From 2003: The members of Velvet Revolver discuss how the band came to be.

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"We actually got a lot of good stuff, a lot of interesting stuff," says McKagan. "There were some guys that came out that were really cool -- they just didn't work out with us, you know? This guy from England, from this band Little Hell, was amazing -- like a mixture of Mike Patton and Perry Farrell. We sent him a tape of songs to sing on, and he sounded amazing. Then he flew out here, and something about him just [didn't work]."

Other promising prospects included Travis Meeks of Days of the New, Kelly Shaefer of Neurotica, Mike Matijevic of Steelheart, Todd Kerns of Age of Electric and girl rocker Beth Hart. Former Skid Row belter Sebastian Bach seemed like the odds-on favorite, but even he fell short. "He's an old friend of ours, and I love the guy dearly," McKagan told radio host Riki Rachtman this past June. "The problem we ran up against with Bas [is that] we sounded like Skid Row."

There was, of course, one singer they'd set their sights on all along, but it didn't look like Scott Weiland was available. "He was our first guy that we wanted to work with," Slash reveals, "but he was still in Stone Temple Pilots, and it was too politically fucked up."

"I kind of got to know Duff because our wives had become friends," Weiland explains. "Both of our wives are models, and they'd gotten to know each other, so we went out to dinner a couple times. I'd known Dave, because the Electric Love Hogs used to play with my band when we were both playing clubs in Los Angeles, back in the day. And I knew Matt because we were in rehab together when he first got clean. So I knew those guys, and then Duff and I kind of got to know each other, and he mentioned that they were playing together again. And then I got a call from Slash, and they gave me a CD; I listened to the music, but at that time I was still kind of entrenched with STP. It was sort of unclear where we were going; we were trying to get out of our deal with Atlantic, and we wanted to sign a new contract with a new label. So I was unable to commit, but I kind of kept that thought alive. I waited around for things to start regenerating with STP, and it just sort of didn't happen. So I talked to those guys again and went down to their rehearsal place."

By February 2003, Velvet Revolver had received commissions to record songs for two different film sound tracks but still had no lead singer. Rather than just jam with Weiland, the band invited him to record a cover of Pink Floyd's "Money'' with them for the soundtrack to The Italian Job. "It gave us a chance to jump into the studio right away and start the creative process," says Weiland. When that worked, the band decided to try an original for the movie The Hulk and gave the singer another CD of instrumentals to listen to. One of them, a track written mostly by Sorum, would become "Set Me Free."

"The first CD that Slash gave me had a lot of music that Izzy had written with them, and it was a lot more classic-based," Weiland remembers. "I wasn't as excited about that stuff, you know? But when I got the next batch of songs, it was like, 'Okay, there's a handful of songs in here that I definitely feel I can wrap my head around.' And one of the riffs was the 'Set Me Free' riff. It reminded me of a cross between a classic STP thing and a classic GN'R track. I think it was a good song for us to start with -- not pushing the envelope too much. You couldn't come out with something too 'out there' or people would be like, 'This doesn't make sense!'"

With no remaining ties to his old band, label or management, Weiland was at last in a position to join Slash, McKagan, Sorum and Kushner. Except for one big problem -- his addiction to heroin, which had severely reasserted itself during the previous year. "I was definitely in a rut, emotionally and spiritually," the singer admits. "I'd fallen off the wagon pretty hard, and I was very depressed -- like a suicidal depression. I was separated from my wife, I'd really totally distanced myself from all my friends and I was totally isolated. I was living in my L.A. house by myself, and I didn't want to see anybody; the only person I saw was my drug dealer. It was incredibly lonely, and I really didn't see a way out of it, you know? So, like, when [the Velvet Revolver opportunity] happened, I was forced to be around people that were, like, you know, clean, and who had a positive outlook on things. It kind of gave me a different way to look at things, although I was still in it at the time. When I first got with these guys, I was still totally in it."

While it seemed ironic to many observers that three former Guns N' Roses members had essentially traded one major headcase for another, Slash insists that -- a shared history of blown gigs and canceled tours aside -- Weiland's issues represent far less of a hurdle than Axl's. "His work ethic's amazing, and he's an amazing talent; he's been constantly blowing my mind. So at the point where we got together, it was like, 'The drug thing? We can work with that. We've been around that corner so many times.' It's not like the other guy, which is just irretrievably fucked-up and chemical-free!"

"It was out in the open in the beginning, so it wasn't like this heavy thing," says McKagan of Weiland's addiction. "We've all been through it, and he was looking for a way out of it, so it was kind of perfect timing."

"Everyone knew that it couldn't last that way, I couldn't stay in that situation forever, and that it was gonna have to change," says Weiland. "But no one was like, 'You've gotta change this now!' I just kind of, on my own, started trying to make a change. I was trying to detox, and I couldn't do it; I tried again, and I couldn't do it. They were trying to be supportive about it, but I just couldn't do it. So I guess God intervened," he laughs, "and I got busted!"

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