May 14, 2024 • 35 mins
Matt is the former drummer of Guns and Roses, Velvet Revolver and The Cult.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Takin a Walk.
Matt Sorum (00:01):
I thank Axl Rose. People go, what are you talking about?
You mean Axl Rose? I said, well, I got on
the train. I got on the Guns and Roses train,
and that train stopped and I got off. But that
still represents a very big portion of my life and
has brought me to a lot of other places because
(00:22):
of what I've done with that band.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the Takin a Walk Podcast with Buzz Knight,
where Buzz talks to musicians about the inside story of
their music. On this episode, one of the most accomplished
drummers of our generation, Matt Sorum, is our guest, known
for his work with the Cult, Guns n' Roses, and
Velvet Revolver, along with a ton of other session work
(00:44):
and solo projects. Check out Buzz and Matt Sorum next
on Takin a Walk.
Buzz Knight (00:51):
Well, hey, Matt, it's good to have you on a
virtual edition of our Takin a Walk podcast. Thanks for
being here.
Matt Sorum (00:57):
Yeah cool, thanks for having me.
Buzz Knight (00:59):
Hey take me back to growing up and first discovering
your love of music.
Matt Sorum (01:06):
Well, yeah, the Beatles. And I've said this before, but
I was about five years old when I saw him
on the Ed Sullivan Show, and I didn't catch the
first one, because I believe that was nineteen sixty three,
I would have been too young. But they did The
Ed Sullivan Show three times, and I caught the last
(01:30):
one sixty five, and I just remember Sunday night, family
would sit down in front of the RSAA television, big
box television, and I watched the Ed Sullivan Show, and
I don't know, man, I just saw Ringo and that
was it. I pointed at I said to my mom, Wow,
you know, he was like an They were they were
(01:53):
at cartoon characters, those guys, weren't they They were like
animated figures, the haircuts and everything that was it. As
a kid, it just like just kind of lit me up.
And then I remember asking for drums for Christmas the
next year, and I had two older brothers, so that
was cool, and they were already listening to My first
(02:14):
forty five was a Hard Day's Night And got that
on my forty five with the big hole in the
middle and had a cross Lee turntable. My brother had
a cross le turntable, the box one that you would
look like a little briefcase boll thing you could buy
a Sears and Roebuck or something, and had a little speaker
(02:34):
in it, and I just played that thing. And then
my older brothers, my middle brother Mark, turned me on
to like you know, was in the late sixties, you know,
Hendricks and Came and all that stuff. So I was
really into that. And my mother was a piano teacher
(02:56):
and she had piano students at the house all the time,
so there was always musical when she likes to listen
to opera though, she listened to opera, and I was
just like, oh my god. And we had another big console.
You remember the big stereo consoles. They were like built
in like a and it was killer. I mean, I
wish I had it now. And I had a turntable
in it, and you know, we started getting a hold
(03:19):
of some records and popping them on there when mom
was out at work, you know, and cranking it up,
and there's a lot of music in the house and
which was great. And then I did get that drum
that next Christmas Serious Tiger Tiger sat from series and
Roebuck Tiger Love It. Yeah that's what it was called.
(03:41):
Could you know. It was a crappy little thing, and
you know, the heads broke and my brothers messed it up,
and then around I want to say junior high school,
I got a Saint George Blue Sparkle and that's the
one I really sort of I started banging on him
as a little kid. But I don't know, like in
(04:04):
around junior high school, I had my own band already
and we were playing like so the junior high I
was was probably just coming up on the seventies, so
you know, all the cool stuff. I remember playing Our
House by Crosby Stills and Nash ng and our House is a very
(04:26):
very very funny yes, And I did that at a
talent show and that was actually in the fifth grade.
I loved it and I had yeah, a lot of
fun yeah, and it kind of was it for me.
I mean, I grew up in California, and I always
(04:49):
used to say I wasn't a very good surfer. I
always fall off and stuff. And my buddies were good surfers,
So it's like, how am I going to get girls?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
You know?
Matt Sorum (04:58):
So I got you know, I I played drums at
my house and there was a window and all the
kids in the neighborhood would come watch, and had had
the bedroom window. And then I moved to the garage,
of course, and I had my little band and all
the kids would line up on the street come watch us.
And my mom was at work, so we'd open the
garage door and rock.
Buzz Knight (05:20):
I have to mention to you, we had a previous guest,
you being one of the great drummers of our generation.
He being one of the great drummers of our generation,
Kenny Aronoff, and that moment that you described from the
Ed Sullivan Show was the pivotal one for him too.
I think for so many of us it was just pivotal,
(05:40):
you know.
Matt Sorum (05:41):
Well, you know, and in the last fifteen years I
had the opportunity to meet Ringo and of course my
opening remark was, you know, I'm a drummer because of you,
and he said, I hear that all the time. I
bet you. I mean, you know, if you think about it,
(06:01):
the amount of musicians that were inspired by that band
and to see the simplicity of what they were doing,
but done in such a musical way. People will say
Ringo isn't the greatest drummer, and I completely disagree because
I've kind of built my career on being more of
a foundational style of a drummer. I'm not about myself.
(06:22):
It's not a fancy pants thing. It's not about flash.
And even though I'm an entertainer and I get up
and I do, my entertainment value like that came from
Keith Moon, you know, to see a drummer and to
be the drummer, to be a star of the band
that Keith Moon was, or even John Bonham. The visual
representation was very important to me. So I took that
(06:46):
from those guys, or even Ginger Baker, where your eye
was drawn to them even if you weren't a drummer.
And I don't see that happening much anymore. I don't
see star drummers like I used to, you know. I mean,
I'm looking. There's a couple of young bands. I like that,
you know. I remember when The Killers came out, but
(07:07):
now they've been around twenty years. And I saw Ronnie
Banucci and I'm look at that guy. I mean, he
draws your eye. He's got this. So I spent time
developing my entertainment value along with the basics of being
a drummer, without having to be like, oh look, I'm
going to do a much of fancy drum fills. It
(07:28):
wasn't about that. It was about energy. It was more
about energy and what can you bring to the band,
you know, how can I elevate the band? And that's
always kind of why I guess I've had so many
gigs because I drive. I like to drive it in
an energetic way, if that makes sense. And when you
(07:49):
watch Keith, Keith was the guy that was just making
it chaotic and rock and roll. It just sounded rock
and roll and with the mass, with the massive drum
kit he sent. And there's a there's a making of
the album Won't Get Fooled Again. And the producer, and
(08:11):
I believe it was, was Glenn Johns or whatever makes
says here comes the Herd of Buffalo and Keith and
it was just like I was like, that's it right.
And John Bonhams same thing. He You listen to these
bands trying to copy led Zeppelin and they got it
all wrong. You know, It's like everybody gave each other space.
(08:35):
It was like that was the that was the magic
of that band. So as a young guy, I like
to study that stuff and try to make it my
own and somehow worked out for me.
