Velvet Revolver is what you get when you take members of some of the biggest rock bands in the world and watch them collaborate. Formed in 2002, the lineup was a meeting of the minds of Guns N’ Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, and Wasted Youth. Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum all represented Guns N’ Roses, while Dave Kushner hailed from Wasted Youth and Scott Weiland was the former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots. Together, they created a supergroup that had a handful of hit singles, released two albums, and won one Grammy Award—all within the span of six years.
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Meaning Behind the Band Name
The bandmates were intentional when coming up with the name that would define them as a group. During the audition process, they went under the working title The Project until they had all the right players in place. “Choosing a name was a recurring theme at rehearsal and we’d not really gotten anywhere on that front,” Slash said in his autobiography about the band’s origins.
But Slash got a flash of inspiration when he and his then-wife Perla Ferrar went to a see movie made by Revolution Studios. Struck by the word “revolution,” Slash thought about shortening it to “revolver.” He was ready and willing to pitch the idea as a band name when he, McKagan, Sorum, and Weiland met up at an advanced screening for The Hulk at Universal Studios, as they were asked to contribute a song to the film.
When he suggested Revolver as a band name, both McKagan and Sorum were into it, while Weiland pitched the name Black Velvet Revolver. “I like the idea of something intimate like velvet juxtaposed with something deadly like a gun,” Weiland explained of the concept. That’s when Slash suggested they meet in the middle and call the band Velvet Revolver, coming to a unanimous decision.
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“It seemed like an appropriate name to me because of its multiple meanings: not only did it evoke a gun, but there was also the subtext of a revolving door, which, considering how many members of other bands this band was composed of, seemed entirely right,” Slash sid of the name that’s also a nod to the Beatles’ 1966 album, Revolver.
“That was the biggest success for me because we were able to create something, and I was a founder,” Sorum told American Songwriter about being part of Velvet Revolver. “We wanted to have huge success with that band. When you come back from having been kicked out of one of the biggest bands in the world, it’s a real feather in your cap.”
Velvet Revolver sent two singles to the top of the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, “Slither” and “Fall to Pieces,” the former of which was named Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards. “Dirty Little Thing” and “She Builds Quick Machines” both cracked the Top 10 on the same chart. Both of their studio albums made it into the Top 5 on the Billboard 200, with their 2004 debut, Contraband, hitting No. 1.
The band split up in 2008 when Weiland decided to return to Stone Temple Pilots. A one-off reunion show took place in 2012. Weiland passed away in 2015 at the age of 48 from an accidental substance overdose.
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