|
|
Matt Sorum Beating a Different Drum |
|
Matt Sorum is known to music fans as
one of the best drummers on the rock scene, because he is a former member of
Guns N’ Roses and The Cult and he is the drummer for his current band Velvet
Revolver. That however only begins to scratch the surface of this
multi-instrumentalist and multi-faceted man, who it was our pleasure to
interview recently. Matt Sorum as we discovered, plays other instruments and
sings, and he is a noted producer, likes to design and he has had and will again
in the future have, an exciting fashion line that he developed. Sorum along with
his partner Lanny Cordola founded the philanthropic project named Global Sound
Lodge and he is also a member of the musical project Matt Sorum agrees that he is
enjoying the way his life is unfolding, “Ya’, why not?
The general public, probably want to pigeon hole you more than you want
to pigeon hole yourself. I think it is like that for any artist, any actor,
painter or otherwise. You get a style that people latch onto and people expect
you to come out with that every time. I am lucky, because if I was a singer, I
would kind of have to be a certain way, but I am a drummer and I am musician, so
I can really do whatever I want and it doesn’t have to be my mainstay, because I
will still do Velvet Revolver. I can call that my day job I guess and the rest
of it will be all of the stuff that I feel I want to do. That’s the beauty of
it.” On March 19th
Sourm is taking part in a benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation.
Filmmaker Lynch established the foundation so that children, particularly in the
school system can be taught transcendental mediation, because scientific
research has demonstrated that this type of meditation can create a state of
restful alertness in an individual. On the David Lynch Foundation website the
filmmaker expresses his concern that so many children today live in fear and
that it impedes their ability to learn. Becoming involved in this benefit
concert is far from being merely a photo op for Sorum, but instead it dovetails
nicely with his own initiatives, such as Global Sound Lodge “We started this project with
music for humanitarian efforts. We just released our first song called “Hands
Together,” for As for his own initiative,
Global Sound Lodge, Matt Sorum says, “We would like to go around the world, play
with different musicians and film it, and do different albums with real
musicians, a little bit like Peter Gabriel’s
Real World.
What we would like to do with the money
is to start schools around the world that teach music to kids. Scientists have
said that education number one and musical education as well, down the line will
change the entire thought process, so as they (the children) grow up and they
become adults it will change the infrastructure of these countries, whether they
are political problems or they are war torn (countries). That is what we are
interested in, getting to the kids with instruments and giving them a guitar,
when they might not even have seen one before. I am in touch with people in
With
Global Sound Lodge, we just want to go out there and bring music to the masses
and to try and help the best that we can. We are trying to get in with these
organizations which see our vision. David Lynch really loves it and Donovan
really loves it. Donovan is going to help us with our songs and he is going to
come over here and we are going to record with him. The idea is to make records
and we want to do some festivals, because the media doesn’t pay attention to a
lot of these issues that are going on in the world. You didn’t hear about We just
want to go out there and do what we can to help. As I am getting a little bit
older, these things come to me and I have to listen. It has happened organically
and the trip to One of the bigger acts that Matt Sorum is producing
right now is the all-girl rock band Darling Stilettos, a group that is as much
about presenting an image of sexy women, as it is about the music, however once
you get past the obvious you start to discover that the musical vibes are pretty
good too. Originally, Sorum toured with the band and performed as the DJ, in
addition to being their manager, but after putting together a management and
marketing team, he turned his attention solely to producing Darling Stilettos.
“We created this project (Darling Stilettos) as a really fun, entertaining, rock
and roll lifestyle entity.
We did Vegas, The Palms and the Hilton and the
big Elvis Room that Elvis used to play. Darling Stilettos is really exciting and
it is a really fun project. It is completely different than your average rock
and roll band. It is more elaborate than that with the costumes.
