A Guns n' Roses Reunion With Sorum and Adler? Drummer Spouts Off in New Interview

Former Guns n' Roses/current Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum likes to talk, and we like to listen — especially when he's talking Gn'R. During a recent interview with the Pulse of Radio (via Blabbermouth), Sorum spouted off about the prospects for a bona fide reunion of the original Gn'R, why he thinks it's lame that Axl insists on touring under the Guns banner and laments life as a lowly drummer.

"Being the drummer in a rock & roll unit, you know you're not the guy that's making the decisions or, you know, which you'd like to be," Sorum explains. "If you look at a lot of great bands that are out there, there's a couple I can name that are run by drummers — Metallica, run by Lars Ulrich and a band called U2, run by Larry Mullen." (Edit note: We're sure Bono and James Hetfield would beg to differ). "I would like to think, 'If you guys just let me run this band, things would go different,' but it's not the way it is."

If hell were to actually freeze over, and Rose submit to a reunion of the band's original lineup, Sorum, who joined the band three years after the release of Appetite for Destruction, thinks he and first Guns drummer Steve Adler should both participate.

"If it's me on drums or Steven or whatever, if it happened, it'd be great," says Sorum. "I would actually say to them, 'Hey, bring both of us back.' We'll have two drum kits. I don't care. If Appetite sounds better with Steven playing it, have both guys up there. They can afford it."

When it comes to Rose's use of the Gn'R moniker, Sorum thinks he should just tour as a solo act with a backing band, not as Guns. "I understand the core of the band, which is Slash and Duff and probably Izzy," he offers. "It's a shame, and you know what, this goes back to a Paul McCartney thing. Does he call himself the Beatles? Not saying we were as big as the Beatles, but — does Sting call himself the Police? No. Does Jimmy Page and Robert Plant go out there calling themselves Led Zeppelin?"

Well, not yet, anyways.

Related Stories:

• Ex-Guns n' Roses Drummer Steven Adler Is Scaring the Crap Out of Us
• Duff MacKagan Opens Up About Guns n' Roses, Punk Band Loaded and Steven Adler

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter