It’s impossible for someone to describe the electricity that comes with finding the right chemistry for any rock and roll band. Whether or not artists click from the moment that they start playing is something that only happens by chance, so when any group finds that special ex-factor, it’s bound to feel different once one of them decides to leave.
And while Guns N’ Roses have gone through many permutations over the years, Slash felt that many musicians were responsible for keeping the good times rolling when things took a darker turn.
But, really, how much darker could it get for the band many people called ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Band’? They were already living lives that seemed ripped straight out of a gritty crime film, and even when they started gaining momentum after Appetite for Destruction, that didn’t mean the hard times were about to stop. In fact, it meant that they were probably about to start partying even harder behind the scenes.
None of the band members took their stardom for granted, but there were always bound to be moments when things began falling apart. On the tour for Use Your Illusion alone, Slash would have moments where his heart stopped, the band would evade riots, and Izzy Stradlin would quit the band in protest, but before the fun even began, Steven Adler was never going to be able to pull off going on another world tour again.
Adler was perfect for the songs that he played on, but after one too many sleepless nights lost to cocaine, the band figured that they couldn’t take his antics anymore. If you’re losing a drummer, that means losing the heartbeat of any band, but Slash knew that there was life after death the minute he went to see The Cult and saw what Matt Sorum could do behind the drum kit.
The Cult weren’t all that dissimilar from Guns N’ Roses’ brand of rock and roll, but after Stradlin left, Slash credited Sorum with bringing the band back from the brink, saying, “I saw Matt at the Universal Amphitheater and after a few months went by, it dawned on me that he was the best drummer I’d seen in a long time. Thank God I went to that show that night. The fact that Matt could play and fit in was what saved us. If we hadn’t found somebody, it would have ultimately been the demise of the band.”
But it takes more than a solid rhythm section to hold everything together. The main strength that Sorum had was his work ethic, and after being able to throw in iconic drum fills on songs like ‘November Rain’, a lot of his best work came from him being able to show up and dominate at every show he played, even managing to give Duff McKagan a run for his money when locking in on the groove.
Then again, Sorum may have been a little too aggressive for the band in some respects. Most people knew not to get in the way of Axl Rose whenever they were playing, and when the frontman became susceptible to bullshit excuses, Sorum remembered being the only one who wanted to stand up to Rose, saying that he would have gladly gone over and given him the riot act if the rest of the band were in his corner.
As much as Sorum worked on making the band tighter as a unit, the fact that he was brought on was the moment everyone knew that the end was near. The band had spent their lives together as musical brothers in many respects, so when the first cog in the machine was replaced, things started going completely off the rails.
