Was Gilby Clarke ever in the talks about joining Velvet Revolver

[scooby845]

Seriously... 

I have yet to find that info somewhere... I can't remember if Slash said something about it in his bio.

 

[themadcaplaughs]

Some guys on here did an interview with Gilby a few years back (I wanna say 2013) where they specifically asked him about it. He said he was never asked. 

[action]

2 minutes ago, scooby845 said:

Seriously... 

I have yet to find that info somewhere... I can't remember if Slash said something about it in his bio.

 

i'm 95 % sure he didnt. neither did duff in his book

[scooby845]

Just now, themadcaplaughs said:

Some guys on here did an interview with Gilby a few years back (I wanna say 2013) where they specifically asked him about it. He said he was never asked. 

I wonder why ... He is surely a better songwriter and musician than dave kushner... Plus he isnt a hard person to deal with and doesnt have an ego...

 

[themadcaplaughs]

Still trying to find the interview. Gilby says he was never entirely sure either, but had two guesses...

1. The band wanted someone who was more of a "rhythm" player. Gilby played rhythm guitar in GN'R when he was asked because he could not turn down the opportunity, but still considered himself a "lead" player at heart. 

2. With Matt, Duff, and Slash already in the band, they may have wanted to avoid further "this is Guns N' Roses part 2" comparisons. 

[RussTCB]

3 minutes ago, scooby845 said:

I wonder why ... He is surely a better songwriter and musician than dave kushner... Plus he isnt a hard person to deal with and doesnt have an ego...

 

I've always wondered how/why Dave was involved with VR. Seems like Gilby would've been the better choice for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the ones you mentioned.

[scooby845]

1 minute ago, themadcaplaughs said:

 

2. With Matt, Duff, and Slash already in the band, they may have wanted to avoid further "this is Guns N' Roses part 2" comparisons. 

Haha.. And with izzy it wouldnt be guns n roses 2.0?

[scooby845]

6 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

I've always wondered how/why Dave was involved with VR. Seems like Gilby would've been the better choice for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the ones you mentioned.

Dave played in Duffs band back before guns n roses.. While he still lived in seattle... Cant remember the name... 

Edit - its loaded ...lol

Edited November 29, 2017 by scooby845

[default_]

They didnt want to sound like GNR, they wanted a modern approach, thats why they chose Kush.

[action]

3 minutes ago, scooby845 said:

Haha.. And with izzy it wouldnt be guns n roses 2.0?

 if you asked half of the audience where Izzy was, i guess they would answer "Izzy Reed? he's behind the keys"

Izzy is criminally underrated both as a guitar player, songwriter and even singer. it's really sad

[RussTCB]

7 minutes ago, scooby845 said:

Dave played in Duffs band back before guns n roses.. While he still lived in seattle... Cant remember the name... 

Yeah, I knew Dave & Duff had some history. Just seemed odd to not go with Gilby anyway. 

[scooby845]

4 minutes ago, default_ said:

They didnt want to sound like GNR, they wanted a modern approach, thats why they chose Kush.

Well that doesnt explain anything... Its not like gilby would have a major songwiriting input/influence... I doubt even kushner did - which means his involvement isnt conducive to non-GNR sound...

So....

[zombux]

4 minutes ago, scooby845 said:

Well that doesnt explain anything... Its not like gilby would have a major songwiriting input/influence... I doubt even kushner did - which means his involvement isnt conducive to non-GNR sound...

So....

same about Scott Weiland actually. they just wanted something that wasn't GNR, I guess.

[soon]

Ive heard Matt talk about from the outset he was vocal that they needed to be modern rock.  Also, we now that Scott wasnt keen on the Izzy demos as they sounded too "classic."  Ive always figured that Gilby is in the "classic" lane so, just like with Axls decision years earlier they looked elsewhere for "modern."  To my ears Kushner did bring his own thing to the table and influenced the bands sound.  He brought in the use of effects and in general played in a 'big' and 'modern' way.  Add that he's yet another person who went to middle school with Slash, Marc and Adler.  Plus the Slash Wasted Youth t shirt in the classic era.

