Appetite For Dysfunction

McKagan's unexpected return to addiction was just the beginning of the troubles Velvet Revolver faced on the road to their new album, Libertad which is far more melodic and upbeat than their grim, unrelenting debut, Contraband. From the outside, Velvet Revolver appeared to be a steadychugging, middleaged supergroup — a moneymaking merger of soberedup Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland with former Gunners McKagan, Matt Sorum and Slash, plus nonfamous extra guitar guy Dave Kushner. But in reality, they were as spectacular a clusterfuck as any young band you could name.

Sorum, the only unmarried member of the band, was partying too hard, and ended up in the same rehab facility as McKagan. Slash was gobbling painkillers to the point where he was nodding off in rehearsals. "There was just a lot of negative shit going on," Slash says. "Some of it was band stuff, some of it was home stuff, it was a lot of shit, and I went on a little fuckin' OxyContin binge for, like, two or three months, and I had a set date to go into rehab," he adds, sipping iced tea in a Burbank Mexican restaurant. He's left his top hat in a chauffeured SUV waiting outside, but in his leather vest and aviator shades, thick curls hanging to his shoulders, he is still the most recognizable rock guitarist of his generation.

Before rehab, Slash was plagued by a certain rumor that some of his bandmates chose to believe: "They thought I had quit the band and joined Guns n' Roses," Slash says, shaking his head. "I would do my best to convince them that I've never even entertained that idea, and they'd be looking at me like, 'Maybe you're full of shit.'"

Slash acknowledges that he turned up at the gates of Axl Rose's Malibu house one day in October 2005, but he says it was to try to quash a messy lawsuit over Guns publishing royalties. In a statement Guns n' Roses' management released to the press, Rose claimed that during that visit, Slash insulted several members of Velvet Revolver, calling Weiland "a fraud." Slash denies it all, and Weiland ended up responding on Slash's behalf, calling Rose a "fat, Botoxfaced, wigwearin' fuck" in a Website post — and when Rose ran into Sorum a few months later, he informed him that Weiland had "hurt his feelings." ("Then I felt really bad," says Weiland in turn.)

"Axl is so jealous of our band," says Sorum, adding that his encounter with the singer at a New York party ended up being friendly. "Even though he's going out with his Guns n' Roses fucking bullshit, he's just fucking jealous and he's trying to tear us down. Fuckin' Slash is out playing rock & roll and he don't like it. It's sad."