Buzz Knight (08:47):
I would say, So, you know what's amazing about you
is your respect for the diversity of your craft, and
in particular, I know because your upbringing that you were
also a fan of the great Buddy Rich.
Matt Sorum (09:04):
Yeah, well, of course we all were probably one of
the greatest drummers to ever live. Could you replicate him, No,
nobody could. You couldn't replicate a lot of drummers. And
that wasn't the point. It was like everyone had the
human element of a drummer. I think it goes that
way for all instruments in that genre of guitars and bass,
(09:25):
and everyone's got their own thing, and I never could
say that one guy's better than the other. But Buddy,
all drummers looked to Buddy. It's like, oh my god,
he's the holy Grail.
Buzz Knight (09:35):
You know, insane, Yeah, brilliantly insane, right, yeah.
Matt Sorum (09:42):
Just insane. I mean insanity behind the man, you know,
I mean the a personality, you know, the old clam
tapes and all that stuff, and how he was a
perfectionist and inside the internal clock of Buddy Rich had
to elevate to be in his realm. You know. He
(10:04):
had these young musicians out of North Texas state and
all these different places that would come and he was
the boot camp. It was like you go to Buddy Rich. School,
you're going to get schooled, be like joining Prince's band
or something. No slackers, right, a little bit like go
(10:24):
most the Whiplash movie. Right, Oh my god. And I
think that way now. I think I'm so lucky, unfortunate.
I grew up in an environment of live playing, and
you had to show your shit or you were out
come in prepared. You don't. You don't go to rehearsal
to rehearse. People, I say, you show up at my rehearsal,
(10:45):
you better average. I do a band called Kings of
Chaos and Kenny plays for me. Sometimes it's my van
and if I can't do it, I'll call Kenny. My
wife was having a baby and Kenny sat in for me. Kenny, Well,
Kenny walks in. He knows every song from the beginning
of the end before he gets walks through the door.
And that's why I call Kenny. And I'm the same way.
(11:08):
And I'll say this to any young musician. You don't
go to rehearsal or rehearse. You go in there to
play the music. So when I when I talk to
young musicians, you know not that the work euthic has changed,
but a lot of them will walk in the studio
and fix it in the computer. I said, no, play
it live, play it live, get a great take, and
then go from there. I was very happy. I just
(11:31):
did an alum in La with this Japanese artist and
I can't say yet because they don't want me to say.
But these dudes are so organized it's insane. The music
was difficult, and I went in there and I was
super prepared. I think I did one of my best
records yet. Drummy wise, I felt it's like a fine line.
(11:54):
The technical ability but also be able to let go
and not think is very important when it comes to
especially rock and roll. I'd say, slash we want to
do another take. We'd be like all those usual illusion
albums that are like make take one and take two.
We'd rehearse. But after take two, you're thinking too much, Sashua.
(12:18):
You just want to take suck the rock and roll
right out of it, don't you, Because that wild abandoned
of going in there, and we didn't use click tracks
when we were cutting the tape. But there's there's something
that happens, and then when you step over the threshold
of trying to make it too perfect, or whatever. I'll
(12:38):
say that for my situations that I've been in, but
I will go over that many takes with other situations.
But this album I just did really pushed me. And
I like that because you know, I've been doing it
a long time, but I still want to challenge, you know.
And that's why I took that Buddy Rich album. I
(13:00):
got that call. I know you researched that I did that.
I was like, oh my god, I'm going to play
with the Buddy Rich big band. That's super cool. They
looked at me like I was some human oddity when
I walked in like a rock guy. You know, if
you watch Neil Pert, he talks about me coming in
the room. Kathy Rich called me up and I said
(13:21):
to her, why me. You've got Steve Gadd You know,
you got Max Roode, she got all these guys. I mean,
are you kidding me? Why me? She said, because we
wanted to use a couple of rock guys. My dad,
She said, Buddy liked funk rock. You listen to other stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You know.
Matt Sorum (13:38):
He wasn't a jazz knobs he was he was looking
for the next thing. It was like Miles Davis, Miles
Davis when he did uh, his last the last record,
that really crazy one Bitches Brew, Bitches Brew. He was like,
I think Clive Davis is about that. Miles walked in,
He's like, there's all this rock rock and roll thing.
(14:02):
I was like, well, put that into your horn, go
heavy metal with that, and that's what he did on
Bitches Burke. So he was inspired by other genres, Mitt
Miles and so his Buddy. So I picked a track
called Bula Witch, which was something Buddy did in the
(14:23):
early sixties, and it was kind of a funk. I
don't want to say it was like Maynard ferguson Chameleon,
but it was in that realm. Chameleon remember that. So
I'm like, I can bite that off. Bula Witch. It
(14:47):
was like, in my lane, that's fascinating. Well, I wasn't
going to like pick some sort of full swing number
with like brushes and you know, I that's an art
format all in it. I would say, it's like being
a painter. It's like a guy that plays brushes and
jazz and the solties of that. That's that's completely out
(15:09):
of my realm. Like I could go there and try,
but those guys Max Roach, Tony Williams more of a
rocker a little bit, but he had a jazz thing.
But I bit that off because it's something I knew
I could, I could go, I could make it my own.
If that makes sense it does.
Buzz Knight (15:28):
How much did it influence you and enhance your performance?
When you were playing in that top forty band?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Well, Top forty was my sort of school of learning from.
You know, it'd be like studying, you know, if you're
going to be an actor, study the great actors.
Matt Sorum (15:49):
I chose that job based on the fact that I
was working in a club five days a week versus
working in a job and then go in and play
a gig. It was like, I'd rather get my chops up.
And to this day, when I'm play in Kings of
Chaos and I have Robin Xander Kom or Stephen Tyler
or Billie Idol or anybody, I listened to the subtleties
(16:11):
what's going on inside the music, Like, oh, listen, how
tight the high had is, or it's this snare drum's
got this like subtle detail. And if you listen to
the seventies music, you're like, wow, he's using concert toms
and the snare drums. Thumpy, and that's where I think.
I think about that, and I'm thinking about crazy drum fills.
(16:32):
I'm thinking about the subtleties of the colors of the music.
How can I make it sound. I just play with
Jason Chuff from Chicago and we went back and I
was listening. I was like twenty five or sixty four,
and how badass Danny Sarafan was. Do you down, down
and tight? No click tracks. The band's like moving, It's
(16:59):
like wow, it's alive. So when I go back and
do King's cast, it's much like when I was in
a top forty band. It's like learning, constantly learning. It's
like playing with Billy Gibbons. I'm in his band. I
never played a Texas shuffle ever. I played rock shuffles.
(17:20):
Billy for me was re educating myself and still to
this day, that's a genre of the Texas Blues, the
subtlety of the blues, being a team player, playing the
right volume. All of that played for the band, play
for the music, play for Billy. Like I've been a
(17:41):
little bit of a guy that has to morph in
my career, so I really enjoy being educated. Still to this.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Day, we'll be right back with more of the Taking
a Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Buzz Knight (18:03):
Ever see Richie Heywood from Little Feet play?
