Matt Sorum Recounts Split With Guns N' Roses

12/28/2011
. (hennemusic) Matt Sorum has shared the inside story of his final days with Guns N' Roses. Sorum recounted his tale of the original GNR's demise in an interview with Sydney, Australia's Triple M, when the drummer was in the city to play at the opening of a new Hard Rock Caf�. "The very, very end of it was us trying to make this record [what would go on to become 'Chinese Democracy'] that came out 15, 16, 17 years later," began Sorum. "There was a certain style of music that� Axl was always trying to push the envelope. Even with 'Use Your Illusion I' and 'II', we moved forward and people always go back to 'Appetite For Destruction'. But if you look at 'Use Your Illusion', it was more of an epic kind of undertaking. Axl, in his mind, would want it to be this epic, stadium, worldwide-renowned supergroup, and he looked at bands like Queen and Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones as, sort of, the benchmark for that. So we created these opuses, these epic numbers like 'November Rain', to really, sort of, become this bigger thing."

"When we went into the next particular record," he continued, "Axl really wanted to take it to another level, he wanted to experiment with electronics and stuff like that, and we were like, 'Oooh� Now we're getting into a little bit of a grey area.' He was really into Nine Inch Nails, and we were starting to get a little bit uncomfortable with the musical direction. And at that point, we had written a bunch of songs that were more like 'Appetite For Destruction' � stripped down, raw rock and roll; we almost wanted to go back to our roots. But Axl was really pushing to go someplace else. [He] was so obsessed with where the music was going."

"And I remember it was [after] about four or five years of rehearsals," Matt explained, "and Axl came in and said, 'I think we've got one good verse.' [Laughs] And we all looked at each other. And at that point, me and Slash had written a bunch of songs together, which became the first Slash's Snakepit album. Slash said, 'Matt, let's just go do a tour and make a record.' 'Cause Slash said, 'Axl doesn't like the songs.' So we made a record, we put it out, and Slash went on tour. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back."

"In retrospect, Slash was out doing a bunch of stuff. If the band would have stepped closer together, maybe we could have figured out what to do, but we were starting to divide; there were solo projects going on, me and Duff did Neurotic Outsiders. But we were all sort of frustrated; we couldn't get moving again. They had a bit of a blowout, and I was there, sitting right there on the couch, and I listened to them going through this whole shenanigans. And that was it. And it was over. It was horrible." There is more to the story here.

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