Photo by Rocco Guarino
In a new LA Weekly article, Myles Kennedy revealed that he did once consider trying to join Velvet Revolver.
Kennedy recalls that, prior to the inclusion of the late, great Scott Weiland, he had been asked to throw his hat into the ring for the Velvet Revolver vocalist position, but that didn’t work out. But great things come to those that wait, and his two tracks on that solo album led to three full albums as “Slash with Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators.”
“As a player, I think that he’s got something extremely unique,” Kennedy says. “He has a characteristic that few have, which is that you can hear Slash play one note, and you know it’s Slash. It’s the same thing with B.B. King when he was alive. The sound of that vibrato, the way he attacks the string, you know it’s him. That to me is the most telling sign of a truly great musician. He’s one of the best rock & roll players, period. I’ve felt that way for a long time, especially working with him and seeing that he has almost an endless well of ideas, so that’s definitely inspiring.”
In a new Classic Rock Magazine interview, Slash addressed rumors that Chris Cornell was set to join Velvet Revolver as their lead singer.
The interviewer asked, “There’s an internet rumor that you were going to put together a band with Chris Cornell around then.”
“I didn’t know if that was ever a reality,” Slash said in response. “I didn’t even know that was a rumor. I did work with Chris on the solo record, but I never had any prospects of doing a band with him.”
Scott Weiland joined Velvet Revolver in 2003 and was fired in 2008. He reunited with the band for a one off performance in 2012.
Slash and Chris Cornell recorded the song “Promise” in 2010 for Slash’s self-titled solo record. Cornell died by suicide in May 2017, and Weiland died from a drug overdose in December 2015.
Former Slash’s Snakepit singer Rod Jackson claimed in a January 2018 Appetite For Distortion interview that late Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell and Guns N’ Roses/ex-Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash almost formed a band together in the 90’s before he was selected as the singer of Slash’s Snakepit. It’s unclear though how valid Jackson’s claim was, as Cornell never discussed this in any of his interviews and neither has Slash. Cornell and Slash did collaborate on “Promise” in 2010. Alternative Nation transcribed Jackson’s comments.
“So Johnny [Griparic] and I had played together, and in passing he said: ‘Hey Rod, how would you like to come down and demo some songs for Snakepit?’ I’m thinking Slash, Snakepit, putting two and two together, I said, ‘Sure.’ I went down there and they’d tried out like 300 singers, Chris Cornell was one, God bless.”