I saw a VR show for Contraband that Slash was so messed up for that Kushner carried the guitar duties, sometimes completely on his own.  The guy's a beast!

[scooby845]

2 minutes ago, zombux said:

same about Scott Weiland actually. they just wanted something that wasn't GNR, I guess.

Yeah but scott was involved in songwriting process a lot...

Its not like gilby was heart n soul of GnR... So they could not go wrong had they chosen him...only benefit from it

[soon]

Gilbys awesome and Id love for him to have been there too.  I wonder if Gilby, Slash and Matt doing Snakepit was a creative and/or political issue for Duff at all?  Duff wasnt keen on what they came up with but also maybe just saw Slash, Matt and Gilby as a team?  And maybe he brought in his guitarist so that he himself could have a team?  To balance out power in his mind?

[Top-Hatted One]

27 minutes ago, default_ said:

They didnt want to sound like GNR, they wanted a modern approach, thats why they chose Kush.

This and it was the right decision. Making music with Izzy is one thing but VR with Gilby? No way. It Would never work and Scott wouldn't have been interested in joining 

[Top-Hatted One]

Can't underestimate Dave. He was very instrumental in establishing VR's sound and identity we all loved. With Gilby we would've got a much of Tired Bad Company/Stones b-sides or worse. I love Gilby. Go to all his shows but not VR

Edited November 29, 2017 by Top-Hatted One

[Free Bird]

I'd love if they sounded like Bad Company or Stones b-sides

Edited November 29, 2017 by Free Bird

[Tom-Ass]

Everyone keeps saying they didn't want to be Guns N' Roses 2.0 but Izzy was part of it for awhile and played with them during there first live appearance... I though Kush was good in VR but I also think Slash and Gilby had some good Chemistry. The songs they did together on Pawnshop Guitars and IFOS were pretty bad ass..

[OTHAFA]

Kushner was jamming with Slash and Duff in the very, very early stages of what VR would become, after Slash, Duff and Matt reconnected at the Randy Castillo benefit show. He was essentially in on the ground floor of the formation of the band so with that – and considering that the early plan was to have Izzy involved as well – there really would have been no room for Gilby.

[appetite4illusions]

The earliest incarnation of VR was meant to be the second coming of Buckcherry.

Slash had been a fan going back to their first album and eagerly snatched them up after the band broke up following the second album, Time Bomb.

Them being singer Josh Todd and guitarist Keith Nelson. So, I have to believe that Nelson was the original intended guitar player. Whether they ever really wanted him - he came as a package deal with Todd- is a matter for debate, as Slash has gone on record as saying that Keith had no rhythm sensibilities. He played the same parts at the same time as Slash, basically doubling the Marshall sound.

Izzy came after that and after that, came Dave Kushner.

[Blackstar]

I've posted part of this before:

McKagan convinced Seattle University to let him complete his degree online, and almost before you could say "Welcome to the Jungle," he relocated to Hollywood and began writing songs with Slash, Sorum, Nel­son and Todd. But within a matter of months, the Buckcherry guys were gone. Perhaps "musical dif­ferences'' reared their ugly head, or maybe the fact that Buckcherry were generally perceived as a poor-man's Guns N' Roses imbued the whole enterprise with some­ thing of a not-so-fresh feel­ing. "The initial thing with the guys from Buckcherry would have been a complete­ly different band," Sorum admits. "No disrespect to Josh - I mean, what he does is cool - but I think that particular style or direction we were going in might have not been taken as seriously as what we're doing now. I think what we're doing now just has so much more substance.''

[...]

Deciding to carry on in the wake of the Buckcherry misfire, the three musicians invited Dave Kushner to join the party. Kushner and Slash had been friends in their L.A. junior high school days but had never played music together, since Kushner didn't become serious about playing guitar until after Slash had moved to a different neighborhood Having paid his dues in such L.A. punk and hard rock bands as Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs and Infectious Grooves, Kushner moved to Japan a few years ago to seek his musical fortune. He didn't find it, but he did run into McKagan in a Tokyo nightclub.

