AXL ROSE SAYS HE OR SLASH WOULD 'DIE' BEFORE REUNION

Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose says there is no chance for the original lineup to reunite unless he or ex-bandmate Slash dies.

The outspoken lead singer told Billboard magazine that the longstanding rift between the pair could not be healed, though he hinted at a possible tour for the current Guns N' Roses lineup.

"In regards to Slash," he said, "I read a desperate fan's message about, 'What if one of us were to die, and looking back I had the possibility of a reunion now'.

"My thoughts are, 'Yeah, and while you're at the show your baby accidentally kicks a candle and burns your house down, killing himself and the rest of your family.'

"Give me a f*****g break. What's clear is that one of the two of us will die before a reunion and however sad, ugly or unfortunate anyone views it, it is how it is. Those decisions were made a long time ago and reiterated year after year by one man."

He went on: "There are acts that, once committed between individuals, they are what they are. To add insult to injury almost day after day, lapsing into year after year, for more than a decade, is a nightmare.

"Anyone putting his own personal entertainment above everything else is sickening."

In reference to a possible Guns N' Roses tour following the release of the long-awaited Chinese Democracy last year, he answered: "No plans, but there's talk.

"Management and our promoters are really excited with the offers coming in both here and worldwide."

Green Day Album Debuts #1 On UK Charts

Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown has debuted #1 on the UK charts, knocking Bob Dylan's Together Through Life out of the top spot. The Green Day album just came out on Friday but two days of sales was enough to put it at #1 for the week.

Here's the top ten:

1. Green Day – '21st Century Breakdown'
2. Lily Allen – 'It's Not Me It's You'
3. Lady GaGa – 'The Fame'
4. Prodigy – 'Invaders Must Die'
5. Pink – 'Funhouse'
6. Maximo Park – 'Quicken The Heart'
7. Beyonce – 'I Am Sasha Fierce'
8. Bob Dylan – 'Together Through Life'
9. Jim Reeves – 'The Very Best Of'
10. Kings Of Leon – 'Only By The Night'

Velvet Revolver Bassist Duff McKagan Talks About Loaded, Economy

Plus, Duff talks about the search for a new VR singer and their "Zeppelinesque" new songs...

Ex-Guns N' Roses and current Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagan is busy with a pair of side gigs lately. One is his band Loaded. The other is a pair of financial columns for a Seattle paper and Playboy.com.

"If you're like me, you get kind of sick watching guys talk about market-to-market and aggregates and...'What the hell did you say to me?'," McKagan explains. "I actually know what they're saying, but I know that 99 percent of us don't. We're getting all this information, and people don't really understand what happened to our economy, why it failed, what the credit crunch actually meant, what predatory lending practices were."

"People ask me, 'Is now a good time to buy a house?' so, OK, I'll write about that. Or I'll get an email, 'Hey Duff, can you tell us about' this or that, then I'll write about those things. I just want to give people solid information so they can get some knowledge and get prepared for when this economy turns around."

Duff's band Loaded, which has been together since the 90's, is also set to release a new album, Sick, this Tuesday.

"We got together and these songs started coming, and we were having such a good time," McKagan says. "I was saving myself, really, and it worked. I didn't know if Loaded was going to be the thing to save me or not. I was just kind of swimming around, but this was so much fun, and [Sick] is one of the most inspired records I've been a part of."

McKagan also took a few moments to discuss Velvet Revolver's ongonig search for a new vocalist.

"We will find a singer at some point," he predicts. "We just have to find the guy. There's bee a couple guys I thought were perfect, but everybody's got to be 100 percent into it. We have an albums worth of material -- great, big, huge songs. Zepplinesque. Once we find the guy that can complement those and take it to another level, that'll take off. But I can't give any sort of timeline at all."

Velvet Revolver STILL Looking For Vocalist

Duff McKagan says VR dropped the guy they almost hired...

Velvet Revolver said not long agao that they were very close to naming their new lead singer. Unfortunately, things fell through.

"We thought we landed on the singer. We all did," Duff McKagan says. "We played with him and we said, ‘OK, we got our guy. He's great.'"

In the end, VR had second thoughts.

"Maybe if we would've got there and had gigs booked right then and there it would've been a different story," McKagan says. "But we didn't have gigs booked. We were given too much time and we were able to go, ‘Ah, fuck, I don't like that about the guy.' "

"When things got rough last year with Scott there was, not directly from Scott, such bullshit and drama surrounding the band," McKagan says. "I started really getting beat down."

McKagan says those tough times have affected the new vocalist search.

VELVET REVOLVER IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH BIG NAME VOCALIST

Velvet Revolver, having parted ways with vocalist Scott Weiland, are apparently in negotiations with a big name lead vocalist as a replacement. Velvet Revolver released their debut album 'Contraband' in 2004 to critical acclaim and a #1 position on the Billboard Top 200 chart and the album has sold over 4 million albums worldwide. The band's second album 'Libertad' debuted at #5 and was off the charts a few months later having failed to live up to the bands success of their debut album. Then soon after a much publicized performance in Europe where Scott declared Velvet Revolver 'Dead in the Water' onstage, the band and Weiland parted ways and fired off a few shots back and forth on the way out. Now fans are eagerly awaiting the bands announcement on who will be Velvet Revolver's new lead singer and rumors have been swirling that it could be anyone from Sebastian Bach to Chester Bennington to Donovan Leitch, to name just a few.

We caught up with drummer Matt Sorum to get an update on where the band is and he revealed they are actually in negotiations right now with a big name vocalist, although he didn't want to disclose any names yet.

