Velvet Revolver Hired Surprising Singer To Replace Scott Weiland, Lenny Kravitz Almost Joined

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Velvet Revolver fired Scott Weiland 10 years ago this month in April 2008 which effectively ended the band as they never performed live again outside of a one off reunion show with Weiland in 2012. But a decade later, Dave Kushner has revealed that the band came very close to continuing with a new singer.

Dave Kushner revealed in a new Fueled By Death Cast interview that Velvet Revolver hired Franky Perez to replace Scott Weiland during their year and a half singer search in 2008-2010. Perez didn’t work out though and was let go, and Velvet Revolver never continued. He also revealed for the first time that there were talks with Lenny Kravitz, and that Velvet Revolver tried out Royston Langston from Spacehog and Ian Thornley from Big Wreck. Alternative Nation transcribed Kushner’s comments.

“We had this guy Franky Perez, who is still a good friend of mine, who is a fucking amazing singer. We actually told him he was in the band, he was the only guy who actually got hired, we kept recording with him. It just kind of – the longer we worked with him, the less it felt right. There were other factors, I think Slash was getting ready to do a solo record. I think his head was already over there at that point.”

“We worked with the singer from Big Wreck, we worked with the singer from Spacehog. We didn’t work with Lenny Kravitz, but there was some talk of us doing stuff with him. There was a lot of talk, there were a lot of dudes trying to get that job too, like the first time, but obviously at that point people knew. It just didn’t happen.”

“So Franky Perez got hired by the band. He moves from Las Vegas to LA, he has no money, then all of a sudden he’s not in the band. I felt horrible for him, because I was always kind of the underdog in the band. I was like, ‘Oh dude, that’s so fucked up.'”

He mentioned that Perez ended up moving close to him, and they continued to write songs and work together even after Velvet Revolver.