Matt Sorum (18:07):
Oh my god, Yeah, of course, I mean one of
the greats. You know, Butch Trucks. I had to run
in with Butcher Trucks and Alman Brothers. I had a
charity I do have a charity, called about the arts,
and he came out and I honored him and he
got back there and I was just smacking him too,
(18:28):
and it was like, Wow, some of these guys, some
of these unsung heroes, you know, guys like Butcher Trucks,
Ritchie and Richie is very well respected. But Butch, I
don't know, maybe Alma Brothers fans, but they're those band guys.
You go, wow, listen to what he's doing on you
know that six eight groove and that famous Almen Brothers
(18:53):
most famous one whipping poster.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Oh my god.
Matt Sorum (18:57):
Yeah. And I hired this band, this killer Olman Brothers
cover band, and Butch got up and just I get
it because I'm one of those guys. I'm a band guy.
People talk about certain drummers and when it comes to rock,
I guess some people mention my name, but I you know,
I'm not. That's not what I'm here for. I've been
here luckily, I'm involved in being on great records with
(19:20):
big songs, and you know that's cool.
Buzz Knight (19:24):
I'd say, there's some big songs. What are your ones
that rise to the top that you've been part of?
There's so many, but I'm curious when you think about
it and your pride and involvement in the bands, what
are some of your favorites that stand the test of time?
Matt Sorum (19:43):
Well, I mean the gun stuff. I mean you could
be mine. I did this opening fill that became kind
of the intro. I always say to young musicians, like,
what's your intro? Because you got to catch people fast.
You got five seconds to get their attention. If that's now,
(20:03):
it's Spotify next, so you got like three seconds to
catch your attention. What are you gonna do? Me and
Slash used to trade off. He'd do a riff and
then I do a fill like opening with something I
get it, but WHOA, Okay, you got it? You take
that one, and then sometimes you gonna you know, you
(20:25):
hear the beginning to Welcome to the Jungle and you're
like or you're like, see what child of mind? You're like, okay,
you got that one. It seems like a lot of
pop music, the vocals just comes in right away, you know.
It's like they don't have intros anymore. It is the
vocal ten seconds and the vocal starts for the rock
and roll thing you could be mine and then the
(20:48):
velvet revolver stuff is really probably a real pinnacle for
me because it was I guess a bit of a
comeback for us. It's a band and we we were
driven again like young guys. So when Slyther came out
and I have that weird intro, it's just a tom
(21:10):
and we're building tension. Slashes got one and it comes
in and it's like, okay, what is this?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You know?
Matt Sorum (21:23):
I mean, we weren't having discussions of like, hey, let's
do this thing where we're gonna build tension, but we
just naturally did that and that was sort of the
thing that worked between me, Slash and Doves as the
three of us as a section. I don't know, just
I always say to people, if you meet a couple
other musicians that you jibe with and you create magical
(21:45):
moments like that, just try to stick to each other.
You know it's it's classic and rock and roll. Jimmy
Page and JOm Bonham and Joe Perry and Chiy Kramer
ship that these great rock to Mick and Charlie. Look
at the look at the Stones when they did Sympathy
(22:05):
for the Devil. They spent nine days coming up with
a groove. You see the you see the movie. Yeah, yeah,
Charlie was and then Mick comes walking in with the
para moracas and he's like, all of a sudden, the
(22:25):
bone it starts swinging. That was those guys together making
each other strive to come be better. Not one guy
walking room and go, Okay, this is where it's gonna
be because there are those guys. Yeah, what do.
Buzz Knight (22:47):
You think The art of collaboration in music teaches those
that are in other businesses.
Matt Sorum (22:56):
Have an open mind, be willing. You have to be
able to be willing and to go through the process
without having to make a comment about what you think
it should be. And I learned that, and I learned
that from being in bands that oh man, hey that sucks. No,
(23:17):
don't do that because you don't know if it sucks yet.
You have to work through it and if it's any proof.
Just go watch him Bethy for the Devil, and those
guys did not want to give up because they knew
they had something. But each one of them took the
time and had the patience to go through the process.
(23:37):
And that happened with Slyther, which became a Grammy Award
winning song for us. There was quite a process behind
that song. We recorded it three times, and only because
I kept I kept saying to the band, I said,
I don't think it's right yet, and they thought I
was crazy. I said, oh man, I didn't feel right yet,
(23:59):
to point where they were like, man, come on man,
I'm like, oh man, it's not speaking to me yet.
It's like I had moments with music like that where
I actually physically pained over the song, where I actually
felt that the song was crying out for something else
speaking to me, and I was I couldn't sleep one
(24:20):
night about that song. And I walked back in the
room and I said, we need to slow it down
a little bit. We need to slow it down and
recut it. And we did and we brought it back
and it just two BP I'm slower, and it was
like right there, and I'm like yesh, and I remember
when we mixed it same thing. I couldn't sleep and
I went in. I was with Andy Wallace, the great
mixer you did Jeff Buckley's Grace album. Did never Mind?
(24:44):
I called Andy. It was like eight in the morning.
I said, I'm coming in early today. Don't take the
mix down? And I went in there.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I went right there.
Matt Sorum (24:52):
Can you turn that down? And turn that up right there?
Like details? And the band came back and I hadn't
slapped in. My eyes were like this, I've been bringing
a college slash walk dad, and let me hear it.
And that's what you hear on the album. That's amazing.
But yeah, I mean god, I just love making music
(25:14):
like that. Where you're it's like you could ask Lindsay
Buckingham about this shit. It's like having a baby. Where're
you gonna let it go? Sometimes letting it go as
the hardest thing. It's like, I don't want to let
it go yet, is it right?
Buzz Knight (25:27):
Can you talk about that experience when you were with
the Cult and you were in Minnesota and your father
and your relatives came to see you play that gig
with the with the Metallica.
Matt Sorum (25:39):
Yeah, what was that like? Well, my parents got divorced
when I was pretty young, and maybe that was the
reason I gravitated towards the drums and always say this,
I was looking for that outlet. I was about six
when my dad left, and right about that I became
a drummer. So in an Tony Robbins way, worked out right.
(26:03):
I look at it now in reflection, for at the
time I might have been sad, but it brought me
somewhere and which has made my life in my career.
But so, my dad didn't really see me play much.
He came once to see me at the Black Egg
and said it's out forty ban And I remember calling
him and he lived in Minnesota, and I was kind
(26:26):
of I think I gott in a call about twenty
eight years old, you know, which is old for in
those days. It got my first big break at twenty eight.
I call my dad and I said, Dad, I'm here
in town, and you know, I'm coming to Minnesota. I
think it was about a week before, and I said,
I'm going to be playing a place called the Met Center.
