DATE | WEEKS |
June 26, 2004 | 1 |
If you're a basketball fan, then you're familiar with the concept of a supergroup. Rather than build a team from the ground up, just sign some big-name free agents and hope the championships start flowing. The most obvious example was the Miami Heat of the early 2010s, when LeBron James "took his talents to South Beach" to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. James promised as many as seven championships with the Heat; they only won two, and James went back to the Cleveland Cavaliers after four seasons with the Heat.
Other times it's far less successful. My favorite team, the Brooklyn Nets, tried this when they signed Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in 2019, then later traded a ton of draft picks and good young players for James Harden. The result was one Conference Semifinals appearance, a mess of drama, and all three players being gone by 2023.
Bringing this back to the point of this blog, it feels exciting to think that about the members of two different bands coming together to create something entirely new. In the short term, this can produce some quality music, but it rarely lasts. Supergroups were nothing new to rock music by the early 2000s, but there was a moment when two very high profile supergroups, Velvet Revolver and Audioslave, came into being and were all over alternative radio. And then just like that, it was over.
The two bands that preceded Velvet Revolver were consequential acts during the 1980s and 1990s. One way or another, there was going to be attention paid to whatever Velvet Revolver released. Velvet Revolver burned brightly for the moment they had the spotlight. And like most things that burn bright, they eventually burned out.
Most of the members of Velvet Revolver were originally in Guns N' Roses, arguably the best of the hair metal bands of the late 1980s. Guns N' Roses was formed in Los Angeles in 1984 by Tracii Guns, Axl Rose, and Izzy Stradlin. The band's lineup was fluid at first, and Guns left the group after a falling out with Rose. Eventually, Rose and Stradlin filled out the group with bassist Duff McKagan, drummer Steven Adler, and guitarist Slash.
Guns N' Roses relentlessly worked the Hollywood club scene and signed with Geffen Records in 1986. A year later, their debut album Appetite for Destruction was released. Attention was slow to come for the band, but when the music video for "Welcome to the Jungle" started getting overnight airplay on MTV, heavy metal fans started requesting the song at rock stations across the country.
Guns N' Roses soon became one the most popular bands in the world. But they were known as much for their music as the chaos that seemed to surround them. At a show in Atlanta in 1987, Rose assaulted two security guards and was prevented from performing with the band by police. All of the members besides Rose were addicted to heroin, and Rose publicly threatened to disband the group if they didn't quit. Indeed, by 1990, Adler was fired from the band over his heroin use and was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In 1991, GNR became the first artist to have two albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, debut at #1 and #2 on the album chart. Music videos for some of the songs from the albums commanded enormous budgets. Despite the big business the band produced, they couldn't outrun the turmoil within and around the group.
At a 1991 concert in Missouri, Rose assaulted a fan in the crowd whom he realized was filming the concert. When Rose abruptly ended the show, fans in the amphitheater rioted. A similar incident almost occurred later in the year at a show in Germany. Izzy Stradlin, who had become sober, quit the group due to Rose's behavior and the other members' addictions.
After releasing the 1994 covers album The Spaghetti Incident?, GNR's recording and performances became sporadic. Slash and other members worked on side projects in the meantime. In 1995, through some legal maneuvering, Rose took control of the Guns N' Roses name. Soon, one by one, the other members quit the group.
In 2002, Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum performed together at a benefit concert for musician Randy Castillo, and decided to record new material together. Veteran guitarist Dave Kushner soon joined the group, but they were in need of a singer. Among the more notable names who auditioned or declined to audition were Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Travis Meeks of Days of the New, and Mike Patton of Faith No More. Eventually, the group's attention turned to Stone Temple Pilots' Scott Weiland.
Stone Temple Pilots formed in San Diego in 1989 by Weiland, Robert and Dean DeLeo, and Eric Kretz. They quickly became swept up in the meteoric rise of grunge in the early 1990s, and their debut album Core got to #3 on the album charts. Unlike the OG Seattle grunge bands, STP seemed to be more divisive in their popularity. A Rolling Stone poll saw its readers vote STP as 1993's best new band, while the magazine's critics voted them the year's worst new band.
Growing up, I found STP's music just as educational about the early 90s grunge boom as I did Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. "Interstate Love Song"? "Creep"? Those are some good-ass songs. Maybe that was one of those cases where you just had to be there to know who was right.
STP continued to do big business as the 90s wore on, but Weiland also became addicted to heroin during this time, and a 1996 tour had to be cut short so Weiland could enter rehab. The band regrouped and continued to be a radio and MTV favorite. By 2000, I was paying more attention to alternative rock and STP quickly got on my radar. Their video for "Sour Girl" featured Sarah Michelle Gellar and looks utterly batshit in retrospect, but that song was cool as hell.
