Array Slash - Slash

It was the first time the band had ever performed together for an audience. And that was interesting because Scott didn’t show up until moments before we had to go on. We were scurrying to find him and he got there in the nick of time. We hadn’t established the kind of bond with him to know what he’d done with his previous twenty-four hours so we were a bit on edge.

It didn’t matter because when he got there we ripped into it, and from the first note all was fine. It was one of those situations where you’re nervous before you play, but as you’re standing there in front of those industry executives, and from the first note on, you know exactly who you are and you don’t give a shit. There is nothing cornier than a showcase like that, but we were so into the song that we didn’t care. We just did our thing and that was that.

It felt like a band. It felt like us against them again. We made a good impression on our own terms that day. That was first gear, but I knew that we were just getting going and wouldn’t be stopped. The open road lay ahead.

WE TALKED ABOUT SCOTT GETTING CLEAN a lot, because it was definitely an issue. We let him know that basically all of us had been there and that we’d rally for him if he needed our support should he decide that he really wanted to get clean. We weren’t pressuring him, we were showing him that we understood, firsthand (to say the least), and I think in the end that is what made him feel more comfortable. Once it seemed that Scott was in, we started taking it to the next level.

I THINK THE GREATEST THING ABOUT this band is that we never behaved like a new band; from the start we acted like we’d been together for years. I suppose in some ways we have. We found an appropriate vehicle to use as a first run for a band that had been together a while: David and Dana reached out to a few movie studios to see what films were coming out that needed an original song. We were presented with a handful but we decided on The Hulk and The Italian Job, which were offered to us by Kathy Nelson from Universal, mostly because they seemed perfect and because we liked Kathy.

We went into the studio with Nick Raskulinecz, and did a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Money” for The Italian Job . Scott nailed it and the whole thing came together very quickly. We rehearsed it at Mates in one afternoon, then took it to Chalis Studios in Hollywood and got it down. Then, for The Hulk, we went into Oceanway to do a proper version of “Set Me Free.” We knew that track would be the one to establish our sound and we’d seen a rough cut of the film and liked it. Plus we were excited that Ang Lee was directing. We had Nick produce that track as well, but it wasn’t smooth sailing: we had a hard time getting it mixed because we couldn’t get it right. We ended up going through a series of mixes and eventually got it together the morning of the deadline.

That wasn’t the most awkward aspect of that session: on the way down to Oceanway Studios to record the track I got a call (from Duff ) telling me that Robert and Dean DeLeo from Stone Temple Pilots were producing Alien Ant Farm in the studio right next door to ours. I was very concerned about how Scott might react to that. I got down there before him to make sure nothing happened and I ran into Robert at the Sparkletts machine in the lounge. He was leaning over me as I filled my Solo cup with water, and I had no idea who he was.

“Uh, Slash?” he said.

“Uh, yeah. Hi.”

“Hi, I’m Robert DeLeo. Nice to meet you… Much respect.”

He seemed nice enough, but I was still worried about Scott. He came in through a back entrance so they didn’t have to cross paths for the duration of that session.

Those soundtrack jobs were a test; we were putting ourselves out there in a controlled, limited way. We were a solid rock-and-roll band, but we hadn’t made the final leap: Dave still had a day job as a construction worker at that point and Scott had been through a long and arduous decline in his last band, so he was still wary and fragile. Duff and Matt and I were one hundred percent committed: we’d dropped everything else at this point to focus on this band. So we persevered and moved forward.

Choosing a name was a recurring theme at rehearsal and we’d not really gotten anywhere on that front. One night Perla and I went to the movies and I can’t remember what we saw, but once the lights went down and the credits came up, I was struck by the name “Revolution Studios.” Perla mentioned something about it as well. There was something there… I liked the beginning of the word. And so I thought of Revolver. It seemed 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. Plus of course it’s the name of one of the Beatles’ best albums.

The next day I met the band at Universal Studios, where we were going to see a screening of The Hulk to decide if we wanted to lend our song to the soundtrack. On the walk from Kathy Nelson’s office to the screening room, I brought up my idea of the name Revolver as a possibility.

“That’s cool, I like that,” Duff said.

“I do, too,” Matt said.

Scott was quiet for a minute. “How about Black Velvet Revolver,” he said. “I like the idea of something intimate like velvet juxtaposed with something deadly like a gun.”

I thought about that for a minute. I totally agreed with where he was going, but it seemed like a mouthful.

“Hey,” I said. “How about just Velvet Revolver.”

“That’s cool,” Scott said.

Everybody else agreed.

We were all on the same page and I was inspired; I sat down and started sketching logos right away. I came up with the VR that we are still using and everybody seemed to like that as well.

We were on a roll: we booked a small press conference and performance showcase at the El Rey Theater. It was primarily for industry people, but the public was admitted as well: we wanted to announce that we were officially a band, with a singer and a name, and we would be recording an album very soon. We had just written “Slither,” so we did that; we did “Set Me Free,” “It’s So Easy,” “Negative Creep” by Nirvana, and the Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant.” It wasn’t so much a question of song selection; at the time those were the only songs we knew.

It didn’t matter; the energy level was so high that it was just in-your-face. The chemistry of the band live was powerful stuff and as organic as it gets. That was the defining moment for us: we were finally a group. We had worked together in every capacity except for the most essential one—live performance. That El Rey show was the moment of truth. In the dressing room afterward, we were so inspired by our chemistry onstage that we didn’t know what to do—should we make a record or should we just go on tour—right now?

WE OPTED TO MAKE A RECORD BECAUSE that was the more practical thing to do. Besides, at the time we were in a writing zone and new material was coming to us very quickly. Before we’d gotten together with Scott, we’d been writing for over ten months, so to say that we overloaded him with potential songs to write lyrics for is an understatement. We gave him more than anyone could expect anyone to listen to.

He came through, though: he chose a few and turned them into things that we’d never have expected and loved all the same. Scott has a small studio and rehearsal space in Toluca Lake called Lavish, where he works with his engineer, Doug Grean. They took those demos and rearranged the music to accommodate the vocal parts that Scott came up with. Out of that huge body of material, we got “Big Machine” and “Dirty Little Thing,” while we continued to come up with new stuff, like “You Got No Right,” “Slither,” and “Sucker Train Blues,” which we all worked out, as well as a song called “Do It for the Kids,” among others. Everything came together really cool.