My Dad's like Theall Met Center. It's like twenty five
(26:49):
thousand seats. I'm like, yeah, he goes, what do you
mean the met Center, like ball Met Center, like it
just didn't register. I said, yeah, Adam at the Met
Center with this band called the Cult. He goes, you've
joined a cult. I said, no, it's.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So.
Matt Sorum (27:07):
He came down with my aunt Karen, all the cousins,
and my great aunt Lucille. They all walked in backstage.
My dad's looking around. He's like, all these people are
here to see you. He said, well, me and my band,
and there's another band called Metallica plan He said, wow,
(27:29):
it's incredible. And then we played. Of course I'm on
the big stage. I think everyone's minds were blown. Didn't
put two and two together, And I think to this
day my mother does not understand what I do. She
comes to see me play. She gets that part, and
I think a lot of people get that part, but
they don't get the part about all the rest of it,
(27:50):
which is the business part of music. They get that, Yo,
you're up there and it's like whoo, it's like extracurricular activity.
I'm playing. Did you ever have a plan? B? Though no,
I didn't. My mother used to say that all the time.
She used to say, do you have anything to fall
(28:11):
back on? So you need to have something to fall
back on. I'll put you through cooking school because I
could cook a good omelet. You know, I could whip
an omelet up. But I just, I don't know. It
was like uber focused, and I still think that way today,
uber focused. Like if if I'm going after and I'm
going after it, it's not like, oh, hey, I'm going
(28:33):
to do this, and I'm going to do this and
this and this and this and this. I just didn't
have any other tunnel vision than that. And I knew
it was something I was good at and I could
tell when I played it felt good and it still does.
She was worried about me, I guess, you know. And
then of course, you know you read my book. I'm
not sure if you read it, but you know I
(28:55):
got into the other stuff and that's a whole other
spiritual journey.
Buzz Knight (29:00):
But I want to ask you though about that music
being such an important part for you and for society
and what you've been through. And we have this other
podcast we produce that is called Music Saved Me. Do
you think music has therapeutic powers?
Matt Sorum (29:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (29:23):
I mean, as people know that I have been through
the pitfalls of sort of rock and roll maybe it's
a bit of a cliche, you know, the alcohol and
drugs that happened during that time, especially with Guns and Roses.
Matt Sorum (29:39):
I had to go through this journey to really kind
of understand how much of a gift it really was.
And at the time when I got successful, to the
point where I wasn't even sure who I was anymore
because it's so crazy, things got scary and I just
didn't know how to handle. I guess I hadn't done
the work from my childhood and everything else that went
into being to finding the drums and finding music. So
(30:03):
when I finally got clean and silver and had my life,
got my life back, the reflection of what I'd gone through,
and I say it was something I needed to go
through to really have to find where I'm at now.
And then looking at the drums and the music and
the gift that has given me, and I even say,
(30:23):
I think Axel Rose, people go, what are you talking about?
You mean, Axel Rose? I said, well, I got on
the train. I got on the Guns and Roses train,
and that train stopped and I got off. But that
still represents a very big portion of my life and
has brought me to a lot of other places because
(30:46):
of what I've done with that band, especially obviously Nicole
BELLI revolve with. Those are other bands I've been involved in,
but that particular band albeit a hotel and the guy
said I'm going to upgrade you, and why he goes,
because you were I loved that band, and I'm going
to put you in a bigger room. It's like some
guys like, come on my yacht. I love your band.
(31:06):
Which band Guns and Roses. It was a blessing. It
was at the time, I thought it was a little
bit of a curse. I don't look at it that
way anymore, you know, and you know, people ask me
and you think you should still be there. I'm like, no,
I did that. I'm doing other stuff and that's what
I'm supposed to be doing. I look at it like
I'm going down the road and whatever. When I'm going down,
(31:29):
it's being guided by my higher power and the universe.
I don't push square pegs through round holes like I'm
in this studio the other day with this Japanese artist
who I can't wait for you to hear this record.
I'm like, wow, I never would have been here. There's
other things that now I'm doing that I never would
(31:50):
have done if I was still doing that, like opening
up new avenues for me, playing with Billy Gibbons. I
look at it, he's my friend. What it's like we
talk on the phone like girls, It's like it We'll
talk for two hours. I'm like, this is really incredible
life I've got. Not only is he a bad ass,
(32:10):
but he's one of the coolest humans I'm playing it
ever I had a chance to talk to him. I'm
really grateful. I'm super positive about where I'm headed. I'm
glad to be back on the I took some time
off of the kit because I had a daughter. She's
coming up on three. I didn't go tour. I'm starting
to take some tours again, getting back into making more records.
(32:33):
So in closing, what do you still want to learn
that you haven't learned? And I mean, like I said,
there's always there's always stuff to learn. And I'm learning
to be a good father right now, like to be patient.
Patience is something everybody needs to work on. But I'm
(32:53):
doing a lot better with a lot of situations, and
I'm you know, and I'm proud of that more than
anything that as a person I'm you know, obviously I'm
getting older and I'm maturing and all that stuff, but
I'm still learning about music is always a learning process.
I love investigating. Like I'm working on a record on
my own right now, I'm working on a kids record,
(33:16):
and I'm going back and I'm listening to old records
and I'm listening to those things we talked about earlier,
learning learning, learning, What is that? What is that?
Speaker 1 (33:24):
What is that?
Matt Sorum (33:25):
A guy put Mike's on my drums the other day
in the studio. He was an engineer. He spoke no
English Japanese. Incredible engineer and I had to ask the interpreter,
what's he doing right there? That sounds incredible learning. You know,
I always want to know when I'm in the recording
studio what's happening with the gear because I want my
(33:45):
own studio. Somebody's always got a trick that's better than
the trick you have, you know, well stated, very well stated,
Like Kenny Aronoff does stuff that I can't do on ID,
stuff he can't do, and he's like, Matt, what was that?
What was that?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Oh man?
Matt Sorum (34:03):
Right, Matt, this has been great.
Buzz Knight (34:05):
You are one of the great drummers of certainly my
generation and the music that you've been part of that
you continue to give us really matters and makes a
difference and connects with us. And I really thank you
for your generosity here on the podcast.
Matt Sorum (34:26):
Yeah, well, thanks so much. And I think my post
is can I wanted to mention my recording studio, Good Noise.
You can go to Good Noise dot io slash studio
and check it out. Just check out what I'm doing
in the desert. I'm in Palm Springs and I got
all my equipment. I'm a history of my career in there.
(34:47):
It's like a museum slash recording studio.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
I'm alone.
Matt Sorum (34:50):
I mean, I'm curating the people coming in the building
and I'm kind of it to get back, but it's
also a place to come and create and use equipment
that's got a lot of mojo, got a lot of mojo,
it's a lot of history. So check it out Goodnoise
dot Io Slash Studio will go straight to the studio page.
