MATT SORUM Rallies Against LAUSD Budget Cuts In The Arts (Video)

VELVET REVOLVER/ex-GUNS N' ROSES drummer Matt Sorum spoke at Tuesday's (February 14) Los Angeles Unified School District board meeting where the board debated a $557 million budget cut to close a funding deficit in the district's $6 billion budget.

Sorum, who has launched a campaign called Adopt The Arts to save arts education in Los Angeles public schools, told the board that music helped keep him in school because he was not good at academics. He also said that cutting arts would be a travesty, explaining, "My mother is a music teacher and I grew up with music. I've gotta say — I wasn't the greatest with academics. I gravitated towards the creative aspect, which I had at public school. I had choir, [where] I learned how to sing, and I also took orchestra and learned how to play the drums, I became a world-renowned rock and roll musician."

He added, "I'm really concerned with cutting the arts and music for a very scientific reason, and the scientific reason is that kids learn four times better with music and arts in the program. Without a creative outlet, the academic programs are gonna suffer, and then there's gonna be children that don't gravitate towards the academics that have a creative mind that we're gonna lose nurturing them and may possibly be losing a very creative force in the future."

The drummer's speech apparently convinced the LAUSD board to hold off on a $6 billion budget plan that would result in eliminating the district's adult education, preschool and most elementary arts programs.

Watch Sorum in action below as he pleads his case to the Los Angeles Unified School District board.

An Adopt The Arts fundraising event in March will feature actress Jane Lynch as host, dinner by celebrity chef Kerry Simon and a performance by Sorum's band MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.