"I was playing in this band called Zilch," Kushner recalls. "It was this crazy thing with a guitarist named Hidé - he's big in Japan - and Joey Castillo from Queens of the Stone Age on drums. Duff was there with his band, Loaded. We'd met before, and we just started talking and hanging out" Kushner eventually joined Loaded, and when the rhythm guitar slot opened up in what would become Velvet Revolver, he seemed like the obvious choice.

"Dave's real forte is sounds," says McKagan. "He's got a million different pedals, and that adds a whole other 'mad scientist' element."

"He's got really good ideas," Slash agrees. "Dave's as sober as a judge; he used to be a real fuckup at one point, but now he's got this great work ethic."

"I've always been into really tweaky sound effects," says the deceptively mild-mannered Kushner. "I think it was because I could never afford good amps, so I always bought tons of effects-wah-wah pedals that sound like talk boxes, that kind of shit. In this band, I'm just really trying to do something that takes it a little further from being a straight-up, fivepiece, two-guitar rock band."

While Kushner's predllection for Fernandes guitars, Bogner heads and a whole arsenal of Line 6 and Boss pedals might seem at odds with Slash's Les Paul-into-Marshall approach, the two guitarists quickly meshed. But when Izzy Stradlin suddenly started showing up at rehearsals, Kushner began to wonder if his days in the band were numbered. "Izzy just came out of nowhere, as Izzy does," Slash says, laughing. "Poor Dave. Izzy's sitting there, this ominous presence, and Dave's thinkin', That's the original guitarist from Guns N' Roses. Am I still gonna have a job? But we're real loyal people. It wasn't like, 'Hey, Dave, we're gonna work on some songs with Izzy; call us back in a couple of weeks!' When Izzy was there, we just played with three guitarists.'

Stradlin hung out and jammed with his old mates for several weeks, but Slash and McKagan both say there was never any real possibility of their old guitarist joining their new band. "The Izzy thing probably got misconstrued a little bit," says McKagan. "I think he wanted to come in, like, `Let's go out on tour right away! I've got eight songs, let's go! We'll do some covers; Duff and I will sing!' [laughs] But Matt and Slash and I were more like, 'If we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to do it so it's amazing.' I've heard a lot of fans saying, 'Why don't you have Izzy in the band now?' Well, this isn't cut out for him; he's more of a guy who will be here one day and be gone the next, and you won't know where he's gone to. But he added a new energy that we probably needed at that point."

"You have to understand our relationship with Izzy," Slash explains. "Izzy's always been the guy who's sort of there and sort of not there. Duff and I have seen Izzy periodically; I've played on his records a couple of times, and Duff has done the same thing. And then he called up right when we were in the midst of writing, and he actually came over and brought a couple of songs with him. And then we just started hanging out and jamming, and we wrote, like, 10 or so songs. It was just a lot of fun, but he didn't want to deal with the fuckin' long haul at all. As soon as we started to physically audition singers, we didn't see him again." Slash laughs. "He's so fucking shattered from his experience [with Axl] that he refuses to ever do anything involving a singer again!"

[...]

"The first CD that Slash gave me had a lot f 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.

                                                                                                                                                                   [Velvet Revolver - The Big Bang, Guitar World, 2003]

 

 

 

[cooker]

25 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

I've posted part of this before:

McKagan convinced Seattle University to let him complete his degree online, and almost before you could say "Welcome to the Jungle," he relocated to Hollywood and began writing songs with Slash, Sorum, Nel­son and Todd. But within a matter of months, the Buckcherry guys were gone. Perhaps "musical dif­ferences'' reared their ugly head, or maybe the fact that Buckcherry were generally perceived as a poor-man's Guns N' Roses imbued the whole enterprise with some­ thing of a not-so-fresh feel­ing. "The initial thing with the guys from Buckcherry would have been a complete­ly different band," Sorum admits. "No disrespect to Josh - I mean, what he does is cool - but I think that particular style or direction we were going in might have not been taken as seriously as what we're doing now. I think what we're doing now just has so much more substance.''

[...]