(35:10):
That's awesome. Yeah, thanks man, cool, I appreciate it. Thank you, brother.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Takin a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow US so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Takin a Walk.
Matt Sorum (00:01):
I thank Axl Rose. People go, what are you talking about?
You mean Axl Rose? I said, well, I got on
the train. I got on the Guns and Roses train,
and that train stopped and I got off. But that
still represents a very big portion of my life and
has brought me to a lot of other places because
(00:22):
of what I've done with that band.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the Takin a Walk Podcast with Buzz Knight,
where Buzz talks to musicians about the inside story of
their music. On this episode, one of the most accomplished
drummers of our generation, Matt Sorum, is our guest, known
for his work with the Cult, Guns n' Roses, and
Velvet Revolver, along with a ton of other session work
(00:44):
and solo projects. Check out Buzz and Matt Sorum next
on Takin a Walk.
Buzz Knight (00:51):
Well, hey, Matt, it's good to have you on a
virtual edition of our Takin a Walk podcast. Thanks for
being here.
Matt Sorum (00:57):
Yeah cool, thanks for having me.
Buzz Knight (00:59):
Hey take me back to growing up and first discovering
your love of music.
Matt Sorum (01:06):
Well, yeah, the Beatles. And I've said this before, but
I was about five years old when I saw him
on the Ed Sullivan Show, and I didn't catch the
first one, because I believe that was nineteen sixty three,
I would have been too young. But they did The
Ed Sullivan Show three times, and I caught the last
(01:30):
one sixty five, and I just remember Sunday night, family
would sit down in front of the RSAA television, big
box television, and I watched the Ed Sullivan Show, and
I don't know, man, I just saw Ringo and that
was it. I pointed at I said to my mom, Wow,
you know, he was like an They were they were
(01:53):
at cartoon characters, those guys, weren't they They were like
animated figures, the haircuts and everything that was it. As
a kid, it just like just kind of lit me up.
And then I remember asking for drums for Christmas the
next year, and I had two older brothers, so that
was cool, and they were already listening to My first
(02:14):
forty five was a Hard Day's Night And got that
on my forty five with the big hole in the
middle and had a cross Lee turntable. My brother had
a cross le turntable, the box one that you would
look like a little briefcase boll thing you could buy
a Sears and Roebuck or something, and had a little speaker
(02:34):
in it, and I just played that thing. And then
my older brothers, my middle brother Mark, turned me on
to like you know, was in the late sixties, you know,
Hendricks and Came and all that stuff. So I was
really into that. And my mother was a piano teacher
(02:56):
and she had piano students at the house all the time,
so there was always musical when she likes to listen
to opera though, she listened to opera, and I was
just like, oh my god. And we had another big console.
You remember the big stereo consoles. They were like built
in like a and it was killer. I mean, I
wish I had it now. And I had a turntable
in it, and you know, we started getting a hold
(03:19):
of some records and popping them on there when mom
was out at work, you know, and cranking it up,
and there's a lot of music in the house and
which was great. And then I did get that drum
that next Christmas Serious Tiger Tiger sat from series and
Roebuck Tiger Love It. Yeah that's what it was called.
(03:41):
Could you know. It was a crappy little thing, and
you know, the heads broke and my brothers messed it up,
and then around I want to say junior high school,
I got a Saint George Blue Sparkle and that's the
one I really sort of I started banging on him
as a little kid. But I don't know, like in
(04:04):
around junior high school, I had my own band already
and we were playing like so the junior high I
was was probably just coming up on the seventies, so
you know, all the cool stuff. I remember playing Our
House by Crosby Stills and Nash ng and our House is a very
(04:26):
very very funny yes, And I did that at a
talent show and that was actually in the fifth grade.
I loved it and I had yeah, a lot of
fun yeah, and it kind of was it for me.
I mean, I grew up in California, and I always
(04:49):
used to say I wasn't a very good surfer. I
always fall off and stuff. And my buddies were good surfers,
So it's like, how am I going to get girls?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
You know?
Matt Sorum (04:58):
So I got you know, I I played drums at
my house and there was a window and all the
kids in the neighborhood would come watch, and had had
the bedroom window. And then I moved to the garage,
of course, and I had my little band and all
the kids would line up on the street come watch us.
And my mom was at work, so we'd open the
garage door and rock.
Buzz Knight (05:20):
I have to mention to you, we had a previous guest,
you being one of the great drummers of our generation.
He being one of the great drummers of our generation,
Kenny Aronoff, and that moment that you described from the
Ed Sullivan Show was the pivotal one for him too.
I think for so many of us it was just pivotal,
(05:40):
you know.
Matt Sorum (05:41):
Well, you know, and in the last fifteen years I
had the opportunity to meet Ringo and of course my
opening remark was, you know, I'm a drummer because of you,
and he said, I hear that all the time. I
bet you. I mean, you know, if you think about it,
(06:01):
the amount of musicians that were inspired by that band
and to see the simplicity of what they were doing,
but done in such a musical way. People will say
Ringo isn't the greatest drummer, and I completely disagree because
I've kind of built my career on being more of
a foundational style of a drummer. I'm not about myself.
(06:22):
It's not a fancy pants thing. It's not about flash.
And even though I'm an entertainer and I get up
and I do, my entertainment value like that came from
Keith Moon, you know, to see a drummer and to
be the drummer, to be a star of the band
that Keith Moon was, or even John Bonham. The visual
representation was very important to me. So I took that
(06:46):
from those guys, or even Ginger Baker, where your eye
was drawn to them even if you weren't a drummer.
And I don't see that happening much anymore. I don't
see star drummers like I used to, you know. I mean,
I'm looking. There's a couple of young bands. I like that,
you know. I remember when The Killers came out, but
(07:07):
now they've been around twenty years. And I saw Ronnie
Banucci and I'm look at that guy. I mean, he
draws your eye. He's got this. So I spent time
developing my entertainment value along with the basics of being
a drummer, without having to be like, oh look, I'm
going to do a much of fancy drum fills. It
(07:28):
wasn't about that. It was about energy. It was more
about energy and what can you bring to the band,
you know, how can I elevate the band? And that's
always kind of why I guess I've had so many
gigs because I drive. I like to drive it in
an energetic way, if that makes sense. And when you
(07:49):
watch Keith, Keith was the guy that was just making
it chaotic and rock and roll. It just sounded rock
and roll and with the mass, with the massive drum
kit he sent. And there's a there's a making of
the album Won't Get Fooled Again. And the producer, and
(08:11):
I believe it was, was Glenn Johns or whatever makes
says here comes the Herd of Buffalo and Keith and
it was just like I was like, that's it right.
And John Bonhams same thing. He You listen to these
bands trying to copy led Zeppelin and they got it
all wrong. You know, It's like everybody gave each other space.
(08:35):
It was like that was the that was the magic
of that band. So as a young guy, I like
to study that stuff and try to make it my
own and somehow worked out for me.
