New Zakk Wylde Interview From Ultimate Guitar

ultimateGuitar.com
There's a brief Velvet Revolver mention in the new Zakk Wylde interview that I thought I'd share.

It didn’t bother you that Ozzy was auditioning other guitar players and didn’t really say anything to you?

I mean with us there’s never any arguments; there’s no fights or nothing. It’s just, “What do you want to do, Steve?” It’s like, “Ahh, Zakk, I want to go jam with these guys now.”

It’s like with Slash and Scottie and all the guys and if they’re gonna stop doing Velvet Revolver for a while. And then Scott is going to do Stone Temple Pilots; Duff is gonna do Loaded; Slash is gonna do his solo thing; Matt’s gonna be jammin’ with the Cult again and then they’re gonna get back together. It’s just like no big deal.

It’s like Genesis – there’s Mike and the Mechanics and Phil is doing his solo thing and the keyboard player is doing movie soundtracks. And then it’s like, “Let’s get back together and do a fuckin’ album.”

I love Ozz and Sharon; Sharon is like my mother. Barbara Ann [Zakk’s wife] still hangs out with Sharon all the time. They go to Dancing With the Stars to see Kelly and all that shit. They hang out and have lunch and just chill and have a good time.

I always told everybody when the day would come when Ozz would say, “I don’t feel like doin’ this shit no more.” What are you supposed to do? But you better figure somethin’ out. You know what I mean?

I know that this is just Zakk running his mouth, and is by no means official, but it makes sense to me. I've been saying this all along that there will eventually be a Velvet Revolver reunion (say in 2014) with Scott Weiland.

We'll see.

Weiland Not So Sure it Was Axl's Fault

"Of course Scott is trying to get back at Slash; however, I do find it soooo amusing the new outlook on Mr. Rose that Scott has nowadays ... here it is."

via Rolling Stone
Evan Serpick: Did that call from Dean come at a time when things were already falling apart with Velvet Revolver?

Scott Weiland: No, things at that time were working quite well with Velvet Revolver and I didn't want to mention it to them until there was a plan and a couple gigs that were actually booked. Slash and I were usually the ones who talked to each other first about things, then we'd go to the rest of the guys. And, unfortunately because of certain people's egos, I walked into a situation where there was a lot of baggage. I had a lot of baggage walking into my situation. I was in a band where at the end, it was pretty much three against one. And so I'm pretty sure that it felt that way to Axl as well. I have to say this, and I'm not just saying this now because of my situation I went through, but I heard a lot of great Guns N' Roses stories you guys in the press will never hear.

Everyone has made Axl out to be this horrendously crazy person, this bad guy, and I don't know him very well at all. He and I for whatever reason got almost tricked into this little media spat for a moment because one of our band members happened to run into him and said that he said something. So, my point being that having been in a band with Velvet Revolver now for five and a half years, I'm not quite so sure that it was all Axl's fault.

It's like, why does it always have to be the lead singer?

Matt Sorum in front of my face, he was the sweetest guy in the world. But there were some times, out of the blue, the guy just randomly hated me.

We all carried our own baggage in that band. In a sense, that's why people were intrigued, you know, especially for the first couple of years. Because they were kind of waiting on the trainwreck to happen. They just thought it would happen a lot sooner.

Serpick: To a certain degree, because there was all that baggage, for Velvet Revolver to pull together two really great albums was impressive.

Weiland: Yeah, yeah. Especially on the second one. I really feel proud of the second album we made. We put all of our problems aside, egos aside, and we became a band, and it wasn't about being Guns N' Roses and STP. It was about being a completely different band. Not many people are able to say that they had in their professional career the chance to perform in two bands that won Grammys and were multiplatinum bands. But with STP, you know, these were, you know, the best friends of my life. I grew up with these guys while we were teenagers. It's a whole other thing.

Thanks to: Ana