Their 2001 album Shangri-La Dee Da proved to be their worst selling album to date, though it had a pretty good lead single in "Days of the Week". (It peaked at #6 on my top 40 that year.) After their label released a greatest hits album in 2003, the DeLeo brothers announced that STP was done.
As Stone Temple Pilots were dissolving, the Velvet Revolver members sent Weiland some music they had recorded, and Weiland added vocals to one of the tracks, which eventually became the project's first single. "Set Me Free" was added to the soundtrack of the film Hulk, and got modest airplay on rock radio, peaking at #32 on the Modern Rock chart. I can't recall hearing that song in the wild, and I only vaguely remember the news at the time that Weiland and the former GNR members were collaborating on a new project.
Eventually the group adopted the name Velvet Revolver and hit the studio to record a full album, though the sessions were complicated by Weiland having to stay in a halfway house after being sentenced on drug charges. By the end of 2003, they had finished recording Contraband, and it was released in June 2004. The first single, "Slither", was released to radio two months earlier.
"Slither" builds up slowly before exploding, and Slash's guitar propels the song forward. Weiland claimed the song was about a relationship, though I can't find any more detail about it. Reading the lyrics back two decades later, they just don't sound particularly interesting. Weiland sings, "When you look you see right through me. Cut the rope, fell to my knees. Fallen, broken every single time". In the chorus, he goes, "Here comes the water. It comes to wash away the sins of you and I. This time you see."
The lyrics are really the least important part of the song. It's all about Weiland's scraggly voice and the GNR members' electric performances. That's certainly not a bad thing. But if I sound unenthused about the song, then maybe it's because I had already heard a better version of it 18 months earlier.
Shortly before Velvet Revolver came along, Audioslave released their concussive debut single "Cochise". That was another case of a singer looking for a new gig and band members looking for a new singer. This time it was Chris Cornell and the members of Rage Against the Machine after Zack de la Rocha left the group.
If I'm being honest with myself, "Slither" is just an inferior version of "Cochise". When I first heard "Cochise", it felt like getting hit with a sledgehammer. But that song only got to #2 on my top 40, blocked by Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows". Audioslave would eventually get a #1 song on my chart, so we'll dive deeper into their story soon enough.
The video for "Slither" feels like it does most of the heavy lifting for the song. The band performs in what appears to be a nightclub doubling as a dungeon. Weiland looks slender and feral, his gyrations matching the energy brought by the rest of the band.
Amazingly, "Slither" wound up being the first time Scott Weiland reached #1 on the Modern Rock chart; to that point, he had five songs stall out at #2 or #3 when he was with Stone Temple Pilots. Its rock radio airplay was enough to send the song to #56 on the Hot 100. I wasn't as impressed with the follow-up single, "Fall to Pieces", and it peaked at #23 on my top 40. The song is basically a secondhand version of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine", except Weiland doesn't have nearly as much force in his voice to pull off a power ballad.
Velvet Revolver toured hard behind Contraband, and got a slot on the sprawling Live 8 benefit concert in 2005. When it came time to record their second album, Libertad, the process was exceedingly complicated. First it was going to be a concept album, then it wasn't. Rick Rubin was brought in to produce, only to be replaced by Brendan O'Brien. All the while, Weiland feared a possible Guns N' Roses reunion would scuttle the album.
Libertad was released in 2007, but didn't come near the success of Contraband. Lead single "She Builds Quick Machines" only got to #14 on the Modern Rock chart, and didn't make my top 40 at all. Weiland had relapsed on drugs during this time and was fired by the band in 2008. The other members tried auditioning new singers, but nobody got the job. Aside from a one-off performance with Weiland in 2012, Velvet Revolver never recorded or performed again.
After being fired, Scott Weiland reunited with Stone Temple Pilots, and the band released a self-titled album in 2010. The lead single from the album, "Between the Lines", became Stone Temple Pilots' first and only #1 on the alternative chart. On my top 40, it reached #16. Despite the album being well-received, the reunion was short-lived, and Weiland would be fired from STP in 2013.
On December 3, 2015, Weiland, who had been touring with his band The Wildabouts, was found dead on his tour bus, having overdosed on a combination of cocaine, alcohol, and MDA. He was 49.
I don't know how to sum up Velvet Revolver's legacy, if there is much of one. They seemed to be one of the last vestiges of an era of rock music that feels completely alien today. Though I suppose the supergroup isn't totally dead. In 2023, three prominent female indie musicians got enormous hype when they announced they were releasing a debut full-length album. You'll have to wait a while for that story, though, because that group will eventually appear in this column too.
EXTRAS
The remaining Velvet Revolver members eventually patched things up with Axl Rose, and the reformed Guns N' Roses have gone on a few tours over the last several years. "Slither" has occasionally been performed in some of the sets. Here's a live GNR performance of "Slither" from 2018.
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