Deciding to carry on in the wake of the Buckcherry misfire, the three musicians invited Dave Kushner to join the party. Kushner and Slash had been friends in their L.A. junior high school days but had never played music together, since Kushner didn't become serious about playing guitar until after Slash had moved to a different neighborhood Having paid his dues in such L.A. punk and hard rock bands as Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs and Infectious Grooves, Kushner moved to Japan a few years ago to seek his musical fortune. He didn't find it, but he did run into McKagan in a Tokyo nightclub.

"I was playing in this band called Zilch," Kushner recalls. "It was this crazy thing with a guitarist named Hidé - he's big in Japan - and Joey Castillo from Queens of the Stone Age on drums. Duff was there with his band, Loaded. We'd met before, and we just started talking and hanging out" Kushner eventually joined Loaded, and when the rhythm guitar slot opened up in what would become Velvet Revolver, he seemed like the obvious choice.

"Dave's real forte is sounds," says McKagan. "He's got a million different pedals, and that adds a whole other 'mad scientist' element."

"He's got really good ideas," Slash agrees. "Dave's as sober as a judge; he used to be a real fuckup at one point, but now he's got this great work ethic."

"I've always been into really tweaky sound effects," says the deceptively mild-mannered Kushner. "I think it was because I could never afford good amps, so I always bought tons of effects-wah-wah pedals that sound like talk boxes, that kind of shit. In this band, I'm just really trying to do something that takes it a little further from being a straight-up, fivepiece, two-guitar rock band."

While Kushner's predllection for Fernandes guitars, Bogner heads and a whole arsenal of Line 6 and Boss pedals might seem at odds with Slash's Les Paul-into-Marshall approach, the two guitarists quickly meshed. But when Izzy Stradlin suddenly started showing up at rehearsals, Kushner began to wonder if his days in the band were numbered. "Izzy just came out of nowhere, as Izzy does," Slash says, laughing. "Poor Dave. Izzy's sitting there, this ominous presence, and Dave's thinkin', That's the original guitarist from Guns N' Roses. Am I still gonna have a job? But we're real loyal people. It wasn't like, 'Hey, Dave, we're gonna work on some songs with Izzy; call us back in a couple of weeks!' When Izzy was there, we just played with three guitarists.'

Stradlin hung out and jammed with his old mates for several weeks, but Slash and McKagan both say there was never any real possibility of their old guitarist joining their new band. "The Izzy thing probably got misconstrued a little bit," says McKagan. "I think he wanted to come in, like, `Let's go out on tour right away! I've got eight songs, let's go! We'll do some covers; Duff and I will sing!' [laughs] But Matt and Slash and I were more like, 'If we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to do it so it's amazing.' I've heard a lot of fans saying, 'Why don't you have Izzy in the band now?' Well, this isn't cut out for him; he's more of a guy who will be here one day and be gone the next, and you won't know where he's gone to. But he added a new energy that we probably needed at that point."

"You have to understand our relationship with Izzy," Slash explains. "Izzy's always been the guy who's sort of there and sort of not there. Duff and I have seen Izzy periodically; I've played on his records a couple of times, and Duff has done the same thing. And then he called up right when we were in the midst of writing, and he actually came over and brought a couple of songs with him. And then we just started hanging out and jamming, and we wrote, like, 10 or so songs. It was just a lot of fun, but he didn't want to deal with the fuckin' long haul at all. As soon as we started to physically audition singers, we didn't see him again." Slash laughs. "He's so fucking shattered from his experience [with Axl] that he refuses to ever do anything involving a singer again!"

[...]

"The first CD that Slash gave me had a lot f 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.

                                                                                                                                                                   [Velvet Revolver - The Big Bang, Guitar World, 2003]

 

 

 

Yes! I remember Slash saying they went to school together. Great post!

[Top-Hatted One]

3 hours ago, scooby845 said:

Dave played in Duffs band back before guns n roses.. While he still lived in seattle... Cant remember the name... 

Edit - its loaded ...lol

Yea he was in Loaded for a second. Then duff scraped it for VR. That version of Loaded might've played one show if that