"Nothing yet. We got a call from a pretty big guy who wants to be our singer. I can't say who that is yet but talks are happening about it and hopefully we'll see what happens in the next couple of months."

With so many rumors going around as to who would fill the lead vocalist position, we ask Matt about
the possibility of Sebastian Bach joining Velvet Revolver.

"No. No, it's a lot cooler than that but I don't know if it's going to happen so I can't say. It's cool that people are calling us and wanting to get in the band, so that's exciting."

Fans of Chester Bennington won't have to worry about him leaving Linkin Park as he has already removed his name from consideration due to his close relationship with Scott Weiland, who has since reunited with his former band Stone Temple Pilots. Look for Velvet Revolver to announce his replacement in the near future.

SLASH DISCUSSES FALSE VELVET REVOLVER RUMORS

Velvet Revolver continue to search for a singer to replace Scott Weiland, even though multiple rumors continue to swirl as to who the band will finally decide on. News reports surfaced a few weeks back that Spacehog's Royston Langdon had got the job but that wasn't the case. In fact a few singers have also linked to Velvet Revolver, most notably Lenny Kravitz and Chester Bennington, although both have also denied reports they were in the mix.

Artisan News caught up with Slash to get his thoughts on all the rumors about the bands next vocalist being circulated because of the internet.

"Oh there was, basically as a result of the internet people just make up all kinds of crazy stuff. But with all due respect to...I'm drawing a blank right now. With all the rumors that are out there's some singers that we actually did work with for a second and Royston was actually one of them. But we're still looking."

We also wanted to see if Slash could give us an update on how Velvet Revolvers search is going.

"Well I mean we can't really update something that hasn't really happened. The search is happening but we haven't found the guy yet so it's sort of an ongoing thing at the moment."

While Velvet Revolver continue to write new material and audition vocalists, Slash has been spending his nights in the studio working on demos for his upcoming solo album. Slash plans on bringing in multiple guests vocalists for the album which he'll begin recording in January of 2009.

Top 5 Candidates For Next Velvet Revolver Vocalist

It’s the single most burning question on the minds of concerned Americans today. So what am I referring to – McCain or Obama’s choices for a vice-presidential running mate? Nope. To quote what Grampy McCain himself might say, that’s small potatoes my friends. Rather, I’m talking about who will fill the rather large shoes left behind by Scott Weiland in Velvet Revolver.

The thing is, there would seem to be no shortage of candidates. Among those who have already been rumored and subsequently ruled out are Sebastian Bach, Spacehog’s Royston Langdon, and most recently (according to Rolling Stone), none other than Lenny Kravitz. In taking himself out of the running for the gig, Kravitz told Rolling Stone, “I know and love the Velvet Revolver guys but there is no truth to the story about me joining their band.” So much for that dream ticket.

So with Weiland now enjoying a second honeymoon with his reunited mates in Stone Temple Pilots, and Axl Rose busy putting the never-ending final touches on Chinese Democracy, Cinema Blend has reluctantly decided to help Slash and the boys out in their quest to find a new singer.

The way we see it, to fill the frontman slot in Velvet Revolver you need that swagger first and foremost. You also probably need to be old enough to have done your time in the rock and roll trenches, yet young enough to still have a healthy appreciation for good old fashioned debauchery and excess. That’s spelled booze, bongs, and babes for the musically uneducated. Here’s a few ideas we wouldn’t mind seeing:

1. Chris Cornell

The pluses with Cornell certainly outweigh the minuses. His rock and roll credentials are pretty much impeccable. He’s done his time as frontman for both Soundgarden and Audioslave, and is one of the few rock and roll guys his age who can not only sing his ass off, but still get away with doing a live show minus his shirt. The minuses here boil down to an irritating tendency between his time in good bands, to do boring solo albums with titles like “Chelsea Morning” (or whatever that god-awful record was called) where he remakes old Michael Jackson songs. Take away the acoustic guitar and get him behind a bunch of guys who still know how to rock though, and Cornell should fall right into line.

2. Kid Rock
This one actually isn’t as crazy as it sounds. With a quickie marriage and divorce to Pamela Anderson under his belt, we already know the Kid has got the babe magnet cred down cold. The side ventures into wigger hip-hop and cracker country could prove troublesome, but Kid Rock’s trailer park credentials are otherwise impeccable. However, like his pal Lenny Kravitz, Kid Rock is already enjoying success as a solo star. Unlike Lenny, he also still sells a lot of records.

3. Mark Farner
The former top dog for seventies rockers Grand Funk Railroad would have a lot of catching up to do, and his clean and sober Christian lifestyle could also prove to be an issue. The last time he toured with his former Grand Funk bandmates on the county fair circuit, Farner even changed the lyrics to one of the band’s concert standouts “Inside Looking Out,” eliminating all references to dope or nickel bags. The waist length stringy rock hair of his years in GFR has also given way to one of those eighties pro-wrestling mullet hairstyles. The upside? He sings, he plays guitar, and he’s available.

4. Ted Nugent
Ummm, never mind.

5. Dee Snider

With Quiet Riot’s Kevin Dubrow dead and gone, and Ratt's Stephen Pearcy being, well, Ratt's Stephen Pearcy, we figure Twisted Sister’s former frontman as just about the next best thing to cover the "hair-metal" angle. He'd need to invest in a new wig of course. But if you think about it, Snider’s also just about done it all – from ridiculous glam rock posturing, to rebellious youth anthems like “Were Not Gonna Take It,” to politicking for the right to use naughty words on your records in congress. Come to think of it, maybe Obama could use a guy like Dee.