Buzz Knight (08:47):
I would say, So, you know what's amazing about you
is your respect for the diversity of your craft, and
in particular, I know because your upbringing that you were
also a fan of the great Buddy Rich.
Matt Sorum (09:04):
Yeah, well, of course we all were probably one of
the greatest drummers to ever live. Could you replicate him, No,
nobody could. You couldn't replicate a lot of drummers. And
that wasn't the point. It was like everyone had the
human element of a drummer. I think it goes that
way for all instruments in that genre of guitars and bass,
(09:25):
and everyone's got their own thing, and I never could
say that one guy's better than the other. But Buddy,
all drummers looked to Buddy. It's like, oh my god,
he's the holy Grail.
Buzz Knight (09:35):
You know, insane, Yeah, brilliantly insane, right, yeah.
Matt Sorum (09:42):
Just insane. I mean insanity behind the man, you know,
I mean the a personality, you know, the old clam
tapes and all that stuff, and how he was a
perfectionist and inside the internal clock of Buddy Rich had
to elevate to be in his realm. You know. He
(10:04):
had these young musicians out of North Texas state and
all these different places that would come and he was
the boot camp. It was like you go to Buddy Rich. School,
you're going to get schooled, be like joining Prince's band
or something. No slackers, right, a little bit like go
(10:24):
most the Whiplash movie. Right, Oh my god. And I
think that way now. I think I'm so lucky, unfortunate.
I grew up in an environment of live playing, and
you had to show your shit or you were out
come in prepared. You don't. You don't go to rehearsal
to rehearse. People, I say, you show up at my rehearsal,
(10:45):
you better average. I do a band called Kings of
Chaos and Kenny plays for me. Sometimes it's my van
and if I can't do it, I'll call Kenny. My
wife was having a baby and Kenny sat in for me. Kenny, Well,
Kenny walks in. He knows every song from the beginning
of the end before he gets walks through the door.
And that's why I call Kenny. And I'm the same way.
(11:08):
And I'll say this to any young musician. You don't
go to rehearsal or rehearse. You go in there to
play the music. So when I when I talk to
young musicians, you know not that the work euthic has changed,
but a lot of them will walk in the studio
and fix it in the computer. I said, no, play
it live, play it live, get a great take, and
then go from there. I was very happy. I just
(11:31):
did an alum in La with this Japanese artist and
I can't say yet because they don't want me to say.
But these dudes are so organized it's insane. The music
was difficult, and I went in there and I was
super prepared. I think I did one of my best
records yet. Drummy wise, I felt it's like a fine line.
(11:54):
The technical ability but also be able to let go
and not think is very important when it comes to
especially rock and roll. I'd say, slash we want to
do another take. We'd be like all those usual illusion
albums that are like make take one and take two.
We'd rehearse. But after take two, you're thinking too much, Sashua.
(12:18):
You just want to take suck the rock and roll
right out of it, don't you, Because that wild abandoned
of going in there, and we didn't use click tracks
when we were cutting the tape. But there's there's something
that happens, and then when you step over the threshold
of trying to make it too perfect, or whatever. I'll
(12:38):
say that for my situations that I've been in, but
I will go over that many takes with other situations.
But this album I just did really pushed me. And
I like that because you know, I've been doing it
a long time, but I still want to challenge, you know.
And that's why I took that Buddy Rich album. I
(13:00):
got that call. I know you researched that I did that.
I was like, oh my god, I'm going to play
with the Buddy Rich big band. That's super cool. They
looked at me like I was some human oddity when
I walked in like a rock guy. You know, if
you watch Neil Pert, he talks about me coming in
the room. Kathy Rich called me up and I said
(13:21):
to her, why me. You've got Steve Gadd You know,
you got Max Roode, she got all these guys. I mean,
are you kidding me? Why me? She said, because we
wanted to use a couple of rock guys. My dad,
She said, Buddy liked funk rock. You listen to other stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You know.
Matt Sorum (13:38):
He wasn't a jazz knobs he was he was looking
for the next thing. It was like Miles Davis, Miles
Davis when he did uh, his last the last record,
that really crazy one Bitches Brew, Bitches Brew. He was like,
I think Clive Davis is about that. Miles walked in,
He's like, there's all this rock rock and roll thing.
(14:02):
I was like, well, put that into your horn, go
heavy metal with that, and that's what he did on
Bitches Burke. So he was inspired by other genres, Mitt
Miles and so his Buddy. So I picked a track
called Bula Witch, which was something Buddy did in the
(14:23):
early sixties, and it was kind of a funk. I
don't want to say it was like Maynard ferguson Chameleon,
but it was in that realm. Chameleon remember that. So
I'm like, I can bite that off. Bula Witch. It
(14:47):
was like, in my lane, that's fascinating. Well, I wasn't
going to like pick some sort of full swing number
with like brushes and you know, I that's an art
format all in it. I would say, it's like being
a painter. It's like a guy that plays brushes and
jazz and the solties of that. That's that's completely out
(15:09):
of my realm. Like I could go there and try,
but those guys Max Roach, Tony Williams more of a
rocker a little bit, but he had a jazz thing.
But I bit that off because it's something I knew
I could, I could go, I could make it my own.
If that makes sense it does.
Buzz Knight (15:28):
How much did it influence you and enhance your performance?
When you were playing in that top forty band?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Well, Top forty was my sort of school of learning from.
You know, it'd be like studying, you know, if you're
going to be an actor, study the great actors.
Matt Sorum (15:49):
I chose that job based on the fact that I
was working in a club five days a week versus
working in a job and then go in and play
a gig. It was like, I'd rather get my chops up.
And to this day, when I'm play in Kings of
Chaos and I have Robin Xander Kom or Stephen Tyler
or Billie Idol or anybody, I listened to the subtleties
(16:11):
what's going on inside the music, Like, oh, listen, how
tight the high had is, or it's this snare drum's
got this like subtle detail. And if you listen to
the seventies music, you're like, wow, he's using concert toms
and the snare drums. Thumpy, and that's where I think.
I think about that, and I'm thinking about crazy drum fills.
(16:32):
I'm thinking about the subtleties of the colors of the music.
How can I make it sound. I just play with
Jason Chuff from Chicago and we went back and I
was listening. I was like twenty five or sixty four,
and how badass Danny Sarafan was. Do you down, down
and tight? No click tracks. The band's like moving, It's
(16:59):
like wow, it's alive. So when I go back and
do King's cast, it's much like when I was in
a top forty band. It's like learning, constantly learning. It's
like playing with Billy Gibbons. I'm in his band. I
never played a Texas shuffle ever. I played rock shuffles.
(17:20):
Billy for me was re educating myself and still to
this day, that's a genre of the Texas Blues, the
subtlety of the blues, being a team player, playing the
right volume. All of that played for the band, play
for the music, play for Billy. Like I've been a
(17:41):
little bit of a guy that has to morph in
my career, so I really enjoy being educated. Still to this.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Day, we'll be right back with more of the Taking
a Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Buzz Knight (18:03):
Ever see Richie Heywood from Little Feet play?