The tracks are all mixed by Chris Lord-Alge
who worked with Green Day and all the big records which are on the radio (Creed,
Third Eye Blind, David Bowie, Dave Matthews Band, Stone Temple Pilots). He is a
good friend of mine. He loves the project. Jerry Greenberg is involved and he is
the one who signed Abba and Genesis. I have Jeff Stein involved who did
(directed)
The Kids Are All Right
(2010-starring Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore). I have a lot of good people
around the group. I want to protect it from getting caught up in a typical
record company kind of a thing. We are being very careful about what we do,
because we want to keep it the way that it is.
We don’t have to sell out to be a pop group or
any of that kind of thing. We have a certain idea of what it is. We are trying
to keep the vision,” he says. Sorum
also produces Talking
about As for others whom Matt Sorum has produced, “I produced POE and I had a top ten hit with her. POE’s description of her music is it is more trip-hop, but I am known as a rock musician, because those are the bands that I played as a drummer in, and musically that is what I became known for, but as for my background, I was classically trained and I come from being in an orchestra. I play other instruments, the piano and guitar, and I am a singer, so as a producer, I pretty well tackle everything. I am really into vocals and harmonies and on the Guns N’ Roses albums I sung most of the harmonies. I came up with the thirds and the fifths. My forte is more musical than just being a drummer. I have done six film scores, which I am really into and I plan on doing a couple more. I have done a lot of TV work and a lot of things for ESPN. I have done a little bit of everything. I have my own recording studio and I have had Billy Gibbons and Billy Idol out here. I just did an album with Macy Gray and I just played on her record. I am working with Paul Oakenfold right now. I am very interested in other music and people just don’t know me from that (perspective). I recorded a song with POE which is actually a big band piece, on which I used Tony Bennett’s drummer and I used strings and horns. I played with the Buddy Rich Orchestra, but that is not as well known and that is the thing. The things that we are doing with the Global Sound Lodge are going to be very eclectic and I think that people are going to be very surprised, because it will be more world music than it will be rock and roll. The most rock and roll track is the one with Slash on it, but we wrote that specifically, because we were trying to get Tom Petty to sing it. Donovan wants to sing it now. It is a little mellower than rock, but it is a little more along the lines of Dead Can Dance.” What may not be as well known to music fans is Matt
Sorum’s interest in fashion and design. Two years ago he developed and launched
a fashion line with an upscale shop in Los Angeles, however due to the economy
the line is dormant and the shop is closed for now, but he is planning to revive
both, once the economy is a little bit healthier. He
explains why he has taken a hiatus from the fashion business, “The day after I
opened it, I picked up the New York Times and it said the retail business is
going to go down, whatever percentage that it said, 50% or 70% and I looked at
the paper and I said, ‘Oh my God.’ I had investors ready to come in. I had spent
my own money and I developed the line Sorum NOCE (Nothing Original Comes Easy)
with an Italian designer.
There was a lot of stuff that I really liked
and I thought there was a niche missing in the fashion world (for rock and roll
artists). You would see these models holding guitars and I thought, “That is
kind of weird, what do they know about rock and roll?’ What’s the connection?
Why can’t we do this the other way around?
I thought can’t we let the guy who has lived
the lifestyle, do it from his perspective.
I went back and I looked at stuff that I
really liked from the Rolling Stones and the Kinks and I created a style and the
clothes around that. I had a shop with a lot of custom work and I started
getting quite a few clients. I dressed everybody from Billy Idol to Marilyn
Manson, to country guys. I dressed Brooks and Dunn and Kenny Chesney and Britney
Spears came in to get leather pants. I don’t think that I could have got in at a
tougher time. I weathered the storm for about a year and then it started being a
little bit mentally draining and I pulled out, but I plan on making a comeback.
I enjoyed it but the timing was wrong. The clothes aren’t available right now.”
(You can however view the fashion line and
photos of the shop here.) Continuing
to talk about the Sorum NOCE venture, he says, “For me it was about trying
something else and tackling it as a challenge. I can’t say that I failed,
because I didn’t fail, but my stuff was very expensive. I had custom made suits
that were $3,000. People aren’t going out looking for $3,000 suits everyday,
especially in LA. If I had been in
|
