Photo credit: Rocco Guarino
Velvet Revolver’s second and final album Libertad was released a decade ago today on July 3, 2007. Former Velvet Revolver guitarist Dave Kushner discussed the challenges the album faced in a recent Appetite for Distortion interview.
“As far as the record, I just don’t think we were ready to make a record. When we did that one, we started with Rick Rubin. He has a very laid back way of making records. You just write a bunch of shit, you record it, he listens to it and he goes, ‘Oh that’s things good. Why don’t you work on that some more?’ When he thinks you’re ready, he’ll say, ‘Alright, let’s make a record.’
But we were getting really impatient, at the time he charged at two different tiers for new bands and established bands. Because we were a new band in our minds, we thought we would get the cheaper rate, and we got the more expensive rate. Scott flipped out, and he was like, ‘Fuck that! I’ll fucking call Brendan O’Brien right now!’ He literally called Brendan, and Brendan was available in like a week and was like, ‘Alright, I’ll come out.’ That’s literally how we switched producers, and the band agreed to it, because we were getting impatient too. We were like, ‘Alright, Brendan’s great too. Let’s do it.’
I think that we just weren’t ready, I don’t think the songs were there. I think there’s some great songs on there, but there’s no ‘Slither.’ ‘The Last Fight’ could have been like ‘Fall to Pieces,’ but there was no big hit song. I didn’t like the first single being ‘She Builds Quick Machines.’ I was never a huge fan of that song, I fought for ‘Get Out The Door’ to be the first single, it was just a catchier tune. I don’t know, it just seemed like we Frankensteined a lot of the songs together during the production process. We just weren’t ready.”