Matt Sorum (18:07):
Oh my god, Yeah, of course, I mean one of
the greats. You know, Butch Trucks. I had to run
in with Butcher Trucks and Alman Brothers. I had a
charity I do have a charity, called about the arts,
and he came out and I honored him and he
got back there and I was just smacking him too,
(18:28):
and it was like, Wow, some of these guys, some
of these unsung heroes, you know, guys like Butcher Trucks,
Ritchie and Richie is very well respected. But Butch, I
don't know, maybe Alma Brothers fans, but they're those band guys.
You go, wow, listen to what he's doing on you
know that six eight groove and that famous Almen Brothers
(18:53):
most famous one whipping poster.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Oh my god.
Matt Sorum (18:57):
Yeah. And I hired this band, this killer Olman Brothers
cover band, and Butch got up and just I get
it because I'm one of those guys. I'm a band guy.
People talk about certain drummers and when it comes to rock,
I guess some people mention my name, but I you know,
I'm not. That's not what I'm here for. I've been
here luckily, I'm involved in being on great records with
(19:20):
big songs, and you know that's cool.
Buzz Knight (19:24):
I'd say, there's some big songs. What are your ones
that rise to the top that you've been part of?
There's so many, but I'm curious when you think about
it and your pride and involvement in the bands, what
are some of your favorites that stand the test of time?
Matt Sorum (19:43):
Well, I mean the gun stuff. I mean you could
be mine. I did this opening fill that became kind
of the intro. I always say to young musicians, like,
what's your intro? Because you got to catch people fast.
You got five seconds to get their attention. If that's now,
(20:03):
it's Spotify next, so you got like three seconds to
catch your attention. What are you gonna do? Me and
Slash used to trade off. He'd do a riff and
then I do a fill like opening with something I
get it, but WHOA, Okay, you got it? You take
that one, and then sometimes you gonna you know, you
(20:25):
hear the beginning to Welcome to the Jungle and you're
like or you're like, see what child of mind? You're like, okay,
you got that one. It seems like a lot of
pop music, the vocals just comes in right away, you know.
It's like they don't have intros anymore. It is the
vocal ten seconds and the vocal starts for the rock
and roll thing you could be mine and then the
(20:48):
velvet revolver stuff is really probably a real pinnacle for
me because it was I guess a bit of a
comeback for us. It's a band and we we were
driven again like young guys. So when Slyther came out
and I have that weird intro, it's just a tom
(21:10):
and we're building tension. Slashes got one and it comes
in and it's like, okay, what is this?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You know?
Matt Sorum (21:23):
I mean, we weren't having discussions of like, hey, let's
do this thing where we're gonna build tension, but we
just naturally did that and that was sort of the
thing that worked between me, Slash and Doves as the
three of us as a section. I don't know, just
I always say to people, if you meet a couple
other musicians that you jibe with and you create magical
(21:45):
moments like that, just try to stick to each other.
You know it's it's classic and rock and roll. Jimmy
Page and JOm Bonham and Joe Perry and Chiy Kramer
ship that these great rock to Mick and Charlie. Look
at the look at the Stones when they did Sympathy
(22:05):
for the Devil. They spent nine days coming up with
a groove. You see the you see the movie. Yeah, yeah,
Charlie was and then Mick comes walking in with the
para moracas and he's like, all of a sudden, the
(22:25):
bone it starts swinging. That was those guys together making
each other strive to come be better. Not one guy
walking room and go, Okay, this is where it's gonna
be because there are those guys. Yeah, what do.
Buzz Knight (22:47):
You think The art of collaboration in music teaches those
that are in other businesses.
Matt Sorum (22:56):
Have an open mind, be willing. You have to be
able to be willing and to go through the process
without having to make a comment about what you think
it should be. And I learned that, and I learned
that from being in bands that oh man, hey that sucks. No,
(23:17):
don't do that because you don't know if it sucks yet.
You have to work through it and if it's any proof.
Just go watch him Bethy for the Devil, and those
guys did not want to give up because they knew
they had something. But each one of them took the
time and had the patience to go through the process.
(23:37):
And that happened with Slyther, which became a Grammy Award
winning song for us. There was quite a process behind
that song. We recorded it three times, and only because
I kept I kept saying to the band, I said,
I don't think it's right yet, and they thought I
was crazy. I said, oh man, I didn't feel right yet,
(23:59):
to point where they were like, man, come on man,
I'm like, oh man, it's not speaking to me yet.
It's like I had moments with music like that where
I actually physically pained over the song, where I actually
felt that the song was crying out for something else
speaking to me, and I was I couldn't sleep one
(24:20):
night about that song. And I walked back in the
room and I said, we need to slow it down
a little bit. We need to slow it down and
recut it. And we did and we brought it back
and it just two BP I'm slower, and it was
like right there, and I'm like yesh, and I remember
when we mixed it same thing. I couldn't sleep and
I went in. I was with Andy Wallace, the great
mixer you did Jeff Buckley's Grace album. Did never Mind?
(24:44):
I called Andy. It was like eight in the morning.
I said, I'm coming in early today. Don't take the
mix down? And I went in there.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I went right there.
Matt Sorum (24:52):
Can you turn that down? And turn that up right there?
Like details? And the band came back and I hadn't
slapped in. My eyes were like this, I've been bringing
a college slash walk dad, and let me hear it.
And that's what you hear on the album. That's amazing.
But yeah, I mean god, I just love making music
(25:14):
like that. Where you're it's like you could ask Lindsay
Buckingham about this shit. It's like having a baby. Where're
you gonna let it go? Sometimes letting it go as
the hardest thing. It's like, I don't want to let
it go yet, is it right?
Buzz Knight (25:27):
Can you talk about that experience when you were with
the Cult and you were in Minnesota and your father
and your relatives came to see you play that gig
with the with the Metallica.
Matt Sorum (25:39):
Yeah, what was that like? Well, my parents got divorced
when I was pretty young, and maybe that was the
reason I gravitated towards the drums and always say this,
I was looking for that outlet. I was about six
when my dad left, and right about that I became
a drummer. So in an Tony Robbins way, worked out right.
(26:03):
I look at it now in reflection, for at the
time I might have been sad, but it brought me
somewhere and which has made my life in my career.
But so, my dad didn't really see me play much.
He came once to see me at the Black Egg
and said it's out forty ban And I remember calling
him and he lived in Minnesota, and I was kind
(26:26):
of I think I gott in a call about twenty
eight years old, you know, which is old for in
those days. It got my first big break at twenty eight.
I call my dad and I said, Dad, I'm here
in town, and you know, I'm coming to Minnesota. I
think it was about a week before, and I said,
I'm going to be playing a place called the Met Center.
