, set to take place April 20-21 at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. Headlining the event will be VAN HALEN and AEROSMITH. KINGS OF CHAOS will also perform in South Africa at GrandWest's Grand Arena in Cape Town on June 8 and the Sun City Superbowl, North West, on June 15 and 16.

Australia's Faster Louder recently spoke to Sorum about his career in rock and roll. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Faster Louder: When you joined THE CULT, were you were hired to be a live drummer. Was it originally planned as a temporary thing?

Sorum: No. I mean, I was hired as a live drummer, but I was gonna go back. I started recording a second album. There was some stuff on a "best of" that I started working on in the studio, songs like "White" and some songs that ended up on the album after "Sonic Temple". I did record a lot of stuff and I was gonna go in the studio and be the drummer. They offered me a position in the band, a percentage and everything. At that point, they had tried me out for a year and they decided that they liked having me around. Which is smart on their part, because a lot of times the thing about musicians is guys get big personalities and sometimes get along and sometimes they don't, you know? We got along great; we had a blast out there. Me and Ian [Astbury, vocals] were good friends, and me and Billy [Duffy, guitar] were friends, so when it came time for me to do the next album, at that point Slash and Duff [McKagan] were looking at me to join their band. I had a big choice to make. When I moved over to GUNS N' ROSES, I became a member of the group and that was a big thing for me. I wanted to be part of the band. Here I was coming into a band that had another drummer, but I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to be part of the writing process, I wanted all that, I wanted to be in the mix. When we put together the "Use Your Illusion" albums, I was there every day while we were putting that together and getting ready to do the records, so it was a great time in my life, something I look back at. When people used to actually play instruments together and be in the same room as each other and record live. I used that experience as a stepping tool to what I tell young bands: If you're gonna write music, try writing music together and writing great songs and play live, all that kind of thing. It's what I learned coming up and it's what makes bands great. It's what made GUNS N' ROSES a great band. It's why THE CULT was a great band. We worked as a unit.

Faster Louder: When you were brought in to replace Steven Adler, did you get to meet him?

Sorum: I didn't meet Steven right away because that wasn't a good break for them. We had some tumultuous times over the years and things were said in the press, but years later, we've finally been able to come to terms with it. But I always said to him, "Look, Steven, if it wasn't me, it would have been somebody else because you were out and somebody was gonna be in." But we went to the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame together and that was great and I felt really good about that. So it was a time being there with him and he was very gracious and I played one of his songs, "[Mr.] Brownstone". And I was able to give him a little dig when I did my speech because he fucked with me for so many years.

Faster Louder: I know that in more recent interviews he's said that he feels better about it now, but at the time he was pretty upset.

Sorum: It's like somebody's fucking your ex-girlfriend. You know what I mean? It's like the same kind of feeling. You don't like it, but you meet the guy and you go, "Hey, he's not a bad guy." It's always been my counterpoint to it. You have a preconceived notion of someone until you meet someone and talk to them.

Rad the entire interview from Faster Louder.