Former GUNS N’ ROSES drummer Matt Sorum has told Billboard in a new interview that he doesn’t wish he was invited to rejoin the group when it launched its “Not In This Lifetime” tour five years ago.
The 60-year-old musician, who has also played with THE CULT, VELVET REVOLVER and HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES, is not involved with GN’R‘s hugely successful reunion, which features singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan alongside drummer Frank Ferrer, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, guitarist Richard Fortus and second keyboardist Melissa Reese.
“People will ask me, ‘Don’t you want to be out on the road with those guys? Why aren’t you on the tour?'” he said. “And I’m, like, ‘Well, something else is in store. I had a baby. I’m doing different projects. I’m doing my own thing.’ That’s what the universe has intended for me. I’ve never tried to put a square peg into a round hole.”
Back in March 2019, Sorum told “Loudwire Nights” that he learned about the partial reunion of GUNS N’ ROSES‘ classic lineup “probably about” the same time as “everybody else did. I was in the band HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES there for a minute,” he said. “So it was kind of around that time. That’s basically what happened. And then it just went the way it went. And life goes on.”
Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler in GUNS N’ ROSES, recorded the highly successful albums “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” (both 1991) and “The Spaghetti Incident” (1994). He also supported the group on the “Use Your Illusion” tour and can be heard on GUNS N’ ROSES‘ “Live Era: ’87-’93” (1999) and “Greatest Hits” (2004).
Matt was among the GUNS N’ ROSES members who were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April 2012. He, Adler, Slash and McKagan attended the ceremony, while Rose and founding guitarist Izzy Stradlin stayed home.
Sorum told The Pulse Of Radio in a 2009 interview that if the classic GUNS N’ ROSES band reunited, they should perform with both him and Adler. “If it’s me on drums or Steven or whatever, if it happened, it’d be great, you know,” he said. “I would actually say to them, ‘Hey, bring both of us back,’ you know. Let me play the other stuff. We’ll have two drum kits. I don’t care. If ‘Appetite [For Destruction]’ [the band’s debut] sounds better with Steven playing it, have both guys up there. They can afford it.”
Matt is set to release his new book, “Double Talkin’ Jive: True Rock ‘N’ Roll Stories”, on September 7 via Rare Bird Books.