My Dad's like Theall Met Center. It's like twenty five
(26:49):
thousand seats. I'm like, yeah, he goes, what do you
mean the met Center, like ball Met Center, like it
just didn't register. I said, yeah, Adam at the Met
Center with this band called the Cult. He goes, you've
joined a cult. I said, no, it's.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So.
Matt Sorum (27:07):
He came down with my aunt Karen, all the cousins,
and my great aunt Lucille. They all walked in backstage.
My dad's looking around. He's like, all these people are
here to see you. He said, well, me and my band,
and there's another band called Metallica plan He said, wow,
(27:29):
it's incredible. And then we played. Of course I'm on
the big stage. I think everyone's minds were blown. Didn't
put two and two together, And I think to this
day my mother does not understand what I do. She
comes to see me play. She gets that part, and
I think a lot of people get that part, but
they don't get the part about all the rest of it,
(27:50):
which is the business part of music. They get that, Yo,
you're up there and it's like whoo, it's like extracurricular activity.
I'm playing. Did you ever have a plan? B? Though no,
I didn't. My mother used to say that all the time.
She used to say, do you have anything to fall
(28:11):
back on? So you need to have something to fall
back on. I'll put you through cooking school because I
could cook a good omelet. You know, I could whip
an omelet up. But I just, I don't know. It
was like uber focused, and I still think that way today,
uber focused. Like if if I'm going after and I'm
going after it, it's not like, oh, hey, I'm going
(28:33):
to do this, and I'm going to do this and
this and this and this and this. I just didn't
have any other tunnel vision than that. And I knew
it was something I was good at and I could
tell when I played it felt good and it still does.
She was worried about me, I guess, you know. And
then of course, you know you read my book. I'm
not sure if you read it, but you know I
(28:55):
got into the other stuff and that's a whole other
spiritual journey.
Buzz Knight (29:00):
But I want to ask you though about that music
being such an important part for you and for society
and what you've been through. And we have this other
podcast we produce that is called Music Saved Me. Do
you think music has therapeutic powers?
Matt Sorum (29:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (29:23):
I mean, as people know that I have been through
the pitfalls of sort of rock and roll maybe it's
a bit of a cliche, you know, the alcohol and
drugs that happened during that time, especially with Guns and Roses.
Matt Sorum (29:39):
I had to go through this journey to really kind
of understand how much of a gift it really was.
And at the time when I got successful, to the
point where I wasn't even sure who I was anymore
because it's so crazy, things got scary and I just
didn't know how to handle. I guess I hadn't done
the work from my childhood and everything else that went
into being to finding the drums and finding music. So
(30:03):
when I finally got clean and silver and had my life,
got my life back, the reflection of what I'd gone through,
and I say it was something I needed to go
through to really have to find where I'm at now.
And then looking at the drums and the music and
the gift that has given me, and I even say,
(30:23):
I think Axel Rose, people go, what are you talking about?
You mean, Axel Rose? I said, well, I got on
the train. I got on the Guns and Roses train,
and that train stopped and I got off. But that
still represents a very big portion of my life and
has brought me to a lot of other places because
(30:46):
of what I've done with that band, especially obviously Nicole
BELLI revolve with. Those are other bands I've been involved in,
but that particular band albeit a hotel and the guy
said I'm going to upgrade you, and why he goes,
because you were I loved that band, and I'm going
to put you in a bigger room. It's like some
guys like, come on my yacht. I love your band.
(31:06):
Which band Guns and Roses. It was a blessing. It
was at the time, I thought it was a little
bit of a curse. I don't look at it that
way anymore, you know, and you know, people ask me
and you think you should still be there. I'm like, no,
I did that. I'm doing other stuff and that's what
I'm supposed to be doing. I look at it like
I'm going down the road and whatever. When I'm going down,
(31:29):
it's being guided by my higher power and the universe.
I don't push square pegs through round holes like I'm
in this studio the other day with this Japanese artist
who I can't wait for you to hear this record.
I'm like, wow, I never would have been here. There's
other things that now I'm doing that I never would
(31:50):
have done if I was still doing that, like opening
up new avenues for me, playing with Billy Gibbons. I
look at it, he's my friend. What it's like we
talk on the phone like girls, It's like it We'll
talk for two hours. I'm like, this is really incredible
life I've got. Not only is he a bad ass,
(32:10):
but he's one of the coolest humans I'm playing it
ever I had a chance to talk to him. I'm
really grateful. I'm super positive about where I'm headed. I'm
glad to be back on the I took some time
off of the kit because I had a daughter. She's
coming up on three. I didn't go tour. I'm starting
to take some tours again, getting back into making more records.
(32:33):
So in closing, what do you still want to learn
that you haven't learned? And I mean, like I said,
there's always there's always stuff to learn. And I'm learning
to be a good father right now, like to be patient.
Patience is something everybody needs to work on. But I'm
(32:53):
doing a lot better with a lot of situations, and
I'm you know, and I'm proud of that more than
anything that as a person I'm you know, obviously I'm
getting older and I'm maturing and all that stuff, but
I'm still learning about music is always a learning process.
I love investigating. Like I'm working on a record on
my own right now, I'm working on a kids record,
(33:16):
and I'm going back and I'm listening to old records
and I'm listening to those things we talked about earlier,
learning learning, learning, What is that? What is that?
Speaker 1 (33:24):
What is that?
Matt Sorum (33:25):
A guy put Mike's on my drums the other day
in the studio. He was an engineer. He spoke no
English Japanese. Incredible engineer and I had to ask the interpreter,
what's he doing right there? That sounds incredible learning. You know,
I always want to know when I'm in the recording
studio what's happening with the gear because I want my
(33:45):
own studio. Somebody's always got a trick that's better than
the trick you have, you know, well stated, very well stated,
Like Kenny Aronoff does stuff that I can't do on ID,
stuff he can't do, and he's like, Matt, what was that?
What was that?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Oh man?
Matt Sorum (34:03):
Right, Matt, this has been great.
Buzz Knight (34:05):
You are one of the great drummers of certainly my
generation and the music that you've been part of that
you continue to give us really matters and makes a
difference and connects with us. And I really thank you
for your generosity here on the podcast.
Matt Sorum (34:26):
Yeah, well, thanks so much. And I think my post
is can I wanted to mention my recording studio, Good Noise.
You can go to Good Noise dot io slash studio
and check it out. Just check out what I'm doing
in the desert. I'm in Palm Springs and I got
all my equipment. I'm a history of my career in there.
(34:47):
It's like a museum slash recording studio.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
I'm alone.
Matt Sorum (34:50):
I mean, I'm curating the people coming in the building
and I'm kind of it to get back, but it's
also a place to come and create and use equipment
that's got a lot of mojo, got a lot of mojo,
it's a lot of history. So check it out Goodnoise
dot Io Slash Studio will go straight to the studio page.
(35:10):
That's awesome. Yeah, thanks man, cool, I appreciate it. Thank you, brother.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Takin a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow US so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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